“Why didn’t you hold in your horse, Alice, and ride at a proper
lady-like pace, instead of tearing along in that extraordinary manner?”
inquired Mr. Hazlehurst, coming up very red in the face, hot, and
discomposed; both himself and the cob being entirely out of that useful
article, breath.
“I could not contrive to make him go slower, papa,” replied poor Alice,
timidly; “even now you see he is very fidgetty, and keeps continually
pulling.” This was perfectly true; for the horse, excited by its gallop,
began to demonstrate its real character, and refusing to walk, sidled
along, tossing its head impatiently, pricking up its ears at every
sound, and looking as if it were prepared to shy upon the very slightest
provocation.
“Pulling!--yes, of course it does,” rejoined Mr. Hazlehurst, angrily;
“you can’t expect to hold a fine, high-couraged animal like that with
the snaffle only--tighten the curb-rein directly. Take care what you are
doing!--steady! horse, steady!--touch him with the whip on the shoulder.
Bless me! she’ll be thrown!”
While Mr. Hazlehurst was speaking they had, in turning a corner, come
suddenly upon a wheelbarrow, in which were deposited two jackets and a
hat, belonging to some men who were mending the road. The moment Alice’s
horse caught sight of this object it stopped short, and as, in obedience
to her father’s directions, the frightened girl jerked the curb-rein,
and struck the animal with her whip, it reared, and at the same time
plunged round so suddenly as to unseat its rider. Fortunately, Coverdale
had kept as near to her as possible, and by a quick motion of the
bridle-hand and touch with the spur, he caused his horse to turn at the
same moment as did that on which Alice was mounted; he was thus enabled
to pass his arm round her waist and prevent her from falling.
“Is your foot clear of the stirrup?” he inquired, hastily. Perceiving
that it was so, he continued, “Let go the rein, then, and trust yourself
entirely to me.” As he spoke, the groom came up, and catching the bridle
of the plunging horse, led it away; while Mr. Hazlehurst, descending
from his saddle with a greater degree of celerity than might have been
expected from a man of his age and stoutness, received his daughter
in his arms, and lifted her to the ground;--for which feat of agility,
Harry, who was by no means impatient to be relieved of his lovely
burthen, mentally anathematised him. Then ensued a great confusion of
tongues; Mr. Hazlehurst, being himself chiefly to blame, evinced his
penitence by accusing everybody else, especially the groom--an old
favourite retainer, who held and expressed a strong ungrammatical
and illogical opinion, diametrically opposed to his master’s, on all
subjects, divine, moral, and physical. At length, in utter despair of
attaining any practical result, Harry, muttering to himself his surprise
that people would not adopt his system, and strike out for themselves a
quiet way of doing things, coolly took the matter into his own hands,
by shifting Alice’s saddle to the back of the cob; when he had completed
this arrangement, and assisted the young lady to mount, he politely
held Sir Lancelot’s stirrup for the accommodation of Mr. Hazlehurst,
observing--
“He will carry you just as quietly and easily as your own horse, sir;
he is a hand or two higher, certainly; but if you _should_ take a sudden
fancy to leap the next stiff fence you come to, he’ll carry you over it
like a bird; so you must set the good against the evil.”
“You’re very kind, sir. Ugh! what a height the brute is!”--(these
words accompanied the effort of literally _climbing_ to the
saddle)--“But--but--I’ve dropped my pocket-handkerchief--thank-you. What
are you going to ride yourself?”
“I am going, if you have no objection, to find out why Mr. Crane’s
purchase dislikes to pass that wheelbarrow, and to convince him that
there exists a strong necessity for his so doing,” returned Harry, with
his head under the flap of a saddle--he being engaged in securing with
his own hands the girt around Alice’s discarded steed, despite sundry
futile attempts at kicking and biting instituted by that unamiable
quadruped.
“Oh, Mr. Coverdale--please--pray do not attempt it!” exclaimed Alice,
eagerly; “I’m sure the creature is vicious! you will be thrown and hurt,
to a certainty!” Harry, thus apostrophised, emerged from beneath the
saddle-flap, and tossing back his dishevelled hair, and replacing his
hat, which for the greater convenience of strenuous buckling he had
taken off, crossed over to Alice’s side.
“You are holding the reins twisted Miss Hazlehurst,” he said; “let me
arrange them for you.” As he restored the reins properly placed to
her grasp, somehow their fingers became interlaced, and Harry appeared
unable to disentangle his for some seconds; during which space of time,
Alice, blushing and turning away her head, murmured imploringly--
“You _will_ not ride that creature!”
“Your father will never be convinced that the brute is unsafe for you
unless he sees it in its true colours; besides, I dare say I shall have
no trouble in getting it past the barrow--there is a quiet way of
doing these things,” was the confident reply. Alice still sought to
remonstrate, but in vain; for pressing her delicate fingers as though he
were loath to relinquish them, Coverdale turned away with a gay smile,
and placing his toe in the stirrup, vaulted lightly to his saddle.
Having waited till Mr. Hazlehurst and his daughter had ridden on a short
distance, Harry put his horse in motion, and prepared to follow them;
but the moment it caught sight of the alarming wheelbarrow, it again
stopped short, and attempted to repeat its former manœuvre. Willing to
try mild measures first, Coverdale, although he prevented the animal
from dashing round as it had done when it unseated Alice, allowed it
to turn, and riding it back a few paces, gave it time to compose its
excited feelings, ere he again brought it up to the object of its fear.
As it approached the spot he kept it tightly in hand, and, when it began
to waver, stimulated its flagging resolution by the most delicate hint
imaginable from his “armed heel.” The instant it felt the spur, it
swerved aside, dashed round, and as soon as its head was turned in a
homeward direction, evinced an unmistakable desire to bolt. Harry’s brow
grew dark. “Lend me your whip,” he said, approaching the servant, who
sat grinning with the satisfaction usually displayed by professional
horsemen on witnessing the discomfiture of an amateur rider--more
especially if the amateur happen to be a gentleman.
“You be too good-natured with him, Mr. Coverdale; you should give it
him hot and strong, sir. But law! that hanimal ain’t fit for ladies and
gentlemen; he wants a reglar sharp rough-rider on his back, that’ll take
the nonsense out of him, he do.”
“Your whip is too light; get down and cut me a good, tough ash stick out
of the hedge there. I will hold your horse,” was the only reply Harry
vouchsafed.
The man glanced at his face in surprise, and seeing that he was in
earnest, hastened to execute his wishes, returning in two or three
minutes with a couple of plants of ground-ash, about the thickness of
a finger. Having carefully examined these, Harry selected the one he
considered the most serviceable.
The groom watched him narrowly. “So you really means business, eh, sir?”
he said.
“I do,” was the concise reply, as, with compressed lips and flashing
eyes, Harry turned and rode off.
Probably, from some instinctive consciousness that he was not to be
allowed his own way without more serious opposition than he had yet
encountered, the horse, as he drew near the dreaded spot, displayed
stronger signs of fear and ill-temper than before, staring from side to
side, with his ears in constant motion, arching his neck, and tossing
the foam-flakes from his mouth, as he impatiently champed the bit. The
moment he caught sight of the wheelbarrow, he swerved aside with a bound
which would have unseated any but a firstrate horseman, and attempted
his usual manœuvre of turning round. In this he was foiled by an
unpleasantly sharp stroke on the side of the nose from the ash sapling,
which, obliging him to turn in an opposite direction, brought him again
in sight of the wheelbarrow, while a stronger application of the spurs
caused him to bound forward; thereupon he reared, but a crack over the
ears brought him down again; then he set to kicking, for which he was
rewarded by finding his mouth violently sawed by the snaffle-bit, while
a perfect tornado of blows from the ash stick was hailed upon his flanks
and shoulders. Finding this the reverse of agreeable, he, as a last
resource, reared till he stood perfectly erect, pawing the air wildly
with his forefeet. But he had overshot the mark.
At the conclusion of the previous struggle, the ash stick had broken off
short in Coverdale’s hand; consequently, he was prevented from applying
the counter-irritation principle as before, and was only able, by
great quickness, to extricate his feet from the stirrups, ere the horse
overbalanced itself, and fell heavily backwards. Fortunately for his
own safety, Harry was unusually prompt and active in all situations of
danger; and, in the present emergency, these qualities stood him in good
stead. Although, of course, unable entirely to free himself from the
falling animal, he contrived to slip aside, so that it should not fall
upon him; and almost as soon as the frightened creature had regained
its legs, he also had sprung up, apparently unhurt, and leaped upon its
back. But the fight was won. Completely cowed by its fall, and wearied
out by the pertinacity of its rider, the conquered animal permitted
Coverdale to ride it backwards and forwards past the dreaded
wheelbarrow, approaching nearer at each turn, until at length he made
it pause, with its nose within half-a-yard of the alarming jackets, and
discover for itself that they were made of fustian, of the most innocent
quality, and flavoured with the usual cottage smell of bacon and wood
smoke.
Elated with his success, he rejoined Alice and her father, saying, as
he did so, “Well, Miss Hazlehurst, I told you there was a quiet way of
taming the dragon, and you see I was right.”
Alice, who was very pale and trembling, murmured something about her
“rejoicing that he was not hurt.” But Mr. Hazlehurst, who appeared
unusually cross and grumpy, replied, “If that’s what you call a _quiet
way_ of enforcing obedience, Mr. Coverdale, all I can say is, I pity any
poor creature that happens to be under your control!”