JOHN SAUNDERS ON HORSEBACK: A NARRATIVE;
Showing how, like John Gilpin, he went further than he intended, and got safe home again.
Mr. John Saunders, a remarkably soft-spoken, mild young man, of demure carriage, slender proportions, and rather respectable appearance, was placed at the bar, under a (not very violent) suspicion of having stolen a horse; but it turned out that the suspicion was groundless, and that instead of John Saunders stealing the horse, the horse stole John Saunders!
It appeared that as Mr. Stephen Marchant, of Turnham-green, was riding quietly homewards from town, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, his horse got a pebble in one of his feet, which made him go lame, and Mr. Marchant alighted to extract it. Whilst he was busied in this operation, who should come up offering assistance but John Saunders, with a large white band-box in one hand, and an umbrella in the other. Mr. Marchant accepted his help with many thanks; and John Saunders, setting down his band-box in the road, began grubbing away at the unlucky pebble with the spike of his umbrella, whilst Mr. Marchant held up the foot of the horse; and he grubbed and grubbed at it, so earnestly, that at last the spike of the umbrella "broke off as short as a carrot." Well, what was to be done now? Why Mr. Marchant, thinking he could knock out the pebble with a large stone, asked John Saunders to hold the horse whilst he looked for one; and John Saunders readily undertook to do so; but whilst Mr. Marchant was groping about, in the dark, for the stone, he saw, to his utter astonishment, John Saunders on the back of the horse, scampering away towards Kensington as if the deuce was in him—his umbrella tucked close under his arm, and his great white band-box banging about from side to side like mad, as he said.
Mr. Marchant stood aghast for a moment, and then followed, crying "Stop thief! Stop thief!" with all his might. Every horseman on the road, the horse-patrol and many foot passengers, hearing this cry, scampered after John Saunders with might and main, and the hue and cry sounded far and wide—
"Stop thief! stop thief!—a highwayman!"
Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.
And still, as fast as he drew near,
'Twas wonderful to view
How in a trice the turnpike men
Their gates wide open threw.
—Tramp! tramp! away he went, through merry Kensington, down Phillimore Place, dashing by Holland House, and so away for Hammersmith, with a continually increasing rabble rout at his heels. But John Saunders gained upon them at every bound of his steed; he shot through Hammersmith-gate with the rapidity of lightning, and wheeling round to the left, down Fulham-lane, he got so far a-head of his pursuers, that they could see nothing but his great white band-box—as it went bobbing and swinging from side to side at his back. Down Fulham-lane, however, they followed him, slap bang!—and on they went, hallooing and hooting, through mud and through mire, through fog and moonshine, till at last he took a desperate leap over the fence of a ploughed field; and when the foremost of his pursuers came up to the gap, even the bobbing of his band-box was invisible!—In plain terms, he fairly "tipped 'em the double"—he was vanished; and Mr. Marchant having thus lost his horse, was under the annoying necessity of—getting home how he could.
On the following morning Mr. Marchant repaired to town on foot, to give notice of the robbery to the police; and almost the first object that caught his eye, on getting into Piccadilly, was John Saunders—still mounted on his Bucephalus, but without either band-box or umbrella. He stared at John Saunders—John Saunders stared at him; and they gradually drew near to each other without a word being uttered on either side. Having conglomerated, John Saunders offered him his horse again—telling him he had "mounted it by accident," and it ran away with him; that he wished it at the dooce, almost, for taking him so far from home; and that he was come to town for the sole purpose of advertising in the noosepapers for its owner. When he had told the astonished Mr. Marchant all this, he dismounted; gave the bridle rein into Mr. Merchant's hand, and then produced the manuscript of his intended advertisement. But Mr. Marchant having no idea of a man's "mounting a horse by accident," seized John Saunders by the collar, and gave him in charge to one of the passing patrol, who brought him to this office.
So far was Mr. Marchant's statement of the affair; and, he having concluded, John Saunders was called upon for his defence.
John Saunders, as we have already stated, was a remarkably mild, quiet young man; and he told a story—or rather a story was drawn out of him bit by bit, of which the following is the substance:—He resided with his mama at Clapham—was himself "brought up in the glass line," (and truly he seemed as transparent as glass,) but was then out of business. On the afternoon preceding the night on which he met with Mr. Marchant and his wicked horse, his mama sent him to her milliner's, at Kensington, to bring home a bonnet and feathers which she had sent there to be "done up." He went to Kensington—called upon a friend, who gave him some Scotch ale—went to the milliner, who put the bonnet and feathers in a large white band-box, and he was quietly returning home to Clapham with it, when he fell in with the gentleman, and his horse with a pebble in his foot: but he wished he never had fallen in with them; for he had been made very miserable by it. He offered his services to get the pebble out, and spoiled his umbrella; he undertook to hold the horse while the gentleman looked for a stone, and the Scotch ale, having got into his head, as he supposed, induced him to get on the horse's back—quite contrary to his intention. The horse ran away with him directly—directly contrary to the way he wished to go—he was hurried along, in a dreadful manner, he knew not whither, till the horse stopped at Brompton; and then he found that the large white band-box was worn almost to tatters by its excessive agitation on horseback, and that one of the feathers of his mother's bonnet was sadly broken. He then considered within himself that it would be impossible to find the gentleman to whom the horse belonged that night; and, having bought a new band-box for his mother's bonnet, he rode home to Clapham, put the horse in a butcher's stable, gave it some corn, had his own supper, and went to bed dreadfully tired. In the morning he got up early, wrote an advertisement about the horse, and was coming to town to put it in the papers, when he met the gentleman, who was very angry with him, and gave him into custody.
Mr. Marchant, in reply, said he was inclined to believe his story, but he thought it right he should be told authoritatively that he was not to play such pranks with impunity.
The magistrate, therefore, gave John Saunders a suitable admonition, and dismissed him.