RIDING TO SELL
IF Mr. Sawyer had kept a hunting journal (which he didn’t) he would have
noted down the meet at Barkby, as one of those gorgeous spectacles,
which makes an ineffaceable impression on the eye of the unpractised
beholder. There appeared to be more hounds, more horses, more servants,
more carriages, and altogether a larger staff and retinue attached to
the establishment, than he had ever hitherto seen paraded for the
purpose of killing a fox. Nevertheless, with all this show, there was no
mistake about the workmanlike tendency of the turn-out. If the pack was
numerous, it was also exceedingly level and in faultless condition; the
huntsman and whips looked as if they must have been born and bred for
the especial offices they respectively filled, and the second-horse men,
notwithstanding their number, appeared to be all cut from the same
pattern. As for the hunters, Mr. Sawyer would have wished no better luck
than to ride the worst of them at a hundred and fifty guineas. One
magnificent bay with a side-saddle, destined, no doubt, to carry a
beautiful and precious burden, quite put him out of conceit with Hotspur
and the grey. As for Marathon! why he would never have got on him, in
such company, had not the pleasing reflection crossed his mind, that
perhaps to-day he should get rid of the brute altogether.
He had ridden The Dandy very leisurely to covert, in consideration of
the animal’s services before dawn, and had sent on the grey with an
occasional helper from the inn, under the superintendence of The Boy,
who was perched on Marathon: old Isaac, who wanted to buy some hay
cheap, having given himself leave of absence for the day. The helper,
with many injunctions to go steadily, was entrusted with the
homeward-bound hack; and The Boy shifted to the second horse, whilst Mr.
Sawyer himself bestrode the redoubtable bay. All these arrangements,
with the accompanying pulling up of curb-chains and letting down of
stirrup-leathers, took some little time. Before our friend was fairly
mounted and under way, the hounds had gone on to draw, and he found
himself nearly the last of the lengthening cavalcade. Under existing
circumstances this was no great disadvantage, and the quieter he kept
the bay, he thought, the better was his chance of selling him; yet he
could not help wishing old Isaac had left the whole business alone. He
might then have been forward with the hounds, looking out for a start on
whichever horse he liked best, uninfluenced—as a man always should be,
really to enjoy fox-hunting—by the sordid considerations of _£._ _s._
_d._
Marathon was very fresh, and set his back up, squeaking in a most
undignified manner, and swishing his heavy tail, till it reached his
rider’s hat.
A horse galloping up from behind set him plunging with a violence that
was scarcely pleasant, even to so practised a rider as our friend. He
returned the greeting of the new comer—no less a personage than the
Honourable Crasher, late as usual, and cantering to the front on
Boadicea by Bellerophon out of Blue Light—with a preoccupied air of a
man who expects every moment to be on his back.
The Honourable, slightly amused, pulled up alongside. “Halloa, Sawyer,”
said he, “you’ll be hard to beat to-day: the steeple-chaser seems
uncommon full of running.”
“It’s only his play,” answered Mr. Sawyer, modestly; indulging Marathon,
who was preparing for another kick, with a vicious jerk of the curb. “I
can’t get my old groom to give him work enough, and he’s sent me a
second horse out to-day.”
This was meant to imply that the kicker was too valuable an animal for a
mere hunter, and the Honourable interpreted it accordingly. As he rode
alongside, he scanned the bay’s points with the critical eye of a
purchaser. A horse never looks so well as when he is trotting beside you
on a strip of grass, excited by the presence of hounds. If backed by a
good horseman, the veriest brute, under these circumstances, makes the
most of his own appearance. Marathon going within himself, playing
lightly with his bit, and bringing his hind legs under his girths at
every step, was a very different horse from the same Marathon extended
and labouring, in a sticky ploughed field. I have already said he
possessed many qualities sufficiently taking to the eye. As the
Honourable examined him from his muzzle to his hocks, he could not but
acknowledge that the horse looked uncommonly like a galloper. “If he can
only jump,” thought Crasher, “and get pretty quick over his fences, he
ought to be a _rattler_. I suppose I shall have to buy him.”
Meanwhile Mr. Sawyer, who, as he remarked of himself, “was not such a
fool as he looked,” but on the contrary resembled those “still waters”
which the German proverb says “run so deep,” conversed affably with his
friend on a number of topics totally unconnected with horseflesh, or the
pleasures of the hunting-field. For once in his life, he did not want to
get a start, that’s the truth; and as his companion was one of those
indolent, easy-going people whose fancy can be led astray without
difficulty in any given direction, they were soon deep in a variety of
subjects, originating no doubt with Mr. Sawyer, but to which, I am bound
to say, he had never devoted much of his time or attention. They touched
upon the last misadventure brought under the notice of Sir Cresswell
Cresswell—discussed the agricultural prospects of the season, and on
this theme it would be difficult to say which was most incapable of
giving an opinion—argued on the importance of a movement for taking the
duty off cigars, and lastly got involved in the interminable question of
what use the Volunteers would be, in the event of an invasion, and
whether or not they would be killed to a man, when their conversation
was cut short by an obvious bustle and confusion about a mile ahead of
them, denoting that a fox had not only been found, but gone away.
“Done to a turn!” exclaimed the Honourable, interrupting his own
explanation of how he should handle skirmishers if he was a general
officer, which, by the way, it was fortunate for the skirmishers he was
_not_. “What a bore! We sha’n’t catch them in a week!” he added, turning
Boadicea’s head at the fence, and starting her at score through a deep
ploughed field. In a few strides he had forgotten skirmishers, and
Marathon, and Mr. Sawyer, and everything in the world except that he had
lost his start.
The latter, watching the line “fine by degrees and beautifully less” on
the horizon, rather congratulated himself, that his chance was
completely out, and that there was now no temptation for him either to
exert his own energies, or draw upon the failing powers of Marathon in
the pursuit of that which he felt could scarcely be called _pleasure_.
He jogged along the lane accordingly, content enough, thinking what fun
he would have on the grey, in the afternoon, with a second fox!
But a few of us can have hunted much without remarking a peculiarity
connected with the chase, that occasions constant irritation and
annoyance to its votaries. Have you never observed, that if you lose
your chance of getting away with hounds, whether from procrastination,
inattention, or the laudable objection entertained by a rational man to
ride at a large fence, do what you will, you only succeed in increasing
the distance between yourself and the object you wish to reach? In vain
you “nick,” and “skirt,” and ride to points that you think likely to be
affected by a fox running for his life; in vain you “harden your heart,”
and sail away boldly over the line of gaps already established by your
predecessors; you are only tiring your horse, and risking your neck in a
wild-goose chase. You diverge to a distant halloo, and find it raised by
a boy scaring crows. You succeed by extraordinary exertions in reaching
the group of scarlet coats and bobbing hats you have been following so
long, and learn that they have been “thrown out” like yourself, and the
further you go, the further you are left behind; till you hate yourself,
as much as your horse hates you for not having judiciously joined the
band of second-horse riders, and so jogged contentedly along in ease and
safety, sure to come up with the first flight at last.
On the other hand, we will suppose that you have tired your best hunter
early in the day, or he had fallen lame on that weak point where
everybody said he _would_ be lame when you bought him, or you have a
hundred and fifty other reasons for wishing to sneak quietly home, out
of the observation of your friends. Those plaguy hounds seem to follow
you as if you were the Wild Huntsman himself, and you begin to
appreciate the severity of the punishment inflicted on that wicked
German Baron. They draw coverts that lie on your homeward way. They
find, and hunt with provoking persistency alongside the very lane up
which you would fain jog in solitude, crossing it more than once under
your nose. There is sure to be a fair holding scent, not good enough to
enable them to run clear out of your neighbourhood and have done with
it, yet sufficient to afford plenty of enjoyment to such as are with
them; these have, nevertheless, leisure to observe your movements, and
to wonder why you are not amongst them. They are all your own particular
friends, and you know you will be called upon, next hunting morning, to
answer the difficult question—“What became of _you_, after we left you
in the road at So-and-so?” Diana seems to delight in the rule of
contrary. Like the rest of her sex, she takes you up and persecutes you,
when you don’t want her; and when you are most ardent and zealous in her
pursuit, she rebuffs you and puts you down.
Nothing could be further from Mr. Sawyer’s wishes than to find himself,
on the present occasion, in a conspicuous position with the Quorn
hounds. Had he wanted to be singled out in front of all that talent and
beauty, Marathon was certainly the last animal he would have chosen on
which to make an appearance in such choice company; nevertheless, the
force of circumstances is beyond the control even of men like Mr.
Sawyer, and however averse he might be to “achieve greatness,” he found,
most unwillingly, “greatness thrust upon him.” For awhile he had lost
sight of everybody, and was in the act of pulling out his cigar-case to
enjoy one of his Laranagas in solitude and repose, proposing to hang on
the line, keeping a little down wind, and as soon as he should spy the
second-horses, mount the grey, and send Marathon straight home. Crasher,
he thought, would buy the horse without asking any more questions.
Scarcely, however, had he got his weed fairly _under weigh_, than the
music of a pack of hounds broke suddenly on his ear from behind a high
impervious bullfinch that sheltered one side of the grass-lane along
which he was proceeding so leisurely. “Confound the brutes!” said Sawyer
to himself, “here they are again!” As he opened the gate through which
the track led into a sixty-acre pasture, the whole pack swept under his
horse’s nose, running with sufficient energy to denote what sportsmen
call a holding scent; they carried a capital head, and were forcing
their fox at a pace which kept him going, but was not good enough to
come up with him.
It was just the sort of gallop that enables people who ride to hounds to
look about them, and enjoy not only the sport, but the accompanying
humours of the scene.
In these days, a _real_ quick thing is such an affair of hurry, that the
lucky few who are in it cannot spare a moment’s attention from anything
but their horses’ ears.
Had he been riding a donkey, it was not in Mr. Sawyer’s nature to
abstain from turning the animal’s head towards the hounds under such
temptation; moreover, he distinguished amongst the first flight his
Harborough companions, including the pale face of the Honourable
Crasher, who by “bucketing” Boadicea most unmercifully, had got there
somehow, and appeared quite satisfied with his situation. What could our
friend do, but cut in, and go to work at once?
Marathon, excited by the turmoil, was fain to set his back up once more.
He found, however, that the kicking was now all the other way. Taking
him in a grasp that would have lifted a ton, Mr. Sawyer drove his spurs
into the half-bred brute, and set him going close to the hounds at the
best pace he could command. For a short distance, and when held well
together, Marathon could stride away in a very imposing form. The
sensation of having a lead is, in itself, provocative of emulation;
behind our friend were four or five intimate companions, who were not
likely to let him hear the last of any instance of “shirking” that
should come under their notice. Close on their track were the flower of
Leicestershire; and these again were succeeded, so to speak, by a whole
army of camp-followers, “maddening in the rear.” Had the Styx been in
front of him, he must have charged it “in or over.”
Instead of the waters of Acheron, however, there was nothing more
formidable in his line than a straggling, overgrown bullfinch at the far
end of the field; just such a fence, indeed, as Marathon was in the
habit of declining, but yet which he hoped the turmoil behind, the
general excitement, and the persuasive powers of his own spurs, would
enable him to induce his horse to face. He had plenty of time to scan it
as he approached. Half-a-mile or so of ridge-and-furrow, even at a
hunter’s best pace, gives leisure for consideration. Ere the hounds had
strung through it in single file, he was aware of a wide ditch _to_ him;
on the farther side was obviously a grass-field, _and_ an uncertainty!
Marking with his eye the weakest place, through which, nevertheless, he
could not see daylight, Mr. Sawyer, crammed his hat on his head, and set
his horse resolutely at the fence; Marathon, according to custom, when
he expected anything out of the common, _shutting up_ every stride he
went. Had it not been rather downhill, even his master’s consummate
horsemanship would have failed to bring him close to it. The fall of the
ground, however, and the pace he was going, forbade the bay to stop.
_Crash!_ he plunged into the very middle of the fence—broke through it
from sheer velocity, to jerk both knees against a strong oak rail
beyond—blundered on to his nose over _that_—slid half-a-dozen yards on
his head—nearly recovered himself—stumbled once more, and finally got up
again, with his curb-rein turned over his ears; the rider’s feet out of
both stirrups, hat off, a contusion on his left eyebrow, and the horse’s
nostrils fall of mud, but _no fall_!
“By the powers, that’s a _rum one_!” said Mr. Sawyer, as he cantered
slowly up the opposite slope, repairing damages the while, and turned
round to see the first flight charge the obstacle, which had so nearly
disposed of his own chance.
[Illustration: “Four loose horses galloping wildly away.”]
Lusty as eagles, ravenous as wolves, jealous as girls, down came the
four _gluttons_ at the fence, each man having chosen his own place, and
scorning to deviate one hair’s breadth from his line. None, however, had
made so judicious a selection as Mr. Sawyer. The rail, which had so
nearly discomfited the latter, would neither bend nor break, but he had
the luck of getting it where it was lowest and nearest to the fence;
everywhere else it was not only high, but stood out a horse’s length
into the field, just the place which must catch the cleverest hunter in
the world, if ridden to do it all in its stride.
The scene that met Mr. Sawyer’s eyes was amusing, though alarming. Four
_imperial crowners_ at one and the same instant—four loose horses
galloping wildly away—four red-coats rising simultaneously from Mother
Earth—eight top-booted legs shuffling in ludicrous haste after the
departing steeds. Had our friend been Briareus himself, he could not
have caught _all_ their horses. He was a man, however, who seldom lost
an opportunity, and was not likely to miss such a chance as the present.
Selecting Boadicea, he galloped after her, and succeeded in pinning her
against a pound: notwithstanding that the mare lashed out at him more
than once, he brought her back in triumph to her panting owner.
Meanwhile, the four dismounted sportsmen condoled breathlessly with each
other, as they laboured up the grassy slope.
“I’m but a poor hand at _this_ game,” observed Struggles, who did not
fancy carrying his own weight across country.
“I wish I’d gone faster at it,” said Savage, who had been grinding his
teeth and hardening his heart the whole way up the field.
“My chestnut mare would have jumped it!” exclaimed Major Brush, inwardly
registering a vow to abstain from “oxers” for the future; whilst the
Honourable, though he held his tongue, was thinking what a capital horse
that was of Sawyer’s, and dismally reflecting that if Boadicea hadn’t
kicked at him when he was down, he never would have been such a tailor
as to let her go.
“Catch hold!” said Mr. Sawyer, throwing the mare’s reins to her owner,
whose gratitude he thereby earned for the rest of his life. “There’s no
hurry,” he added, as the Honourable, in a coat plastered with mud and a
hat stove in, dived wildly at his stirrup; “they’ve over-run it a mile
back, and checked in the next field.”
The latter part of the sentence was true enough. His quick eye had shown
him the pack at fault, as he secured Boadicea in the corner where the
pound stood; the former was a bit of what theatrical people call “gag.”
It was as much as to say, “Whilst you fellows are hustling and spurting,
and tumbling about, I am so well mounted that I can observe matters as
coolly as if I was hunting in a balloon.”
It was not without its effect on his listener. As they rode through the
hand-gate together into the enclosure where the hounds were at fault,
the Honourable Crasher no longer scanned Marathon with the eye of a
purchaser. He looked on the horse now as his own property. He was
determined to have him.
By some mysterious law of nature, whenever one individual succeeds
either in what is termed _pounding_ a field, or in getting such a start
of them that nobody shall have a chance of catching him whilst the pace
holds—and this, be it observed, is no everyday occurrence in countries
where the best riders in England congregate for the express purpose of
riding as well as they can—it invariably happens that the immediate
failure of scent, or some such untoward contingency, robs the lucky one
of his anticipated triumph. On the present occasion, much to Mr.
Sawyer’s delight, they never hit off their fox again. By degrees, the
tail of the field straggled up, having found their way by every
available gate and gap; then came the second-horses, carefully ridden,
cool, and comparatively clean, not having turned a hair; lastly, arrived
a man in a gig, by a convenient bridle-road, hotter than any one
present, wiping his face on a coloured handkerchief, which he afterwards
put in the crown of his hat.
Whilst sandwiches were being munched, and silver horns drained of their
contents, ginger-cordial, orange-brandy, V.O.P.,[1] and other enticing
fluids, Mr. Sawyer was giving The Boy stringent orders about taking
Marathon home. He could not feel thoroughly comfortable till that
impostor was fairly out of sight, and he should find himself established
on the unassuming little grey.
Footnote 1:
Very Old Pale—a tempting label attached to certain black bottles
containing the best French brandy; an excellent liquor, doubtless, and
wholesome, _provided_ you don’t drink too much of it. Opinions vary,
however, as to what is _too much_. The modest quencher of 9 P.M.
growing to a superfluous stimulant at the same hour the following
morning.
When he had made up his mind, the Honourable Crasher was a man of few
words. Refreshed by a mouthful of sherry, not unacceptable after a
rattling fall, and comfortably perched on the back of Confidence, a
delightful animal that a child could ride, and perhaps the best and
safest hunter in his stable, he ranged alongside of our friend, and
plunged at once _in medias res_.
“So you want to sell the bay horse you have just sent home?” said he,
with none of the hesitation and beating about the bush to which Mr.
Sawyer had hitherto been accustomed in his horse-dealing operations. “If
you do, and will name the price you ask for him, I should like to buy
him.”
The owner could not resist the impulse of enhancing the value of his
horse, by affecting unwillingness to sell him and, in so doing, nearly
lost the chance of disposing of him, altogether.
“I don’t think I ought to part with him,” said he reflectively; “it
strikes me he’s about the best in my stable.”
Crasher fell back apparently satisfied. It was evident he did not attach
so much importance to the act of “exchange or barter” as did our friend.
Mr. Sawyer picked himself up without loss of time. “I shouldn’t like to
sell him to _everybody_,” said he affectionately, “but if you fancy him
very much, I wouldn’t mind letting you have him,” he added, after a
pause, and in the tone of a man who makes a painful sacrifice in the
cause of friendship.
“I’ll give you two hundred and fifty for him,” drawled out the
Honourable, with apparently about as much interest as he would have felt
in paying three-and-sixpence for a pair of gloves.
“Guineas!” stipulated Mr. Sawyer; “Guineas,” was the answer; and in this
simple manner the deal was concluded.
My readers will agree with Isaac and his master, in thinking that
Marathon was not the only one of the party who was pretty well sold. The
old groom laughed in his sleeve a week afterwards, when he heard that on
giving him “a spin” with Chance, just to keep his pipes clear, the mare
went away from him as if he was standing still.
Mr. Tiptop couldn’t make it out at all.
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