The fact is, Mr. Sawyer had but the grey to ride. He did not quite fancy giving the roan his earliest trial in what he understood to be a hilly country; and as for making his first appearance in High Leicestershire on Marathon—really, though both were pretty strong, neither his nerves nor his self-conceit would have stood such a test.
Somehow, everything went wrong, as is apt to be the case in a strange place, and when we are particularly anxious for the reverse. He cut himself shaving. His leathers were damp, and badly cleaned; looser, too, at the knees, and tighter in the thighs, than he liked. Also, he couldn’t find his button-hook; and any one who has put on boots and breeches without the aid of that implement, will sympathise with his distress. Isaac knew where it was, doubtless; but, ere his master arrived at the stage of toilet at which it was required, Isaac and the grey had made their first wrong turn in the fog, about a mile from the town, on their way to Tilton Wood.
Altogether, by the time The Boy, with rather heavy eyes and an unwashed face, had brought round Jack-a-Dandy, our friend was in that mood which is best described as having “got out of bed with the wrong foot foremost.”
Once in the saddle, however, things mended rapidly. No horseman could get upon Jack-a-Dandy without feeling what a good little animal it was; and, indeed, Jack’s career had been a somewhat adventurous one. Thorough-bred, but too small to be put in training, he had fallen into the hands of a steeple-chasing horsedealer, who sank his pedigree, and put him in one or two good handicaps as “his daughter’s pony.” Master Jack could jump like a deer, and, with nine stone seven on his back, was quite able to make hunters of considerable pretensions look extremely foolish. This could not go on for ever, and the dealer broke, after which, Jack carried the drunken whip of a pack of Irish fox-hounds for two seasons, and, when that establishment “busted up,” found his way once more into his native country, as leader in a young gentleman’s tandem, who tried to graduate at Oxford. Pending the failure of that acolyte, he had a good deal of fun at Bullingdon, winning cleverly whenever he had a chance, and only left the University because his master did, and took him to London, and, despite certain eccentricities, rode him in the Park. When that youth was compelled to obtain his passports for the Continent, Jack, in company with several other valuables, was seized by the creditors; and I fancy he had a very bad time of it for two or three years, till he turned up at Smithfield, nothing but skin, bone, and blemishes, with a pair of raw shoulders that would have made you sick. Here Mr. Sawyer, struck with his “make-and-shape,” bought him, after a good deal of haggling, for thirteen pounds ten shillings, throwing in half-a-crown for luck, and standing two pots of beer and a glass of brandy-and-water, besides the man’s expenses who brought him to the West-end. Altogether, he cost him less than fourteen sovereigns; and he justly considered him very cheap at the money. Though his knees were broke, and he was fired all round, he never stumbled or was lame; and if you didn’t mind a succession of kicks for the first half-mile and a mouth which bad usage had rendered perfectly callous, he was as pleasant a hack as you could wish to get upon. Jack never wanted to pull, if the rein was laid on his neck; but the moment it was caught hold of, his old associations took it as a signal to go, and go he would, accordingly. With regard to his appellation—the last among many aliases—when his master called him “Jack,” old Isaac called him “The Dandy,” and vice versâ.
There are a good many ways from Market Harborough to Tilton Wood. Of course, the morning being very thick, and Mr. Sawyer a perfect stranger to the country, he chose the most intricate, hoping to pass between the Langtons—of which, for the more complete bewilderment of strangers, there are five or six—and so to reach Stanton Wyville, whence he meant boldly to leave the lanes, and strike out into a line of bridle-gates, by the corner of Stanton Wood, which might or might not eventually land him somewhere about Skeffington.
Deluded man! Ere he reached the grass-track he meant to follow, the fog was denser than ever. He managed to get through one bridle-gate, after catching his horse’s rein on the post—an insult which The Dandy resented by putting his head down, and racing wilfully and aimlessly into the surrounding obscurity—and then found himself riding round and round the same field, with extraordinary perseverance, and not the remotest chance of escape.
He would have liked, now, to get back again into the lanes; but he could not even hit the gate at which he entered, and had embarked upon the tedious process of coasting the field methodically, for that purpose, and giving up all idea of hunting for the day, when, much to his relief, he spied a gigantic object looming through the fog, which, on a nearer approach, proved to be nothing larger than a horseman, cantering confidently towards him.
On inspection, this timely arrival turned out to be the Honourable Crasher, with an enormous cigar in his mouth, looking more tired than ever, and, apparently, quite unconscious of the fog and everything else. With an effort, however, he recognised his fellow-traveller of the day before, and courteously offered to guide him—a proposal which the latter accepted with great readiness.
“I had almost lost myself,” said he, “what with this thick fog, and not knowing the country.”
To which the Honourable Crasher replied, “Y-e-e-es—it makes one cough, but it’s all plain sailing now,” and broke into a gallop.