CHAPTER XLV.—THE OVERTURE TO DON PASQUALE.
No one could justly accuse Mr. Philip Tirrett, son and agent to the well-known Yorkshire horse-breeder, of that prolific vice, idleness—mother of evil—on the night and morning after D’Almayne’s whitebait dinner. So far, indeed, was he from evincing any reprehensible slothfulness in attending to his father’s (and his own) interest, that hastening, the moment he quitted his companions, to his lodgings, he exchanged his evening costume for his every-day habiliments; then lying down, ready dressed as he was, he snatched a couple of hours’ sleep; and, as soon as the first ray of daylight became visible, rose and took his way to a neighbouring livery stable. Arriving there, he roused a sleepy helper, and desired him to saddle the bay mare; which, when his order had been complied with, he mounted; and telling the man to have the tilbury and the chestnut thorough-bred ready by a quarter before eight, rode off. As at that early hour the entrances to Hyde Park were still closed, he followed the windings of Park Lane, until he reached Cumberland Gate, when, giving his mare the rein, he rode at a smart trot down the Bayswater Road, until he reached the turnpike, after passing which he increased the trot to a fast canter. This pace he kept up for about four miles along the Harrow Road; then turning off to the right, he proceeded about a mile farther, until he came to a gate leading across a field, on the opposite side of which were situated a cottage and some farm buildings. Riding into the yard, Tirrett gave a shrill whistle, and immediately a round, bullet-shaped, close-cropped head, was protruded from a stable-door.
“Come and take my mare, Dick; put her in and give her a handful of corn to nibble at. How is the Don?”
“He be a getting on stunnin’, Mr. Philip; I’ve kept him bandaged, as you told me, sir, and it aint hardly noticeable.”
“Let me have a look at him,” was the reply; and after leading the mare into the stable from which he had originally himself appeared, Dick produced a key, and, unlocking therewith the door of another stable, Tirrett entered. In a loose-box, enveloped in cloths, stood a remarkably fine horse, which, as the door opened, turned its small, well-formed head to gaze at the intruders, laying back its ears and showing its teeth when Tirrett approached it. Master Phil, however, appeared perfectly aware of its various little peculiarities, both of temper and bodily estate.
“Put a saddle and bridle on him,” he said; “I want to see him out.” The execution of this order invoked a scene analogous to the little ballet d’action usually performed between a refractory child requiring to have its face washed, and a firm, but tender and judicious nurse. Thus, on Dick approaching his charge gingerly, with the bridle held out in a tempting and seductive manner, that perverse quadruped immediately elevated its head to the altitude of that of a cameleopard, or thereabouts; which, as Dick was rather under than over the middle height, completely frustrated his purpose; whereupon the groom told Pasquale to “now then!” superadding a request to him to “come out o’ that, will yer!” without unnecessary delay. If the demonstrative pronoun referred to the Don’s attitude, he did “come out of it” instantly, by turning short round, and in a most senseless and uncivil fashion presenting his tail to be bridled instead of his head; but this little display of wilfulness and ill-breeding defeated his object, for by his sudden gyration he placed himself in a corner of his loose-box, where Dick cleverly contrived to pin him, and before (if he had possessed the faculty of speech) he could have invoked Jack Robinson, clapt the bridle on him, and “brought him round” in every sense of the term. “Take the bandage off the foreleg,” was Tirrett’s next order; as soon as the groom had executed it, his employer stooped down and carefully felt and examined the uncovered leg. “The heat and tenderness seem all gone,” he said; “there’s a little fulness still, but that will go down when you’ve had him out for half an hour. Does he show lame at all?”
“I aint took him out of a valk, you know, since it happened, Master Phil; but he don’t valk lame none,” was the reply.
“I must see him out, Dick; take him down to the meadow with a saddle on over his clothes. How is his temper?” was the next inquiry.
“Vell, he aint jist the sort o’ hanimal for a timid old gentleman, you know, Master Phil; it takes a man to ride him; but he’d be civil enough with you or me on his back, after the first five minutes,” rejoined Dick, buckling the girths so tightly as disagreeably to compress the person of the irascible Don Pasquale, who, fortunately for himself, by no means resembled in figure his namesake, as enacted by the inimitable Lablache; but who still resented this indignity by making sundry vigorous, but abortive efforts to bite and kick his attendant, by which he obtained an exhortation to “cup!” (which we take to be an abbreviation of “come up!”), together with the interrogative remonstrance, “what are you arter—can’t ye?” His toilet thus completed, the Don was led, snorting and curvetting, across the yard to a gate opening into a grass paddock of from ten to twelve acres; where, as soon as he was fairly inside the gate, he commenced a series of violent pantomimic protestations against the indignity of being mounted; nor was it until Dick, having exhausted his entire vocabulary of equine endearment, had been forced to betake himself to a course of hard Yorkshire swearing, that he could be induced to stand still for ten consecutive seconds. That desideratum being fortunately attained just before Dick became black in the face from the force of the language he was compelled to employ, the groom, gathering up the reins, grasped the front of the saddle firmly, and requested from Tirrett the favour of “a leg up;” a demand to which that young gentleman responded by seizing him by the right knee, and flinging him recklessly upward into space, whence by a special mercy he descended on the saddle, and therefore on the back of Don Pasquale. Then that noble quadruped tried to obtain forcible possession of his own head, with the felonious intention of careering madly round the meadow, and annihilating Dick in his rapid career; but the astute groom, foreseeing some such catastrophe, would by no means permit him to accomplish his design, but retained possession of his head by a strong hand, a stout rein, and a powerful bit. Frustrated in his amiable intention, the Don appeared determined to prove to society at large that, if he had lost his head, he at all events possessed the free use (not to say abuse) of his limbs; so he pranced, and sidled, and jumped with all four feet off the ground at once, varying the performance by alternately kicking and rearing, until he had in that rash and inconsiderate manner made the circuit of the paddock, when, finding his rider clung to the saddle with an adhesive pertinacity which rendered the probability of throwing him completely a forlorn hope, he apparently gave the matter up in despair, dropped quietly into the habits and customs of ordinary horses, and permitted himself to be ridden hither and thither at his master’s, and his master’s master’s, pleasure.
“Take him by at a slow trot, then at a fast, then at a canter,” was Tirrett’s first direction; when this had been complied with, he continued: “Now take him over the leaping-bar.” Dick, who seemed devoid of all individuality of will, and to exist only in order to do as he was bid, without the slightest reference to its compatibility with the safety of his own life and limbs, immediately turned to obey; but Don Pasquale, whatever degree of fondness he had evinced for gymnastic exercises on his own account, clearly had not the smallest inclination to perform such feats for the pleasure of others: thus, when brought up to the leaping-bar, he not only refused to go over it, but actually turned his “head where was his tail,” and dashed off in a diametrically opposite direction. But it was of no avail; Dick, once mounted, was immovable, inexorable; moreover, he wore a pair of singularly sharp spurs, with which he had a disagreeable habit of excoriating the sides of any cantankerous quadruped he might bestride. So, after fight number two, the Don was again conquered, and taken over the leaping-bar, which he cleared in gallant style. “That will do, bring him here,” continued Tirrett; “he scarcely shows lame at all; but he’s too fresh, his temper appears too plainly, he wants severe exercise. Will the fore-leg stand training for a race, do you think?”
“Vell, if ve has the doing of it, Master Phil; so as we can humour him, and doctor him, and vork him only on the soft turf, and little and often, not to overtire the back sinews, do yer see; and keep him cold-bandaged at night, and so work the horacle that fashion, the thing may be done without making a mull on it.”
Tirrett removed his hat, passed his fingers through his hair, replaced it again, thought for a moment, once more felt the suspicious back sinews, shook his head, and then resumed: “Keep him out for the next two hours; give it him sufficiently stiff to take the devil completely out of him; then feed and clean him, and have him ready to show by half-past eight. Get yourself dressed, too, for if I sell the horse I shall let you go with him for a time—you understand; but you shall have full directions when I see my way clearly. Now I must be off; you need not come in, I can get the mare myself. Take him over that bar again once or twice; it won’t do for him to shirk it when I’m showing him—remember, half-past eight.” So saying, Tirrett returned to the stable, brought out his mare, remounted, and rode off at the same speed as that at which he had arrived.
When he reached the livery stable whence he had procured the mare, it still wanted a quarter of seven; calling a cab, he drove without delay to a small street in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, and rang twice at one of the houses without producing any result, but a third and more strenuous application of the bell-pull unearthed a curl-papered and slip-shod maidservant, who replied to his inquiry, “Whether the captain was at home?” that he was in bed and asleep, for aught she knew to the contrary. “Show me his room,” was the reply. The girl scrutinised him with a doubtful air, which, Tirrett perceiving, continued, “It’s all right, my good girl, I’m not a dun;” at the same time he placed a shilling in her hand, and, her scruples vanishing at the magic touch of silver, she led the way up two flights of stairs, then, tapping at a bedroom door, she exclaimed—
“Here’s a gentleman to see you, Captain.” Tirrett, without farther announcement, opened the door and walked in; thereby relieving the gallant tenant of the apartment from an alarming suspicion which was continually haunting him.
“Ar, Phil me boy, and I’m glad to see you are your own self then, and not a sheriff’s officer. What has brought ye here at this onconscionably early hour of the night? have ye set the Thames on fire, or bolted with the Bank of England?”
“Neither,” was the reply; “both exploits are more in your way than mine; but I’ve not a minute to lose. I’ve just come back from the stables at Shark’s Farm, and I’m to drive that green goose, with a handle to his name, down to look at the horse at eight o’clock.”
“You’ve got his Lordship so far as that, have ye? ’Pon me conscience you’re a clever lad, and your father ought to be proud of ye,” was the complimentary remark this announcement drew forth.
Unheeding it, Tirrett continued: “And now, Captain, before we go any farther, let us come to a clear understanding; the matter, I think, at present stands thus: I sold you the horse for 200 guineas, and half everything he might win during the ensuing year; 100 you paid out of your Derby winnings, 100 you still owe me; you next made a foolish bet, when you were half screwed, that the horse could perform an impossible leap, and in attempting it threw him down and lamed him; from that lameness he has wonderfully recovered—sound I never expect him to get; though, with care and management, he may now be sold and trained; but how are we to arrange about terms?”
“Terms, indeed!” was the astonished reply. “Why, I’ll pay you your second hundred out of the price I get for him; and well content ye should be with your good luck,—for if the nag had gone to the bad, it’s more kicks than ha’pence ye’d have got from Terence O’Brien.”
“Won’t do, Captain,” was the cool rejoinder: “I must have the hundred down, and half whatever you get beyond. Why, there’s a bill of thirty pounds from the ‘Vet.’ for time and medicines, besides the half share of the winnings which I lose by your selling him.”
The angry discussion which ensued, and which ended in O’Brien’s obtaining terms slightly more favourable for himself we will not inflict on the reader; suffice it to say that, ere the associates parted, all their differences were reconciled, and their alliance likely to be cemented more firmly than ever, by their proposed inroad on the credulity and cash of Lord Alfred Courtland.