I never can understand upon what principle the rate of a groom’s wages is always inversely proportioned to the work he performs. For instance, Major Brush’s excellent domestic—a bat-man, of lengthy proportions and military exterior—brushed his master’s clothes, prepared his master’s breakfast, took the first horse to covert, and rode the second on occasion, cleaning either or both, if necessary, when they came in, upon a stipend which would barely have kept Mr. Tiptop in Cavendish and blacking.
The latter worthy, with a whole troop of helpers under his command, never seemed to have a moment to spare for anything but the routine duties of his station. As for riding a second horse, or remaining out on a wet day, beyond his accustomed dinner-hour, his master would as soon have thought of bidding him dig potatoes! No: if Mr. Tiptop went out hunting at all, it was generally on a third horse in excellent condition, that wanted a couple of hours’ preparation for the day after to-morrow, when the rider, in a long-backed coat, a shaved hat, and the best boots and breeches the art of man can compass, might be seen at intervals, during a run with the first fox, now opening a hand-gate, now creeping cautiously through a gap, and anon cantering, with a Newmarket seat, and his hands down, up some grassy slope, in front of soldiers, statesmen, hereditary legislators, and justices of the peace, as if not only the field, but the country, was his own.
Old Isaac, on the contrary, though subject to occasional “rustiness,” and imbued with a strong aversion to what he called being “put upon,” was ready and willing to turn his hand to anything, if he thought such versatility would really conduce to Mr. Sawyer’s advantage. With the assistance of The Boy—who, indeed, since his arrival at Harborough, had been constantly inebriated—the old man looked after the three hunters, the hack, and his master, with considerable satisfaction. He had even spare time on his hands, now that he was removed from the responsibility of the pigs, the poultry, and potatoes at The Grange.
It was in one of these moments of leisure that the bold idea of getting the better of Mr. Tiptop entered the old groom’s mind. I need not, therefore, specify that, under his calm demeanour, Isaac concealed a disposition of considerable enterprise and audacity.
Now the manner in which he proposed to take advantage of the acquaintance he had lately struck up with Mr. Tiptop was as follows:—By dint of his own sagacity and diplomatic reticence, he resolved that he would prevail on that gentleman to persuade his master that the redoubtable bay horse Marathon should be transferred to his own stables; and, to explain Isaac’s anxiety for this consummation, I must be permitted to describe the appearance and general capabilities of that peculiar animal.
Marathon, then, was a long bay horse, about fifteen-two, with short legs, a round barrel, well ribbed up, and an enormous swish-tail, of which he made considerable use. He was one of those doubtfully-shaped animals which are condemned alike by the eye of the totally inexperienced and the consummate judges of horseflesh, but which are much coveted by that large class of purchasers with whom “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
And here I must remark how correct is usually our first impression of a horse; and how seldom ladies—who judge of these, as of all other articles, at a glance—are mistaken in their opinion of the noble animal, if indeed they condescend to turn their attention to his “make-and-shape.”
The worst point about Marathon was his head, which was coarse, and denoted a sulky temper; but he carried a beautiful coat; could stride away for a mile or so, on light ground, with his hind legs under him, in the form of a racehorse; and in short was never so graphically described as by Mr. Job Sloper, when he sold him for sixty guineas and a set of phaeton harness to his present owner: “If that there horse aint worth five hundred, why, he aint worth fifteen sovereigns—that’s all.”
And Mr. Sawyer has since confessed to himself, on more than one occasion, that Job Sloper was right.
Mr. Tiptop liked Isaac, because he thought him an original; and the swell groom, who was as epicurean in his tastes as if he had been a Peer, took the pleasure of his friend’s society over a can of egg-flip and a pipe of Cavendish daily, after evening stables; during which convivialities, the hard-headedness peculiar to the aborigines of the Old Country was of infinite service to the latter, who wormed out all the secrets of the Honourable Crasher’s stable, without betraying his own.
“And there is some talk of a steeple-chase amongst these nobs, is there?” said Isaac, ordering at the same time a third call of “the flip,” and knocking the ashes from his pipe with an exceedingly horny finger.
“Talk of it! indeed there is,” answered Mr. Tiptop, whose face was beginning to redden with his potations. “And a precious exhibition it will be, too. Ride! There isn’t one of ’em as don’t believe he’s down to every move in the game; and I’d take that boy of yours—though he is but a boy, and not the best of hands, neither—and teach him to outride every man of ’em in a fortnight! Such a mess as they made of it last year! Blessed if I wasn’t quite ashamed of the Honourable, to see him rollin’ about in a striped jacket, like a zebra in convulsions! What’s the use getting a horse fit, when the man’s blown in three fields? But I don’t mind telling you, now,” added he, confidentially, and fixing his eyes on the tallow candle that stood between them—“I don’t mind telling you; for there’s money to be made of it. He’ll win it this year, if he’ll only sit still!”
“Win it, will he?” rejoined Isaac. “Well, I shouldn’t wonder, so as he comes in first. But it takes a smartish nag, Mr. Tiptop, to win a steeple-chase. Have you tried yours to beat everything in the town?”
“Well, I think I’ve the length of most on ’em,” answered Mr. Tiptop, smiling at the candle with a most reflective expression of countenance. “You’ve got a bay as might run up, if he was lucky. Why don’t you make your master put him in?”
“He’s as deep as a well, is my master,” answered old Isaac. “Nobody never knows what he’s up to. Bless you! I can’t help thinking as he must have bought the bay a-purpose for this here race: but I don’t know, no more than the dead; and I dursn’t ask him, neither.”
Mr. Tiptop reflected profoundly for several minutes, during which period Isaac’s countenance would have been a study for an artist who wished to represent a face totally devoid of thought. Then he asked—
“Have you ever tried the bay?”
“Never,” answered the senior, who piqued himself on his veracity. “Master brought him back from Stockbridge, last spring, pretty nigh done; and when I asked him what he’d been up to, he bid me mind my own business. The poor critter! he’d had a benefit, sure-lie!”
This was undoubtedly true, Marathon having turned restive at a cross-road on the occasion in question, and, after a quarter of an hour’s fight, given in, completely exhausted.
“If he can beat our mare a mile, at even weights, he’ll win it, as safe as safe!” observed Mr. Tiptop, now speaking very thick, and with a good deal of gravity.
“I dursn’t give him a mile,” answered Isaac, with an emphasis on the substantive which argued that he was open to persuasion for a shorter distance.
Mr. Tiptop regarded him attentively for several seconds, during which time he thought him first a flat, then the sharpest customer he had ever come across, and lastly an ignorant yokel and greenhorn once more.
“If you’ll chance it,” said he, “I’ll chance our mare. We might try them early to-morrow morning.”
Old Isaac pretended not to understand. Mr. Tiptop, with many flourishes, rose to explain.
“You go to exercise,” said he, “a little before it’s light, in the big close just outside the town. Put a fourteen-pound saddle on your nag; and don’t say nothing to nobody. I’ll be there in good time, just to give our mare a turn up the close. Nobody needn’t be a ha’porth the wiser. Once we know the rights of it exactly, we can do what we like. You’re game to the back-bone, old cock, I know! You won’t split!”
“But master’s going to hunt the bay horse to-morrow,” interposed Isaac, preserving his appearance of puzzled integrity with admirable composure.
“Never mind,” answered Mr. Tiptop: “you come all the same.” And, leering grimly at the tallow candle, Mr. Tiptop made his exit, and betook himself heavily to bed.
In the meantime, the hunting gentlemen, at their hotel, had been talking over the probabilities of getting up a steeple-chase, and the chances of the different horses and riders, whose merits they discussed with considerable freedom, and no small amount of that playful badinage which moderns term “chaff.”
............