His face still bore the freshness
of youth, which was a marvel to many, who declared that, from
facts within their knowledge, Tifto must be far on the wrong side
of forty. At a first glance you would hardly have called him
thirty. No doubt, when, on close inspection, you came to look into
his eyes, you could see the hand of time. Even if you believed the
common assertion that he painted,--which it was very hard to
believe of a man who passed the most of his time in the hunting-
field or on a race-course,--yet the paint on his cheeks would not
enable him to move with the elasticity which seemed to belong to
all his limbs. He rode flat races and steeple chases,--if jump
races may still be so called; and with his own hounds and with the
Queen's did incredible things on horseback. He could jump over
chairs too,--the backs of four chairs in a dining-room after
dinner,--a feat which no gentleman of forty-five could perform,
even though he painted himself ever so.
So much in praise of Major Tifto honesty has compelled the present
chronicler to say.
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