CHAPTER LXX

THE EXQUISITE

AS our now thrice-happy hero descended Holmeside Hill, which commands a full view of Burton St. Leger, and the surrounding country, he saw a well-muffled-up man riding a badly clipped brown horse with a big knee, who checking his horse as they approached, stopped altogether as they met.

“Mr. Bunting isn’t it, sir?” asked the man hesitatingly, touching his hat as he spoke.

“It is,” replied our hero, wondering what anybody could want with him.

“I wish to speak a word with you sir, if you please sir,” said the man, sawing away at his hat.

“Well, speak away,” replied Mr. Bunting.

“I much fear that horse of yours is broken-winded, sir,” observed the man, eyeing our friend intently as he spoke.

“What horse!” exclaimed Mr. Bunting, wondering how the man could know anything about Owen Ashford’s ailments.

“Well, sir, the horse I’ve been seeing—the horse at the Cornwallis Inn—the bay horse.”

“The bay horse!” exclaimed Mr. Bunting—“the bay horse! Why you don’t mean to say there’s anything the matter with the bay horse?”

“Indeed, I do, sir,” replied the man solemnly.

“How do you know?” demanded Mr. Bunting anxiously.

“Why, sir, they sent for me to come and see him. I’m Mr. Kerby the veterinary surgeon, and they sent for me to come and see him—he’d stopped in his gallop at exercise, and they could hardly get him home.”

“Stopped in his gallop,” muttered Mr. Bunting, “stopped in his gallop—what business had they to gallop him? Dare say, they’ve done it themselves.”

“Oh, no, sir,” replied Mr. Kerby, with a semi-smile and shake of his head. “It’s an old complaint sir,—an old complaint.”

“Well, but what makes you think he’s broken-winded?” demanded our hero.

“I see he’s broken-winded, sir—there’s no mistake about that, can tell a broken-winded horse in the dark.”

“Humph!” mused Mr. Bunting, feeling that as he had never had a broken-winded horse, he was not in a position to contradict the Vet.

There is nothing like experience for making people wise. The man who has had a splented or a spavined horse is always looking out for splents and spavins. A man who has had a glandered one invests every horse with a running at the nose with glanders. So with other complaints.

“I don’t think that horse is altogether as he should be,” now observed Mr. Kerby, after a pause, during which he had a good stare at Owen Ashford.

“What—this!” exclaimed Mr. Bunting, slapping the horse’s side.

“Indeed, I think not,” replied the man, “I don’t like the heaving of his flanks.”

“Why you don’t mean to say he’s broken-winded too?” replied Mr. Bunting incredulously.

“I much suspect he is,” rejoined the man, who had wormed the history of the exchange of horses out of the groom.

“Nay, then!” ejaculated Mr. Bunting, superciliously.

“Will you allow me to try him, sir?” asked Mr. Kerby.

“With all my heart,” replied Mr. Bunting, dropping the reins quite resignedly, thinking he might as well know the worst at once.

Mr. Kerby then alighted, and leaving his own sedate nag to crop the short herbage by the roadside, he approached Owen Ashford, and under the well-known pretence of hitting him in the ribs, elicited the expected grunt.

“I said so,” observed the man, with a nod of confidence.

“What! do you mean to say he’s broken winded too?” asked Mr. Bunting in disgust.

“Just as bad as the other,” replied the man, with a chuck of his chin—“Just as bad as the other.”

“The deuce!” growled Mr. Bunting.

“Never saw two brokener winded animals in all my life,” observed the Vet, half to himself and half to our hero.

A gleam of light then shone upon our friend’s mind, and he began to perceive, what we doubt not the sporting reader has seen all along—namely, what caused the mirth and merriment of the people in the Sligo Mews. The advertisement, like most specious offers, was too good to be true, and our hero had aided the robbery by his own proposal for an exchange of horses. But for this he would most likely only have lost a fifty pound deposit and got a broken-winded animal for the money, whereas, in addition to his losing his horses, he was saddled with two broken-winded ones. This was very soon painfully apparent, for happening to turn that very evening to the too seductive Times’ Supplement, he found the horse temptation had been changed from the loan of two splendid hunters into an advertisement of a superb lady’s horse for sale. Thus it ran:

“A Christmas Present!

“Highly broken lady’s horse!—To be disposed of for one-half its real value, or let, subject to approval of purchase, ‘Jewel,’ one of the neatest and most highly broken Lady’s Horses in the metropolis, with saddle, bridle, and everything complete. This animal is perfection, both in action, temper, docility, and appearance, and has been constantly ridden by a lady up to the present time, whose great anxiety is to get it well placed. Colour silver dun, with flowing mane and tail, Arab-like head, with clean legs and fashionable action. Any length of trial allowed. To save trouble, no dealer need apply. Ask for Matthew, Miss Holloway’s groom, 51A, Sligo Mews, Rochester Square.”

And thus the inhabitants of Sligo Mews are kept in a constant state of amusement by watching the flys that flock to each fresh advertisement; stout gentlemen with corpulent umbrellas hurrying up from the country thinking to do the generous at a cheap rate; languishing young gentlemen, with hands up to the hilts in their peg-top trowser-pockets, wondering if the “Jewel” would do for dear Mary Anne or Eleanor Jane; verdant gentlemen thinking to get a ride for nothing, and wonderfully disappointed at being asked for a “deposit;” knowing grooms passing on with a smile as soon as “Matthew” presented himself, and less confident coachmen hesitating whether or not to go in according to master’s or mistress’s orders. Often and rapidly as A51 is cleared out, Aaron Levy the landlord fills up the vacancy with fresh Crankeys and Matthews’s, so brisk is the trade, and so yielding the seams of British greenness and greediness.

One reason why this horse-cheating prospers is that parties are ashamed to admit they have been duped, and part with the poor animals to the first person who makes them an offer, or perhaps who will take them in a gift. This is generally some confederate of the swindlers who thus gets them back to operate with again under other names. Indeed a suspicious-looking stranger arrived at the Malt-Shovel Inn at Burton St. Leger, with a packet of pens and general stationery, and had several dialogues with Sore-eyed Sam as they lounged against the railings in front of the Lord Cornwallis Inn, the burthen of which generally was that he wondered such a genilman as Mr. Bunting would ride a broken-winded oss, for which he expressed his willingness to give sometimes three, sometimes four, and sometimes even as much as four pound ten. Indeed, at length he got so valiant that he wouldn’t mind giving ten pounds for the two, if it would be any accommodation to the “Squire.” And there can be no doubt that where the whole thing turns upon looks, a five pound note would be extremely well invested upon a horse that would immediately convert the five pound note into fifty or perhaps a hundred.

No one, taking either Owen Ashford or the Exquisite out of the stable on trial, would hesitate to deposit a fifty pound note or give a cheque on his banker, if he had not the money with him, for that amount, conditional on the safe return of the horse; indeed would think he was let rather cheaply off for that amount. Half an hour, however, would undeceive him, but when he came back he might knock and ring a long time at 51A before he got admitted. Meanwhile all Sligo Mews would be alive from one end to the other, and numerous would be the inquiries if he didn’t wish he “might get it.”

It may appear cruel, but considering the torture these poor animals undergo to furbish them up for their share of the deception, it would be a greater kindness for a dupe to give them to the nearest horse-slaughterer rather than prolong their existence by selling them back to these barbarous ruffians. The dupe would at all events aid in the suppression of the fraud, as far as he was concerned, an object that we hope to promote by thus detailing the adventures of Captain Cavendish Chichester’s horses.