The next horse to Bull-dog, and the last in the stable, is Golden-drop, a soft, mealy chestnut—of all colours the most objectionable. He is a hot, pulling, hauling, rushing, rough-actioned animal, that gives a rider two days’ exercise in one.
The worst of him is, he has the impudence to decline harness; for though he doesn’t “mill,” as they call it, he yet runs backwards as fast as forwards, and would crash through a plate-glass window, a gate, a conservatory, or anything else that happened to be behind. As a hack he is below mediocrity, for in his walk he digs his toes into the ground about every tenth step, and either comes down on his nose, or sets off at score for fear of a licking, added to which, he shies at every heap of stones and other available object on the road, whereby he makes a ten miles’ journey into one of twelve. The Major got him of Mr. Brisket, the butcher, at Hinton, being taken with the way in which his hatless lad spun him about the ill-paved streets, with the meat-basket on his arm—the full trot, it may be observed, being the animal’s pace—but having got him home, the more the Major saw of him the less he liked him. He had a severe deal for him too, and made two or three journeys over to Hinton on market-days, and bought a pennyworth of whipcord of one saddler, a set of spur-leathers of another, a pot of harness-paste of a third, in order to pump them about the horse ere he ventured to touch. He also got Mr. Paul Straddler, the disengaged gentleman of the place, whose greatest pleasure is to be employed upon a deal, to ferret out all he could about him, who reported that the horse was perfectly sound, and a capital feeder, which indeed he is, for he will attack anything, from a hayband down to a hedge-stake. You see he’s busy on his bedding now.
Brisket knowing his man, and that the Major killed his own mutton, and occasionally beef, in the winter, so that there was no good to be got of him in the meat way, determined to ask a stiff price, viz., £25 (Brisket having given £14, which the Major having beat down to £23 commenced on the mercantile line, which Brisket’s then approaching marriage favoured, and the Major ultimately gave a four-post mahogany bedstead, with blue damask furniture, palliasse and mattress to match; a mahogany toilet-mirror, 23 inches by 28: a hot-water pudding-dish, a silver-edged cake-basket, a bad barometer, a child’s birch-wood crib, a chess-board, and £2 10 s. in cash for him, the £2 10 s.. being, as the Major now declares (to himself, of course,) far more than his real worth. However, there the horse stands; and though he has been down twice with the Major, and once with the Humbler, these little fore paws (faux pas) as the Major calls them, have been on the soft, and the knees bear no evidence of the fact. Such is our friend’s present stud, and such is its general character.
But stay! We are omitting the horse in this large family-pew-looking box at the end, whose drawn curtains have caused us to overlook him. He is another of the Major’s bad tickets, and one of which he has just become possessed in the following way:—
Having—in furtherance of his character of a “thorrer sportsman,” and to preserve the spirit of impartiality so becoming an old master of “haryers”—gone to Sir Moses Mainchance’s opening day, as well as to my Lord’s, Sir Moses, as if in appreciation of the compliment, had offered to give the horse on which his second whip was blundering among the blind ditches.
The Major jumped at the offer, for the horse looked well with the whip on him; and, as he accepted, Sir Moses increased the stream of his generosity by engaging the Major to dine and take him away. Sir Moses had a distinguished party to meet him, and was hospitality itself. He plied our Major with champagne, and hock, and Barsac, and Sauterne, and port, and claret, and compliments, but never alluded to the horse until about an hour after dinner, when Mr. Smoothley, the jackal of the hunt, brought him on the tapis.
“Ah!” exclaimed Sir Moses, as if in sudden recollection, “that’s true! Major, you’re quite welcome to ‘Little-bo-peep,’ (for so he had christened him, in order to account for his inquisitive manner of peering). Your quite welcome to ‘Little-bo-peep,’ and I hope he’ll be useful to you.”
“Thank’e, Sir Moses, thank’e!” bobbed the grateful Major, thinking what a good chap the baronet was.
“Not a bit!” replied Sir Moses, chucking up his chin, just as if he was in the habit of giving a horse away every other day in the week. “Not a bit! Keep him as long as you like—all the season if you please—and send him back when you are done.”
Then, as if in deprecation of any more thanks, he plied the wine again, and gave the Major and his “harriers” in a speech of great gammonosity. The Major was divided between mortification at the reduction of the gift into a loan, and gratification at the compliment now paid him, but was speedily comforted by the flattering reception his health, and the stereotyped speech in which he returned thanks, met at the hands of the company. He thought he must be very popular. Then, when they were all well wined, and had gathered round the sparkling fire with their coffee or their Curaçoa in their hands, Sir Moses button-holed the Major with a loud familiar, “I’ll tell ye what, Yammerton! you’re a devilish good feller, and there shall be no obligation between us—you shall just give me forty puns for ‘Little-bo-peep,’ and that’s making you a present of him for it’s a hundred less than I gave.”