“I vote for the chestnuts,” said Baby, slapping her boot with her horsewhip.
“I move an amendment in favor of Miss Wildespin,” said I, doubtfully.
“He’ll never do for Galway,” sang Baby, laying her whip on my shoulder with no tender hand; “yet you used to cross the country in good style when you were here before.”
“And might do so again, Baby.”
“Ah, no; that vile dragoon seat, with your long stirrup, and your heel dropped, and your elbow this way, and your head that! How could you ever screw your horse up to his fence, lifting him along as you came up through the heavy ground, and with a stroke of your hand sending him pop over, with his hind-legs well under him?” Here she burst into a fit of laughter at my look of amazement, as with voice, gesture, and look she actually dramatized the scene she described.
By the time that I had costumed my fair friend in my dragoon cloak and a foraging cap, with a gold band around it, which was the extent of muffling my establishment could muster, a distant noise without apprised us that the phaeton was approaching. Certainly, the mode in which that equipage came up to the door might have inspired sentiments of fear in any heart less steeled against danger than my fair cousin’s. The two blood chestnuts (for it was those Mike harnessed, having a groom’s dislike to take a racer out of training) were surrounded by about twenty people: some at their heads; some patting them on the flanks; some spoking the wheels; and a few, the more cautious of the party, standing at a respectable distance and offering advice. The mode of progression was simply a spring, a plunge, a rear, a lounge, and a kick; and considering it was the first time they ever performed together, nothing could be more uniform than their display. Sometimes the pole would be seen to point straight upward, like a lightning conductor, while the infuriated animals appeared sparring with their fore-legs at an imaginary enemy. Sometimes, like the pictures in a school-book on mythology, they would seem in the act of diving, while with their hind-legs they dashed the splash-board into fragments behind them,—their eyes flashing fire, their nostrils distended, their flanks heaving, and every limb trembling with passion and excitement.
“That’s what I call a rare turn-out,” said Baby, who enjoyed the proceeding amazingly.
“Yes; but remember,” said I, “we’re not to have all these running footmen the whole way.”
“I like that near-sider with the white fetlock.”
“You’re right, Miss,” said Mike, who entered at the moment, and felt quite gratified at the criticism,—“you’re right, Miss; it’s himself can do it.”