“Yes, sir—that’s about it,” said Mr. Middleton, looking at his watch, “and now we’ve just time to get back for your lunch, and to tell my old woman that the Sergeant’s coming to dine with you.”
“Doesn’t your mare trot?” said Blount, as they moved off, “it seems to me that Australian horses have only two paces, walk and canter. She doesn’t seem lame now.”
“I think sometimes it’s only her villany; she’s going as sound as a bell now. Yes! she can trot a bit when she likes.”
The cob, a fair performer, had just started, when Mr. Middleton gave the mare’s left ear a gentle screw, which induced her to alter her pace from a slow canter to a trot. “Trot, old woman!” he said, and settling to that useful pace, she caught up the cob. Mr. Blount gradually increased his pace—the old mare kept level with him, till after a dig with the spurs, and a refresher with the hunting crop, it became apparent that the cob was “on his top,” in stable phrase, doing a fair ten or eleven miles an hour.
“Are ye trotting now?” said the landlord, taking the old mare by the head.
“Yes! oh, yes—and pretty fair going, isn’t it?”
“Not bad, but this old cripple can do better.” On which, as if she had heard the words, the old mare stretched out her neck and passed the cob “like a shot!” as her owner afterwards stated when describing the affair to an admiring audience in the bar room.
The cob, after an ineffectual attempt to keep up, was fain to break into a hand gallop, upon which the old mare was pulled up, and the rider explained that it took a professional to beat old “Slavey”; but that owing to her uncertain temper, he had been unable to “take on” aspiring amateurs, and so missed good wagers.
“You might have ‘taken me on’ for a pound or two,” said Mr. Blount, “if you had cared to back her, for I certainly should not have thought she could have beaten my cob. She doesn’t seem built for trotting—does she?”
“She is a bit of a take down,” admitted Mr. Middleton, “but I don’t bet with gentlemen as stays in my house. Though her coat’s rough, she’s a turn better bred than she looks. Got good blood on both sides, and you can drive her in single or double harness, and ride her too, as far and as fast as you like. There’s no doubt she’s a useful animal, for you can’t put her wrong.”