V.

--Pad, pad, pad! Like a thing that was mad,

My chestnut broke away.

_Thornbury_.

Esmeralda was puzzled when she returned from her first riding

party. In the morning, looking very pretty in her borrowed riding

habit, her English hat with the hunting guard made necessary by

the Back Bay breezes, her brown gauntlets, and the one scarlet

carnation in her button-hole, she drove to the riding-school,

where she had agreed to meet Theodore and her other friends, not

like Mrs. Gilpin, lest all should say that she was proud, but

because her master had promised to lend her one of the school

horses, to put her ion the saddle and to adjust her stirrup, and

because she secretly felt that she would better give herself

every possible advantage in what, as it came nearer, assumed the

aspect of a trial rather than a pleasure.

Beholding Ronald, the promised horse, severely correct in his

road saddle, and looking immensely tall as he stood on the stable

floor, she inly applauded her own wisdom, strongly doubting that

Theodore's unpractised arm would have tossed her into her place

as lightly as the master's, and she was secretly overjoyed when

the master himself mounted and joined the party with her, making

its number nine; Esmeralda herself, the graduate of three

lessons; Theodore, all his life accustomed to ride anything

calling itself a horse, but making no pretenses to mastery of the

equestrian science; the lawyer, understood, on his own authority,

to be well informed in everything; the society young lady,

erect, precise, self-satisfied; the Texan, riding with apparent

laziness, his hands rather high and seldom quiet, but not to

be shaken from his seat; the beauty, languid and secretly

discontented because her horse was "intended for a brunette, and

a ridiculous mount for a blonde"; Versatilia, who had "taken

up riding a little," and the cavalryman, calm, quiet, and

fraternally regarded by the master, as he reviewed the little

flock from the back of a horse which had been offered to him as

the paragon of its species, and for which and its kind, as he

announced after riding a square or two, he "was not paying a cent

a carload."

"It is a lovely horse," said the beauty. "It is such a beautiful

color. But men never care for color."

"Good color is a good thing, undoubtedly," said the master, "but

a beautiful horse is a good horse, not necessarily an animal

which would look well in a painted landscape, because its color

would harmonize with the hue of the trees."

"She is a beautiful girl, isn't she," said Esmeralda, looking

admiringly at the beauty, who, having just remembered Tennyson's

line about swaying the rein with flying finger tips, was

executing some movements which made her horse raise his ears to

listen for the cause of such conduct, and then shake his head in

mild disapproval.

"What do I care for a pretty girl?" demanded the master. "Pretty

rider is what I want to see, and 'pretty rider' is 'good rider.'

Wait until that girl trots three minutes or so, and see whether

or not she is pretty."

The party went through the streets at a rapid walk, now and then

meeting a horse-car, now and then a stray wagon, but invariably

allowed to take its own way, with very little regard for the rule

of the road. The American who drives, whatever may be his social

station, admires the courage of the woman who rides, but he is

firmly convinced that she does not understand horses, and gives

her all the space available wherein to disport herself.

"Are we all right in placing the ladies on the left?" asked

Theodore, turning to the master.

"Of course," cried the lawyer. "We follow the English rule, and

the left was the place of safety for the lady in the days when

English equestrianism was born. Travelers took the left of the

road, and this placed the cavalier between his lady and any

possible danger."

"And in the United States they take the right, and she is between

him and any possible danger," said the master. "It is the custom,

but it seems illogical and foolish. True, it removes any danger

that the lady may be crushed between her own horse and her

escort's, but who protects her from any passing car or carriage,

and in case of a runaway what can her escort, his left hand

occupied with his own reins, do to aid her with hers, or to

disentangle her foot from the stirrup or her habit from the

pommels in case she is thrown? Can he snatch her from the saddle,

after the matter of one of Joaquin Miller's young men? The truth

is that since the rule of the road is 'keep to the right,' the

rule of the saddle should be 'sit on the right,' but with a lady

on his bridle hand the horseman could not be at his best as an

escort, even then.

"It is one of the many little absurdities in American customs; the

old story of the survival of the two buttons at the back of the

coat, and, by the way, Miss Esmeralda, the two buttons on the

back of your habit are out of place, not because of your tailor's

fault, but because of yours. They should make a line at right

angles with your horse's spinal column. Draw yourself back a

little, until you can feel the pommel under your right knee.

'Draw' yourself back; don't lean, but keep yourself perfectly

erect, your back perpendicular to your horse's. Sit a little to

the left; lean a little to the right. Let your left shoulder go

forward a little, your right shoulder backward. Now you are

exactly right. Try to remember your sensations at this minute, in

order to be able to reproduce them. When I say 'Careful,' pass

yourself in review and endeavor to feel where you are wrong.

But," addressing the cavalryman, who was in advance with

Versatilia, "is this procession a funeral?"

"Not exactly," said the cavalryman, and the, after a backward

glance, he cried, in the fashion of a military riding-school

master: "Pr-r-re-pare to tr-r-r-ot--Trot!"

Esmeralda remembered to shorten her reins, and resigned herself

to the Fates, who were propitious, enabling her to catch the

cadence of the trot, and to rise to it during the few seconds

before the cavalryman slackened rein. "Careful," said the master,

and she shook herself into place, eliciting a hearty "Good!" from

him. "Look at your pretty girl," he growled softly, but savagely,

and truly the beauty solicited attention. Slipping to the left in

her saddle, one elbow pointing toward Cambridgeport and the other

toward Dorchester, her right foot visible through her habit, and

her left all but out of the stirrup, she was attractive no

longer, and to complete the master's disgust she ejaculated: "My

hair is coming down!"

"Better bring a nurse and a ladies' maid for her," he muttered to

Esmeralda, confidentially. "Hairpins in your saddle pocket? Well,

you are a sensible girl," and he rode forward with the little

packet, giving it to the lawyer to pass to the unfortunate young

woman. But here arose a little difficulty. The space between the

lawyer's horse and the beauty's as they stood was too wide to

allow him to lay the parcel in her outstretched fingers. The

Texan, on her right hand, had enough to do to keep her horse and

his own absolutely motionless that she might not be thrown by any

unexpected motion of either animal. Versatilia exclaimed in

remonstrance, "Don't leave me," when the cavalryman said, "Wait a

second, I'll come and give them to her;" the master sat quiet and

smiling.

"Why don't you dismount and give them to her?" cried Theodore,

and was out of his saddle, had placed the parcel in her hand, and

was back in his place again before either of the other three men

could speak.

"Very well done," said the master, approvingly, "but not the

right thing to do. Never leave your saddle without good cause,

and never leave your horse loose for a moment. Yes, I saw that

you retained your hold of the reins; I was talking at Miss

Esmeralda."

"Why didn't you make your horse step sideways?" he asked the

lawyer.

"I can't. He won't. See there!"

Sundry pulls, precisely like those which he might have used had

he intended the horse to turn, a pair of absolutely motionless

legs, and an unused whip were accepted as evidence that the

lawyer's "I can't" was perfectly true, and the master and the

cavalryman exchanged comprehending glances as the latter said:

"Well, don't mind. An eminent authority announced after the

Boston horse show of 1889 that high-school airs were of no use on

the road. To make a horse move a step sideways is the veriest

little zephyr of an air, but it would have been of some use to

you, then. Are we ready now? What's that? Dropped your whip?"

Up went the Texan's left heel, catching cleverly on the saddle as

he dropped lightly to the right, after the fashion of the Arab,

the Moor, the Apache, of all the nations which ride for speed and

for fighting rather than for leaping and hunting, and he caught

the whip from the ground and was back in his place in a

twinkling. The ladies were unmoved, because inappreciative; the

lawyer looked savagely envious, the cavalryman and the master

approving, and Theodore, frankly admiring, but no one said

anything, the little cavalcade rearranged itself, and once more

moved on at a footpace until an electric car appeared.

"Ronald is like a rock," said the master, "and you need not be

afraid, but I'll take this beast along in advance. He will shy,

or do some outrageous thing, and he has a mouth as sensitive as

the Mississippi's, and no more."

The "beast" did indeed sidle and fret and prance, and manifest a

disposition to hasten to drown himself in the reservoir, beyond

the reach of self-propelling vehicles, and he repeated the

performance a the sight of two other cars, although evidently

less alarmed than at first, but the fourth car was in charge of a

kindly-disposed driver, who came to a dead stop, out of pure

amiability.

This was too much for the "beast" to endure; a moving house he

was beginning to regard as tolerable, but a house which stopped

short and glared at him with all its windows was more than horse

nature could endure, and he started for the next county to

institute an inquiry as to whether such actions were to be

allowed, but found himself forced to stop, and not altogether

comfortable, while the master cried good-naturedly: "Go along and

take care of your car. I'll take care of my horse!"

"More than some other folks can do," said the driver, with a

quiet grin at the lawyer, whose angry, "Here, what are you

doing!" shouted to his plunging steed, had brought all the women

in the car to the front, to explain to one another that "that man

was abusing his horse, poor thing."

The car glided off, and Versatilia turned to look at it; her

horse stumbled slightly, jerking her wrists sharply, and but for

the cavalryman's quick shifting of the reins to his right hand

and his strong grasp of her reins with his left, she might have

been in danger.

"Never look back," lectured the master. Esmeralda was his pupil,

and he would have taken the whole centennial quadrille and all

the cabinet ladies to point his moral, had he seen them making

equestrian blunders. "Where your horse has been, where, he is, is

the past. Look to the future, straight before you."

"The cavalryman looked back just now," Esmeralda ventured to say.

"Yes, but he turned his horse very slightly to do it, and he may

do almost anything because he has a perfect seat, and is a good

horseman."

"Suppose I hear something or somebody coming up behind me?"

"If it have any intelligence, it will not hurt you. If it have

none, looking will do you no good. Turn out to the right as far

as you can and look to the front harder than ever, so as to be

ready to guide your horse and to avoid any obstacles in case he

should start to run. What is the trouble with the ladies now?"

"O, dear!" cried the beauty to the society young lady, "your

horse."

"What's the matter with him?" asked the other, still very stately

and not turning.

"Oh! The dreadful creature has caught his tail on my horse's

bit," said the beauty.

"Then you'd better take your horse's bit away," retorted the

other. "My horse's eyes are not at that end of him, and he can't

be expected to look at his tail."

"And you may be kicked," added the Texan. "Check him a little;

there! We ought not to be so close together, and we ought to be

moving a little, I think. Shall we trot again?"

Everybody assented, the cavalryman and Versatilia set off, the

others followed as best they might, the beauty "going to pieces"

in a minute or two, according to the master, the society young

lady stiffening visibly, losing the cadence of the trot very

soon, but making no outcry as she was tossed about uncomfortably,

and not bending her head to look at her reins, as Versatilia did.

"There's the advantage of training in other things," said the

master. "She's a good dancer and a good amateur actress, and she

is controlling herself as she would on a ballroom floor, and

remembering the spectators as she would on the stage. She's no

rider, but is perfectly selfish and self-possessed, and she will

cheat her escort into thinking that she is one. Glad she's no

pupil of mine, however! She always heads the conversation, one of

her friends told me the other day. That is to say, she is always

acting. I can't teach such a person anything; nobody can. She can

teach herself, as she can think of herself and love herself, but

she can't go outside of herself--and the lawyer will find it

out after he has married her."

Esmeralda and Theodore stared in astonishment.

"Walk," said the master, noticing that his pupil looked too warm

for comfort, and the three allowed the others to go on without

them. "Careful," he added, and Esmeralda, adjusting herself

studiously, asked: "Is it really easier to ride on the road than

it is in the school? It seems so."

"It is a little, especially if the corners of the ring are so

near together that the horse goes in a circle, for then the rider

has to lean to the right, while on the road she may sit straight.

Give me the right kind of horse for my pupil to ride, and I would

as leif give lessons on the road as anywhere, but it is not well

for the pupil, whose attention is distracted by a thousand

things, and who learns less in a year than she would in a month

in school. There is no finish about the riding of a woman so

taught. She may be pretty, as you said of one of your friends,

she may be self-possessed, like the other, but she will betray

her ignorance every moment. You were surprised just now at what I

said of the society young lady. A woman can't cheat an old

riding-master, after he has seen her in the saddle. He knows her

and her little ways by heart. Shall we start up? Ah!"

Ronald, the "steady as a rock," was off and away at a canter;

Theodore was starting to gallop in pursuit, but was sharply

ordered back by the master, who went on himself at a rather slow

canter, ready to break into a gallop if his pupil were thrown,

but keeping out of Ronald's hearing, lest he should be further

startled by finding himself followed. There was a clear stretch

of road before her, and Esmeralda sat down as firmly as possible,

brought her left knee up against the pommel, clung firmly with

her right knee, held her hands low and her thumbs as firm as

possible, and thought very hard.

"Very soon," she said to herself, "I shall be thrown and dragged,

and hat a figure I shall be going home, if I', not killed! But I

sha'n't be! I shall be ridiculous, and that's worse." Here she

swept by the riding party, but as Versatilia and the beauty

turned to look at her, and forgot to control their horses, the

cavalryman and the Texan had to do it for them, and could do

nothing for Esmeralda except to shout "Whoa," which Ronald very

properly disregarded. The master came up, and the society young

lady addressed him with, "Very silly of her to try to exhibit

herself so, isn't it?"

"That's no exhibition; that's a runaway," said the master grimly.

"She's doing well too, poor girl," and he and Theodore went on

after the flying rider. Two or three carriages, the riders

staring with horror; a pedestrian or two, innocently wondering

why a lady should be on the road alone; a small boy whistling

shrilly; these were all the spectators of Esmeralda's flight. She

felt desolate and deserted, and yet sure that it was best that

she should be alone, since the master could overtake her if he

would, and she wondered if she should be very seriously injured

when thrown at last, but all the time she was talking to Ronald

in a voice carefully kept at a low pitch, and her hands were held

with a steadiness utterly new to them, and the good horse went on

regularly, but faster and faster.

"That isn't a real runaway," said the master to himself. "Ah, I

see! Her whip is down and strikes him at every stride, and so she

unconsciously urges him forward. If there were a side road here,

I'd gallop around and meet her, or if there were fields on either

side, I'd leap the fence and make a circuit and cut her off, but

through this place, with banks like a railway cutting on each

side, there is nothing to do."

Swifter and swifter! Esmeralda began to feel weaker, thought of

Theodore, and of some other things of which she never told even

him, said a little prayer, but all the time remembered her

master's injunctions, and kept her place firmly, waiting for the

final, and, as she believed, inevitable crash, when lo! She saw

that just in front of her lay a long piece of half-mended road,

full of ugly little stones, and she turned Ronald on it, with a

triumphant, "See how you like that, sir," and then sawed his

mouth. In half a minute he was walking. In another the master was

beside her with words of approval. Theodore galloped up, pale and

anxious, and between the two she had quite as much praise as was

good for her, and, being told of the position of the whip, found

her confidence in Ronald restored.

"But you should never start up hastily," said the master. "Take

time for everything, and check your horse the instant he goes

faster than you mean to have him. You are a good girl, and you

shall not be scolded, or snubbed, either," he muttered, and the

party came up, the cavalryman and the Texan loud in praise, the

other four clamorous with questions and advice.

"You look quite disheveled," said the society young lady

agreeably.

"Ladies often do after they have been on the road a little while.

Excuse me, but one of your skirt buttons is unfastened," said the

master, and, not knowing how to pass her reins into her right

hand so as to use her left to repair the accident, the society

young lady was effectually silenced, while the master, holding

Esmeralda's horse, made her wipe her face, arrange the curly

locks flying about her ears, readjust her hat, and generally

smooth her plumage, until she was once more comfortable.

After a little, the master proposed a trot up the hill, and

instructed Esmeralda to lean forward as her horse climbed upward,

"If you should have to trot down hill, lean back a little, and

keep your reins short," he said.

The lawyer and the society young lady, essaying to descend the

next hill brilliantly, barely escaped going over their horses'

heads, and all four ladies were glad when they perceived that

they were going homeward.

"I like it," Esmeralda said to the master, "but I wish I knew

more, and I'm going to learn, and I see now that three lessons

isn't enough, even for a beginning."

"I knew a girl who took seventeen lessons and then was thrown,"

said the society young lady. "Native ability is better than

teaching. I don't believe any master could make a rider of you,

Esmeralda."

"A good teacher can make a rider out of anyone who will study,"

said the master, to whom she looked for approval. "As for

seventeen lessons, they are better than seven, of course, but

they are not much, after all. How many dancing lessons, music

lessons, elocution lessons have you taken? More than seventeen? I

thought so. Here's a railroad bridge, but no train coming. Had

one been approaching, and had there been no chance to cross it

before it came, I should have made you turn Ronald the other way,

Miss Esmeralda, so that if he ran he would run out of what he

thinks is danger, and not into it. And now for an easy little

trot home."

An easy little trot it was, and Esmeralda, left at her own door,

where a groom waited to take her horse to the stable, was happy,

but puzzled. "Theodore," she cried, as soon as he appeared in the

evening, "did you ask the master to go with us? He treated me

just as he does in school."

"Yes, I did," said Theodore boldly. "I was afraid to take charge

of you alone. That was a 'road lesson.'"

"You--you--exasperating thing!" cried Esmeralda. "But then,

you were sensible."

"That's tautology," said Theodore.