The Argosy — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ARGOSY. Shaving the Pontes Tails. Il3 Jan. 1, 1808. Giles was 1n the stable, giving the ponies their beans. He had been groom there a long while; a cross-tempered fellow, especially when they called him ‘ dwarf,” from his small size, and he had never taken cordially to the ponies. - An old horse that Giles cared for, if he'cared for anything, had been got rid of to make room for the ponies, and Giles put on resentment, after the fashion of hts young master. “They eat well, Giles,” remarked Tod, who_had little Hugh in his hand. 3 ‘Ugh !” grunted Giles. ‘‘ They’d eat their yeads off, an’ ’ud let ’em, they creatures ‘ould. I know I wish they was buried, I do; they got me into a nice row with the master this morning.” ‘* How was that P” ‘About their exercising; and their food. He says I neglect ’em; ‘ud serve all the horses afore I’d serve them. I said I knowed my duties to them as well as I knowed it to others; and then the row set in. Master’s as fond o’ they two cantankerous animals as he is of his children.” ‘‘Fonder than of me,” put in Tod, who was laughing at Giles. ‘“‘T ’dun know about that, Master Joe; I know these ponies 1s always a making mischief atween me and others. It’s they tails the Squire's proud on,” added Giles, disparagingly, “‘and the animals is the same; you just watch ’em a bit else, a switching of ’em everlasting! I'd shave they tails off, for two pins.” , ‘You would, would you!” broke upon our startled ears, and there stood the Squire at the stable-door, to the consternation of me and Giles. I had done nothing; but felt just as if I had. Tod kept his ground unmoved, and laid hold of Punch’s tail; as if calculating what the trouble would be to dock it. ° Letting the horsehair drop gradually from his fingers, he went off with Hugh ; I followed, leaving the Squire and Giles to it. By the sounds that supervened, it seemed the “row,” as Giles had designated it, of the morning’was being renewed. | We went as far as the Dyke, a broad ditch that divided at this spot the two counties, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, two miles from the Manor. There were no hedges on either side the dyke, but a raised bank on this. Hugh, who was on in front, ran up it. ‘Stay where you are,” shouted Tod to him. ‘‘ You can’t come to grief to-day, you know, in that fine plumage.” For Hugh had a new purple velvet affair on. If I call it affair, it’s because I don’t know what else to call it; 1t was not a coat, and it was not a frock. He was seven; and yet Mrs. Todhetley dressed him like a girl; his short white drawers had fmills to ’em; and this was made another grievance of by Tod. Hugh’s bare legs were scratched all over ; his white neck-frills got torn. He was a brave little fellow, full <S GO) of spint, fearing neither man nor ghost ; a pretty-faced aac Olali arge