those days, but Losing and Mr. Langshaw did n't hitch horses any longer. Said Langshaw had good liquor and a miraculous cook, but in his other ways was one of those landlords who are now happily getting to be matter of history, at least in the more civilized parts of our country. He fed his guests and boarders three times a day by the clock, and it would have taken a very keen man to get so much as a piece of bread and cheese at any other hour, unless indeed you ordered a dinner or supper three days ahead. Mrs. L. was ten times worse in this respect than her husband. One afternoon, Losing, coming along from some sporting excursion, desperately tired, and hungry enough to eat a cat without stoping to cut the claws off, pulled up at Langshaw's, and requested some provender. Mr. Langshaw was out, and Mrs. Langshaw, utterly deaf to Charley's hints of some cold beef which he had caught a glimpse of in a closet, insisted that there was nothing to eat in the house, and that nothing could be prepared in less than two hours. Whereupon, Losing, being prevented by the laws of gallantry and the land from pitching into a female woman, pitched himself into his wagon, pelted home at such a rate that he knocked two shoes off his horse and lamed him for a week; and on his arrival, after filling his vacuum with the first comestible he could lay hands on, (which chanced to be a whole apple-pie,) poured out a pretty stiff horn of cognac, and took a solemn vow over it that he would never tie his trotters under Langshaw's shed again. And Charley Losing was a man of his word.

Accordingly we were to meet at a small tavern near Langshaw's, but on the opposite side of the road. It professed to call itself the Mechanic's Retreat, and hung out a sign to that effect; but the local artist not being very strong in punctuation, had substituted for the apostrophe above the final s, a comma below it, so that the Mechanics, Retreat read more like a repulse than a invitation. It was a fine day, and the performances had attracted a pretty large crowd. The bar-room and stoop overflowed with sporting characters, and the adjacent sheds were thickly planted with wagons. The team had not arrived at the appointed hour, which did not surprise us; some body always is late on these occasions; as we were not, it was only to be expected that the other party

would be. Losing didn't care; his horse, carefully sheeted, was walking up and down before one of his numerous wagons, under the guidance of Scipio Africanus, who knew as much of things equine as his master, and that is saying not a little. For himself, he sedulously abstained from all beverages, though there was much liquoring going on in and about the Mechanics, Retreat, and we received numerous invitations; nor did he light a single cigar; we strolled about, looking at this and that horse, and winding up with Charley himself, who was not a large or showy animal, perhaps it might be said, not a handsome one, but had splendid points to the eye of a connoisseur. And Losing told me when and where and for how much he had bought the horse, and all the particulars of his training and performances up to his present age of eight years; thence he digressed to the wagon, and gave me much information how and by whom a wagon should be built, all which I listened to with as much interest as Miss Anybody would manifest at an account of the last new fashions in Paris or Grace Church.

Finally, after a considerable lapse of time, arrived, not the team, but its proprietor. One of his nags had cast. a shoe that very morning, and was lame, so he came to pay forfeit. Losing having received the money -you could not tell from his face whether he was satisfied or disappointed at this abrupt termination of the performances walked solemnly into the bar-room, and there made up for lost time in a way that created a visible respect for him among the circumjacent loafers. Then he proposed to me that, as I had never travelled behind Charley, we should go home with him, which we accordingly did. After having smoked his second cigar, Losing, seeing that I was pleased with his pet's travelling, advanced another proposition.

'I am going over the pond,' said he, meaning thereby the Atlantic, and don't know when I shall come back. My brother Fred has bought the team, and Harrison is going to take Screwdriver; now you had better buy Charley I know you want a horse and that will just set me free."

We bargained a little for form's sake, and to keep our hand in; finally I bought Charley for four hundred and fifty dollars, and it was a good investment.

The sun is growing warmer. Come into the shade, Franky! They have not finished digging yet. I had no idea it took so large a hole to put the poor old horse in. Charley soon became my pet, and with reason, for every one allowed him to be a most valuable animal. True, there were a good many nags about that could beat him on a brush, but for long drives he had few equals; and those were the drives I liked, living so far from the city, and going to and fro continually, to say nothing of numerous ferry-crossings eastward. There was no give-out about that little bay; he was always ready for his work. Many a pleasant spin of from eight to fourteen miles I had with him, sometimes on the Westchester road and the avenue, sometimes on the island. After travelling far enough to tire an ordinary horse, he was just in trim to begin trotting his fastest, so that now and then he would astonish a fancy-man who had been regarding him as merely an average roadster. One afternoon I remember particularly as if it were but yesterday. At that time I was having a passage-of-arms with the great North American Blunderbuss, and wanting to consult some erudite folio, drove down to Harry Masters' after it. A lovely spring afternoon it was, such as we seldom, too seldom enjoy in our rapid country, where spring will glide into summer before the winter is fairly gone. So fresh was the landscape, so genial and Italian-like the atmosphere, that mere existence was a positive luxury. And as Charley bowled along, up-hill and down-hill, over bridges and past taverns, at his easy journey-pace of twelve miles an hour, (for he never was one of your disagreeable brutes, that have no medium between a walk and full speed,) I felt inexpressibly comfortable, and in first-rate condition for pitching into the Blunderbuss. On the whole, it is just possible that my whole turnout added to the cheerfulness of the scene. Charley had a new harness on that fitted like wax, and his owner was adorned with a new white hat; the wagon had just been varnished, and in the strap of the seat alongside me was stuck a jolly posy from our own garden, which I was taking in for Mrs. Masters. Just about a mile from the stones, (it was in the early part of the afternoon, while the road was as yet tolerably clear, and most of those who were out went the other way.) the

Vol. III.

5

sharp quick sounds of pattering feet struck my ear. A well-built iron-gray was brushing up behind me in a road-sulky. On ordinary occasions I should not have ventured to risk the difference of weight after coming such a distance, but Charley and I both felt so gay, and he looked so ready for a start as he pricked up his ears at the sound of approaching wheels, that just as the gray had his nose almost over my shoulder, and was about to turn out and pass, I gathered in the reins a little, and told my pet to go. Away he sweeps in his beautiful round trot, pitching back a cloud of dust and pebbles upon the astonished sulky. The gray tries to follow; for a few steps he holds his own in the rear, then the sound of his feet grows fainter in the distance, dying away in a canter. I pull up Charley a litte carelessly; he breaks from being too suddenly checked, and comes almost to a full stop. Just as I start him again, the gray, who has meantime settled, comes flying by at a great pace. But Charley is at his heels in a moment; he presses him close, and is just lapping, when a sudden jolt sends the whip flying out of its socket. There is nothing to be done but pull up and put back. A benevolent Hibernian has picked up the article, and hands it to me. This time I keep fast hold of it. Our friend with the gray has drawn up, and is waiting. All right! you won't have to wait long. Go it, Charley! Just as we are at his wheel, off goes the gray at his best. One on each side of the road, we tear along. It is a dead level, and rather heavy. Charley with so much weight against him, can't make up that length, for all my coaxing. The gray is going his prettiest, under a tremendous pull. I jerk Charley upon the centre of the road, at the risk of splitting a hoof; he skims the hard Macadam with redoubled velocity, and gains on his antagonist. 'Go it, mustaches!' cries a small boy, as we pass. Flop! the gray is up. His driver makes a vain effort to catch him into his trot. It's no use; the wagon goes by like a whirlwind, and leaves him so far behind, that he gives up all farther effort. Then I strike the stones, and draw up to a walk; and as the sulky comes slowly trotting along, I remark quite casually to the discomfited jockey, 'I guess your horse has n't been nine miles with four hundred pounds behind him.'

Here I can fancy the lady-reader (if indeed any lady-reader should have gone so far into poor Charley's fragmentary biography) ejaculating, 'What, nothing but horses and racing!' and then passing contemptuously to the next article. Stay awhile, fair dame or gentle damosel. Hath not the noble animal ever played a great part in poetry and romance, from Roderick's Orelio (to go back no farther) down to the charger that carried off the Duchess May and her lover?

'When the bride-groom let the flight on his red roan steed of might,

And the bride lay on his arm, safe, as if she felt no harm, Smiling out into the night?'

Well now, suppose I show you how Charley assisted in an authentic bit of romance, with a happy termination too; how he restored a disconsolate wife to the arms of an unsuspecting husband. List, then, and be moved.

One summer, I was staying up the river, at Phil. Van Horne's, and, being bound to stay a great part of the summer, had come with all my family, Charley included. Among our neighbors was one who dwelt somewhat farther inland than most of us; an old gentleman named Hertezoff, of Russian descent originally, as the termination of his name implies. A very nice old gentleman he was, though we used to think he might have lived a little nearer to the Hudson without any danger to it from his proximity. But you can't expect people to have every thing, and looks were the forte of the family. Miss Hertezoff was a real American beauty, neither a blonde, nor a brunette, nor yet a compromise between the two, but a union of the best points of each; skin marble-white, hair and eyes dark brown, cheeks lit up with roses, and so forth. As to her accomplishments and mental furniture, I never had an opportunity of studying them, for she was very much taken up elsewhere; but believe she had, at least, the usual amount of feminine graces and perfections.

About that time came into those parts a stranger who was immediately allowed to be some pumpkins,' inasmuch as he was a southerner, rich, young and handsome. His name was Sinclair Preston; he came from Mississippi, where he owned one estate, besides another in Louisiana. He really was a fine-looking fellow, tall,