Charles had always been passionately fond of horses, and of riding. He was a consummate horseman, and was so perfectly accomplished in everything relating to horses, that I really believe that in time he might actually have risen to the dizzy height of being stud-groom to a great gentleman or nobleman. He had been brought up in a great horse-riding house, and had actually gained so much experience, and had so much to say on matters of this kind; that once, at Oxford, a promising young nobleman cast, so to speak, an adverse opinion of Charles’s into George Simmonds’s own face. Mr. Simmonds looked round on the offender mildly and compassionately, and said, “If any undergraduate could know, my lord, that undergraduate’s name would be Ravenshoe of Paul’s. But he is young, my lord. And, in consequence, ignorant.” His lordship didn’t say anything after that.
I have kept this fact in the background rather, hitherto, because it has not been of any great consequence. It becomes of some consequence now, for the first time. I enlarged a little on Charles being a rowing man, because rowing and training had, for good or for evil, a certain effect on his character. (Whether for good or for evil, you must determine for yourselves.) And I now mention the fact of his being a consummate horseman, because a considerable part of the incidents which follow arise from the fact.
Don’t think for one moment that you are going to be bored by stable talk. You will have simply none of it. It only amounts to this — that Charles, being fond of horses, took up with a certain line of life, and in that line of life met with certain adventures which have made his history worth relating.
When he met the “horsy ” man next morning, he was not dressed like a gentleman. In his store he had some old clothes, which he used to wear at Ravenshoe, in the merry old days when he would be up with daylight to exercise the horses on the moor — cord trousers, and so on, which, being now old and worn, made him look uncommonly like a groom out of place. And what contributed to the delusion was, that for the first time in his life he wore no shirt collar, but allowed his blue-spotted neckcloth to border on his honest red face, without one single quarter of an inch of linen. And, if it ever pleases your lordship’s noble excellence to look like a blackguard for any reason, allow me to recommend you to wear a dark necktie and no collar. Your success will be beyond your utmost hopes.
Charles met his new friend in the bar, and touched his hat to him. His friend laughed, and said, that would do, but asked how long he thought he could keep that sort of thing going. Charles said, as long as was necessary; and they went out together.
They walked as far as a street leading out of one of the largest and best squares (I mean B— lg — e Sq — e, but I don’t like to write it at full length), and stopped at the door of a handsome shop. Charles knew enough of London to surmise that the first floor was let to a man of some wealth; and he was right.
The door was opened, and his friend was shown up stairs, while he was told to wait in the hall. Now Charles began to perceive, with considerable amusement, that he was acting a part — that he was playing, so to speak, at being something other than what he really was, and that he was perhaps overdoing it. In this house, which yesterday he would have entered as an equal, he was now playing at being a servant. It was immensely amusing. He wiped his shoes very clean, and sat down on a bench in the hall, with his hat between his knees, as he had seen grooms do. It is no use wondering; one never finds out anything by that. But I do wonder, nevertheless, whether Charles, had he only known in what relation the master of that house stood to himself, would or would not have set the house on fire, or cut its owner’s throat. When he did find out, he did neither the one thing nor the ot............