by R S Surtees
“No; nor nobody else,” continued Mr. Heslop, keeping him up to the indignity mark; “must be taught better manners,” added he with a pout of the lip, as though fully espousing Caddy’s cause.
“Come along, then! come along!” cried Paul Straddler, flourishing his dirty pen; “let’s set up a school for grown sportsmen. Now for the guod boys. Master Bushey-heath says he’ll ride Master Bareacres a match across country — two miles say — for, for, how much?” asked he, looking up.
This caused a pause, as it often does, even after dinner, and not the less so in the present instance, inasmuch as the promoters of the match had each a share in the risk. What would be hundreds in other people’s cases becomes pounds in our own.
Flintoff and Straddler looked pacifically at each other, as much as to say, “There’s no use in cutting each other’s throats, you know.”
“Suppose we say,” (exhibiting four fingers and a thumb, slyly to indicate a five pound note), said Heslop demurely, after a conference with Cuddy.
“With all my heart,” asserted Straddler, “glad it was no more.”
“And call it fifty,” whispered Heslop.
“Certainly!” assented Straddler, “very proper arrangement.”
“Two miles for fifty pounds,” announced Straddler, writing it down.
“P. P. I s’pose?” observed he, looking up.
“P. P.” assented Heslop.
“Now, what next?” asked Paul, feeling that there was something more wanted.
“An umpire,” suggested Mr. Smoothley.
“Ah, to be sure, an umpire,” replied Mr. Straddler; “who shall it be?”
“Sir Moses!” suggested several voices.
“Sir Moses, by all means,” replied Straddler.
“Content,” nodded Mr. Heslop.
“It must be on a non-hunting day, then,” observed the Baronet, speaking from the bottom of his tea-cup.
“Non-hunting day!” repeated Cuddy; “non-hunting day; fear that ‘ill not do — want to be off to town on Friday to see Tommy White’s horses sold. Have been above a week at the Park, as it is.”
“You’ve been a fortnight to-morrow, sir,” observed the ticket-of-leave butler (who had just come to announce the carriage) in a very different tone to his usual urbane whisper.
“Fortnight to-morrow, have I?” rejoined Cuddy sheepishly; “greater reason why I should be off.”
“O, never think about that! O, never think about that! Heartily welcome, heartily welcome,” rejoined Sir Moses, stuffing his mouth full of muffin, adding “Mr. Pringle will keep you company; Mr. Pringle will keep you company.” (Hunch, munch, crunch.)
“Mr. Pringle must stop,” observed Mr. Straddler, “unless he goes without his man.”
“To besure he must,” assented Sir Moses, “to be sure he must,” adding, “stop as long as ever you like. I’ve no engagement till Saturday — no engagement till Saturday.”
Now putting off our friend’s departure till Saturday just gave a clear day for the steeple-chase, the next one, Thursday, being Woolerton by Heckfield, Saturday the usual make-believe day at the kennels; so of course Friday was fixed upon, and Sir Moses having named “noon” as the hour, and Timberlake toll-bar as the rendezvous, commenced a series of adieus as he beat a retreat to the screen, where having resumed his wraps, and gathered his tail, he shot down-stairs, and was presently re-ensconced in his carriage.
The remanets then of course proceeded to talk him and his friends over, some wishing the Baronet mightn’t be too many for Billy, others again thinking Cuddy wasn’t altogether the most desirable acquaintance a young man could have, though there wasn’t one that didn’t think that he himself was.
That topic being at length exhausted, they then discussed the projected steeple-chase, some thinking that Cuddy was a muff, others that Jack was, some again thinking they both were. And as successive relays of hot brandy and water enabled them to see matters more clearly, the Englishman’s argument of betting was introduced, and closed towards morning at “evens,” either jockey for choice.
Let us now take a look at the homeward bound party.
It was lucky for Billy that the night was dark and the road rough with newly laid whinstones, for both Sir Moses and Cuddy opened upon him most volubly and vehemently as soon as ever they got off the uneven pavement, with no end of inquiries about Jack and his antecedents. If he could ride? If he had ever seen him ride? If he had ever ridden a steeplechase? Where he got him? How long he had had him?
To most of which questions, Billy replied with his usual monosyllabic drawling, “yarses,” amid jolts, and grinds, and gratings, and doms from Sir Moses, and cusses from Cuddy, easing his conscience with regard to Jack’s service, by saying that he had had him “some time.” Some time! What a line elastic period that is. We’d back a lawyer to make it cover a century or a season. Very little definite information, however, did they extract from Billy with regard to Jack for the best of all reasons, that Billy didn’t know anything. Both Cuddy and Sir Moses interpreted his ignorance differently, and wished he mightn’t know more than was good for them. And so in the midst of roughs and smooths, and jolts and jumps, and examinings, and cross-examinings, and re-examinings, they at length reached Pangburn Park Lodges, and were presently at home.
“Breakfast at eight!” said Sir Moses to Bankhead, as he alighted from the carriage.
“Breakfast at eight, Pringle!” repeated he, and seizing a flat candlestick from the half-drunken footman in the passage, he hurried up-stairs, blowing his beak with great vigour to drown any appeal to him about a horse.
He little knew how unlikely our young friend was to trouble him in that way.
CHAPTER XLII. MR. GEORDEY GALLON.
CUDDY FLINTOFF DID not awake at all comfortable the next morning, and he distinctly traced the old copyhead of “Familiarity breeds contempt.” in the hieroglyphic pattern of his old chintz bed-hangings. He couldn’t think how he could ever be so foolish as to lay himself open to such a catastrophe; it was just the wine being in and the wit being out, coupled with the fact of the man being a Frenchman, that led him away — and he most devoutly wished he was well out of the scrape. Suppose Monsieur was a top sawyer! Suppose he was a regular steeple-chaser! Suppose he was a second Beecher in disguise! It didn’t follow because he was a Frenchman that he couldn’t ride. Altogether Mr. Flintoff repented. It wasn’t nice amusement, steeple-chasing he thought, and the quicksilver of youth had departed from him; getting called Bareacres, too, was derogatory, and what no English servant would have done, if even he had called him Bushy Heath.
Billy Pringle, on the other hand, was very comfortable, and slept soundly, regardless of clubs, cover rents, over-night consequences, altogether. Each having desired to be called when the other got up, they stood a chance of lying in bed all day, had not Mrs. Margerum, fearing they would run their breakfast, and the servants’-hall dinner together, despatched Monsieur and the footman with their respective hot-water cans, to say the other had risen. It was eleven o’clock ere they got dawdled down-stairs, and Cuddy again began demanding this and that delicacy in the name of Mr. Pringle: Mr. Pringle wanted Yorkshire pie; Mr. Pringle wanted potted prawns; Mr. Pringle wanted bantams’ eggs; Mr. Pringle wanted honey. Why the deuce didn’t they attend to Mr. Pringle?
The breakfast was presently interrupted by the sound of wheels, and almost ere they had ceased to revolve, a brisk pull at the doorbell aroused the inmates of both the front and back regions, and brought the hurrying footman, settling himself into his yellow-edged blue-livery coat as he came.
It was Mr. Heslop. Heslop in a muffin cap, and so disguised in heather-coloured tweed, that Mr. Pringle failed to recognise him as he entered. Cuddy did, though; and greeting him with one of his best view holloas, he invited him to sit down and partake.
Heslop was an early bird, and had broke his fast hours before: but a little more breakfast being neither here nor there, he did as he was requested, though he would much rather
have found Cuddy alone. He wanted to talk to him about the match, to hear if Sir Moses had said anything about the line of country, what sort of a horse he would like to ride, and so on.
Billy went munch, munch, munching on, in the tiresome, pertinacious sort of way people do when others are anxiously wishing them done, — now taking a sip of tea, now a bit of toast, now another egg, now looking as if he didn’t know what he would take. Heslop inwardly wished him at Jericho. At length another sound of wheels was heard, followed by another peal of the bell; and our hero presently had a visitor, too, in the person of Mr. Paul Straddler. Paul had come on the same sort of errand as Heslop, namely, to arrange matters about Monsieur; and Heslop and he, seeing how the land lay, Heslop asked Cuddy if there was any one in Sir Moses’s study; whereupon Cuddy arose and led the way to the sunless little sanctum, where Sir Moses kept his other hat, his other boots, his rows of shoes, his beloved but rather empty cash-box, and the plans and papers of the Pangburn Park estate.
Two anxious deliberations then ensued in the study and breakfast-room, in the course of which Monsieur was summoned into the presence of either party, and retired, leaving them about as wise as he found them. He declared he could ride, ride “dem veil too,” and told Paul he could “beat Cuddy’s head off;” but he accompanied the assertions with such wild, incoherent arguments, and talked just as he did to Imperial John before the Crooked Billet, that they thought it was all gasconade. If it hadn’t been P. P., Pan! would have been off. Cuddy, on the other hand, gained courage; and as Heslop proposed putting him on his famous horse General Havelock, the reported best fencer in the country, Cuddy, who wasn’t afraid of pace, hoped to be able to give a good account of himself. Indeed, he so far recovered his confidence, as to indulge in a few hunting noises— “For-rard, on! For-rard on!” cheered he, as if he was leading the way with the race well in hand.
Meanwhile Monsieur, who could keep his own counsel, communicated by a certain mysterious agency that prevails in most countries, and seems to rival the electric telegraph in point of speed, to enlist a confederate in his service. This was Mr. Geordey Gallon, a genius carrying on the trades of poacher, pugilist, and publican, under favour of that mistaken piece of legislation the Beer Act. Geordey, like Jack, had begun life as a post-boy, and like him had undergone various vicissitudes ere he finally settled down to the respectable calling we have named. He now occupied the Rose and Crown beershop at the Four Lane-Ends. on the Heatherbell Road, some fifteen miles from Pangburn Park, where, in addition to his regular or irregular calling, he generally kept a racing-like runaway, that whisked a light spring-cart through the country by night, freighted with pigeons, poultry, game, dripping — which latter item our readers doubtless know includes every article of culinary or domestic use. He was also a purveyor of lead, lead-stealing being now one of the liberal professions.
Geordey had had a fine time of it, for the Hit-im and Hold-im shire constables were stupid and lazy, and when the short-lived Superintendent ones were appointed, it was only a trifle in his way to suborn them. So he made hay while the sun shone, and presently set up a basket-buttoned green cutaway for Sundays, in lieu of the baggy pocketed, velveteen shooting-jacket of week-days, and replaced the fox-skin cap with a bare shallow drab, with a broad brim, and a black band, encasing his substantial in cords and mahogany tops, instead of the navvie boot that laced his great bulging calves into globes. He then called himself a sporting man.
Not a fair, not a fight, not a fray of any sort, but Geordey’s great square bull-headed carcase was there, and he was always ready to run his nag, or trot his nag, or match his nag in any shape or way — Mr. George Gallon’s Blue Ruin, Mr. George Gallon’s Flower of the West, Mr. George Gallon’s Honor Bright, will be names familiar to most lovers of leather-plating. * Besides this, he did business in a smaller way. Being a pure patriot, he was a great promoter of the sports and pastimes of the people, and always travelled with a prospectus in his pocket of some raffle for a watch, some shoot-ing-match for a fat hog, some dog or some horse to be disposed of in a surreptitious way, one of the conditions always being, that a certain sum was to be spent by the winner at Mr. Gallon’s, of the Hose and Crown, at the Four Lane-ends on the Heatherbell Road.
Such was the worthy selected by Monsieur Rougier to guard his interests in the matter. But how the communication was made, or what were the instructions given, those who are acquainted with the wheels within wheels, and the glorious mystification that prevails in all matters relating to racing or robbing, will know the impossibility of narrating Even Sir Moses was infected with the prevailing epidemic, and returned from hunting greatly subdued in loquacity. He wanted to be on for a £5 or two, but couldn’t for the life of him make out which was to be the right side. So he was very chary of his wine after dinner, and wouldn’t let Cuddy have any brandy at bed-time— “Dom’d if he would.”
CHAPTER XLIII. SIR MOSES PERPLEXED — THE RENDEZVOUS FOR THE RACE.
THE GREAT EVENT was ushered in by one of those fine bright autumnal days that shame many summer ones, and seem inclined to carry the winter months fairly over into the coming year. The sun rose with effulgent radiance, gilding the lingering brown and yellow tints, and lighting up the landscape with searching, inquisitorial scrutiny. Not a nook, not a dell, not a cot, not a curl of smoke but was visible, and the whole scene shone with the vigour of a newly burnished, newly varnished picture. The cattle stood in bold relief against the perennially green fields, and the newly dipped lambs dotted the hill-sides like white marbles. A clear bright light gleamed through the stems of the Scotch fir belt, encircling the brow of High Rays Hill, giving goodly promise of continued fineness.
* We append one of Mr. Gallon’s advertisements for a horse,
which is very characteristic of the man: —
“A Flash high-stepping SCREW WANTED. Must be very fast,
steady in single harness, and the price moderate. Blemishes
no object. Apply, by letter, real name and address, with
full description, to Mr. George Gallon, Rose and Crown,
Four-Lane-ends. Hit-im and Hold-im shire.”
Sir Moses, seeing this harbinger of fair from his window as he dressed, arrayed himself in his best attire, securing his new blue and white satin cravat with a couple of massive blood-stone pins, and lacing his broad-striped vest with a multiplicity of chains and appendant gew-gaws. He further dared the elements with an extensive turning up of velvet. Altogether he was a great swell, and extremely well pleased with his appearance.
The inmates of the Park were all at sixes and sevens that morning, Monsieur having left Billy to be valeted by the footman, whose services were entirely monopolised by Cuddy Flintoff and Sir Moses. When he did at length come, he replied to Billy’s enquiry “how his horse was,” that he was “quite well,” which was satisfactory to our friend, and confirmed him in his opinion of the superiority of his judgment over that of Wetun and the rest. Sir Moses, however, who had made the tour of the stables, thought otherwise, and telling the Tiger to put the footboard to the back of the dog-cart, reserved the other place in front for his guest. A tremendous hurry Sir Moses was in to be off, rushing in every two or three minutes to see if Billy wasn’t done his breakfast, and at last ordering round the vehicle to expedite his movements. Then he went to the door and gave the bell such a furious ring as sounded through the house and seemed well calculated to last for ever.
Billy then came, hustled along by the ticket-of-leave butler and the excitable footman, who kept dressing him as he went; and putting his mits, his gloves, this shawl, cravat, and his taper umbrella into his hands, they helped him up to the seat by Sir Moses, who forthwith soused him down, by touching the mare with the whip, and starting off at a pace that looked like trying to catch an express train. Round flew the wheels, up shot the yellow mud, open went the lodge gates, bark went the curs, and they were presently among the darker mud of the Marshfield and Greyridge Hill Road.
On, on, Sir Moses pushe
d, as if in extremis.
“Well now, how is it to be?” at length asked he, getting his mare more by the head, after grinding through a long strip of newly-laid whinstone: “How is it to be? Can this beggar of yours ride, or can he not?” Sir Moses looking with a scrutinising eye at Billy as he spoke.
“Yarse, he can ride,” replied Billy, feeling his collar; “rode the other day, you know.”
Sir Moses. “Ah, but that’s not the sort of riding I mean. Can he ride across country? Can he ride a steeple-chase, in fact?”
Mr. Pringle. “Yarse, I should say he could,” hesitated our friend.
Sir Moses. “Well, but it won’t do to back a man to do a thing one isn’t certain he can do, you know. Now, between ourselves,” continued he, lowering his voice so as not to let the Tiger hear— “Cuddy Flintoff is no great performer — more of a mahogany sportsman than any thing else, and it wouldn’t take any great hand to beat him.”
Billy couldn’t say whether Monsieur was equal to the undertaking or not, and therefore made no reply. This perplexed Sir Moses, who wished that Billy’s downy face mightn’t contain more mischief than it ought. It would be a devil of a bore, he thought, to be done by such a boy. So he again took the mare short by the head, and gave expression to his thoughts by the whip along her sides. Thus he shot down Walkup Hill at a pace that carried him half way up the opposing one. Still he couldn’t see his way — dom’d if he could — and he felt half inclined not to risk his “fi-pun” note.
In this hesitating mood he came within sight of the now crowd-studded rendezvous.
Timberlake toll bar, the rendezvous for the race, stands on the summit of the hog-backed Wooley Hill, famous for its frequent sheep-fairs, and commands a fine view over the cream of the west side of Featherbedfordshire, and by no means the worst part of the land of Jewdea, as the wags of the former country call Hit-im and Hold-im shire.
