y pounds
per annum in addition to his salary, and the clerk whom I relieved
fifty pounds, to defray the expense of keeping their horses.

"Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig."

I bought a waggonette, and then began to look for a horse to draw it.
As soon as my want became known it was pleasing to find so many of my
neighbours willing to supply it. Cox, the gaoler, said he knew of a
horse that would just suit me. It belonged to Binns, an
ex-constable, who was spending a month in gaol on account of a little
trouble that had come upon him. Cox invited me into his office, and
brought Binns out of his cell.

"Yes," said Binns "I have a horse, and there's not another like him
on the island," (these men always meant Van Diemen's Land when they
said "the island," forgetting occasionally that they had crossed the
straits, and were in a land of freedom) "as good a goer as ever
carried a saddle, or wore a collar. I wouldn't sell him on no
account, only you see I'm hard up just now."

"What is his age?" I enquired.

"Well, he's just rising ten. He has been used a bit hard, but you
won't overwork him, and he'll do all the law business you want as
easy as winking. He's the best trotter on the island, and has won
many a stake for me. When I took Johnny-come-lately to gaol in
Melbourne for stealing him, he brought me back in less time than any
horse ever did the distance before or since. And you can have him
dirt cheap. I'll take ten pounds for him, and he's worth twenty
pounds of any man's money."

Lovers' vows and horsedealers' oaths are never literally true; it is
safer to receive them as lies. I thought it would be prudent to try
this trotter before buying him, so Binns signed an order, in a very
shaky hand, to the man in charge of his farm, to let me have the
horse on trial. When I harnessed and put him in between the shafts
he was very quiet indeed. I took a whip, not for the purpose of
using it, but merely for show; a horse that had won so many races
would, of course, go without the lash.

When I was seated and requested him to start, he began walking very
slowly, as if he had a load of two tons weight behind him, and I
never weighed so much as that. I had to use the whip, and at last
after a good deal of reflection he began to trot, but not with any
speed; he did not want to win anything that day. I remarked that his
ears looked dead; no sound or sight of any kind disturbed the peace
of