some fifteen years before, had been in his prime, and who had as much the habit of stopping at the abodes of poverty, as Peveril's Black Hastings had of turning towards the window of mourning.
He also was cherished by his kind mistress, for the same reason that she valued the vehicle to which he was harnessed.
"He is like me," she would sometimes say, "in having seen his best days, and I love to be reminded by that faithful animal how deeply I have entered the vale of years."
Her attachment to this favoured servant seemed to be reciprocal; for, when she occasionally visited him in his abode, he would raise his long black visage from the well-fill'd rack, and greet her with a loving sound, the echo of the neigh of his better years. With his mane some white hairs were mingling, and the elasticity of his youthful step had changed into the heavy tramp of a loaded dray-horse; yet he was still strong and sure-footed, and his clumsiness seemed as much the result of full feeding, and want of exercise, as of the weight of age. In summer, he was carefully guarded from the depredations of flies by a net made of twine, while one of bleached cotton with tassels and balls, exquisitely white, overshadowed his huge frame, when he bore his load on Sundays to the house of God.
Such was the steed, and such the equipage, which now approached the abode of Mr. Larkin. It was a long, low
