“Come, look alive!” said old Isaac, fishing a pair of breeches from the floor; “there ain’t a minute to lose. Where’s the key o’ your stable?”
The weaker nature obeyed instinctively: Tiptop put on his breeches, and produced the key,
“Not a word to living mortal!” urged the old man impressively. “It’s as much as my place is worth. I’ve left The Boy safe locked up. You go and get your horse, and meet me in the close. There’s just light enough to gallop ’em. Look alive, man! Whatever should I do if master was to get wind of this here?”
Isaac seemed unusually perturbed as he preceded Mr. Tiptop down the creaking stairs, and wended his way to his own stable, leaving the latter—still rather confused—to saddle and bring out the redoubtable Chance.
The Honourable Crasher’s groom felt for the first time in his life somewhat puzzled, and taken aback. He had not calculated on such promptitude and decision from a “yokel.” Also, his intellects had hardly recovered the potency of the flip, a beverage of which it requires several hours’ sleep to obviate the effects. Altogether he was sensible of less than his usual self-confidence. In his hurry, too, and by the imperfect light of a stable-lantern, he put the wrong saddle on Chance, who, by the way, was not a very pleasant animal to caparison, save by her own accustomed attendant—a grey-haired, withered old helper, then probably dreaming of the better days most of these ancient stablemen have seen. The snaffle, too, that he wanted was not in its accustomed place. Altogether, it took him some considerable time before he could lead the horse out into the wan light of a morning moon. This interval, however, had enabled him to recover the good opinion he generally entertained of Mr. Tiptop. As he got upon Chance’s back, and felt the animal step lightly and jauntily under him, the conviction came strong upon his mind that in some way or other he was sure to get the better of the yokel.
As the conscience-stricken Marmion riding his red-roan by night into the enchanted ground was aware of a phantom cavalier looming dimly in the distance in guise of his deadliest enemy, so Mr. Tiptop, opening the gate of the close which he had appointed for a trysting-place, distinguished the outline of the man and horse with whom he was about to try the speed of his thorough-bred. As he neared his antagonist, he observed that the animal he bestrode was sheeted and hooded, and otherwise so swaddled up in clothing, that there was nothing visible of it, save its legs; and in the uncertain twilight the general effect of the pair much resembled that of those hobby-horses which so delighted our ancestors in their Christmas revels.
“Look alive!” exclaimed Mr. Tiptop, somewhat angrily, as a black cloud swept across the moon, and a raw morning breeze dashed a score of sharp rain-drops into his feverish face. “It will be light in half an hour, though it’s as dark as pitch now. Ain’t you going to strip him?”
“Strip him!” repeated Isaac, keeping off at a respectful distance the while. “Not I; he always runs kindest in his clothes. Don’t ye come anigh!” he added, as Mr. Tiptop ranged alongside. “He’s werry handy with his heels when he’s at exercise. Are you ready?”
Now the close, as such open spaces are termed only in the midland counties, was a field of sound old grass, comprising little less than a hundred acres, and was much affected as an exercising ground by the grooms of such sportsmen as had chosen Market Harborough for their head-quarters. This was sufficiently attested by the trodden state of its hedges, betraying the hoofs-marks of many a good nag, whose speed had been tried here far oftener than was dreamt of by his master. Do you think we know the merits of our steeds one-half as well as do their own immediate attendants? Why are the hacks always in such good condition, and constantly falling lame so unaccountably? Is it that on their homeward way they are matched continually against each other, and against Father Time, whereby many pots of beer and goes of brandy are lost and won on the result? To a man who really cares for his horses, a groom he can depend upon is worth his weight in gold.
Both Isaac and Mr. Tiptop knew perfectly well that a straight run-in, the long way of the furrows, up to a certain white gate which they would pass on their right hand, was as near half-a-mile as possible. The latter, keeping out of reach of his opponent’s heels, proposed a longer distance; but Isaac, declaring it was simply a question of speed, as they both knew their horses’ performances in the hunting-field, overruled his friend on this point.