THE SERPENTINE
Whether it was Mr. Dix. that started me reflecting, or my Lord Carlisle's
warning, or a few discreet words from young Lady Carlisle herself, I know
not. At all events, I made a resolution to stop high play, and confine
myself to whist and quinze and picquet. For I conceived a notion,
enlarged by Mr. Fox, that I had more than once fallen into the tender
clutches of the hounds. I was so reflecting the morning following Lord
Carlisle's dinner, when Banks announced a footman.
"Mr. Manners's man, sir," he added significantly, and handed me a little
note. I seized it, and, to hide my emotion, told him to give the man his
beer.
The writing was Dorothy's, and some time passed after I had torn off the
wrapper before I could compose myself to read it.
"So, Sir, the Moment I am too ill to watch you you must needs lapse into
Wilde & Flity Doings, for thus y'rs are call'd even in London. Never
Mind how y'r Extravigancies are come to my Ears Sir. One Matter I have
herd that I am Most Concerned about, & I pray you, my Dear Richard do not
allow y'r Recklessness & Contemt for Danger to betray you into a Stil
more Amazing Follie or I shall be very Miserable Indeed. I have Hopes
that the Report is at Best a Rumour & you must sit down & write me that
it is Sir that my Minde may be set at Rest. I fear for you Vastly & I
beg you not Riske y'r Life Foolishly & this for the Sake of one who
subscribes herself y'r Old Playmate & Well-Wisher Dolly.
"P.S. I have writ Sir Jon Fielding to put you in the Marshallsee or New
Gate until Mr. Carvel can be tolde. I am Better & hope soon to see you
agen & have been informed of y'r Dayly Visitts & y'r Flowers are beside
me. D. M."
In about an hour and a half, Mr. Marmaduke's footman was on his way back
to Arlington Street in a condition not to be lightly spoken of. During
that period I had committed an hundred silly acts, and incidentally
learned the letter by heart. I was much distressed to think that she had
heard of the affair of the horse, and more so to surmise that the gossip
which clung to it must also have reached her. But I fear I thought most
of her anxiety concerning me, which reflection caused my hand to shake
from very happiness. "Y'r Flowers are beside me," and, "I beg you not
Riske y'r Life Foolishly," and "I shall be very Miserable Indeed" But
then: "Y'r Old Plamate & Well Wisher"! Nay, she was inscrutable as ever.
And my reply,--what was that to be? How I composed it in the state of
mind I was in, I have no conception to this day. The chimney was clogged
with papers ere (in a spelling to vie with Dolly's) I had set down my
devotion, my undying devotion, to her interests. I asked forgiveness for
my cruelty on that memorable morning I had last seen her. But even to
allude to the bet with Chartersea was beyond my powers; and as for
renouncing it, though for her sake,--that was not to be thought of.
The high play I readily promised to avoid in the future, and I signed
myself,--well, it matters not after seventy years.
The same day, Tuesday, I received a letter from his Grace of Chartersea
saying that he looked to reach London that night, but very late. He
begged that Mr. Fox and Lord Comyn and I would sup with him at the Star
and Garter at eleven, to fix matters for the trial on the morrow. Mr.
Fox could not go, but Comyn and I went to the inn, having first
attended "The Tempest" at Drury Lane with Lady Di and Mr. Beauclerk.
We found his Grace awaiting us in a private room, with Captain Lewis,
of the 60th Foot, who had figured as a second in the duel with young
Atwater. The captain was a rake and a bully and a toadeater, of course,
with a loud and profane tongue, and he had had a bottle too many in the
duke's travelling-coach. There was likewise a Sir John Brooke, a country
neighbour of his Grace in Nottinghamshire. Sir John apparently had no
business in such company. He was a hearty, fox-hunting squire who had
seen little of London; a three-bottle man who told a foul story and went
asleep immediately afterwards. Much to my disappointment, Mr. Manners
had gone to Arlington Street direct. I had longed for a chance to speak
a little of my mind to him.
This meeting, which I shall not take the time to recount, was near to
ending in an open breach of negotiations. His Grace had lost money at
York, and more to Lewis on the way to London. He was in one of his
vicious humours. He insisted that Hyde Park should be the place of the
contest. In vain did Comyn and I plead for some less public spot on
account of the disagreeable advertisement the matter had received. His
Grace would be damned before he would yield; and Lewis, adding a more
forcible contingency, hinted that our side feared a public trial. Comyn
presently shut him up.
"Do you ride the horse after his Grace is thrown," says he, "and I agree
to get on after and he does not kill you. 'Sdeath! I am not of the
army," adds my Lord, cuttingly; "I am a seaman, and not supposed to know
a stirrup from a snaffle."
"'Od's blood!" yelled the captain, "you question my horsemanship, my
Lord? Do I understand your Lordship to question my courage?"
"After I am thrown!" cries his Grace, very ugly, and fingering the jewels
on his hilt.
Sir John was awakened by the noise, and turning heavily spilled the whole
of a pint of port on the duke's satin waist coat and breeches. Whereat
Chartersea in a rage flung the bottle at his head with a curse, which it
seems was a habit with his Grace. But the servants coming in, headed by
my old friend the chamberlain, they quieted down. And it was presently
agreed that the horse was to be at noon in the King's Old Road, or Rotten
Row (as it was then beginning to be called), in Hyde Park.
I shall carry to the grave the memory of the next day. I was up betimes,
and over to the White Horse Cellar to see Pollux groomed, where I found a
crowd about the opening into the stable court. "The young American!"
called some one, and to my astonishment and no small annoyance I was
greeted with a "Huzzay for you, sir!" "My groat's on your honour!"
This good-will was owing wholly to the duke's unpopularity with all
classes. Inside, sporting gentlemen in hunting-frocks of red and green,
and velvet visored caps, were shouldering favoured 'ostlers from the
different noblemen's stables; and there was a liberal sprinkling of the
characters who attended the cock mains in Drury Lane and at Newmarket.
At the moment of my arrival the head 'ostler was rubbing down the
stallion's flank.
"Here's ten pounds to ride him, Saunders!" called one of the
hunting-frocks.
"Umph!" sniffed the 'ostler; "ride 'im is it, yere honour? Two hunner
beast eno', an' a Portugal crown i' th' boot. Sooner take me chaunces o'
Tyburn on 'Ounslow 'Eath. An' Miller waurna able to sit 'im, 'tis no for
th' likes o' me to try. Th' bloody devil took th' shirt off Teddy's back
this morn. I adwises th' young Buckskin t' order 's coffin." Just then
he perceived me, and touched his cap, something abashed. "With
submission, sir, y'r honour'll take an old man's adwise an' not go near
'im."
Pollux's appearance, indeed, was not calculated to reassure me. He
looked ugly to exaggeration, his ears laid back and his nostrils as big
as crowns, and his teeth bared time and time. Now and anon an impatient
fling of his hoof would make the grooms start away from him. Since
coming to the inn he had been walked a couple of miles each day, with two
men with loaded whips to control him. I was being offered a deal of
counsel, when big Mr. Astley came in from Lambeth, and silenced them all.
"These grooms, Mr. Carvel," he said to me, as we took a bottle in private
inside, "these grooms are the very devil for superstition. And once a
horse gets a bad name with them, good-by to him. Miller knew how to
ride, of course, but like many another of them, was too damned
over-confident. I warned him more than once for getting young horses
into a fret, and I'm willing to lay a ten-pound note that he angered
Pollux. 'Od's life! He is a vicious beast. So was his father, Culloden,
before him. But here's luck to you, sir!" says Mr. Astley, tipping his
glass; "having seen you ride, egad! I have put all the money I can
afford in your favour."
Before I left him he had given me several valuable hints as to the manner
of managing that kind of a horse: not to auger him with the spurs unless
it became plain that he meant to kill me; to try persuasion first and
force afterwards; and secondly, he taught me a little trick of twisting
the bit which I have since found very useful.
Leaving the White Horse, I was followed into Piccadilly by the crowd,
until I was forced to take refuge in a hackney chaise. The noise of the
affair had got around town, and I was heartily sorry I had not taken the
other and better method of trying conclusions with the duke, and slapped
his face. I found Jack Comyn in Dover Street, and presently Mr. Fox came
for us with his chestnuts in his chaise, Fitzpatrick with him. At Hyde
Park Corner there was quite a jam of coaches, chaises, and cabriolets and
beribboned phaetons, which made way for us, but kept us busy bowing as we
passed among them. It seemed as if everybody of consequence that I had
met in London was gathered there. One face I missed, and rejoiced that
she was absent, for I had a degraded feeling like that of being the
favourite in a cudgel-bout. And the thought that her name was connected
with all this made my face twitch. I heard the people clapping and saw
them waving in the carriages as we passed, and some stood forward before
the rest in a haphazard way, without rhyme or reason. Mr. Walpole with
Lady Di Beauclerk, and Mr. Storer and Mr. Price and Colonel St. John, and
Lord and Lady Carlisle and Lady Ossory. These I recognized. Inside, the
railing along the row was lined with people. And there stood Pollux,
bridled, with a blanket thrown over his great back and chest, surrounded
still by the hunting-frocks, who had followed him from the White Horse.
Mixed in with these, swearing, conjecturing, and betting, were some to
surprise me, whose names were connected with every track in England: the
Duke of Grafton and my Lords Sandwich and March and Bolingbroke, and Sir
Charles Bunbury, and young Lords Derby and Foley, who, after establishing
separate names for folly on the tracks, went into partnership. My Lord
Baltimore descended listlessly from his cabriolet to join the group.
They all sang out when they caught sight of our party, and greeted me
with a zeal to carry me off my feet. And my Lord Sandwich, having done
me the honour to lay something very handsome upon me, had his chief
jockey on hand to give me some final advice. I believe I was the coolest
of any of them. And at that time of all others the fact came up to me
with irresistible humour that I, a young colonial Whig, who had grown up
to detest these people, should be rubbing noses with them.
The duke put in an appearance five minutes before the hour, upon a bay
gelding, and attended by Lewis and Sir John Brooke, both mounted. As a
most particular evidence of the detestation in which Chartersea was held,
he could find nothing in common with such notorious rakes as March and
Sandwich. And it fell to me to champion these. After some discussion
between Fox and Captain Lewis, March was chosen umpire. His Lordship
took his post in the middle of the Row, drew forth an enamelled repeater
from his waistcoat, and mouthed out the conditions of the match,--the
terms, as he said, being private.
"Are you ready, Mr. Carvel?" he asked.
"I am, my Lord," I answered. The bells were pealing noon.
"Then mount, sir," said he.
The voices of the people dropped to a hum that brought to mind the long
forgotten sound of the bees swarming in the garden by the Chesapeake. My
breath began to come quickly. Through the sunny haze I saw the cows and
deer grazing by the Serpentine, and out of the back of my eye
handkerchiefs floated from the carriages banked at the gate. They took
the blanket off the stallion. Stall-fed, and excited by the crowd, he
looked brutal indeed. The faithful Banks, in a new suit of the Carvel
livery, held the stirrup, and whispered a husky "God keep you, sir!"
Suddenly I was up. The murmur was hushed, and the Park became still as a
peaceful farm in Devonshire. The grooms let go of the stallion's head.
He stood trembling like the throes of death. I gripped my knees as
Captain Daniel had taught me, years ago, when some invisible force
impelled me to look aside. From between the broad and hunching shoulders
of Chartersea I met such a venomous stare as a cattle-fish might use to
freeze his prey. Cattle--fish! The word kept running over my tongue. I
thought of the snaky arms that had already caught Mr. Marmaduke, and were
soon, perhaps, to entangle Dorothy. She had begged me not to ride, and
I was risking a life which might save hers.
The wind rushing in my ears and beating against my face awoke me all at
once. The trees ran madly past, and the water at my right was a silver
blur. The beast beneath me snorted as he rose and fell. Fainter and
fainter dropped the clamour behind me, which had risen as I started, and
the leaps grew longer and longer. Then my head was cleared like a
steamed window-pane in a cold blast. I saw the road curve in front of
me, I put all my strength into the curb, and heeling at a fearful angle
was swept into the busy Kensington Road. For the first time I knew what
it was to fear a horse. The stallion's neck was stretched, his shoes
rang on the cobbles, and my eyes were fixed on a narrow space between
carriages coming together. In a flash I understood why the duke had
insisted upon Hyde Park, and that nerved me some. I saw the frightened
coachmen pulling their horses this way and that, I heard the cries of the
foot-passengers, and then I was through, I know not how. Once more I
summoned all my power, recalled the twist Astley had spoken of, and tried
it. I bent his neck for an inch of rein. Next I got another inch, and
then came a taste--the smallest taste--of mastery like elixir. The
motion changed with it, became rougher, and the hoof-beats a fraction
less frequent. He steered like a ship with sail reduced. In and out we
dodged among the wagons, and I was beginning to think I had him, when
suddenly, without a move of warning, he came down rigid with his feet
planted together, and only a miracle and my tight grip restrained me from
shooting over his head. There he stood shaking and snorting, nor any
persuasion would move him. I resorted at last to the spurs.
He was up in the air in an instant, and came down across the road. Again
I dug in to the rowels, and clung the tighter, and this time he landed
with his head to London. A little knot of people had collected to watch
me, and out stepped a strapping fellow in the King's scarlet, from the
Guard's Horse near by.
"Hold him, sir!" he said, tipping. "Better dismount, sir. He means
murder, y'r honour."
"Keep clear, curse you!" I cried, waving him off. "What time is it?"
He stepped back, no doubt thinking me mad. Some one spoke up and said it
was five minutes past noon. I had the grace to thank him, I believe. To
my astonishment I had been gone but four minutes; they had seemed twenty.
Looking about me, I found I was in the open space before old Kensington
Church, over against the archway there. Once more I dug in the spurs,
this time with success. Almost at a jump the beast took me into the
angle of posts to the east of the churchyard gate and tore up the
footpath of Church Lane, terrified men and women ahead of me taking to
the kennel. He ran irregularly, now on the side of the posts, now
against the bricks, and then I gave myself up.
Heaven put a last expedient into my head, that I had once heard Mr.
Dulany speak of. I braced myself for a pull that should have broken the
stallion's jaw and released his mouth altogether. Incredible as it may
seem, he jarred into a trot, and presently came down to a walk, tossing
his head like fury, and sweating at every pore. I leaned over and patted
him, speaking him fair, and (marvel of marvels!) when we had got to the
dogs that guard the entrance of Camden House I had coaxed him around and
into the street, and cantered back at easy speed to the church. Without
pausing to speak to the bunch that stood at the throat of the lane, I
started toward London, thankfulness and relief swelling within me. I
understood the beast, and spoke to him when he danced aside at a wagon
with bells or a rattling load of coals, and checked him with a word and a
light hand.
Before I gained the Life Guard's House I met a dozen horsemen, amongst
them Banks on a mount of Mr. Fox's. They shouted when they saw me,
Colonel St. John calling out that he had won another hundred that I was
not dead. Sir John Brooke puffed and swore he did not begrudge his
losses to see me safe, despite Captain Lewis's sourness. Storey vowed
he would give a dinner in my honour, and, riding up beside me, whispered
that he was damned sorry the horse was now broken, and his Grace's chance
of being killed taken away. And thus escorted, I came in by the King's
New Road to avoid the people running in the Row, and so down to Hyde Park
Corner, and in among the chaises and the phaetons, where there was enough
cheering and waving of hats and handkerchiefs to please the most exacting
of successful generals. I rode up to my Lord March, and finding there
was a minute yet to run I went up the Row a distance and back again
amidst more huzzaing, Pollux prancing and quivering, and frothing his
bit, but never once attempting to break.
When I had got down, they pressed around me until I could scarce breathe,
crying congratulations, Comyn embracing me openly. Mr. Fox vowed he had
never seen so fine a sight, and said many impolitic things which the duke
must have overheard . . . . Lady Carlisle sent me a red rose for my
buttonhole by his Lordship. Mr. Warner, the lively parson with my Lord
March, desired to press my hand, declaring that he had won a dozen of
port upon me, which he had set his best cassock against. My Lord
Sandwich offered me snuff, and invited me to Hichinbroke. Indeed, I
should never be through were I to continue. But I must not forget my old
acquaintance Mr. Walpole, who protested that he must get permission to
present me to Princess Amelia: that her Royal Highness would not rest
content now, until she had seen me. I did not then know her Highness's
sporting propensity.
Then my Lord March called upon the duke, who stood in the midst of an
army of his toadeaters. I almost pitied him then, tho' I could not
account for the feeling. I think it was because a nobleman with so great
a title should be so cordially hated and despised. There were high words
along the railing among the duke's supporters, Captain Lewis, in his
anger, going above an inference that the stallion had been broken
privately. Chartersea came forward with an indifferent swagger, as if to
say as much: and, in truth, no one looked for more sport, and some were
even turning away. He had scarce put foot to the stirrup, when the
surprise came. Two minutes were up before he was got in the saddle,
Pollux rearing and plunging and dancing in a circle, the grooms shouting
and dodging, and his Grace cursing in a voice to wake the dead and Mr.
Fox laughing, and making small wagers that he would never be mounted.
But at last the duke was up and gripped, his face bloody red, giving vent
to his fury with the spurs.
Then something happened, and so quickly that it cannot be writ fast
enough. Pollux bolted like a shot out of a sling, vaulted the railing as
easily as you or I would hop over a stick, and galloping across the lawn
and down the embankment flung his Grace into the Serpentine. Precisely,
as Mr. Fox afterwards remarked, as the swine with the evil spirits ran
down the slope into the sea.
An indescribable bedlam of confusion followed, lords and gentlemen,
tradesmen and grooms, hostlers and apprentices, all tumbling after, many
crying with laughter. My Lord Sandwich's jockey pulled his Grace from
the water in a most pitiable state of rage and humiliation. His side
curls gone, the powder and pomatum washed from his hair, bedraggled and
muddy and sputtering oaths, he made his way to Lord March, swearing by
all divine that a trick was put on him, that he would ride the stallion
to Land's End. His Lordship, pulling his face straight, gravely informed
the duke that the match was over. With this his Grace fell flatly
sullen, was pushed into a coach by Sir John and the captain, and drove
rapidly off Kensington way, to avoid the people at the corner.