OF one thing I am certain, that the reader must be much delighted with
the wholesome smell of the stable, with which many of these pages are
redolent; what a contrast to the sickly odours exhaled from those of some
of my contemporaries, especially of those who pretend to be of the highly
fashionable class, and who treat of reception-rooms, well may they be
styled so, in which dukes, duchesses, earls, countesses, archbishops,
bishops, mayors, mayoresses—not forgetting the writers themselves, both
male and female—congregate and press upon one another; how cheering, how
refreshing, after having been nearly knocked down with such an
atmosphere, to come in contact with genuine stable hartshorn. Oh! the
reader shall have yet more of the stable, and of that old ostler, for
which he or she will doubtless exclaim, “Much obliged!”—and, lest I
should forget to perform my promise, the reader shall have it now.
I shall never forget an harangue from the mouth of the old man, which I
listened to one warm evening as he and I sat on the threshold of the
stable, after having attended to some of the wants of a batch of
coach-horses. It related to the manner in which a gentleman should take
care of his horse and self, whilst engaged in a journey on horseback, and
was addressed to myself, on the supposition of my one day coming to an
estate, and of course becoming a gentleman.
“When you are a gentleman,” said he, “should you ever wish to take a
journey on a horse of your own, and you could not have a much better than
the one you have here eating its fill in the box yonder—I wonder,
by-the-bye, how you ever came by it—you can’t do better than follow the
advice I am about to give you, both with respect to your animal and
yourself. Before you start, merely give your horse a couple of handfuls
of corn and a little water, somewhat under a quart, and if you drink a
pint of water yourself out of the pail, you will feel all the better
during the whole day; then you may walk and trot your animal for about
ten miles, till you come to some nice inn, where you may get down and see
your horse led into a nice stall, telling the ostler not to feed him till
you come. If the ostler happens to be a dog-fancier, and has an English
terrier dog like that of mine there, say what a nice dog it is, and
praise its black and tawn; and if he does not happen to be a dog-fancier,
ask him how he’s getting on, and whether he ever knew worse times; that
kind of thing will please the ostler, and he will let you do just what
you please with your own horse, and when your back is turned, he’ll say
to his comrades what a nice gentleman you are, and how he thinks he has
seen you before; then go and sit down to breakfast, and, before you have
finished breakfast, get up and go and give your horse a feed of corn;
chat with the ostler two or three minutes, till your horse has taken the
shine out of his corn, which will prevent the ostler taking any of it
away when your back is turned, for such things are sometimes done—not
that I ever did such a thing myself when I was at the inn at Hounslow.
Oh, dear me, no! Then go and finish your breakfast, and when you have
finished your breakfast and called for the newspaper, go and water your
horse, letting him have one pailful, then give him another feed of corn,
and enter into discourse with the ostler about bull-baiting, the prime
minister, and the like; and when your horse has once more taken the shine
out of his corn, go back to your room and your newspaper, and I hope for
your sake it may be the _Globe_, for that’s the best paper going, then
pull the bell-rope and order in your bill, which you will pay without
counting it up, supposing you to be a gentleman. Give the waiter
sixpence, and order out your horse, and when your horse is out, pay for
the corn, and give the ostler a shilling, then mount your horse and walk
him gently for five miles; and whilst you are walking him in this manner,
it may be as well to tell you to take care that you do not let him down
and smash his knees, more especially if the road be a particularly good
one, for it is not at a desperate hiverman pace, and over very bad roads,
that a horse tumbles and smashes his knees, but on your particularly nice
road, when the horse is going gently and lazily, and is half asleep, like
the gemman on his back; well, at the end of the five miles, when the
horse has digested his food, and is all right, you may begin to push your
horse on, trotting him a mile at a heat, and then walking him a quarter
of a one, that his wind may be not distressed; and you may go on in that
way for thirty miles, never galloping, of course, for none but fools or
hivermen ever gallop horses on roads; and at the end of that distance you
may stop at some other nice inn to dinner. I say, when your horse is led
into the stable, after that same thirty miles’ trotting and walking,
don’t let the saddle be whisked off at once, for if you do your horse
will have such a sore back as will frighten you, but let your saddle
remain on your horse’s back, with the girths loosened, till after his
next feed of corn, and be sure that he has no corn, much less water, till
after a long hour and more; after he is fed he may be watered to the tune
of half a pail, and then the ostler can give him a regular rub down; you
may then sit down to dinner, and when you have dined get up and see to
your horse as you did after breakfast, in fact, you must do much after
the same fashion you did at t’other inn; see to your horse, and by no
means disoblige the ostler. So when you have seen to your horse a second
time, you will sit down to your bottle of wine—supposing you to be a
gentleman—and after you have finished it, and your argument about the
corn-laws, with any commercial gentleman who happens to be in the room,
you may mount your horse again, not forgetting to do the proper thing to
the waiter and ostler; you may mount your horse again and ride him, as
you did before, for about five and twenty miles, at the end of which you
may put up for the night after a very fair day’s journey, for no
gentleman, supposing he weighs sixteen stone, as I suppose you will by
the time you become a gentleman, ought to ride a horse more than
sixty-five miles in one day, provided he has any regard for his horse’s
back, or his own either. See to your horse at night, and have him well
rubbed down. The next day you may ride your horse forty miles, just as
you please, but never foolishly, and those forty miles will bring you to
your journey’s end, unless your journey be a plaguy long one, and if so,
never ride your horse more than five and thirty miles a day, always,
however, seeing him well fed, and taking more care of him than yourself;
which is but right and reasonable, seeing as how the horse is the best
animal of the two.”
“When you are a gentleman,” said he, after a pause, “the first thing you
must think about is to provide yourself with a good horse for your own
particular riding; you will perhaps keep a coach and pair, but they will
be less your own than your lady’s, should you have one, and your young
gentry, should you have any; or, if you have neither, for madam, your
housekeeper, and the upper female servants; so you need trouble your head
less about them, though, of course, you would not like to pay away your
money for screws; but be sure you get a good horse for your own riding;
and that you may have a good chance of having a good one, buy one that’s
young and has plenty of belly—a little more than the one has which you
now have, though you are not yet a gentleman; you will, of course, look
to his head, his withers, legs and other points, but never buy a horse at
any price that has not plenty of belly; no horse that has not belly is
ever a good feeder, and a horse that a’n’t a good feeder, can’t be a good
horse; never buy a horse that is drawn up in the belly behind; a horse of
that description can’t feed, and can never carry sixteen stone.
“So when you have got such a horse be proud of it—as I daresay you are of
the one you have now—and wherever you go swear there a’n’t another to
match it in the country, and if anybody gives you the lie, take him by
the nose and tweak it off, just as you would do if anybody were to speak
ill of your lady, or, for want of her, of your housekeeper. Take care of
your horse, as you would of the apple of your eye—I am sure I would if I
were a gentleman, which I don’t ever expect to be, and hardly wish,
seeing as how I am sixty-nine, and am rather too old to ride—yes, cherish
and take care of your horse as perhaps the best friend you have in the
world; for, after all, who will carry you through thick and thin as your
horse will? not your gentlemen friends, I warrant, nor your housekeeper,
nor your upper servants, male or female; perhaps your lady would, that
is, if she is a whopper, and one of the right sort; the others would be
more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in
trouble, than to help you. So take care of your horse, and feed him
every day with your own hands; give him three-quarters of a peck of corn
each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one
hundredweight of hay in the course of a week; some say that the hay
should be hardland hay, because it is wholesomest, but I say, let it be
clover hay, because the horse likes it best; give him through summer and
winter, once a week, a pailful of bran mash, cold in summer and in winter
hot; ride him gently about the neighbourhood every day, by which means
you will give exercise to yourself and horse, and, moreover, have the
satisfaction of exhibiting yourself and your horse to advantage, and
hearing, perhaps, the men say what a fine horse, and the ladies saying
what a fine man: never let your groom mount your horse, as it is ten to
one, if you do, your groom will be wishing to show off before company,
and will fling your horse down. I was groom to a gemman before I went to
the inn at Hounslow, and flung him a horse down worth ninety guineas, by
endeavouring to show off before some ladies that I met on the road. Turn
your horse out to grass throughout May and the first part of June, for
then the grass is sweetest, and the flies don’t sting so bad as they do
later in summer; afterwards merely turn him out occasionally in the swale
of the morn and the evening; after September the grass is good for
little, lash and sour at best; every horse should go out to grass, if not
his blood becomes full of greasy humours, and his wind is apt to become
affected, but he ought to be kept as much as possible from the heat and
flies, always got up at night, and never turned out late in the
year—Lord! if I had always such a nice attentive person to listen to me
as you are, I could go on talking about ’orses to the end of time.”