After such feats of horsemanship the youthful division became clamorous for half a dozen hunters, as the stable quad. (Eric said) was disgracefully empty. What were one pair of carriage horses, another of ponies for their mother’s phaeton, the governor’s park hack, and one or two others? The hackney was a darling for beauty and manners, though the pater persisted in saying that in pace, elasticity, endurance—in fact, as an all-round horse—he was not a patch upon the famous Gaucho, or Graysteel, which he rode in his youth in Australia. He admitted that Count D’Orsay walked fast, cantered easily, trotted fairly, and, like his namesake and Private Willis, was very generally admired. No fault could be found with his manners and appearance. But where would he be at the end of a seventy-mile ride, which old Graysteel had several times performed, off grass, with ease to himself and comfort to his rider. Besides, he did not believe in hackney blood. They were very sweet to look at—perfect [347] ]almost in shape, carriage, and other requisites for ornamental equitation.
But there was a ‘want’ somewhere: he doubted if they could jump; he questioned if they could stay; and, it was a hard thing to state, but after you got away from the slow paces he was afraid they were even rough—one ‘perfect’ animal that he tried certainly was so. In a slow, rocking-horse sort of canter he was tolerable, but after that he lifted you almost out of the saddle at every stride.
‘Come, I say, sir!’ said Reggie; ‘you mustn’t begin crabbing the horses of your ancestral home, and all that, before you’ve been a year in England—sounds provincial, doesn’t it? It takes time, as you have often said, to pick up a first-class hackney anywhere. Give the old country time, and you’ll get hold of a covert hack or two that will put these old favourites out of your head.’
‘That there are plenty of good goers to be had here I never denied,’ he said, with a musing expression, ‘but when I think of Hope, The Gaucho, and Graysteel, none of them can do that. You boys were too young to recollect the horses I rode and drove when your mother and I were living on our western cattle station, or visiting the sheep-run in Riverina.’
‘Oh, tell us about them—now do!’ coaxed Vanda, seating herself promptly on the floor, and leaning against her indulgent parent’s knee. ‘Mother rode, and drove, then—didn’t she?’
‘Yes, indeed! she was a bold horsewoman, a good whip too. Absolutely fearless—so much so [348] ]that I often anticipated her coming to grief. However, she never did. So she must have been clever or lucky, above the average.’
‘Now then, sir, about the horses? How were they bred, and what could they do?’
‘Well, they were chiefly compounded of English thorough-bred and high-caste blood, middle-sized, but fast, hardy, tireless, and sure-footed to a marvellous degree. The two best all-round hacks I ever owned were Hope and The Gaucho. The latter, the show horse of the stud, was the offspring of a South American mare, imported from Valparaiso in early colonial days. Your respected father was a trifle more active then, and used to break in his own colts.’
‘Is that why all Walers buck-jump, as people say?’ suggested Eric.
‘Perfect nonsense!’ returned the senior, slightly ‘drawn.’ ‘Of the dozen and a half colts which I broke to saddle—single and double harness, and to carry a lady—hardly one but was as well mannered as any horse in the Row, besides having various accomplishments which English horses could never dream of.’