CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SERPENTINE
Whether it was Mr. Dix. that started me reflecting, or my LordCarlisle's warning, or a few discreet words from young Lady Carlisleherself, I know not. At all events, I made a resolution to stophigh play, and confine myself to whist and quinze and picquet. ForI conceived a notion, enlarged by Mr. Fox, that I had more than oncefallen into the tender clutches of the hounds. I was so reflectingthe morning following Lord Carlisle's dinner, when Banks announced afootman.
"Mr. Manners's man, sir," he added significantly, and handed me a littlenote. I seized it, and, to hide my emotion, told him to give the man hisbeer.
The writing was Dorothy's, and some time passed after I had torn off thewrapper before I could compose myself to read it.
"So, Sir, the Moment I am too ill to watch you you must needs lapse intoWilde & Flity Doings, for thus y'rs are call'd even in London. NeverMind how y'r Extravigancies are come to my Ears Sir. One Matter I haveherd that I am Most Concerned about, & I pray you, my Dear Richard donot allow y'r Recklessness & Contemt for Danger to betray you into aStil more Amazing Follie or I shall be very Miserable Indeed. I haveHopes that the Report is at Best a Rumour & you must sit down & write methat 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 whosubscribes herself y'r Old Playmate & Well-Wisher Dolly.
"P.S. I have writ Sir Jon Fielding to put you in the Marshallsee or NewGate until Mr. Carvel can be tolde. I am Better & hope soon to see youagen & have been informed of y'r Dayly Visitts & y'r Flowers are besideme. D. M."
In about an hour and a half, Mr. Marmaduke's footman was on his way backto Arlington Street in a condition not to be lightly spoken of. Duringthat period I had committed an hundred silly acts, and incidentallylearned the letter by heart. I was much distressed to think that she hadheard of the affair of the horse, and more so to surmise that the gossipwhich clung to it must also have reached her. But I fear I thought mostof her anxiety concerning me, which reflection caused my hand to shakefrom very happiness. "Y'r Flowers are beside me," and, "I beg you notRiske y'r Life Foolishly," and "I shall be very Miserable Indeed" Butthen: "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 ofmind I was in, I have no conception to this day. The chimney was cloggedwith papers ere (in a spelling to vie with Dolly's) I had set down mydevotion, my undying devotion, to her interests. I asked forgiveness formy cruelty on that memorable morning I had last seen her. But evento allude to the bet with Chartersea was beyond my powers; and as forrenouncing 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 signedmyself,--well, it matters not after seventy years.
The same day, Tuesday, I received a letter from his Grace of Charterseasaying that he looked to reach London that night, but very late. Hebegged that Mr. Fox and Lord Comyn and I would sup with him at the Starand 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 youngAtwater. 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 theduke's travelling-coach. There was likewise a Sir John Brooke, a countryneighbour of his Grace in Nottinghamshire. Sir John apparently had nobusiness in such company. He was a hearty, fox-hunting squire who hadseen little of London; a three-bottle man who told a foul story and wentasleep immediately afterwards. Much to my disappointment, Mr. Mannershad gone to Arlington Street direct. I had longed for a chance to speaka little of my mind to him.
This meeting, which I shall not take the time to recount, was near toending in an open breach of negotiations. His Grace had lost moneyat York, and more to Lewis on the way to London. He was in one of hisvicious humours. He insisted that Hyde Park should be the place of thecontest. In vain did Comyn and I plead for some less public spot onaccount of the disagreeable advertisement the matter had received. HisGrace would be damned before he would yield; and Lewis, adding a moreforcible contingency, hinted that our side feared a public trial. Comynpresently shut him up.
"Do you ride the horse after his Grace is thrown," says he, "and Iagree to get on after and he does not kill you. 'Sdeath! I am not of thearmy," adds my Lord, cuttingly; "I am a seaman, and not supposed to knowa stirrup from a snaffle."
"'Od's blood!" yelled the captain, "you question my horsemanship, myLord? Do I understand your Lordship to question my courage?"
"After I am thrown!" cries his Grace, very ugly, and fingering thejewels on his hilt.
Sir John was awakened by the noise, and turning heavily spilled thewhole 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 waspresently agreed that the horse was to be at noon in the King's OldRoad, or Rotten Row (as it was then beginning to be called), in HydePark.
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 founda crowd about the opening into the stable court. "The young American!"called some one, and to my astonishment and no small annoyance I wasgreeted with a "Huzzay for you, sir!" "My groat's on your honour!"
This good-will was owing wholly to the duke's unpopularity with allclasses. Inside, sporting gentlemen in hunting-frocks of red and green,and velvet visored caps, were shouldering favoured 'ostlers from thedifferent noblemen's stables; and there was a liberal sprinkling of thecharacters who attended the cock mains in Drury Lane and at Newmarket.At the moment of my arrival the head 'ostler was rubbing down thestallion's flank.
"Here's ten pounds to ride him, Saunders!" called one of thehunting-frocks.
"Umph!" sniffed the 'ostler; "ride 'im is it, yere honour? Two hunnerbeast 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 forth' likes o' me to try. Th' bloody devil took th' shirt off Teddy's backthis morn. I adwises th' young Buckskin t' order 's coffin." Justthen he perceived me, and touched his cap, something abashed. "Withsubmission, 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. Helooked ugly to exaggeration, his ears laid back and his nostrils as bigas crowns, and his teeth bared time and time. Now and anon an impatientfling of his hoof would make the grooms start away from him. Sincecoming to the inn he had been walked a couple of miles each day, withtwo men with loaded whips to control him. I was being offered a dealof counsel, when big Mr. Astley came in from Lambeth, and silenced themall.
"These grooms, Mr. Carvel," he said to me, as we took a bottle inprivate inside, "these grooms are the very devil for superstition. Andonce a horse gets a bad name with them, good-by to him. Miller knewhow to ride, of course, but like many another of them, was too damnedover-confident. I warned him more than once for getting young horsesinto a fret, and I'm willing to lay a ten-pound note that he angeredPollux. '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, tippinghis glass; "having seen you ride, egad! I have put all the money I canafford in your favour."
Before I left him he had given me several valuable hints as to themanner of managing that kind of a horse: not to auger him with the spursunless it became plain that he meant to kill me; to try persuasionfirst and force afterwards; and secondly, he taught me a little trick oftwisting 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 theaffair had got around town, and I was heartily sorry I had not taken theother and better method of trying conclusions with the duke, and slappedhis face. I found Jack Comyn in Dover Street, and presently Mr. Fox camefor us with his chestnuts in his chaise, Fitzpatrick with him. At HydePark Corner there was quite a jam of coaches, chaises, and cabrioletsand beribboned phaetons, which made way for us, but kept us busy bowingas we passed among them. It seemed as if everybody of consequence thatI had met in London was gathered there. One face I missed, and rejoicedthat she was absent, for I had a degraded feeling like that of being thefavourite in a cudgel-bout. And the thought that her name was connectedwith all this made my face twitch. I heard the people clapping and sawthem waving in the carriages as we passed, and some stood forward beforethe rest in a haphazard way, without rhyme or reason. Mr. Walpole withLady 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, surroundedstill by the hunting-frocks, who had followed him from the White Horse.Mixed in with these, swearing, conjecturing, and betting, were some tosurprise me, whose names were connected with every track in England: theDuke of Grafton and my Lords Sandwich and March and Bolingbroke, andSir Charles Bunbury, and young Lords Derby and Foley, who, afterestablishing separate names for folly on the tracks, went intopartnership. My Lord Baltimore descended listlessly from his cabrioletto join the group. They all sang out when they caught sight of ourparty, and greeted me with a zeal to carry me off my feet. And my LordSandwich, having done me the honour to lay something very handsome uponme, had his chief jockey on hand to give me some final advice. I believeI was the coolest of any of them. And at that time of all others thefact came up to me with irresistible humour that I, a young colonialWhig, who had grown up to detest these people, should be rubbing noseswith them.
The duke put in an appearance five minutes before the hour, upon a baygelding, and attended by Lewis and Sir John Brooke, both mounted. Asa most particular evidence of the detestation in which Chartersea washeld, he could find nothing in common with such notorious rakes as Marchand Sandwich. And it fell to me to champion these. After some discussionbetween Fox and Captain Lewis, March was chosen umpire. His Lordshiptook his post in the middle of the Row, drew forth an enamelled repeaterfrom his waistcoat, and mouthed out the conditions of the match,--theterms, 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 longforgotten sound of the bees swarming in the garden by the Chesapeake. Mybreath began to come quickly. Through the sunny haze I saw the cowsand deer grazing by the Serpentine, and out of the back of my eyehandkerchiefs floated from the carriages banked at the gate. They tookthe blanket off the stallion. Stall-fed, and excited by the crowd, helooked brutal indeed. The faithful Banks, in a new suit of the Carvellivery, 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 apeaceful farm in Devonshire. The grooms let go of the stallion's head.
He stood trembling like the throes of death. I gripped my knees asCaptain Daniel had taught me, years ago, when some invisible forceimpelled me to look aside. From between the broad and hunching shouldersof Chartersea I met such a venomous stare as a cattle-fish might use tofreeze his prey. Cattle--fish! The word kept running over my tongue.I thought of the snaky arms that had already caught Mr. Marmaduke, andwere 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 atonce. The trees ran madly past, and the water at my right was a silverblur. The beast beneath me snorted as he rose and fell. Fainter andfainter dropped the clamour behind me, which had risen as I started,and the leaps grew longer and longer. Then my head was cleared like asteamed window-pane in a cold blast. I saw the road curve in front ofme, I put all my strength into the curb, and heeling at a fearful anglewas swept into the busy Kensington Road. For the first time I knew whatit was to fear a horse. The stallion's neck was stretched, his shoesrang on the cobbles, and my eyes were fixed on a narrow space betweencarriages coming together. In a flash I understood why the duke hadinsisted upon Hyde Park, and that nerved me some. I saw the frightenedcoachmen pulling their horses this way and that, I heard the cries ofthe foot-passengers, and then I was through, I know not how. Once moreI summoned all my power, recalled the twist Astley had spoken of, andtried 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. Themotion changed with it, became rougher, and the hoof-beats a fractionless frequent. He steered like a ship with sail reduced. In and out wedodged among the wagons, and I was beginning to think I had him, whensuddenly, without a move of warning, he came down rigid with his feetplanted together, and only a miracle and my tight grip restrained mefrom shooting over his head. There he stood shaking and snorting, norany 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. AgainI dug in to the rowels, and clung the tighter, and this time he landedwith his head to London. A little knot of people had collected to watchme, and out stepped a strapping fellow in the King's scarlet, from theGuard's Horse near by.
"Hold him, sir!" he said, tipping. "Better dismount, sir. He meansmurder, 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 itwas 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 seemedtwenty. Looking about me, I found I was in the open space before oldKensington Church, over against the archway there. Once more I dug inthe spurs, this time with success. Almost at a jump the beast took meinto the angle of posts to the east of the churchyard gate and tore upthe footpath of Church Lane, terrified men and women ahead of me takingto the kennel. He ran irregularly, now on the side of the posts, nowagainst 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 thestallion's jaw and released his mouth altogether. Incredible as it mayseem, he jarred into a trot, and presently came down to a walk, tossinghis head like fury, and sweating at every pore. I leaned over and pattedhim, speaking him fair, and (marvel of marvels!) when we had got to thedogs that guard the entrance of Camden House I had coaxed him around andinto the street, and cantered back at easy speed to the church. Withoutpausing to speak to the bunch that stood at the throat of the lane, Istarted toward London, thankfulness and relief swelling within me. Iunderstood the beast, and spoke to him when he danced aside at a wagonwith bells or a rattling load of coals, and checked him with a word anda light hand.
Before I gained the Life Guard's House I met a dozen horsemen, amongstthem 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 Iwas not dead. Sir John Brooke puffed and swore he did not begrudge hislosses to see me safe, despite Captain Lewis's sourness. Storey vowedhe would give a dinner in my honour, and, riding up beside me, whisperedthat he was damned sorry the horse was now broken, and his Grace'schance of being killed taken away. And thus escorted, I came in by theKing's New Road to avoid the people running in the Row, and so down toHyde Park Corner, and in among the chaises and the phaetons, where therewas enough cheering and waving of hats and handkerchiefs to please themost exacting of successful generals. I rode up to my Lord March, andfinding there was a minute yet to run I went up the Row a distance andback again amidst more huzzaing, Pollux prancing and quive
ring, andfrothing his bit, but never once attempting to break.
When I had got down, they pressed around me until I could scarcebreathe, crying congratulations, Comyn embracing me openly. Mr. Foxvowed he had never seen so fine a sight, and said many impolitic thingswhich the duke must have overheard.... Lady Carlisle sent me a red rosefor my buttonhole by his Lordship. Mr. Warner, the lively parson with myLord March, desired to press my hand, declaring that he had won a dozenof port upon me, which he had set his best cassock against. My LordSandwich offered me snuff, and invited me to Hichinbroke. Indeed, Ishould never be through were I to continue. But I must not forget my oldacquaintance Mr. Walpole, who protested that he must get permission topresent me to Princess Amelia: that her Royal Highness would not restcontent now, until she had seen me. I did not then know her Highness'ssporting propensity.
Then my Lord March called upon the duke, who stood in the midst ofan army of his toadeaters. I almost pitied him then, tho' I could notaccount for the feeling. I think it was because a nobleman with so greata title should be so cordially hated and despised. There were high wordsalong the railing among the duke's supporters, Captain Lewis, in hisanger, going above an inference that the stallion had been brokenprivately. Chartersea came forward with an indifferent swagger, as if tosay as much: and, in truth, no one looked for more sport, and somewere even turning away. He had scarce put foot to the stirrup, whenthe surprise came. Two minutes were up before he was got in the saddle,Pollux rearing and plunging and dancing in a circle, the grooms shoutingand 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, givingvent to his fury with the spurs.
Then something happened, and so quickly that it cannot be writ fastenough. Pollux bolted like a shot out of a sling, vaulted the railing aseasily as you or I would hop over a stick, and galloping across the lawnand down the embankment flung his Grace into the Serpentine. Precisely,as Mr. Fox afterwards remarked, as the swine with the evil spirits randown the slope into the sea.
An indescribable bedlam of confusion followed, lords and gentlemen,tradesmen and grooms, hostlers and apprentices, all tumbling after, manycrying with laughter. My Lord Sandwich's jockey pulled his Grace fromthe water in a most pitiable state of rage and humiliation. His sidecurls gone, the powder and pomatum washed from his hair, bedraggled andmuddy and sputtering oaths, he made his way to Lord March, swearing byall divine that a trick was put on him, that he would ride the stallionto Land's End. His Lordship, pulling his face straight, gravely informedthe duke that the match was over. With this his Grace fell flatlysullen, was pushed into a coach by Sir John and the captain, and droverapidly off Kensington way, to avoid the people at the corner.
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