“Well,” said the jockey, “I am satisfied. I am rather a short-tempered person, but I bear no malice. He is, as you say, drinking my wine, and has perhaps taken a drop too much, not being used to such high liquor; but one doesn’t like to be put out of one’s tale, more especially when one was about to moralize, do you see, oneself, and to show off what little learning one has. However, I bears no malice. Here is a hand to each of you; we’ll take another glass each, and think no more about it.”
The jockey having shaken both of our hands, and filled our glasses and his own with what champagne remained in the bottle, put on his coat, sat down, and resumed his pipe and story.
“Where was I? Oh, roaming about the country with Hopping Ned and Biting Giles. Those were happy days, and a merry and prosperous life we led. However, nothing continues under the sun in the same state in which it begins, and our firm was soon destined to undergo a change. We came to a village where there was a very high church steeple, and in a little time my comrades induced a crowd of people to go and see me display my gift by flinging stones above the heads of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who stood at the four corners on the top, carved in stone. The parson, seeing the crowd, came waddling out of his rectory to see what was going on. After I had flung up the stones, letting them fall just where I liked—and one, I remember, fell on the head of Mark, where I dare say it remains to the present day—the parson, who was one of the description of people called philosophers, held up his hand, and asked me to let the next stone I flung up fall upon it. He wished, do you see, to know with what weight the stone would fall down, and talked something about gravitation—a word which I could never understand to the present day, save that it turned out a grave matter to me. I, like a silly fellow myself, must needs consent, and, flinging the stone up to a vast height, contrived so that it fell into the parson’s hand, which it cut dreadfully. The parson flew into a great rage, more particularly as everybody laughed at him, and, being a magistrate, ordered his clerk, who was likewise constable, to conduct me to prison as a rogue and vagabond, telling my comrades that if they did not take themselves off, he would serve them in the same manner. So Ned hopped off, and Giles ran after him, without making any gathering, and I was led to Bridewell, my mittimus following at the end of a week, the parson’s hand not permitting him to write before that time. In the Bridewell I remained a month, when, being dismissed, I went in quest of my companions, whom, after some time, I found up, but they refused to keep my company any longer; telling me that I was a dangerous character, likely to bring them more trouble than profit; they had, moreover, filled up my place. Going into a cottage to ask for a drink of water, they saw a country fellow making faces to amuse his children; the faces were so wonderful that Hopping Ned and Biting Giles at once proposed taking him into partnership, and the man—who was a fellow not very fond of work—after a little entreaty, went away with them. I saw him exhibit his gift, and couldn’t blame the others for preferring him to me; he was a proper ugly fellow at all times, but when he made faces his countenance was like nothing human. He was called Ugly Moses. I was so amazed at his faces, that though poor myself I gave him sixpence, which I have never grudged to this day, for I never saw anything like them. The firm throve wonderfully after he had been admitted into it. He died some little time ago, keeper of a public-house, which he had been enabled to take from the profits of his faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by a much greater person than either; an attorney observing it took a liking to the lad, and prophesied that he would some day be heard of in the world; and in order to give him the first lift, took him into his office, at first to light fires and do such kind of work, and after a little time taught him to write, then promoted him to a desk, articled him afterwards, and being unmarried, and without children, left him what he had when he died. The young fellow, after practising at the law some time, went to the bar, where, in a few years, helped on by his grin, for he had nothing else to recommend him, he became, as I said before, a rising barrister. He comes our circuit, and I occasionally employ him, when I am obliged to go to law about such a thing as an unsound horse. He generally brings me through—or rather that grin of his does—and yet I don’t like the fellow, confound him, but I’m an oddity—no, the one I like, and whom I generally employ, is a fellow quite different, a bluff sturdy dog, with no grin on his face, but with a look that seems to say I am an honest man, and what cares I for any one? And an honest man he is, and something more. I have known coves with a better gift of the gab, though not many, but he always speaks to the purpose, and understands law thoroughly; and that’s not all. When at college, for he has been at college, he carried off everything before him as a Latiner, and was first-rate at a game they call matthew mattocks. I don’t exactly know what it is, but I have heard that he who is first-rate at matthew mattocks is thought more of than if he were first-rate Latiner.
“Well, the chap that I’m talking about, not only came out first-rate Latiner, but first-rate at matthew mattocks too; doing, in fact, as I am told by those who knows, for I was never at college myself, what no one had ever done before. Well, he makes his appearance at our circuit, does very well, of course, but he has a somewhat high front, as becomes an honest man, and one who has beat every one at Latin and matthew mattocks; and one who can speak first-rate law and sense;—but see now, the cove with the grin, who has like myself never been at college; knows nothing of Latin, or matthew mattocks, and has no particular gift of the gab, has two briefs for his one, and I suppose very properly, for that grin of his curries favour with the juries; and mark me, that grin of his will enable him to beat the other in the long run. We all know what all barrister coves looks forward to—a seat on the hop sack. Well, I’ll bet a bull to fivepence, that the grinner gets upon it, and the snarler doesn’t; at any rate, that he gets there first. I calls my cove—for he is my cove—a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my stable. I have often thought it a pity he wasn’t born with a grin on his face like the son of Ugly Moses. It is true he would scarcely then have been an out and outer at Latin and matthew mattocks, but what need of either to a chap born with a grin? Talk of being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth! give me a cove born with a grin on his face—a much better endowment.
“I will now shorten my history as much as I can, for we have talked as much as folks do during a whole night in the Commons’ House, though, of course, not with so much learning, or so much to the purpose, because—why? They are in the House of Commons, and we in a public room of an inn at Horncastle. The goodness of the ale, do ye see, never depending on what it is made of, oh, no! but on the fashion and appearance of the jug in which it is served up. After being turned out of the firm, I got my living in two or three honest ways, which I shall not trouble you with describing. I did not like any of them, however, as they did not exactly suit my humour; at last I found one which did. One Saturday afternoon, I chanced to be in the cattle-market of a place about eighty miles from here; there I won the favour of an old gentleman who sold dickeys. He had a very shabby squad of animals, without soul or spirit; nobody would buy them, till I leaped upon their hinder ends, and by merely wriggling in a particular manner, made them caper and bound so to people’s liking, that in a few hours every one of them was sold at very sufficient prices. The old gentleman was so pleased with my skill, that he took me home with him, and in a very little time into partnership. It’s a good thing to have a gift, but yet better to have two. I might have got a very decent livelihood by throwing stones, but I much question whether I should ever have attained to the position in society which I now occupy, but for my knowledge of animals. I lived very comfortably with the old gentleman till he died, which he did in about a fortnight after he had laid his old lady in the ground. Having no children, he left me what should remain after he had been buried decently, and the remainder was six dickeys and thirty shillings in silver. I remained in the dickey trade ten years, during which time I saved a hundred pounds. I then embarked in the horse line. One day, being in the—market on a Saturday, I saw Mary Fulcher with a halter round her neck, led about by a man, who offered to sell her for eighteen-pence. I took out the money forthwith and bought her; the man was her husband, a basket-maker, with whom she had lived several years without having any children; he was a drunken, quarrel-some fellow, and having had a dispute with her the day before, he determined to get rid of her, by putting a halter round her neck and leading her to the cattle-market, as if she were a mare, which he had, it seems, a right to do;—all women being considered mares by old English law, and, indeed, still called mares in certain counties, where genuine old English is still preserved. That same afternoon, the man who had been her husband, having got drunk in a public-house, with the money which he had received for her, quarrelled with another man, and receiving a blow under the ear, fell upon the floor, and died of artiflex; and in less than three weeks I was married to Mary Fulcher, by virtue of regular bans. I am told she was legally my property by virtue of my having bought her with a halter round her neck; but, to tell you the truth, I think everybody should live by his trade, and I didn’t wish to act shabbily towards our parson, who is a good fellow, and has certainly a right to his fees. A better wife than Mary Fulcher—I mean Mary Dale—no one ever had; she has borne me several children, and has at all times shown a willingness to oblige me, and to be my faithful wife. Amongst other things, I begged her to have done with her family, and I believe she has never spoken to them since.
“I have thriven very well in business, and my name is up as being a person who can be depended on, when folks treats me handsomely. I always make a point when a gentleman comes to me, and says, ‘Mr. Dale,’ or ‘John,’ for I have no objection to be called John by a gentleman—‘I wants a good horse, and am ready to pay a good price’—I always makes a point, I say, to furnish him with an animal worth the money; but when I sees a fellow, whether he calls himself gentleman or not, wishing to circumvent me, what does I do? I doesn’t quarrel with him; not I; but, letting him imagine he is taking me in, I contrives to sell him a screw for thirty pounds, not worth thirty shillings. All honest respectable people have at present great confidence in me, and frequently commissions me to buy them horses at great fairs like this.
“This short young gentleman was recommended to me by a great landed proprietor, to whom he bore letters of recommendation from some great prince in his own country, who had a long time ago been entertained at the house of the landed proprietor, and the consequence is, that I brings young six foot six to Horncastle, and purchases for him the horse of the Romany Rye. I don’t do these kind things for nothing, it is true; that can’t be expected; for every one must live by his trade; but, as I said before, when I am treated handsomely, I treat folks so. Honesty, I have discovered, as perhaps some other people have, is by far the best policy; though, as I also said before, when I’m along with thieves, I can beat them at their own game. If I am obliged to do it, I can pass off the veriest screw as a flying drummedary, for even when I was a child I had found out by various means what may be done with animals. I wish now to ask a civil question, Mr. Romany Rye. Certain folks have told me that you are a horse witch; are you one, or are you not?”
“I, like yourself,” said I, “know, to a certain extent, what may be done with animals.”
“Then how would you, Mr. Romany Rye, pass off the veriest screw in the world for a flying drummedary?”
“By putting a small live eel down his throat; as long as the eel remained in his stomach, the horse would appear brisk and lively in a surprising degree.”