Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/381

334 "No," he replied. "It is too good for any thing but memory."

And then followed a rare picture of another kind, or rather a piece of statuary. We had stopped to cook and eat a noble bass. We sat on the bank, near a cosey farm-house, which nestled in trees a little withdrawn from the river. The farmer, a young, roughly-clad man, with laughing bright eyes and a brown, good-humored face, came down the shady road, riding a great draught-horse, and leading another. Following him, were his two little sons, perhaps ten and twelve years old.

He chatted pleasantly with us, while he unlaced his heavy boots, and undressed.

"Are you going to swim?" asked Guiteras.

"I am going to wash my horses," he said.

Just then he pulled his gray woollen shirt over his head, and stood naked beside the horse, preparing to jump on his back. We fairly shouted with admiration, the man was so superbly handsome, and so marvellously muscular. He smiled pleasantly, as if not surprised, jumped on his horse and rode into the deep water; his two yellow-haired boys sitting on the bank, with their hands clasped in front of their legs, watching their father with profound pleasure.

We were accustomed to seeing athletes in