“Didn’t you,” replied Cuddy, adding, “you might have known by my knock,” saying which Cuddy stuck his cheesey hat down on his nose, and pocketing his hands, proceeded to scrutinise the stud.
“What’s this ‘orse got a bandage on for?” asked he about one. “Why don’t ye let that ‘orse’s ‘ead down?” demanded he of another. “Strip this ’orse,” ordered he of a third. Then Cuddy stood criticising his points, his legs, his loins, his hocks, his head, his steep shoulder, as he called it, and then ordered the clothes to be put on again. So he went from stable to stable, just as he does at Tattersall’s on a Sunday, Cuddy being as true to the “corner” as the needle to the pole, though, like the children, he looks, but never touches, that is to say, “bids,” at least not for himself. Our Billy, soon tiring of this amusement—if, indeed, amusement it can be called—availed himself of the interregnum caused by the outside passage from one set of stables to another, to slip away to look after his own horse, of whose health he suddenly remembered Rougier had spoken disparagingly in the morning. After some little trouble he found the Juniper-smelling head groom, snoring asleep among a heap of horse-cloths before the fire in the saddle-room.
It is said that a man who is never exactly sober is never quite drunk, and Jack Wetun was one of this order, he was always running to the “unsophisticated gin-bottle,” keeping up the steam of excitement, but seldom overtopping it, and could shake himself into apparent sobriety in an instant. Like most of Sir Moses’s people, he was one of the fallen angels of servitude, having lived in high places, from which his intemperate habits had ejected him; and he was now gradually descending to that last refuge of the destitute, the Ostlership of a farmer’s inn. Starting out of his nest at the rousing shake of the helper, who holloaed in his ear that “Mr. Pringle wanted to see his ‘orse,” Wetun stretched his brawny arms, and, rubbing his eyes, at length comprehended Billy, when he exclaimed with a start, “Oss, sir? Oh, by all means, sir;” and, bundling on his greasy-collared, iron-grey coat, he reeled and rolled out of the room, followed by our friend. “That (hiccup) oss of (hiccup) yours is (hiccup) amiss, I think (hiccup), sir,” said he, leading, or rather lurching the way. “A w-h-a-w-t?” drawled Billy, watching Weton’s tack and half-tack gait.
“Amiss (hiccup)—unwell—don’t like his (hiccup) looks,” replied the groom, rolling past the stable-door where he was. “Oh, beg pardon,” exclaimed he, bumping against Billy on turning short back, as he suddenly recollected himself; “Beg pardon, he’s in here,” added he, fumbling at the door. It was locked. Then, oh dear, he hadn’t got the (hiccup) key, then (hiccup); yes, he had got the (hiccup) key, as he recollected he had his coat on, and dived into the pocket for it. Then he produced it; and, after making several unsuccessful pokes at the key-hole, at length accomplished an entry, and Billy again saw Napoleon the Great, now standing in the promised two-stalled stable along with Sir Moses’s gig mare.
To a man with any knowledge of horses, Napoleon certainly did look very much amiss—more like a wooden horse at a harness-maker’s, than an animal meant to go,—stiff, with his fore-logs abroad, and an anxious care-worn countenance continually cast back at its bearing flanks.
“Humph!” said Billy, looking him over, as he thought, very knowingly. “Not so much amiss, either, is he?”
“Well, sir, what you think,” replied Wetun, glad to find that Billy didn’t blame him for his bad night’s lodgings.
“Oh, I dare say he’ll be all right in a day or two,” observed
Billy, half inclined to recommend his having his feet put into warm water.
“Ope so,” replied Wetun, looking up the horse’s red nostrils, adding, “but he’s not (hiccup) now, somehow.”