The fosterer made a circuit, and examined that horse which erstwhile had not borne “the weight of Antony,” but the Due d’Abrantes.
“Oh, upon my conscience, I’m fairly puzzled. He’s up to fourteen stone with fox-hounds; and, unless he’s a deceiver, he has the go in him. May be, ye promised a hundred?”
“A hundred! Why, Mark, I fancied you knew something of a horse—a hundred?”
“Stop for a minute. Mister Cammaran, would ye be so civil as to hold the bridle?” and down got the fosterer. “I’ll just slip my hands over his hocks. Clean as a whistle! What’s that, inside the off leg?—It’s a lump of clay. Feaks, I thought it looked like a splint at first. Did you examine his wind?”
“Never asked a question about it,” I observed, carelessly.
“Then ye’r done to a turn. Oh! Mister Empecinado, may the divil’s luck attend ye! Spakin people fair and asy, and only waiting to walk into them afterwards! Did ye even get an engagement?”
“Not a line;—I took the horse on chance!”
“Feaks! and ye might as well, I fancy; for I suppose if he was a regular roarer” (here be it understood the horse and not the Empecinado was meant), “all the attorneys in Connaught couldn’t find Mister Diez out, and serve him with a latitat.”
“But what is the horse worth, Mark? Never mind latitats and attorneys.”
“Worth? In Balinasloe he would fetch a hundred readily.”