Few men were better qualified to ride a horse to sell than Dick Naggett. He had good hands, great caution, and an instinctive knowledge of a customer. His excessive regard for his own neck ensured him from getting into needless difficulties; and as he was never forward in a run, but always conspicuous at a check, his horse obtained a reputation for stoutness and safety, which he had not earned by going fairly over a country in the line of hounds. There is a great art in riding hunters for sale, quite different from the straightforward science. It is not the boldest and most conspicuous horsemen who can obtain the longest prices for the animals that carry him so brilliantly; the world is very suspicious. Men have an unaccountable objection to buying a horse they know anything about. Besides which, the hunter that has been ridden fairly, however good he may be, must occasionally have been seen in difficulties. It is impossible to cross a severe line of fences, at a good pace, and in the front rank, without an occasional mishap. A second Lottery may find an unexpected trap on the further side of a fence, which no exertion can clear, and another Eclipse might be blown in deep ground, if rattled along close to a pack of high-bred fox-hounds on a good scenting morning; then, when it comes to a question of buying, the purchaser is good-naturedly warned by half-a-dozen officious friends, each of whom has probably something of his own in the stall that he wants to get rid of, and that he thinks would suit him better. One considers the intended purchase very much over-rated; another saw him refuse some rails in a corner; a third heard he was down at the thick fence coming out of the wood; and a fourth has been informed that he was in difficulties when they killed their fox, and could not have gone on another half-mile. Like Cæsar’s wife, a hunter must be above suspicion; so the alarmed purchaser goes and buys a soft bay horse from a dealer, of which mediocre animal nobody knows either good or evil—a beast that nobody has ever yet liked well enough either to “show him up,” or to give him a chance of putting his rider down. But a wary salesman knows better than to keep a good place when he has got it. Whilst his horse is fresh he flourishes away over a few fences, the larger the better, for all England to look on and admire, knowing quite well that, in the hurry and confusion of a run, he can decline when he pleases, and turn up again at the first check in a conspicuous position, as if he had been in front the whole time. The very few that could tell anything about it have probably been so much occupied, and so full of their own performances, that they do not know whether he was in their neighbourhood or not; whilst the general public in the hunting-field, like the general public everywhere else, are quite satisfied, if he is only loud enough and positive enough, to take a man’s assurances about himself on trust.
Now, Dick Naggett could do the selling business, especially the talking part of it, to admiration. Turning out in extremely neat attire, and with some article of dress, either coat, neckcloth, or hat, peculiarly conspicuous, he could not be overlooked, and whilst careful never to ask his horse to do more than the animal could handsomely accomplish, he at the same time gave a customer such glowing descriptions of its prowess, that he sold more than one very moderate hunter of Old Nobbler’s for about twice its value, and three times what the lawyer had given for it.
On these emergencies, too, Dick thought proper to affect the townsman, and sink the agriculturist altogether—a propensity which elicited on one occasion from Lord Castle-Cropper the only joke that reserved nobleman was ever known to perpetrate. Dick was holding forth, as usual at the covert-side, on the merits of the horse he was riding, and the silent Earl emerging from the recesses of Deepdale Wood, which had just been drawn blank, and followed by old Potiphar, a solemn badger-pied hound, not entirely unlike his Lordship in the face, paused to listen to the conversation.
“I’m only asking a hundred and seventy for him,” said Dick; “he’s the cheapest horse out to-day. I’ll appeal to my Lord if he isn’t.”
Lord Castle-Cropper ran his eye over the animal. “I could have bought him this time last year for that money exactly,” replied he, “barring the hundred.”
“Oh! but all stock has risen since then,” retorted Dick, loud and unabashed, “cent. per cent. I should say—sheep, cows, poultry, guinea-pigs, and fancy rabbits!”
The silent Earl was one of those provoking people who, always sticking to facts, always seem to have them, so to speak, at their fingers’ ends.
“I can only tell you, Mr. Naggett,” said his Lordship, “that I am glad to take now two-thirds of the price I paid six months back for all kinds of stock. I am a farmer myself, as perhaps you know.”
Dick was impudence personified. “Then you use us townspeople precious hard, my Lord,” said he. “A nice price you farmers make us pay for our mutton.”
“I think you lawyers make us pay a good deal dearer for the skins,” retorted his Lordship; and although he never moved a muscle of his own countenance, the bystanders raised such a shout of laughter as made old Potiphar erect his ears and bristles, thinking a fox must have been viewed away, and as shut up Dick Naggett for the next ten minutes at least, after which he recovered completely, and sold his horse for a trifle less than he asked, before the day was out.