“What will you take for the brown, Sloper, if I buy him at so much the foot?” said the customer, as they emerged into the fresh air.
“Say ten pound a foot, sir!” answered Job, with the utmost gravity, “and ten over, because he always has a foot to spare. Come now, Mr. Sawyer, I can afford to let a good customer like you have that horse for fefty. Fefty guineas, or even pounds, sir, to you. I got him in a bad debt, you see, sir;—it’s Bible truth I’m telling ye;—and he only stood me in forty-seven pounds ten, and a sov. I gave the man as brought him over. He’s not everybody’s horse, Mr. Sawyer, that isn’t; but I think he’ll carry you remarkably well.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever give him a chance,” was the rejoinder. “Come, Job, we’re burning daylight; let’s go and have a look at the crack.”
One individual had been listening to the above conversation with thrilling interest. This was no less a personage than Barney, Mr. Sloper’s head groom, general factotum, and rough-rider in ordinary—an official whose business it was to ride anything at anything, for anybody who asked him. He was a little old man, with one eye, a red handkerchief, and the general appearance of a post-boy on half-pay; a sober fellow, too, and as brave as King Richard; yet had he expressed himself strongly about this said brown horse, the previous evening, to the maid-of-all-work. “He’s the wussest we’ve had yet,” was his fiat. “It’s nateral for ’em to fall; but when he falls, he’s all over a chap till he’s crumpled him.” So his heroic heart beat more freely when they adjourned to the neighbouring box.
The Roan.
Mr. Sloper threw the door open with an air. It must be confessed he seldom had one that would bear, without preparation, a minute inspection from the eye of a sportsman; but he knew this was a sound one, and made the most of it. Clothed and hooded, littered to the hocks, and sheeted to the tail, there was yet something about his general appearance that fascinated Mr. Sawyer at once. Job saw the spell was working, and abstained from disturbing it. As far as could be seen, the animal was a long, low, well-bred-looking roan, with short flat legs, large clean hocks, and swelling muscular thighs. His supple skin threw off a bloom, as if he was in first-rate condition; and when, laying his ears back and biting the manger, he lifted a foreleg, as it were, to expostulate with his visitors, the hoof was round, open, and well-developed, as blue, and to all appearance as hard as a flint.
“Has he fashion enough, think ye, sir?” asked Job, at length, breaking the silence. “Strip him, Barney,” he added, taking the straw from his mouth.
The roan winced, and stamped, and whisked his tail, and set his back up during the process; but when it was concluded, Mr. Sawyer could not but confess to himself, that if he was only as good as he looked, he would do.
“Feel his legs, Mr. Sawyer!” observed the dealer, turning away to conceal the triumph that would ooze out. “There’s some legs—there’s some hocks and thighs! Talk of loins, and look where his tail’s set on. Carries his own head, too; and if you could see his manners! I never saw such manners in the hunting-field. Six-year-old—not a speck or blemish; bold as a bull, and gentle as a lady; he can go as fast as you can clap your hands, and stay till the middle of the week after next—jump a town, too, and never turn his head from the place you put him at. As handy as a fiddle, as neat as a pink, and worth all the money to carry in your eye when you go out to buy hunters. But what’s the use of talking about it to a judge like you? Lay your leg over him—only just lay your leg over him, Mr. Sawyer. I don’t want you to buy him! but get on him and feel his action, just as a favour to me.”