Hilary has been looked on somewhat coldly by other tenants for openly calling the lord of the manor's attention to it.

He sturdily maintains that arable land if laid down for pasture should be laid down properly--a thing that requires labour and expenditure just the same as other farming operations.

So the silver tankard, won when 'cups' were not so common as now, is a memorial of the old times before the plough turned up the sweet turf of the racecourse.
Hilary does not bet beyond the modest 'fiver' which a man would be thought unsociable if he did not risk on the horse that carries the country's colours.

But he is very 'thick' with the racing-people on the Downs, and supplies the stable with oats, which is, I believe, not an unprofitable commission.

The historical anecdote of the Roman emperor who fed his horse on gilded oats reads a little strange when we first come across it in youth.