All the world was to figure on horseback—the horses themselves no bad evidence of the exertions used to mount the party. Here was a rugged pony from the Ardennes, with short neck and low shoulder, his head broad as a bull’s, and his counter like the bow of a Dutch galliot; there, a great Flemish beast, seventeen hands high, with a tail festooned over a straw ‘bustle,’ and even still hanging some inches on the ground—straight in the shoulder, and straighter in the pasterns, giving the rider a shock at every motion that to any other than a Fleming would lead to concussion of the brain. Here stood an English thoroughbred, sadly ‘shook’ before, and with that tremulous quivering of the forelegs that betokens a life of hard work; still, with all his imperfections, and the mark of a spavin behind, he looked like a gentleman among a crowd of low fellows—a reduced gentleman it is true, but a gentleman still; his mane was long and silky, his coat was short and glossy, his head finely formed, and well put on his long, taper, and well-balanced neck. Beside him was a huge Holsteiner, flapping his broad flanks with a tail like a weeping ash—a great massive animal, that seemed from his action as if he were in the habit of ascending stairs, and now and then got the shock one feels when they come to a step too few. Among the mass there were some ‘Limousins’—pretty, neatly formed little animals, with great strength for their appearance, and showing a deal of Arab breeding—and an odd Schimmel or two from Hungary, snorting and pawing like a war-horse; but the staple was a collection of such screws as every week are to be seen at Tattersall’s auction, announced as ‘first-rate weight-carriers with any foxhounds, fast in double and single harness, and “believed” sound by the owner.’
Well, what credulous people are the proprietors of horses! These are the great exports to the Low Countries, repaid in mock Van Dycks, apocryphal Rembrandts, and fabulous Hobbimas, for the exhibition of which in our dining-rooms and libraries we are as heartily laughed at as they are for their taste in manners equine. And in the same way exactly as we insist upon a great name with our landscape or our battle, so your Fleming must have a pedigree with his hunter. There must be ‘dam to Louisa,’ and ‘own brother to Ratcatcher’ and Titus Oates, that won the ‘Levanter Handicap’ in—no matter where. Oh dear, oh dear! when shall we have sense enough to go without Snyders and Ostade? And when will Flemings be satisfied to ride on beasts which befit them—strong of limb, slow of gait, dull of temper, and not over-fastidious in feeding; whose parentage has had no registry, and whose blood relations never were chronicled?
Truly, England is the land of ‘turn-out.’ All the foreign imitations of it are most ludicrous—from Prince Max of Bavaria, who brought back with him to Munich a lord-mayor’s coach, gilding, emblazonry, wigs, and all, as the true type of a London equipage, down to those strange merry-andrew figures in orange-plush breeches and sky-blue frocks, that one sees galloping after their masters along the Champs Élysées, like insane comets taking an airing on horseback. The whole thing is absurd. They cannot accomplish it, do what they will; there’s no success in the endeavour. It is like our miserable failures to get up a petit dîner or a soirée. If, then, French, Italians, and Germans fail so lamentably, only think, I beseech you, of Flemings—imagine Belgium à cheval! The author of Hudibras discovered years ago that these people were fish; that their land-life was a little bit of distraction they permitted themselves to take from time to time, but that their real element was a dyke or a canal. What would he have said had he seen them on horseback?
Now, I am free to confess that few men have less hope to win the world by deeds of horsemanship than Arthur O’Leary. I have ever looked upon it as a kind of presumption in me to get into the saddle. I have regarded my taking the reins as a species of duplicity on my part—a tacit assumption that I had any sort of control oyer the beast. I have appeared to myself guilty of a moral misdemeanour—the ‘obtaining a ride under false pretences.’ Yet when I saw myself astride of the ‘roan with the cut on her knee,’ and looked around me at the others, I fancied that I must have taken lessons from Franconi without knowing it; and even among the moustached heroes of the evening before, I bore myself like a gallant cavalier.
‘You sit your horse devilish like your father; he had just the same easy dégagé way in his saddle,’ said the old colonel, tapping his snuff-box, and looking at me with a smile of marked approval; while he continued in a lower tone, ‘I ‘ve told Laura to get near you if the mare becomes troublesome. The Flemings, you know, are not much to boast of as riders.’
I acknowledged the favour as well as I could, for already my horse was becoming fidgety—every one about me thinking it essential to spur and whip his beast into the nearest approach to mettle, and caper about like so many devils, while they cried out to one another—
‘Regardez, Charles, comment il est vif ce “Tear away.” C’est une bête du diable. Ah, tiens, tiens, vois donc “Albert.” Le voilà, c’est, “All-in-my-eye,” fils de “Charles Fox,” frère de “Sevins-de-main.”’
‘Ah, marquis, how goes it? Il est beau votre cheval.’
‘Oui, parbleu; he is frère aîné of “Kiss-mi-ladi,” qui a gagné le handicap à l’Ile du Dogs.’
And thus did these miserable imitators of Ascot and Doncaster, of Leamington and the Quorn, talk the most insane nonsense, which had been told to them by some London horse-dealer as the pedigree of their hackneys.