"Have you bought that horse, Mister?" he said.
"Not yet; I am only trying him," I replied. "Do you know him?"
"Know him? I should think I did. That's old Punch. I broke him into harness when he was three off. He nearly killed me; ran away with me and my dog-cart among the scrub at the racecourse swamp, and smashed it against a honeysuckle."
"Is that long ago?" I enquired.
"Long ago? Let me see. That horse is twenty year old if he's a day. He'll not run away with you now; no fear; he's quite safe. Good-day, Mister. Come on, Star;" and Bill touched his leader with his whip.
When I arrived at the court-house, I made a search in the cause list book, and found that Johnny-come-lately had been sent to gaol just sixteen years before for stealing Old Punch, so I restored that venerable trotter to its owner.
I had soon more horses offered to me for trial, every old screw within twenty miles being brought to me for inspection. The next animal I harnessed belonged to Andrew Jackson, and was brought by Andrew Jackson, junior, who said his father could let me have it for a month on trial. Jackson, junior, was anxious to go away without the horse, but I told him to wait a bit while I put on the harness. The animal was of a mouse colour, very tall, something like a giraffe; and by the time I got him between the shafts, I could see that he was possessed by a devil of some kind. It might be a winged one who would fly away with me; so, in order to have a clear course, I led him through the gateway into the middle of the road, and while Jackson, junior, held his head, I mounted carefully into the trap. I held the lines ready for a start, and after some hesitation the giraffe did start, but he went tail foremost. I tried to reverse the engine, but it would only work in one direction. He backed me into the ditch, and then across it on to the side path, then against the fence, bucking at it, and trying to go through and put me in the Tarra. I told Andrew, junior, to take the giraffe home to his parent, and relate what he had seen.
My next horse was a black one from Sale, and he also was possessed of a devil, but one of a different species. He was named Gilpin, and the very name ought to have been a warning to me if I had had sense enough to profit by it. Just as I sat down, and took the reins, and was going to observe what he would do, he suddenly went away at full gallop. I tried to pull him in, but he put his chin against his chest, and the harder I pulled the faster he flew. The road was full of ruts, and I was bumped up and down very badly. My hat went away, but, for the present, my head kept its place. I managed to steer safely as far as the bridge across the Tarra but, in going over it, the horse's hoofs and whirling wheels sounded like thunder, and brought out the whole population of Tarraville to look at me. It was on a Sunday afternoon; some good people were singing hymns in the local chapel, and as I passed the turn of the road, they left the anxious benches, came outside in a body, and gazed at me, a bare-headed and miserable Sabbath-breaker going swiftly to perdition. I also was on a very anxious bench. But now there was a long stretch of good road before me, and I made good use of it. Instead of pulling the horse in, I let him go, and encouraged him with the whip to go faster, being determined to let him gallop until either he or the sun went down. Then the despicable wretch slackened his pace, and wanted to come to terms. So I wheeled him round and whipped him without mercy, making him gallop all the way home again. I did not buy him.
But the next horse I tried was comparatively blameless, so I bought him, and at the end of the first month sent in a claim to the Law Department for the usual allowance. I was curtly informed that the amount had been reduced from fifty pounds to ten pounds for my horse, although sixty pounds was still allowed to the other horse for travelling the same distance, the calculation evidently being based on the supposition that the police magistrate's horse would eat six times as much as mine. Remonstrance was vain, and I found I had burdened myself with an animal, possessing no social or political influence whatever. I knew already that the world was governed without wisdom, and I now felt that it was also ruled with extreme meanness.
And even after my horse was condemned to starve on ten pounds per annum, the cost of justice was still extravagant. Without reckoning the expense incurred in erecting and maintaining three court houses, and three police stations, and paying three policemen for doing next to nothing, I ascertained from the cause lists that it cost the Government fourteen pounds sterling every time we fined Terry, the cobbler, five shillings for being drunk; and Terry did not always pay the fines. What ails British law is dignity, and the insufferable expense attending it. The disease will never be cured until a strong-minded Chief Justice shall be found, who has sense enough to sit on the bench in his native hair, and to take off his coat when the thermometer rises to eighty degrees. It was in that manner Judge Winstanley kept court at Waterloo in Illinois, and we had there quicker justice, cheaper laws, and better manners than those which this southern hemisphere yet exhibits. As to the lawyers, if we did not like them, we could lynch them, so they were sociable and civil. Moreover, Prairie de Long was discovered and settled nearly twenty years before Australia Felix was heard of.