Among the entertainments proper to the season, which the family about this time witnessed, was the polo match in the Champion Cup Tournament between the ‘Magpies’ and the ‘Handley Cross’ teams.
The former team was composed of Captain Hobson, Major Vaughan, Mr. Thynne, and Major Lee; the latter played Mr. Rich, Major Anselm, Captain Neil Haig, and Colonel Renton; Colonel St. Quintin, timekeeper, and Mr. John Watson and Major Kirke, umpires.
The girls were wildly interested, having seen Captain Neil Haig (who put in the first big hit) play in Melbourne.
On that occasion, four Englishmen played the best team in Australia, composed of the three brothers Camperdown and Mr. Wellesley. It came off on the Moonee Valley ground; it was a notable society function—Her Excellency Lady Brassey, the wife of the Governor of the day, presenting the prizes on the ground.
It was stubbornly contested, but ended in a draw; Colonel St. Quintin, who happened to be in Australia at the time, acted as umpire.
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]So much interested in the game were they, so lost in admiration of the beauty and high quality of the ponies, that, hearing there were to be two club games played at Hurlingham on the following Wednesday, they arranged to attend. To their surprise and delight Lord Roberts and Lady Aileen arrived to witness the play.
Lord Harrington’s team consisted of the Duke of Westminster, Captain Neil Haig, his Lordship himself, and Mr. de Kooep. A close finish, with a draw, was the result. The day was lovely, the play admirable, but one feature of the meeting particularly interested the Australian contingent. Vanda, whose eyes seemed to be everywhere, exclaimed suddenly: ‘Why, there’s our West Australian friend Gerald Branksome; and, just fancy! it must be his wife with him. We heard he was to be married this month, in London, to the daughter of a high official in Albany, or Perth, or somewhere. How pretty she is—so well dressed too! What fun meeting them here! Don’t you see them, Hermie? What a swell Gerald looks—tall hat—frocker—most accurate!’
The pair of spectators thus favourably reviewed were seen to be in conversation with Captain Haig, after which, the recent bridegroom retired into the recesses of the dressing pavilion, whence he shortly emerged in full polo costume, a few minutes before the Victoria Cross Race was started. A tall, well-built, fair-haired young man, he slipped into the saddle on a club pony, led out for him, with the ease of a practised performer, after [345] ]carefully altering the stirrup leathers. The game included dismounting, and lifting to the saddle a dummy, presumably a wounded comrade, and afterwards clearing the hurdles on the course—a feat requiring more than average strength, activity, and horsemanship. This feat was performed at least once, during the late Boer War, by a member of a New South Wales contingent. He deliberately returned under fire for the purpose—the feat taking place during a very hot encounter with the Boers, who had ambushed a scouting party. The leaden hail was so close and deadly that the clothes of the rescuer and his comrade were riddled. Neither was seriously injured, but the poor ‘Waler’ who gamely carried his riders out of danger received his death wound. The Australian—for such he was—was accorded the rare and precious, almost unique, decoration of the ‘Queen’s Scarf.’
There were no bullets flying during the more peaceful contest which the club’s courtesy provided for the guest from a far country, none the less was there need of a strong arm and exceptional horsemanship. He was apparently no novice, inasmuch as, after dismounting and remounting with enviable activity, he finally won on the post, to the great joy and pride of his wife, and those friends who hailed from the gold-strewn lands under the Southern Cross. The President congratulated him in the handsomest manner, requesting his Australian address, in order that the prize for the race, which would be forwarded, might reach him safely.
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]So the Hurlingham expedition closed in a manner equally pleasing to the champion of Australian horsemanship and his compatriots. They went home together and heard all about the wedding, ‘in the merry month of May,’ and the honeymoon cottage on the river, where the nightingale sang to sympathetic listeners, and recalled Heine’s delicious poem. Nothing would satisfy the Bannerets but a ‘sacred promise,’ as Vanda called it, that they should stay for a week at Hexham when they returned from Paris, for which city of delights they were leaving on the morrow.