“YOUR HANDWRITING, SIR”
“MORNIN’, sir,” says Mr. Sloper, scenting a customer as he accosts his
guest. “Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Sawyer? Won’t ye step in and sit down
after your walk? Take a glass of mild ale and a crust of
bread-and-cheese, or a drop of sherry or anythink?”
“No hunting to-day, Job,” answers the visitor, declining the
refreshment; “so I just toddled over to see how you’re getting on, and
have a look round the stables; no harm in looking, you know.”
Mr. Sloper’s face assumes an expression of profound mystery. “I’m glad
you come over to-day, sir,” he says, in a tone of confidential
frankness, “of all days in the year. I’ve a ’orse here, as I should like
to ast your opinion about—a gent like _you_ as knows what a ’unter
really is. And so you should, Mr. Sawyer, for there’s no man alive takes
greater liberties with ’em when they _can_ go and do it. And I’ve got
one in that box, as _I_ think, just _is_ more than curious.”
“Would he carry _me_?” asks Mr. Sawyer, with well-affected indifference,
as if he had not come over expressly to find one that would. “Not that I
_want_ a horse, you know; but if I saw one I liked very much, and you
didn’t price him too high, why I _might_ be induced to buy against next
season, perhaps.”
Job took his hands out of his coat-pockets, and spread them abroad, as
it were to dry. The action denoted extreme purity and candour.
“No; I don’t think as he ought to carry _you_, sir,” was the unexpected
reply. “Now, I ain’t a-going to tell you a lie, Mr. Sawyer. This horse
didn’t _ought_ to be ridden, not the way _you_ take and ride them, Mr.
Sawyer; leastways not over such a blind heart-breaking country as this
here. He’s too good, _he_ is, for that kind of work; he ought to be in
Leicestershire, _he_ ought; the Harborough country, that’s the country
for him. He’s too fast for _us_, and that’s the truth. Only, to be sure,
we have a vast of plough hereabout, and _I_ never see such a sticker
through dirt. It makes no odds to him, pasture _or_ plough, and the
sweetest hack ever I clapped eyes on besides. However, you shall judge
for yourself, Mr. Sawyer. I won’t ask you to believe _me_. You’ve a
quicker eye to a horse than I have, by a long chalk, and I’d sooner have
your opinion than my own. I _would_ now, and that’s the truth!”
Our purchaser began to think he might possibly have hit upon _the_
animal at last. Often as he had been at the game, and often as he had
been disappointed, he was still sanguine enough to believe he might draw
the prize-ticket in the lottery at any time. As I imagine every man who
pulls on his boots to go out hunting has a sort of vague hope that
to-day may be his day of triumph with the hounds, so the oldest and
wariest of us cannot go into a dealer’s yard without a sort of
half-conscious idea that there _must_ be a trump card somewhere in the
pack, and it _may_ be our luck to hold it as well as another’s.
But Sloper, like the rest of his trade, was not going to show his game
first. It seems to be a maxim with all salesmen to prove their customers
with inferior articles before they come to the real thing. Mr. Sawyer
had to walk through a four-stall stable, and inspect, preparatory to
declining, a mealy bay cob, a lame grey, a broken-winded chestnut, and
an enormous brown animal, very tall, very narrow, very ugly, with
extremely upright forelegs and shoulders to match. The latter his owner
affirmed to be “_an extraordinary shaped un_” as no doubt he was. A
little playful _badinage_ on the merits of this last enlivened the
visit.
“What will you take for the brown, Sloper, if I buy him at so much the
foot?” said the customer, as they emerged into the fresh air.
“Say ten pound a foot, sir!” answered Job, with the utmost gravity, “and
ten over, because _he always has a foot to spare_. Come now, Mr. Sawyer,
I can afford to let a good customer like you have that horse for
_fefty_. _Fefty_ guineas, or even _pounds_, sir, to _you_. I got him in
a bad debt, you see, sir;—it’s Bible truth I’m telling ye;—and he only
stood _me_ in forty-seven pounds ten, _and_ a sov. I gave the man as
brought him over. He’s not everybody’s horse, Mr. Sawyer, that isn’t;
but I think he’ll carry _you_ remarkably well.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever give him a chance,” was the rejoinder. “Come,
Job, we’re burning daylight; let’s go and have a look at the crack.”
One individual had been listening to the above conversation with
thrilling interest. This was no less a personage than Barney, Mr.
Sloper’s head groom, general factotum, and rough-rider in ordinary—an
official whose business it was to ride anything _at_ anything, for
anybody who asked him. He was a little old man, with one eye, a red
handkerchief, and the general appearance of a post-boy on half-pay; a
sober fellow, too, and as brave as King Richard; yet had he expressed
himself strongly about this said brown horse, the previous evening, to
the maid-of-all-work. “He’s the wussest we’ve had yet,” was his fiat.
“It’s nateral for ’em to fall; but when _he_ falls, he’s all over a chap
till he’s crumpled him.” So his heroic heart beat more freely when they
adjourned to the neighbouring box.
[Illustration: The Roan.]
Mr. Sloper threw the door open with an air. It must be confessed he
seldom had one that would bear, without preparation, a minute inspection
from the eye of a sportsman; but he knew _this_ was a sound one, and
made the most of it. Clothed and hooded, littered to the hocks, and
sheeted to the tail, there was yet something about his general
appearance that fascinated Mr. Sawyer at once. Job saw the spell was
working, and abstained from disturbing it. As far as could be seen, the
animal was a long, low, well-bred-looking roan, with short flat legs,
large clean hocks, and swelling muscular thighs. His supple skin threw
off a bloom, as if he was in first-rate condition; and when, laying his
ears back and biting the manger, he lifted a foreleg, as it were, to
expostulate with his visitors, the hoof was round, open, and
well-developed, as blue, and to all appearance as hard as a flint.
“Has he _fashion_ enough, think ye, sir?” asked Job, at length, breaking
the silence. “Strip him, Barney,” he added, taking the straw from his
mouth.
The roan winced, and stamped, and whisked his tail, and set his back up
during the process; but when it was concluded, Mr. Sawyer could not but
confess to himself, that if he was only as good as he _looked_, he would
_do_.
“Feel his legs, Mr. Sawyer!” observed the dealer, turning away to
conceal the triumph that _would_ ooze out. “There’s some legs—there’s
some hocks and thighs! Talk of loins, and look where his tail’s set on.
Carries his _own_ head, too; and _if_ you could see his manners! I never
saw such manners in the hunting-field. Six-year-old—not a speck or
blemish; bold as a bull, and gentle as a lady; he can go as fast as you
can clap your hands, and stay till the middle of the week after
next—jump a town, too, and never turn his head from the place you put
him at. As handy as a fiddle, as neat as a pink, and worth all the money
to carry in your eye when you go out to buy hunters. But what’s the use
of talking about it to a judge like you? Lay your leg over him—only just
lay your leg over him, Mr. Sawyer. I don’t want you to buy him! but get
on him and feel his action, just as a favour to _me_.”
Our friend had made up his mind he would do so from the first. There was
no mistaking the appearance of the animal; so good was it, that he had
but two misgivings—some rank unsoundness, to account for its being
there, or so high a price as to be beyond his means; for Mr. Sawyer was
too fond of the sport to give a sum that he could not replace for so
perishable an article as a hunter.
He was no mean equestrian, our friend, and quite at home on a strange
horse. As he drew the curb-rein gently through his fingers, the roan
dropped his long lean head, and champed the bit playfully, tossing a
speck of froth back on his rider’s boots.
“You’ve got a mouth, at any rate,” quoth Mr. Sawyer, and trotted him
gently down the hard road, the animal stepping freely and gaily under
him, full of life and spirits. The customer liked his mount, and
couldn’t help showing it. “May I lark him?” said he, pulling up after a
short canter to and fro on the turf by the wayside; during which Job
Sloper had been exercising his mental arithmetic in what we may term a
sum of problematical addition.
“Take him into the close, sir,” was the generous reply; “put him at
anything you like. If you can get him into one of these fences, I’ll
_give_ him to you!”
So Mr. Sawyer sat down to jump a low hedge and ditch, then stood up, and
caught hold of the roan’s head, and sent him a cracker through the
adjoining plough, and across a larger fence into a pasture, and back
again over a fair flight of rails and lost his flat shooting-hat, and
rucked his plaid trousers up to his knees; and Sloper marked his
kindling eye and glowing cheek, and knew that he had _landed_ him.
“Walk him about for ten minutes before you do him over,” said that
worthy to Barney, as Mr. Sawyer dismounted, and the latter brought him
his hat. “And now, sir,” added the hospitable dealer, “you can’t go away
without tasting my cheese—the same you liked last time, you know. Walk
in, sir; this way, and mind the step, if _you_ please.” So speaking, Mr.
Sloper ushered his guest into a neat little parlour with a strong odour
of preserved tobacco-smoke, where a clean cloth set off a nice luncheon
of bread and cheese, flanked by a foaming jug of strong ale and a
decanter of oily-brown sherry.
And herein the dealer showed his knowledge of human nature, and his
discrimination in the different characteristics of the species. Had his
guest been some generous scion of the aristocracy, with more money than
nerves, he would have _primed_ him first, and put him up to ride
afterwards. But he knew his man. He was well aware that Mr. Sawyer
required no stimulant to make him jump, but a strong one to induce him
to part with his money; so he proposed the luncheon after he was
satisfied that his customer was pleased with his mount.
Neither of them touched on business during the meal, the conversation
consisting chiefly of the runs that had lately taken place in the Old
Country, with many an inferred compliment to the good riding of the
possible purchaser.
Then Mr. Sawyer produced the Laranagas and offered one to Job, who bit
it, and wet it, and smoked it, as men do who are more used to clay
pipes, and then they went back to the stable to see the roan done up.
The gallop and the ale were working in Mr. Sawyer’s brain, but he didn’t
see his way into the roan at a hundred; so he obstinately held his
tongue. The dealer was obliged to break the ice.
“I’d take it very friendly of you, sir, if you’d give me your honest
opinion of that horse,” said he, waving the Laranaga towards the animal.
“I fancy he’s too good for our country; and I’ve a brother-in-law down
in Rutland as wants to have him very bad. He’s just the cut, so he says,
for these Melton gents; and he’s a good judge, is my brother-in-law, and
a pretty rider to boot. He’d give me my price, too; but then, you know,
sir, askin’ your pardon, it isn’t always ready money between relations;
and that cuts the other way again, as a man may say. What do _you_
think, Mr. Sawyer?”
“I’ll find out what he wants for him, at any rate,” thought the
customer. “What’s his figure?” was the abrupt rejoinder.
Mr. Sloper hesitated. “A hundred and—” _eighty_, he was going to say;
but seeing his customer’s eye resting on the roan’s back-ribs—a point in
which the horse was somewhat deficient—he dropped at once to seventy,
and regretted it the next moment when he caught the expression of the
listener’s face.
“It isn’t _even_ money,” answered Mr. Sawyer, without, however, making
the same sort of face he had done several times before, when he had
refused to give double the sum at which he had eventually purchased. “I
should say you might get a hundred and twenty for him down there, if
you’d luck. But it’s a great risk—a great risk—and a long distance; and
perhaps have him sent back to you in the spring. If I wanted a horse,
_I’d_ give you a hundred for him, though he isn’t exactly my sort. A
hundred!—I’ll tell you what, Sloper, I’ll be hanged if I won’t _chance_
it—I’ll _give_ you a hundred—_guineas_—come! Money down, and no
questions asked.”
“I can warrant him sound,” answered Mr. Sloper; “and I’d rather _you_
had him than anybody. But it’s childish talking of a hundred guineas and
that horse on the same afternoon. However, I thank you kindly all the
same, Mr. Sawyer. Barney! shut the box up. Come in, sir, and have _one_
glass of sherry before you start. The evenings get chill at this time of
year, and that’s old sherry, and won’t hurt you no more than milk. He
_is_ a nice horse, Mr. Sawyer, I think—a _very_ nice horse, and I’m glad
you’re pleased with him.”
So they returned into the little parlour, and stirred up the fire, and
finished the bottle of old sherry: nor is it necessary to remark that,
with the concluding glass of that generous fluid the roan became the
property of John Standish Sawyer, under the following somewhat
complicated agreement:—That he was to give an immediate cheque for a
hundred and forty pounds, and ten pounds more at the end of the season;
which latter donation was to be increased to twenty if he should sell
him for anything over two hundred—a contingency which the dealer was
pleased to observe amounted to what he called “a moral.”
The new owner went to look at him once more in the stable, and thought
him the nicest horse he ever saw in his life. The walk home, too, was
delightful, till the sherry had evaporated, when it became rather
tedious; and at dinner-time Mr. Sawyer was naturally less hungry than
thirsty. All the evening, however, he congratulated himself on having
done a good day’s work. All night, too, he dreamed of the roan; and on
waking resolved to call him “Hotspur.”
When the horse came home next day, he certainly looked rather smaller
than his new owner had fancied. Old Isaac too, growled out his untoward
opinion that he “looked a sort as would work very _light_.” But then
Isaac always grumbled—it was the old groom’s way of enjoying himself.
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