of me. Besides, those children are under my charge when they are riding;
I tell you they are intrusted to me. Why, only the other day I heard our
master say to Mrs. Blomefield, 'My dear madam, you need not be anxious
about the children; my old Merrylegs will take as much care of them as
you or I could; I assure you I would not sell that pony for any money,
he is so perfectly good-tempered and trustworthy;' and do you think I am
such an ungrateful brute as to forget all the kind treatment I have
had here for five years, and all the trust they place in me, and turn
vicious because a couple of ignorant boys used me badly? No, no! you
never had a good place where they were kind to you, and so you don't
know, and I'm sorry for you; but I can tell you good places make good
horses. I wouldn't vex our people for anything; I love them, I do," said
Merrylegs, and he gave a low "ho, ho, ho!" through his nose, as he used
to do in the morning when he heard James' footstep at the door.

"Besides," he went on, "if I took to kicking where should I be? Why,
sold off in a jiffy, and no character, and I might find myself slaved
about under a butcher's boy, or worked to death at some seaside place
where no one cared for me, except to find out how fast I could go, or be
flogged along in some cart with three or four great men in it going out
for a Sunday spree, as I have often seen in the place I lived in before
I came here; no," said he, shaking his head, "I hope I shall never come
to that."




10 A Talk in the Orchard