Then a mutual roar arose, as either party saw its champion in distress.
“Stick to him, Cuddy! stick to him!” roars Sir Moses.
“Stick to him, Mouncheer! stick to him!” vociferates Mr. Gallon on the other side.
They do as they are bid; Mr. Flintoff remounting just as Monsieur scrambles out of the brook, aud Cuddy’s blood now being roused, he runs the General gallantly at it, and lands, hind legs and all, on the opposite bank. Loud cheers followed the feat.
It is now anybody’s race, and the vehemence of speculation is intense.
“The red!”—“The yaller! the yaller!”—“The red!” Mr. Gallon is frantic, and Tippy Tom leads the way along the turnpike as if he, too, was in the race. Sir Moses’s mare breaks into a canter, and makes the action of the gig resemble that of a boat going to sea. The crowd rush pell-mell without looking where they are going; it is a wonder that nobody is killed.
Lawristone Clump is now close at hand, enlivened with the gay parasols and colours of the ladies.
There are but three more fences between the competitors and it, and seeing what he thinks a weak place in the next, Mr. Flintoff races for it over the sound furrows of the deeply-drained pasture. As he gets near it begins to look larger, and Cuddy’s irresolute handling makes the horse swerve.
“Now, then, old stoopid!” cries Jack, in a good London cabman’s accent; “Now, then, old stoopid! vot are ye stargazing that way for? Vy don’t ye go over or get out o’ de vay?”
“Go yourself,’” growled Cuddy, pulling his horse round.
“Go myself!” repeated Jack; “‘ow the doose can I go vid your great carcase stuck i’ the vay!”
“My great carcase stuck i’ the way!” retorted Cuddy, spurring and hauling at his horse. “My great carcase stuck in the way! Look at your own, and be hanged to ye!”
“Vell, look at it!” replied Jack, backing his horse for a run, and measuring his distance, he clapped spurs freely in his sides, and going at it full tilt, flew over the fence, exclaiming as he lit, “Dere, it is for you to ’zamine.”
“That feller can ride a deuced deal better than he pretends,” muttered Cuddy, wishing his tailorism mightn’t be all a trick; saying which he followed Jack’s example, and taking a run he presently landed in the next field, amidst the cheers of the roadsters. This was a fallow, deep, wet, and undrained, and his well ribbed-up horse was more than a match for Jack’s across it. Feeling he could go, Cuddy set himself home in his saddle, and flourishing his whip, cantered past, exclaiming, “Come along old stick in the mud!”
“I’ll stick i’ the mod ye!” replied Jack, hugging and holding his sobbing horse. “I’ll stick i’ the mod ye! Stop till I gets off dis birdliming field, and I’ll give you de go-bye, Cuddy, old cock.”
Jack was as good as his word, for the ground getting sounder on the slope, he spurted up a wet furrow, racing with Cuddy for the now obvious gap, that afforded some wretched half-starved calves a choice between the rushes of one field and the whicken grass of the other. Pop, Jack went over it, looking back and exclaiming to Cuddy, “Bon jour! top of de mornin’ to you, sare!” as he hugged his horse and scuttled up a high-backed ridge of the sour blue and yellow-looking pasture.
The money was now in great jeopardy, and the people on the road shouted and gesticulated the names of their respective favourites with redoubled energy, as if their eagerness could add impetus to the animals. “Flintoff! Flintoff! Flintoff!” “The Frenchman! the Frenchman!” as Monsieur at length dropped his hands and settled into something like a seat. On, on, they went, Monsieur every now and then looking back to see that he had a proper space between himself and his pursuer, and, giving his horse a good dig with his spurs, he lifted him over a stiff stake-and-rice fence that separated him from the field with the Clump.
“Here they come!” is now the cry on the hill, and fair faces at length turn to contemplate the galloppers, who come sprawling up the valley in the unsightly way fore-shortened horses appear to do. The road gate on the right flies suddenly open, and Tippy Tom is seen running away with Geordey Gallon, who just manages to manouvre him round the Clump to the front as Monsieur comes swinging in an easy winner.
Glorious victory for Geordey! Glorious victory for Monsieur! They can’t have won less than thirty pounds between them, supposing they get paid, and that Geordey gives Jack his “reglars.” Well may Geordey throw up his shallow hat and hug the winner. But who shall depict the agony of Sir Moses at this dreadful blow to his finances? The way he dom’d Cuddy, the way he dom’d Jack, the way he swung frantically about Lawristone Clump, declaring he was ruined for ever and ever! After thinking of everybody at all equal to the task, we are obliged to get, our old friend Echo to answer “Who!”
THE first paroxysm of rage being over, Sir Moses remounted his dog-cart, and drove rapidly off, seeming to take pleasure in making his boy-groom (who was at the mare’s head) run after it as long as he could.
“What’s it Baronet off?” exclaimed Mr. Gallon, staring with astonishment at the fast-receding vehicle; “what’s it, Baronet off?” repeated he, thinking he would have to go to Pangburn Park for his money.
“O dear Thir Mothes is gone!” lisped pretty Miss Mechlinton, who wanted to have a look at our hero, Mr. Pringle, who she heard was frightfully handsome, and alarmingly rich. And the ladies, who had been too much occupied with the sudden rush of excited people to notice Sir Moses’s movements, wondered what had happened that he didn’t come to give his tongue an airing among them as usual. One said he had got the tooth-ache; another, the ear-ache; a third, that he had got something in his eye; while a satirical gentleman said it looked more like a B. in his bonnet.
“Ony hoo,” however, as Mr. Gallon would say, Sir Moses was presently out of the field and on to the hard turnpike again.
We need scarcely say that Mr. Pringle’s ride home with him was not of a very agreeable character: indeed, the Baronet had seldom been seen to be so put out of his way, and the mare came in for frequent salutations with the whip—latitudinally, longitudinally, and horizontally, over the head and ears, accompanied by cutting commentaries on Flintoff’s utter uselessness and inability to do anything but drink.
He “never saw such a man—domd if ever he did,” and he whipped the mare again in confirmation of the opinion.
Nor did matters mend on arriving at home; for here Mr. Mordecai Nathan met him in the entrance hall, with a very doleful face, to announce that Henerey Brown & Co., who had long been coddling up their horses, had that morning succeeded in sloping with them and their stock to Halterley Fair, and selling them in open market, leaving a note hanging to the key in the house-door, saying that they had gone to Horseterhaylia where Sir Moses needn’t trouble to follow them.
“Ond dom it!” shrieked the Baronet, jumping up in the air like a stricken deer; “ond dom it! I’m robbed! I’m robbed! I’m ruined! I’m ruined!” and tottering to an arm-chair, he sank, overpowered with the blow. Henerey Brown & Co. had indeed been too many for him. After a long course of retrograding husbandry, they seemed all at once to have turned over a new leaf, if not in the tillage way, at all events in that still better way for the land, the cattle line,—store stock, with some symptoms of beef on their bones, and sheep with whole fleeces, going on all-fours depastured the fields, making Mordecai Nathan think it was all the fruits of his superior management. Alaek a-day! They belonged to a friend of Lawyer Hindmarch’s, who thought Henerey Brown & Co. might as well eat all off the land ere they left. And so they ate it as bare as a board.
“Ond dom it, how came you to let them escape?” now demanded the Baronet, wringing his hands in despair; “ond dom it, how came you to let them escape?” continued he, throwing himself back in the chair.
“Why really, Sir Moses, I was perfectly deceived; I thought they were beginning to do better, for though they were back with their ploughing, they seemed to be turning their attention to stock, and I was in hopes that in time they would pull round.”
“Pull round!” ejaculated the Baronet; “pull round! They’ll flatten me I know with their pulling;” and thereupon he kicked out both legs before him as if he was done with them altogether.
His seat being in the line of the door, a rude draught now caught his shoulder, which making him think it was no use sitting there to take cold and the rheumatism, he suddenly bounced up, and telling Nathan to stay where he was, he ran up stairs, and quickly changed his fine satiney, velvetey, holiday garments, for a suit of dingy old tweeds, that looked desperately in want of the washing-tub. Then surmounting the whole with a drab wide-awake, he clutched a knotty dog-whip, and set off on foot with his agent to the scene of disaster, rehearsing the licking he would give Henerey with the whip if he caught him, as he went.
Away he strode, as if he was walking a match, down Dolly’s Close, over the stile, into Farmer Hayford’s fields, and away by the back of the lodges, through Orwell Plantation and Lowestoff End, into the Rushworth and Mayland Road.
Doblington farm-house then stood on the rising ground before him. It was indeed a wretched, dilapidated, woe-begone-looking place; bad enough when enlivened with the presence of cattle and the other concomitants of a farm; but now, with only a poor white pigeon, that Henerey Brown & Co., as if in bitter irony, had left behind them, it looked the very picture of misery and poverty-stricken desolation.
It was red-tiled and had been rough-cast, but the casting was fast coming off, leaving fine map-like tracings of green damp on the walls,—a sort of map of Italy on one side of the door, a map of Africa on the other, one of Horseterhaylia about the centre, with a perfect battery of old hats bristling in the broken panes of the windows. Nor was this all; for, by way of saving coals, Henerey & Humphrey had consumed all the available wood about the place—stable-fittings, cow-house-fittings, pig-sty-fittings, even part of the staircase—and acting under the able advice of Lawyer Hindmarch, had carried away the pot and oven from the kitchen, and all the grates from the fire-places, under pretence of having bought them of the outgoing tenant when they entered,—a fact that the lawyer said “would be difficult to disprove.” If it had not been that Henerey Brown & Co. had been sitting rent-free, and that the dilapidated state of the premises formed an excellent subject of attack for parrying payment when rent came to be demanded, it would be difficult to imagine people living in a house where they had to wheel their beds about to get to the least drop-exposed quarter, and where the ceilings bagged down from the rafters like old-fashioned window-hangings. People, however, can put up with a great deal when it saves their own pockets. Master and man having surveyed the exterior then entered.
“Well,” said Sir Moses, looking round on the scene of desolation, “they’ve made a clean sweep at all events.”
“They have that,” assented Mr. Mordecai Nathan.
“I wonder it didn’t strike you, when you caught them selling their straw off at night, that they would be doing something of this sort,” observed Sir Moses.
“Why, I thought it rather strange,” replied Mr. Nathan; “only they assured me that for every load of straw they sold, they brought back double the value in guano, or I certainly should have been more on the alert.”
“Guano be hanged!” rejoined the Baronet, trying to open the kitchen window, to let some fresh air into the foul apartment; “guano be hanged! one ton of guano makes itself into twenty ton with the aid of Kentish gravel. No better trade than spurious manure-manufacturing; almost as good as cabbage-cigar making. Besides,” continued he, “the straw goes off to a certainty, whereas there’s no certainty about the guano coming back instead of it. Oh, dom it, man,” continued he, knocking some of the old hats out of the broken panes, after a fruitless effort to open the window, “I’d have walked the bailiffs into the beggars if I could have foreseen this.”
“So would I, Sir Moses,” replied Mr. Nathan; “only who could we get to come in their place?”
That observation of Mr. Mordecai Nathan comprises a great deal, and accounts for much apparent good landlordism, which lets a bad tenant go on from year to year with the occasional payment of a driblet of rent, instead of ejecting him; the real fact being that the landlord knows there is no one to get to come in his place—no better one at least—and that fact constitutes one of the principal difficulties of land-owning. If a landlord is not prepared to take an out-of-order farm into his own hands, he must either put up with an incompetent non-paying tenant, or run the risk of getting a worse one from the general body of outlying incompetence. A farm will always let for something.
There is a regular rolling stock of bad farmers in every country, who pass from district to district, exercising their ingenuity in extracting whatever little good their predecessors have left in the land. These men are the steady, determined enemies to grass. Their great delight is to get leave to plough out an old pasture-field under pretence of laying it down better. There won’t be a grass field on a farm but what they will take some exception to, and ask leave to have “out” as they call it. Then if they get leave, they take care never to have a good take of seeds, and so plough on and plough on, promising to lay it down better after each fresh attempt, just as a thimble-rigger urges his dupe to go on and go on, and try his luck once more, until land and dupe are both fairly exhausted. The tenant then marches, and the thimble-rigger decamps, each in search of fresh fields and flats new.
Considering that all writers on agriculture agree that grass land pays double, if not treble, what arable land does, and that one is so much more beautiful to the eye than the other, to say nothing of pleasanter to ride over, we often wonder that landlords have not turned their attention more to the increase and encouragement of grass land on their estates than they have done.
To be sure they have always had the difficulty to contend with we have named, viz., a constant hankering on the part of even some good tenants to plough it out. A poor grass-field, like Gay’s hare, seems to have no friends. Each man proposes to improve it by ploughing it out, forgetful of the fact, that it may also be improved by manuring the surface. The quantity of arable land on a farm is what puts landlords so much in the power of bad farmers. If farms consisted of three parts grass and one part plough, instead of three parts plough and one part grass, no landlord need ever put up with an indifferent, incompetent tenant; for the grass would carry him through, and he could either let the farm off, field by field, to butchers and graziers, or pasture it himself, or hay it if he liked. Nothing pays better than hay. A very small capital would then suffice for the arable land; and there being, as we said before, a rolling stock of scratching land-starvers always on the look-out for out-of-order farms, so every landowner should have a rolling stock of horses and farm-implements ready to turn upon any one that is not getting justice done it. There is no fear of gentlemen being overloaded with land; for the old saying, “It’s a good thing to follow the laird,” will always insure plenty of applicants for any farm a landlord is leaving—supposing, of course, that he has been doing it justice himself, which we must say landlords always do; the first result we see of a gentleman farming being the increase of the size of his stock-yard, and this oftentimes in the face of a diminished acreage under the plough.
Then see what a saving there is in grass-farming compared to tillage husbandry: no ploughs, no harrows, no horses, no lazy leg-dragging clowns, who require constant watching; the cattle will feed whether master is at home or polishing St. James’s Street in paper boots and a tight bearing-rein.
Again, the independence of the grass-farmer is so great. When the wind howls and the rain beats, and the torrents roar, and John Flail lies quaking in bed, fearing for his corn, then old Tom Nebuchadnezzar turns quietly over on his side like the Irish jontleman who, when told the house was on fire, replied, “Arrah, by Jasus, I’m only a lodger!” and says, “Ord rot it, let it rain; it’ll do me no harm! I’m only a grass-grower!”
But we are leaving Sir Moses in the midst of his desolation, with nothing but the chilly fog of a winter’s evening and his own bright thoughts to console him.
“And dom it, I’m off,” exclaimed he, fairly overcome with the impurity of the place; and hurrying out, he ran away towards home, leaving Mr. Mordecai Nathan to lock the empty house up, or not, just as he liked.
And to Pangburn Park let us now follow the Baronet, and see what our friend Billy is about.
MR. Pringle’s return was greeted with an immense shoal of letters, one from Mamma, one with “Yammerton Grange” on the seal, two from his tailors—one with the following simple heading, “To bill delivered,” so much; the other containing a vast catalogue of what a jury of tailors would consider youthful “necessaries,” amounting in the whole to a pretty round sum, accompanied by an intimation, that in consequence of the tightness of the money-market, an early settlement would be agreeable—and a very important-looking package, that had required a couple of heads to convey, and which, being the most mysterious of the whole, after a due feeling and inspection, he at length opened. It was from his obsequious friend Mr. Smoothley, and contained a printed copy of the rules of the Hit-im and Hold-im shire Hunt, done up in a little red-backed yellow-lined book, with a note from the sender, drawing Mr. Pringle’s attention to the tenth rule, which stipulated that the annual club subscription of fifteen guineas was to be paid into Greedy and Griper’s bank, in Hinton, by Christmas-day in each year at latest, or ten per cent, interest would be charged on the amount after that.
“Fi-fi-fifteen guineas! te-te-ten per cent.!” ejaculated Billy, gasping for breath; “who’d ever have thought of such a thing!” and it was some seconds before he sufficiently recovered his composure to resume his reading. The rent of the cover he had taken, Mr. Smoothley proceeded to say, was eight guineas a-year. “Eight guineas a-year!” again ejaculated Billy; “eight guineas a-year! why I thought it was a mere matter of form. Oh dear, I can’t stand this!” continued he, looking vacantly about him. “Surely, risking one’s neck is quite bad enough, without paying for doing so. Lord Ladythorne never asked me for any money, why should Sir Moses? Oh dear, oh dear! I wish i’d never embarked in such a speculation. Nothing to be made by it, but a great deal to be lost. Bother the thing, I wish I was out of it,” with which declaration he again ventured to look at Mr. Smoothley’s letter. It went on to say, that the rent would not become payable until the next season, Mr. Treadcroft being liable for that year’s rent. “Ah well, come, that’s some consolation, at all events,” observed our friend, looking up again; “that’s some consolation, at all events,” adding, “I’ll take deuced good care to give it up before another year comes round.”
Smoothley then touched upon the more genial subject of the hunt-buttons. he had desired Garnet, the silversmith, to send a couple of sets off the last die, one for Billy’s hunting, the other for his dress coat; and he concluded by wishing our friend a long life of health and happiness to wear them with the renowned Hit-im and Hold-im shire hunt; and assuring him that he was always his, with great sincerity, John Smoothley. “Indeed,” said Billy, throwing the letter down; “more happiness if I don’t wear them,” continued he, conning over his many misfortunes, and the great difficulty he had in sitting at the jumps. “However,” thought he, “the dress ones will do for the balls,” with which not uncommon consolation he broke the red seal of the Yammerton Grange letter.
This was from our friend the Major, all about a wonderful hunt his “haryers” had had, which he couldn’t resist the temptation of writing to tell Billy of. The description then sprawled over four sides of letter paper, going an arrant burst from end to end, there not being a single stop in the whole, whatever there might have been in the hunt; and the Major concluded by saying, that it was by far the finest run he had ever seen during his long mastership, extending over a period of five-and-thirty years.
Glancing his eye over its contents, how they found at Conksbury Corner, and ran at a racing pace without a check to Foremark Hill, and down over the water-meadows at Dove-dale Green to Marbury Hall, turning short at Fullbrook Folly, and over the race-course at Ancaster Lawn, doubling at Dinton Dean, and back over the hill past Oakhanger Gorse to Tufton Holt, where they killed, the account being interwoven, parenthesis within parenthesis, with the brilliant hits and performances of Lovely, and Lilter, and Dainty, and Bustler, and others, with the names of the distinguished party who were out, our old friend Wotherspoon among the number, Billy came at last to a sly postscript, saying that “his bed and stall were quite ready for him whenever he liked to return, and they would all be delighted to see him.” The wording of the Postscript had taken a good deal of consideration, and had undergone two or three revisions at the hands of the ladies before they gave it to the Major to add—one wanting to make it rather stronger, another rather milder, the Major thinking they had better have a little notice before Mr. Pringle returned, while Mamma (who had now got all the linen up again) inclined, though she did not say so before the girls, to treat Billy as one of the family. Upon a division whether the word “quite” should stand part of the Postscript or not, the Major was left in a minority, and the pressing word passed. His bed and stall were “quite ready,” instead of only “ready” to receive him. Miss Yammerton observing, that “quite” looked as if they really wished to have him, while “ready” looked as if they did not care whether he came or not. And Billy, having pondered awhile on the Postscript, which he thought came very opportunely, proceeded to open his last letter, a man always taking those he doesn’t know first.
This letter was Mamma’s—poor Mamma’s—written in the usual strain of anxious earnestness, hoping her beloved was enjoying himself, but hinting that she would like to have him back. Butterfingers was gone, she had got her a place in Somersetshire, so anxiety on that score was over. Mrs. Pringle’s peculiar means of information, however, informed her that the Misses Yammerton were dangerous, and she had already expressed her opinion pretty freely with regard to Sir Moses. Indeed, she didn’t know which house she would soonest hear of her son being at—Sir Moses’s with his plausible pocket-guarding plundering, or Major Yammerton’s, with the three pair of enterprising eyes, and Mamma’s mature judgment directing the siege operations. Mrs. Pringle wished he was either back at Tantivy Castle, or in Curtain Crescent again.
Still she did not like to be too pressing, but observed, as Christmas was coming, when hunting would most likely be stopped by the weather, she hoped he would run up to town, where many of his friends, Jack Sheppard, Tom Brown, Harry Bean, and others, were asking for him, thinking he was lost. She also said, it would be a good time to go to Uncle Jerry’s, and try to get a settlement with him, for though she had often called, sometimes by appointment, she had never been able to meet with him, as he was always away, either seeing after some chapel he was building, or attending a meeting for the conversion of the Sepoys, or some other fanatics.
The letter concluded by saying, that she had looked about in vain for a groom likely to suit him; for, although plenty had presented themselves from gentlemen wishing for high wages with nothing to do, down to those who would garden and groom and look after cows, she had not seen anything at all to her mind. Mr. Luke Grueler, however, she added, who had called that morning, had told her of one that he could recommend, who was just leaving the Honourable Captain Swellington; and being on his way to town from Doubleimupshire, where the Captain had got to the end of his tether, he would very possibly call; and, if so, Billy would know him by his having Mr. Grueler’s card to present. And with renewed expressions of affection, and urging him to take care of himself, as well among the leaps as the ladies, she signed herself his most doting and loving “Mamma.”
“Groom!” (humph) “Swellington!” (humph) muttered Billy, folding up the letter, and returning it to its highly-musked envelope.
“Wonder what sort of a beggar he’ll be?” continued he, twirling his mustachios; “Wonder how he’ll get on with Rougier?” and a thought struck him, that he had about as much as he could manage with Monsieur. However, many people have to keep what they don’t want, and there is no reason why such an aspiring youth as our friend should be exempt from the penance of his station. Talking of grooms, we are not surprised at “Mamma’s” difficulty in choosing one, for we know of few more difficult selections to make; and, considering the innumerable books we have on the choice and management of horses, we wonder no one has written on the choice and management of grooms. The truth is, they are as various as the horse-tribe itself; and, considering that the best horse may soon be made a second-rate one by bad grooming, when a second-rate one may be elevated to the first class by good management, and that a man’s neck may be broken by riding a horse not fit to go, it is a matter of no small importance. Some men can dress themselves, some can dress their horses; but very few can dress both themselves and their horses. Some are only fit to strip a horse and starve him. It is not every baggy-corded fellow that rolls slangily along in top-boots, and hisses at everything he touches, that is a groom. In truth, there are very few grooms, very few men who really enter into the feelings and constitutions of horses, or look at them otherwise than as they would at chairs or mahogany tables. A horse that will be perfectly furious under the dressing of one man, will be as quiet as possible in the hands of another—-a rough subject thinking the more a horse prances and winces, the greater the reason to lay on. Some fellows have neither hands, nor eyes, nor sense, nor feeling, nor anything. We have seen one ride a horse to cover without ever feeling that he was lame, while a master’s eye detected it the moment he came in sight. Indeed, if horses could express their opinions, we fear many of them would have very indifferent ones of their attendants. The greater the reason, therefore, for masters giving honest characters of their servants.
Our friend Mr. Pringle, having read his letters, was swinging up and down the little library, digesting them, when the great Mr. Bankhead bowed in with a card on a silver salver, and announced, in his usual bland way, that the bearer wished to speak to him.
“Me!” exclaimed Billy, wondering who it could be; “Me!” repeated he, taking the highly-glazed thin pasteboard missive off the tray, and reading, “Mr. Luke Grueler, Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly.”
“Grueler, Grueler!” repeated Billy, frowning and biting his pretty lips; “Grueler—I’ve surely heard that name before.”
“The bearer, sir, comes from Mr. Grueler, sir,” observed Mr. Bankhead, in explanation: “the party’s own name, sir, is Gaiters; but he said by bringing in this card, you would probably know who he is.”
“Ah! to be sure, so I do,” replied Billy, thus suddenly enlightened, “I’ve just been reading about him. Send him in, will you?”
“If you please, sir,” whispered the bowing Bankhead as he withdrew.
Billy then braced himself up for the coming interview.
A true groom’s knock, a loud and a little one, presently sounded on the white-over-black painted door-panel, and at our friend’s “Come in,” the door opened, when in sidled a sleek-headed well put on groomish-looking man, of apparently forty or five-and-forty years of age. The man bowed respectfully, which Billy returned, glancing at his legs to see whether they were knock-kneed or bowed, his Mamma having cautioned him against the former. They were neither; on the contrary, straight good legs, well set off with tightish, drab-coloured kerseymere shorts, and continuations to match. His coat was an olive-coloured cutaway, his vest a canary-coloured striped toilanette, with a slightly turned-down collar, showing the whiteness of his well-tied cravat, secured with a gold flying-fox pin. Altogether he was a most respectable looking man, and did credit to the recommendation of Mr. Grueler.
Still he was a groom of pretension—that is to say, a groom who wanted to be master. He was hardly, indeed, satisfied with that, and would turn a gentleman off who ventured to have an opinion of his own on any matter connected with his department. Mr. Gaiters considered that his character was the first consideration, his master’s wishes and inclinations the second; so if master wanted to ride, say, Rob Roy, and Gaiters meant him to ride Moonshine, there would be a trial of skill which it should be.
Mr. Gaiters always considered himself corporally in the field, and speculated on what people would be saying of “his horses.”
Some men like to be bullied, some don’t, but Gaiters had dropped on a good many who did. Still these are not the lasting order of men, and Gaiters had attended the dispersion of a good many studs at the Corner. Again, some masters had turned him off, while he had turned others off; and the reason of his now being disengaged was that the Sheriff of Doubleimupshire had saved him the trouble of taking Captain Swellington’s horses to Tattersall’s, by selling them off on the spot. Under these circumstances, Gaiters had written to his once former master—or rather employer—Mr. Grueler, to announce his retirement, which had led to the present introduction. Many people will recommend servants who they wouldn’t take themselves. Few newly married couples but what have found themselves saddled with invaluable servants that others wanted to get rid of.
Mutual salutations over, Gaiters now stood in the first position, hat in front, like a heavy father on the stage.
Our friend not seeming inclined to lead the gallop, Mr. Gaiters, after a prefatory hem, thus commenced: “Mr. Grueler, sir, I presume, would tell you, sir, that I would call upon you, sir?”
Billy nodded assent.
“I’m just leaving the Honourable Captain Swellington, of the Royal Hyacinth Hussars, sir, whose regiment is ordered out to India; and fearing the climate might not agree with my constitution, I have been obliged to give him up.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Billy.
“I have his testimonials,” continued Gaiters, putting his hat between his legs, and diving into the inside pocket of his cutaway as he spoke. “I have his testimonials,” repeated he, producing a black, steel-clasped banker or bill-broker’s looking pocket-book, and tedding up a lot of characters, bills, recipes, and other documents in the pocket. He then selected Captain Swellington’s character from the medley, written on the best double-thick, cream-laid note-paper, sealed with the Captain’s crest—a goose—saying that the bearer John Gaiters was an excellent groom, and might safely be trusted with the management of hunters. “You’ll probably know who the Captain is, sir,” continued Mr. Gaiters, eyeing Billy as he read it. “He’s a son of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Flareup’s, of Flareup Castle, one of the oldest and best families in the kingdom—few better families anywhere,” just as if the Peer’s pedigree had anything to do with Gaiters’s grooming. “I have plenty more similar to it,” continued Mr. Gaiters, who had now selected a few out of the number which he held before him, like a hand at cards. “Plenty more similar to it,” repeated he, looking them over. “Here is Sir Rufus Rasper’s, Sir Peter Puller’s, Lord Thruster’s, Mr. Cropper’s, and others. Few men have horsed more sportsmen than I have done; and if my principals do not go in the first flight, it is not for want of condition in my horses. Mr. Grueler was the only one I ever had to give up for overmarking my horses; and he was so hard upon them I couldn’t stand it; still he speaks of me, as you see, in the handsomest manner,” handing our friend Mr. Grueler’s certificate, couched in much the same terms as Captain Swellington’s.
“Yarse,” replied Billy, glancing over and then returning it, thinking, as he again eyed Mr. Gaiters, that a smart lad like Lord Ladythorne’s Cupid without wings would be more in his way than such a full-sized magnificent man. Still his Mamma and Mr. Grueler had sent Gaiters, and he supposed they knew what was right. In truth, Gaiters was one of those overpowering people that make a master feel as if he was getting hired, instead of suiting himself with a servant.
This preliminary investigation over, Gaiters returned the characters to his ample book, and clasping it together, dropped it into his capacious pocket, observing, as it fell, that he should be glad to endeavour to arrange matters with Mr. Pringle, if he was so inclined.
Our friend nodded, wishing he was well rid of him.
“It’s not every place I would accept,” continued Mr. Gaiters, growing grand; “for the fact is, as Mr. Grueler will tell you, my character is as good as a Bank of England note; and unless I was sure I could do myself justice, I should not like to venture on an experiment, for it’s no use a man undertaking anything that he’s not allowed to carry out his own way; and nothing would be so painful to my feelings as to see a gentleman not turned out as he should be.”
Mr. Pringle drawled a “yarse,” for he wanted to be turned out properly.
“Well, then,” continued Mr. Gaiters, changing his hat from his right hand to his left, subsiding into the second position, and speaking slowly and deliberately, “I suppose you want a groom to take the entire charge and management of your stable—a stud groom, in short?”
“Yarse, I s’pose so,” replied Billy, not knowing exactly what he wanted, and wishing his Mamma hadn’t sent him such a swell.
“Well, then, sir,” continued Mr. Gaiters, casting his eyes up to the dirty ceiling, and giving his chin a dry shave with his disengaged hand; “Well, then, sir, I flatter myself I can fulfil that office with credit to myself and satisfaction to my employer.”
“Yarse,” assented Billy, thinking there would be very little satisfaction in the matter.
“Buy the forage, hire the helpers, do everything appertaining to the department,—in fact, just as I did with the Honourable Captain Swellington.”
“Humph,” said Billy, recollecting that his Mamma always told him never to let servants buy anything for him that he could help.
“Might I ask if you buy your own horses?” inquired Mr. Gaiters, after a pause.
“Why, yarse, I do,” replied Billy; “at least I have so far.”
“Hum! That would be a consideration,” muttered Gaiters, compressing his mouth, as if he had now come to an obstacle; “that would be a consideration. Not that there’s any benefit or advantage to be derived from buying horses,” continued he, resuming his former tone; “but when a man’s character’s at stake, it’s agreeable, desirable, in fact, that he should be intrusted with the means of supporting it. I should like to buy the horses,” continued he, looking earnestly at Billy, as if to ascertain the amount of his gullibility.
“Well,” drawled Billy, “I don’t care if you do,” thinking there wouldn’t be many to buy.
“Oh!” gasped Gaiters, relieved by the announcement; he always thought he had lost young Mr. Easyman’s place by a similar demand, but still he couldn’t help making it. It wouldn’t have been doing justice to the Bank of England note character, indeed, if he hadn’t.
“Oh!” repeated he, emboldened by success, and thinking he had met with the right sort of man. He then proceeded to sum up his case in his mind,—forage, helpers, horses, horses, helpers, forage;—he thought that was all he required; yes, he thought it was all he required, and the Bank of England note character would be properly supported. He then came to the culminating point of the cash. Just as he was clearing his throat with a prefatory “Hre” for this grand consideration, a sudden rush and banging of doors foreboding mischief resounded through the house, and something occurred——that we will tell in another chapter.
ON, Sir, Sir, please step this way! please step this way!” exclaimed the delirium tremems footman, rushing coatless into the room where our hero and Mr. Gaiters were,—his shirt-sleeves tucked up, and a knife in hand, as if he had been killing a pig, though in reality he was fresh from the knife-board.
“Oh, Sir, Sir, please step this way!” repeated he, at once demolishing the delicate discussion at which our friend and Mr. Gaiters had arrived.
“What’s ha-ha-happened?” demanded Billy, turning deadly pale; for his cares were so few, that he couldn’t direct his fears to any one point in particular.
“Please, sir, your ‘oss has dropped down in a f-f-fit!” replied the man, all in a tremble.
“Fit!” ejaculated Billy, brushing past Gaiters, and hurrying out of the room.
“Fit!” repeated Gaiters, turning round with comfortable composure, looking at the man as much as to say, what do you know about it?
“Yes, f-f-fit!” repeated the footman, brandishing his knife, and running after Billy as though he were going to slay him.
Dashing along the dark passages, breaking his shins over one of those unlucky coal-scuttles that are always in the way, Billy fell into an outward-bound stream of humanity,—Mrs. Margerum, Barbara the housemaid, Mary the Lanndrymaid, Jones the gardener’s boy, and others, all hurrying to the scene of action.
Already there was a ring formed round the door, of bare-armed helpers, and miscellaneous hangers-on, looking over each other’s shoulders, who opened a way for Billy as he advanced.
The horse was indeed down, but not in a fit; for he was dying, and expired just as Billy entered. There lay the glazy-eyed hundred-guinea Napoleon the Great, showing his teeth, reduced to the mere value of his skin; so great is the difference between a dead horse and a live one.
“Bad job!” said Wetun, who was on his knees at its head, looking up; “bad job!” repeated he, trying to look dismal.
“What! is he dead?” demanded Billy, who could hardly realise the fact.
“Dead, ay—he’ll never move more,” replied Wetun, showing his fast-stiffening neck.
“By Jove! why didn’t you send for the doctor?” demanded Billy.
“Doctor! we had the doctor,” replied Wetun, “but he could do nothin’ for him.”
“Nothin’ for him!” retorted Billy; “why not?”
“Because he’s rotten,” replied Wetun.
“Rotten! how can that be?” asked our friend, adding, “I only bought him the other day!”
“If you open ‘im you’ll find he’s as black as ink in his inside, rejoined the groom, now getting up in the stall and rubbing his knees.
“Well, but what’s that with?” demanded Billy. “It surely must be owing to something. Horses don’t die that way for nothing.”
“Owing to a bad constitution—harn’t got no stamina,” replied Wetun, looking down upon the dead animal.
Billy was posed with the answer, and stood mute for a while.
“That ‘oss ‘as never been rightly well sin he com’d,” now observed Joe Bates, the helper who looked after him, over the heads of the door-circle.
“I didn’t like his looks when he com’d in from ‘unting that day,” continued Tom Wisp, another helper.
“No, nor the day arter nonther,” assented Jack Strong, who was a capital hand at finding fault, and could slur over his work with anybody.
Just then Mr. Gaiters arrived; and a deferential entrance was opened for his broadcloth by the group before the door.
The great Mr. Gaiters entered.
Treating the dirty blear-eyed Wetun more as a helper than an equal, he advanced deliberately up the stall and proceeded to examine the dead horse.
He looked first up his nostrils, next at his eye, then at his neck to see if he had been bled.
“I could have cured that horse if I’d had him in time,” observed he to Billy with a shake of the head.
“Neither you nor no man under the sun could ha’ done it,” asserted Mr. Wetun, indignant at the imputation.
“I could though—at least he never should have been in that state,” replied Gaiters coolly.
“I say you couldn’t!” retorted Wetun, putting his arms a-kimbo, and sideling up to the daring intruder, a man who hadn’t even asked leave to come into his stable.
A storm being imminent, our friend slipped off, and Sir Moses arrived from Henerey Brown &, Co.‘s just at the nick of time to prevent a fight.
So much for a single night in a bad stable, a result that our readers will do well to remember when they ask their friends to visit them—“Love me, love my horse,” being an adage more attended to in former times than it is now.
“Ah, my dear Pringle! I’m so sorry to hear about your horse! go sorry to hear about your horse!” exclaimed Sir Moses, rushing forward to greet our friend with a consolatory shake of the hand, as he came sauntering into the library, flat candlestick in hand, before dinner. “It’s just the most unfortunate thing I ever knew in my life; and I wouldn’t have had it happen at my house for all the money in the world—dom’d if I would,” added he, with a downward blow of his fist.
Billy could only reply with one of his usual monotonous “y-a-r-ses.”
“However,” said the Baronet, “it shall not prevent your hunting to-morrow, for I’ll mount you with all the pleasure in the world—all the pleasure in the world,” repeated he, with a flourish of his hand.
“Thank ye,” replied Billy, alarmed at the prospect; “but the fact is, the Major expects me back at Yammerton Grange, and——”
“That’s nothin!” interrupted Sir Moses; “that’s nothin; hunt, and go there after—all in the day’s work. Meet at the kennel, find a fox in five minutes, have your spin, and go to the Grange afterwards.”
“O, indeed, yes, you shall,” continued he, settling it so, “shall have the best horse in my stable—Pegasus, or Atalanta, or Old Jack, or any of them—dom’d if you shalln’t—so that matter’s settled.”
“But, but, but,” hesitated our alarmed friend, “I—I—I shall have no way of getting there after hunting.”
“O, I’ll manage that too,” replied Sir Moses, now in the generous mood. “I’ll manage that too—shall have the dog-cart—the thing we were in to-day; my lad shall go with you and bring it back, and that’ll convey you and your traps and all altogether. Only sorry I can’t ask you to stay another week, but the fact is I’ve got to go to my friend Lord Lundyfoote’s for Monday’s hunting at Harker Crag,”—the fact being that Sir Moses had had enough of Billy’s company and had invited himself there to get rid of him.
The noiseless Mr. Bankhead then opened the door with a bow, and they proceeded to a tête-à-tête dinner, Cuddy Flintoff having wisely sent for his things from Heslop’s house, and taken his departure to town under pretence, as he told Sir Moses in a note, of seeing Tommy White’s horses sold.
Cuddy was one of that numerous breed of whom every sportsman knows at least one—namely, a man who is always wanting a horse, a “do you know of a horse that will suit me?” sort of a man. Charley Flight, who always walks the streets like a lamplighter and doesn’t like to be checked in his stride, whenever he sees Cuddy crawling along Piccadilly towards the Corner, puts on extra steam, exclaiming as he nears him, “How are you, Cuddy, how are you? I don’t know of a horse that will suit you!” So he gets past without a pull-up.
But we are keeping the soup waiting—also the fish—cod sounds rather—for Mrs. Margerum not calculating on more than the usual three days of country hospitality,—the rest day, the drest day, and the pressed day,—had run out of fresh fish. Indeed the whole repast bespoke the exhausted larder peculiar to the end of the week, and an adept in dishes might have detected some old friends with new faces. Some rechauffers however are quite as good if not better than the original dishes—hashed venison for instance—though in this case, when Sir Moses inquired for the remains of the Sunday’s haunch, he was told that Monsieur had had it for his lunch—Jack being a safe bird to lay it upon, seeing that he had not returned from the race. If Jack had been in the way then, the cat would most likely have been the culprit, or old Libertine, who had the run of the house.
Neither the Baronet nor Billy however was in any great humour for eating, each having cares of magnitude to oppress his thoughts, and it was not until Sir Moses had imbibed the best part of a pint of champagne besides sherry at intervals, that he seemed at all like himself. So he picked and nibbled and dom’d and dirted as many plates as he could. Dinner being at length over, he ordered a bottle of the green-sealed claret (his best), and drawing his chair to the fire proceeded to crack walnuts and pelt the shells at particular coals in the fire with a vehemence that showed the occupation of his mind. An observing eye could almost tell which were levelled at Henerey Brown, which at Cuddy Flintoff, and which again at the impudent owner of Tippy Tom.
At length, having exhausted his spleen, he made a desperate dash at the claret-jug, and pouring himself out a bumper, pushed it across to our friend, with a “help yourself,” as he sent it. The ticket-of-leave butler, who understood wine, had not lost his skill during his long residence at Portsmouth, and brought this in with the bouquet in great perfection. The wine was just as it should be, neither too warm nor too cold; and as Sir Moses quaffed a second glass, his equanimity began to revive.
When not thinking about money, his thoughts generally took a sporting turn,