--"Here, methinks,
Truth wants no ornament."--ROGERS.
We have the happiness to know a gentleman of the name of Tom, who
officiates in the capacity of ostler. We have enjoyed a long acquaintance
with him--we mean an acquaintance a long way off--i.e. from the window of
our dormitory, which overlooks A--s--n's stables. We believe we are the
first of our family, for some years, who has not kept a horse; and we
derive a melancholy gratification in gazing for hours, from our lonely
height, at the zoological possessions of more favoured mortals.
"The horse is a noble animal," as a gentleman once wittily observed, when
he found himself, for the first time in his life, in a position to make
love; and we beg leave to repeat the remark--"the horse is a noble
animal," whether we consider him in his usefulness or in his beauty;
whether caparisoned in the _chamfrein_ and _demi-peake_ of the chivalry of
olden times, or scarcely fettered and surmounted by the snaffle and
hog-skin of the present; whether he excites our envy when bounding over
the sandy deserts of Arabia, or awakens our sympathies when drawing sand
from Hampstead and the parts adjacent; whether we see him as romance
pictures him, foaming in the lists, or bearing, "through flood and field,"
the brave, the beautiful, and the benighted; or, as we know him in
reality, the companion of our pleasures, the slave of our necessities, the
dislocator of our necks, or one of the performers at our funeral;
whether--but we are not drawing a "bill in Chancery."
With such impressions in favour of the horse, we have ever felt a deep
anxiety about those to whom his conduct and comfort are confided.
The breeder--we envy.
The breaker--we pity.
The owner--we esteem.
The groom--we respect.
AND
The ostler--we pay.
Do not suppose that we wish to cast a slur upon the latter personage, but
it is too much to require that he who keeps a caravansera should look upon
every wayfarer as a brother. It is thus with the ostler: _his_ feelings
are never allowed to twine
"Around one object, till he feels his heart
Of its sweet being form a deathless part."
No--to rub them down, give them a quartern and three pen'orth, and not too
much water, are all that he has to connect him with the offspring of
Childers, Eclipse, or Pot-8-o's; ergo, we pay him.
My friend Tom is a fine specimen of the genus. He is about fifteen hands
high, rising thirty, herring-bowelled, small head, large ears, close mane,
broad chest, and legs à la parentheses ( ). His dress is a long
brown-holland jacket, covering the protuberance known in Bavaria by the
name of _pudo_, and in England by that of _bustle_. His breeches are of
cord about an inch in width, and of such capacious dimensions, that a
truss of hay, or a quarter of oats, might be stowed away in them with
perfect convenience: not that we mean to insinuate they are ever thus
employed, for when we have seen them, they have been in a collapsed state,
hanging (like the skin of an elephant) in graceful festoons about the
mid-person of the wearer. These necessaries are confined at the knee by a
transverse row of pearl buttons crossing the _genu patella_. The _pars
pendula_ is about twelve inches wide, and supplies, during conversation or
rumination, a resting-place for the thumbs or little fingers. His legs are
encased either in white ribbed cotton stockings, or that peculiar kind of
gaiter 'yclept _kicksies_. His feet know only one pattern shoe, the
_ancle-jack_ (or _highlow_ as it is sometimes called), resplendent with
"Day and Martin," or the no less brilliant "Warren." Genius of propriety,
we have described his tail before that index of the mind, that idol of
phrenologists, his pimple!--we beg pardon, we mean his head. Round, and
rosy as a pippin, it stands alone in its native loveliness, on the heap of
clothes beneath.
Tom is not a low man; he has not a particle of costermongerism in his
composition, though his discourse savours of that peculiar slang that
might be considered rather objectionable in the _salons_ of the _élite_.
The bell which he has the honour to answer hangs at the gate of a west-end
livery-stables, and his consequence is proportionate. To none under the
degree of a groom does he condescend a nod of recognition--with a second
coachman he drinks porter--and purl (a compound of beer and blue ruin)
with the more respectable individual who occupies the hammer-cloth on
court-days. Tom estimates a man according to his horse, and his civility
is regulated according to his estimation. He pockets a gratuity with as
much ease as a state pensioner; but if some unhappy wight should, in the
plenitude of his ignorance, proffer a sixpence, Tom buttons his pockets
with a smile, and politely "begs to leave it till it becomes more."
With an old meerschaum and a pint of tolerable sherry, we seat ourselves
at our window, and hold many an imaginative conversation with our friend
Tom. Sometimes we are blest with more than ideality; but that is only when
he unbends and becomes jocular and noisy, or chooses a snug corner
opposite our window to enjoy his _otium_--confound that phrase!--we would
say his indolence and swagger--
"A pound to a hay-seed agin' the bay."
Hallo! that's Tom! Yes--there he comes laughing out of "Box 4," with three
others--all _first_ coachmen. One is making some very significant motions
to the potboy at the "Ram and Radish," and, lo! Ganymede appears with a
foaming tankard of ale. Tom has taken his seat on an inverted pail, and
the others are grouped easily, if not classically, around him.
One is resting his head between the prongs of a stable-fork; another is
spread out like the Colossus of Rhodes; whilst a gentleman in a blue
uniform has thrown himself into an attitude à la Cribb, with the facetious
intention of "letting daylight into the _wittling_ department" of the
pot-boy of the "Ram and Radish."
Tom has blown the froth from the tankard, and (as he elegantly designates
it) "bit his name in the pot." A second has "looked at the maker's name;"
and another has taken one of those positive draughts which evince a
settled conviction that it is a last chance.
Our friend has thrust his hands into the deepest depths of his
breeches-pocket, and cocking one eye at the afore-named blue uniform,
asks--
"_Will_ you back the bay?"
The inquiry has been made in such a do-if-you-dare tone, that to hesitate
would evince a cowardice unworthy of the first coachman to the first peer
in Belgrave-square, and a leg of mutton and trimmings are duly entered in
a greasy pocket-book, as dependent upon the result of the Derby.
"The son of Tros, fair Ganymede," is again called into requisition, and
the party are getting, as Tom says, "As happy as Harry Stockracy."
"I've often heerd that chap mentioned," remarks the blue uniform, "but I
never seed no one as know'd him."
"No more did I," replies Tom, "though he must be a fellow such as us, up
to everything."
All the coachmen cough, strike an attitude, and look wise.
"Now here comes a sort of chap I despises," remarks Tom, pointing to a
steady-looking man, without encumbrance, who had just entered the yard,
evidently a coachman to a pious family; "see him handle a _hoss_.
Smear--smear--like bees-waxing a table. Nothing varminty about
him--nothing of this sort of thing (spreading himself out to the gaze of
his admiring auditory), but I suppose he's useful with slow cattle, and
that's a consolation to us as can't abear them." And with this negative
compliment Tom has broken up his _conversazione_.
I once knew a country ostler--by name Peter Staggs--he was a lower species
of the same genus--a sort of compound of my friend Tom and a waggoner--the
_delf_ of the profession. He was a character in his way; he knew the exact
moment of every coach's transit on his line of road, and the birth,
parentage, and education of every cab, hack, and draught-horse in the
neighbourhood. He had heard of a mane-comb, but had never seen one; he
considered a shilling for a "feed" perfectly apocryphal, as he had never
received one. He kept a rough terrier-dog, that would kill anything in the
country, and exhibited three rows of putrified rats, nailed at the back of
the stable, as evidences of the prowess of his dog. He swore long country
oaths, for which he will be unaccountable, as not even an angel could
transcribe them. In short, he was a little "varminty," but very little.
We will conclude this "lytle historie" with the epitaph of poor Peter
Staggs, which we copied from a rail in Swaffham churchyard.
"EPITAPH ON PETER STAGGS.
Poor Peter Staggs now rests beneath this rail,
Who loved his joke, his pipe, and mug of ale;
For twenty years he did the duties well,
Of ostler, boots, and waiter at the 'Bell.'
But Death stepp'd in, and order'd Peter Staggs
To feed his worms, and leave the farmers' nags.
The church clock struck one--alas! 'twas Peter's knell,
Who sigh'd, 'I'm coming--that's the ostler's bell!'"
Peace to his manes!
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