"If you please, Sir Thomas," said the coachman, hurrying into the room almost without the ceremony of knocking,—"if you please, Phœbe mare has been brought home with both her knees cut down to the bone."
"What!" exclaimed Sir Thomas, who indulged himself in a taste for horseflesh, and pretended to know one animal from another.
"Yes, indeed, Sir Thomas, down to the bone," said the coachman, who entertained all that animosity against Mr. Traffick which domestics feel for habitual guests who omit the ceremony of tipping. "Mr. Traffick brought her down on Windover Hill, Sir Thomas, and she'll never be worth a feed of oats again. I didn't think a man was born who could throw that mare off her feet, Sir Thomas." Now Mr. Traffick, when he had borrowed the phaeton and pair of horses that morning to go into Hastings, had dispensed with the services of a coachman, and had insisted on driving himself.
CHAPTER XXX.
AT MERLE PARK. NO. 2.
Has any irascible reader,—any reader who thoroughly enjoys the pleasure of being in a rage,—encountered suddenly some grievance which, heavy as it may be, has been more than compensated by the privilege it has afforded of blowing-up the offender? Such was the feeling of Sir Thomas as he quickly followed his coachman out of the room. He had been very proud of his Phœbe mare, who could trot with him from the station to the house at the rate of twelve miles an hour. But in his present frame of mind he had liked the mare less than he disliked his son-in-law. Mr. Traffick had done him this injury, and he now had Mr. Traffick on the hip. There are some injuries for which a host cannot abuse his guest. If your best Venetian decanter be broken at table you are bound to look as though you liked it. But if a horse be damaged a similar amount of courtesy is hardly required. The well-nurtured gentleman, even in that case, will only look unhappy and say not a word. Sir Thomas was hardly to be called a well nurtured gentleman; and then it must be remembered that the offender was his son-in-law. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, hurrying into the yard. "What is this?"
The mare was standing out on the pavement with three men around her, of whom one was holding her head, another was down on his knees washing her wounds, and the third was describing the fatal nature of the wounds which she had received. Traffick was standing at a little distance, listening in silence to the implied rebukes of the groom. "Good heavens, what is this?" repeated Sir Thomas, as he joined the conclave.
"There are a lot of loose stones on that hill," said Traffick, "and she tripped on one and came down, all in a lump, before you could look at her. I'm awfully sorry, but it might have happened to any one."
Sir Thomas knew how to fix his darts better than by throwing them direct at his enemy. "She has utterly destroyed herself," said he, addressing himself to the head-groom, who was busily employed with the sponge in his hand.