Many years ago I was summoned to attend the couch of a dear relative believed to be in extremis. The messenger arrived at my club with a buggy, drawn by a dark bay horse. The distance to be driven to Toorak was under four miles—the road good. I have a dislike to being driven. Those who have handled the reins much in their time will understand the feeling. Taking them mechanically from the man, I drew the whip across the bay horse. The light touch sent him down Collins Street East, over Prince\'s Bridge, and through the toll-bar gate at an exceptionally rapid pace. This I did not remark at the time, being absorbed in sorrowful anticipation.
During the anxious week which followed I drove about the turn-out—a hired one—daily; now for this or that doctor, anon for nurse or attendant. Then the beloved sufferer commenced to amend, to recover; so that, without impropriety, my thoughts became imperceptibly disengaged from her, to concentrate themselves upon the dark bay horse. For that he was no ordinary livery-stable hack was evident to a judge. Imprimis, very fast. Had I not passed everything on the road, except a professional trotter, that had not, indeed, so much the best of it? Quiet, too. He would stand unwatched, though naturally impatient. He never tripped, never seemed to \'give\' on the hard, blue metal; was staunch up-hill and steady down. Needed no whip, yet took it kindly, neither switching his tail angrily nor making as if ready to smash all and sundry, like ill-mannered horses. Utterly faultless did he seem. But experience in matters equine leads to distrust. Hired out per day from a livery-stable keeper, I could hardly believe that to be the case.
242All the same I felt strongly moved to buy him on the chance of his belonging to the select tribe of exceptional performers, not to be passed over by so dear a lover of horseflesh as myself. Moreover, I possessed, curious to relate, a \'dead match\' for him—another bay horse of equally lavish action, high courage, and recent accidental introduction. The temptation was great.
\'I will buy him,\' said I to myself, \'if he is for sale, and also if——\' here I pulled up, got down in the road, and carefully looked him over from head to tail. He stepped quietly. I can see him now, moving his impatient head gently back and forward like a horse \'weaving\'—a trick he had under all circumstances. Years afterwards he performed similarly to the astonishment of a bushranger in Riverina, whose revolver was pointed at the writer\'s head the while, less anxious indeed for his personal safety than that old Steamer—such was his appropriate name—should march on, and, having a nervous running mate, smash the buggy.
To return, however. This was the result of my inspection. Item, one broken knee; item, seven years old—within mark decidedly; legs sound and clean, but just beginning to \'knuckle\' above the pasterns.
There was a conflict of opinions. Says Prudence, \'What! buy a screw? Brilliant, of course, but sure to crack soon. Been had that way before. I\'m ashamed of you.\'
Said Hope, \'I don\'t know so much about that. Knee probably an accident: dark night—heap of stones—anything. Goes like a bird. Grand shoulder. Can\'t fall. Legs come right with rest. Barely seven—quite a babe. Cheap at anything under fifty. Chance him.\'
\'I\'ll buy him—d—dashed if I don\'t.\' I got in again, and drove thoughtfully to the stables of Mr. Washington, a large-sized gentleman of colour, hailing from the States.
\'He\'s de favouritest animile in my stable, boss,\' he made answer to me as I guardedly introduced the subject of purchase. \'All de young women\'s dead sot on him—donow\'s I cud do athout him, noways.\'
Every word of this was true, as it turned out; but how was I to know? The world of currycombs and dandy-brushes is full of insincerities. Caveat emptor! I continued airily, \'You won\'t charge extra for this broken knee? What\'s 243the figure?\' Here I touched the too yielding ankle-joint with my boot.
That may have decided him—much hung in the balance. Many a year of splendid service—a child\'s life saved—a grand night-exploit in a flooded river, with distressed damsels nearly overborne by a raging torrent,—all these lay in the future.
\'You gimme thirty pound, boss,\' he gulped out. \'You\'ll never be sorry for it.\'
\'Lend me a saddle,\' quoth I. \'I\'ll write the cheque now. Take him out; I can ride him away.\'
I did so. Never did I—never did another man—make a better bargain.
I had partly purchased and wholly christened him to match another bay celebrity named Railway, of whom I had become possessed after this fashion. Wanting a harness horse at short notice a few months before, I betook myself to the coach dep?t of Cobb and Co. situated in Lonsdale Street. Mr. Beck was then the manager, and to him I addressed myself. He ordered out several likely animals—from his point of view—for my inspection. But I was not satisfied with any of them. At length, \'Bring out the Railway horse,\' said the man in authority. And out came, as I thought, rather a \'peacocky\' bay, with head and tail up. A great shoulder certainly, but rather light-waisted—hem—possessed of four capital legs. Very fine in the skin—yes; still I mistrusted him as a \'Sunday horse.\' Never was there a greater mistake.
\'Like to see him go?\' I nodded assent. In a minute and a half we were spinning up Lonsdale Street in an Abbot buggy, across William and down Collins Street, then pretty crowded, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour; Mr. Beck holding a broad red rein in either hand, and threading the ranks of vehicles with graceful ease.
\'He can go,\' I observed.
\'He\'s a tarnation fine traveller, I tell you,\' was the answer—a statement which I found, by after-experience, to be strictly in accordance with fact.
The price required was forty pounds. The which promptly paying (this was in 1860), I drove my new purchase out to Heidelberg that night. One of those horses that required of one nothing but to sit still and hold him; fast, game, wiry and enduring.
244When I became possessed of Steamer, I had such a pair as few people were privileged to sit behind. For four years I enjoyed as much happiness as can be absorbed by mortal horse-owner in connection with an unsurpassable pair of harness horses. They were simply perfect as to style, speed, and action. I never was passed, never even challenged, on the road by any other pair. Railway, the slower horse of the two, had done, by measurement, eight miles in half an hour. So at their best, both horses at speed, it may be guessed how they made a buggy spin behind them. Then they were a true match; one a little darker than the other, but so much alike in form, colour, and courage, that strangers never knew them apart. They became attached readily, and would leave other horses and feed about together, when turned into a paddock or the bush.
A check, however, was given to exultation during the first days of my proprietorship. Both horses when bought were low in flesh—in hard condition, certainly, but showing a good deal of bone. A month\'s stabling and gentle exercise caused them to look very different. The new buggy came home—the new harness. They were put together for the first time. Full of joyful anticipation I mounted the driving seat, and told the groom to let go their heads. Horror of horrors! \'The divil a stir,\' as he remarked, could be got out of them. Collar-proud from ease and good living, they declined to tighten the traces. An indiscreet touch or two with the whip caused one horse to plunge, the other to hold back. In half-and-half condition I had seen both draw like working bullocks. Now \'they wouldn\'t pull the hat off your head,\' my Australian Mickey Free affirmed.
By patience and persuasion I prevailed upon them at length to move off. Then it was a luxury of a very high order to sit behind them. How they caused the strong but light-running trap to whirl and spin!—an express train with the steam omitted. Mile after mile might one sit when roads were good, careful only to keep the pace at twelve miles an hour; by no means to alter the pull on the reins lest they should translate it into an order for full speed. With heads held high at the same angle, with legs rising from the ground at the same second of time, alike their extravagant action, their eager courage. As mile after mile was cast behind, the 245exclamation of \'Perfection, absolute perfection!\' rose involuntarily to one\'s lips.
In this \'Wale,\' where deceitful dealers and plausible horses abound, how rare to experience so full-flavoured a satisfaction! None of us, however, are perfect all round. Flawless might be the............