CHAPTER LX
THE STUD SALE
The following was the strength of Mr. Jorrocks’s stud at the close of the season.
There were our old friends Xerxes and Arterxerxes; also a great raking, bony, cock-throppled, ragged-hipped, shabby-tailed, white-legged chestnut, fired all round, that had belonged to a smuggler, and was christened “Ginnums”; a little jumped-up, thick-set, mealy-legged, sunken-eyed bay, with a short tail and full coarse mane, whose unhappy look procured him the name of Dismal Geordy; a neatish brown, that our Master bought of young May, the grocer at Handley Cross, and christened Young Hyson; and the cut-’em-down Captain’s quad, six in all. Arterxerxes did most of Mr. Jorrocks’s work, and Xerxes could carry half-a-dozen Bens every day in the week, so that Pigg and Charley came in for most of the work of the others, Charley never having gone to the trouble of getting any more horses than the one he brought with him.
Xerxes and Arterxerxes (capital feeders) were both desperately troubled with the slows, and the latter puffed and blew in a way that made ill-natured people say he was going broken-winded.
Having long stood together, they had contracted a friendship, that displayed itself in constant neighings and whinnyings when separated, and rushings together and rubbings on meeting, to the derangement of the dignity and convenience of their riders. Thus if Mr. Jorrocks was yoicking on one side of a cover on Arterxerxes, and Ben all hot-ing1 it on the other side on Xerxes, there would be such a neighing and whinnying, and exchanging of compliments all the time, as greatly to interfere with our Master’s attention to his hounds, and when the horses caught sight of each other, Xerxes would take the bit between his teeth, and rush to his friend Arterxerxes, making a rubbing-post of him and his rider, in defiance of resistance on the part of Benjamin, and remonstrance on the part of Mr. Jorrocks.
Ginnums was quite the reverse of the preceding. He had commenced life as a leather-plater, and done hard service on some country courses, and after experiencing the vicissitudes of fortune in the hands of various masters of different callings, had descended into the hands of a smuggler, when he was seized by the Excise, well weighted with contraband goods, and publicly sold to Mr. Jorrocks for fourteen pounds ten shillings. He was a raking goer, but a nasty wriggling beast to ride, continually throwing his head in the air, to the danger of his rider’s countenance. His mouth, too, was deadened on one side, and he had a careless rushing sort of way of going at his fences, but he never tired, and could go through heavy ground with wonderful ease to himself.
Dismal Geordy was of the hot and heavy sort,—a better hand at trotting than galloping. He used to jump and squeal with a cow-like action at first going out, and could gallop pretty well for a mile or so, after which he would shut up, and be dull and heavy the rest of the day. He was a dull under-bred brute, with very little taste for hunting.
Young Hyson was a neat horse, and a good goer, but quite unmade when Mr. Jorrocks bought him.—Pigg and he used to roll about tremendously at first.
“Gin ar were ye,” said James to his master, as the latter took his usual stroll through the stables, “gin ar were ye, ar’d get shot o’ some o’ these nags—they’ll never do ye ne good.”
“Why so, James?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks in a more amiable mood than usual when his stud was abused.
“Because ar thinks there’s ne use i’ keepin’ sick a lot through the summer; ye that have ivery thing to buy and nothing for them to de. Ye arn’t like ma coosin Deavilboger, that can work them i’ the farm a bit, and gar them pay their keep.”
“True,” replied Mr. Jorrocks; “’ay’s dear—so is corn—but how’s one to get rid of these sort of animals, think ye? No demand for them now that the rallys have dished all the coaches.”
“Why, but it’s just the same thing, if ye sell cheap now, ye’ll buy cheap i’ the autumn, and save all the summerin’. There’s Ginnums, now, his near foreleg’s verra kittle—ar’d get shot o’ him while it stands. Arterxerxes, tee, is queer iv his wind,—ye’d better be rid o’ him while it lasts. Geordy, tee, is nabbut fit for the pits;—ye canna get worse!”
“I doesn’t know that,” said Mr. Jorrocks, who had rather an affection for the Dismal, and thought he would do for his Boobey Hutch. “Besides, we shall want a couple, at all ewents, to exercise th’ ’ounds during the summer.”
The close of a watering-place season generally produces some change among the studs. Gentlemen have got to the end of their tethers, spring captains have to join their regiments abroad, and some always make a practice of selling at the end of a season (or at any other time). Handley Cross formed no exception to the rule, and Mr. Palmer, the auctioneer, having canvassed the town, persuaded the owners of some eighteen or twenty horses to entrust them to his persuasive eloquence in the shape of a sale by auction. Mr. Jorrocks having considered Pigg’s suggestions, and being up to all the tricks of horse-auctions, agreed to send his six, on condition of the sale being well advertised, and his stud especially mentioned as being sold in consequence of his wishing to remount his men on horses more suitable to the country.
Accordingly advertisements were inserted in all the papers, and lists distributed far and near, headed “Great Stud Sale,” and describing Mr. Jorrocks’s horses as masters of great weight, that had been regularly hunted all the season with the Handley Cross Fox-hounds.
The publicity thus given had the effect of causing all the curious-looking, cut-away coats, and extraordinary top-boots in the country to drop into the town of Handley Cross on the morning of the sale. Some people cannot stay away from a horse-auction; and men that can hardly keep themselves will appear, and sometimes undergo the spasm of putting in a horse at a low figure, for the momentary éclat of being taken for purchasers. Luckless wights if in an evil moment the hammer drops with the fatal fiat, “Yours, sir!”——But to our sale.
At an early hour the horses were brought from their respective stables and arranged in numbered stalls in the Dragon Yard, according to their classification in the bills. All the hand rubbing was done at home, so that they had only to receive the finishing touch from the clean waistcoated grooms, who, with plastered hair, were charged with their respective lies as to their qualifications. James Pigg arrived first, and so well done were his horses, that Mr. Jorrocks almost hoped they might return as he saw them pass along the street to the yard. Ben and Pigg had on their top-boots, striped waistcoats, and brown frocks, which latter were taken off, carefully folded up, and put into a corn-bin in the stable where their horses stood. It was a nine-stall one, and there were two horses belonging to two fast-going foot-captains, and a mare the property of a water-drinker, along with Mr. Jorrocks’s.
At twelve o’clock the stables were thrown open, and fussy gentlemen in taglionis, mackintoshes, siphonias and reversible coats, &c., whips and bills in their hands, began their examination. There was Captain Shortflat admiring Arterxerxes, and abusing Dismal Geordy, that he wanted to buy; young men feeling old horses’ legs, and rising from the operation as wise as they stooped; some bringing all their acquaintance to assist in finding faults, and others pumping grooms to tell what they were paid for keeping secret.
James Pigg gave his horses the very best of characters, which Ben as quickly counteracted by telling everything he knew to their disadvantage. This, of course, Ben did in confidence, and in the hopes of a douceur for his honesty. Pigg kept protesting as he patted them “that they were just the best husses he had ever seen, and he didn’t ken what could make his ’ard feuil of a maister think o’ parting with them,” while Ben, with a leer and a wink, declared it was “all his eye, and they were only fit for the knackers.”2
Towards one, most of the inquisitive gentry having satisfied their curiosity, the motley group began to congregate in the stable-yard, and some began to look at their watches and inquire for the auctioneer. The assembly at a sale of this sort exhibits every link in the chain of sporting life, from the coroneted peer to the broken-down leg. There is a good deal of equality, too, in the scene, the generality of the company being strangers to each other; and as many people consider it knowing to dress differently to what they generally do, the great men are not easily distinguishable from the little ones. A stud-sale is a sort of fox-hunters’, hare-hunters’, prize-fighters’, dog-stealers’ réunion, for which people pull out queer-cut, and flash-coloured coats, and dress themselves in drab breeches with knee-caps, or moleskins with gaiters. All have whips, even the pedestrians.
Mr. Jorrocks launched an uncommonly smart new taglioni for the occasion, a brown-striped leopard’s skin looking duffle, all decorated in front with tassels and cords, with pockets of various size and position, bound with nut-brown velvet: the standing-up collar, and pointed cuffs were of nut-brown velvet also, and it was lined and wadded throughout with rustling silk. Thus he swaggered into the yard, his hands stuffed into the lower tier of pockets, and his great tassels pattering against his Hessian boots as he walked. There was an easy indifference in his air which plainly said he didn’t care whether he sold his horses or not.
His appearance was the signal for Mr. Palmer, the auctioneer, to quit the Dragon bar, where he was sipping a glass of cold brandy and water, and forthwith he emerged with a roll of catalogues and his hammer in his hand. He was a rosy-gilled, middle-aged, middle-sized man, who had failed twice in the hosiery line, once in the spirit-way, and once in the Temperance Hotel line. He was sprucely dressed, as most auctioneers are, wearing a superfine velvet collar’d great coat, open in front, displaying a superfine black coat and waistcoat, with a clean white neck-cloth, and small shirt-frills, secured by a handsome brooch.
Having saluted Mr. Jorrocks with becoming respect, they paired off for a few minutes, to arrange the puff preliminary for his horses.
This being done, Mr. Palmer repaired to the end of the yard, where, under the clock, a temporary rostrum had been erected, formed of short planks placed on four beer-barrels, on which stood a table, and there was a desk below for the clerk to take the deposits upon. At the back was a short step-ladder, upon the top stair of which Mr. Palmer mounted, and Mr. Jorrocks perched himself on the one immediately below. The crowd, with the usual follow-my-leader propensity, were soon ranged round the rostrum, and a slight shower beginning to fall, umbrellas went up, and Mr. Palmer unfolded a catalogue, and cleared his voice for an oration.
“Gentlemen!” said he, “may I request your attention while I read the conditions of sale?”
“Throw us a catalogue!” cried half-a-dozen voices; and forthwith a shower of half crumpled catalogues began to fly about, to be scrambled for by the gentry below. The demand being satisfied, Mr. Palmer again cleared his throat, and requesting attention to the conditions of sale, proceeded to read about “the highest bidder being the purchaser; and if any dispute arose,” &c., which was listened to with the usual patience bestowed upon such “I know it all” sort of orations. After some very inferior rubbish had been passed or disposed of, Mr. Jorrocks’s turn drew on, and Arterxerxes’ great Roman nose was seen peeping out of the stable door, when at the word “Out!” Ben gave him a cut behind, and forth flew the horse, kicking and squeaking from the combined effects of the whip and the ginger. Pigg ran him up to the hammer, which the horse approached with such energy as to threaten demolition not only to the crowd, but to the rickety fabric of a rostrum.
Having got him stopped without a more serious injury than upsetting the clerk’s uncorked six-penny bottle of red ink, and scattering the crowd right and left, the spectators formed an avenue on each side of the horse, while Pigg tickled him under the knee with his whip, to get him to stand out and show himself.
“Now, gentlemen,” said Mr. Palmer, with a preparatory hem, looking the horse full in the face, “this is lot one of Mr. Jorrocks’s stud, the celebrated horse, Arterxerxes! familiar to every one in the habit of hunting with the celebrated hounds over which his distinguished owner has the honour to preside.”
“Presides with such ability,” growled Mr. Jorrocks, in the auctioneer’s ear.
“Over which his distinguished owner presides with such ability,” repeated Mr. Palmer. “He is, as you see, a horse of great power and substance, equal to the—”
“Say speed!” whispered Mr. Jorrocks.
“He is, as you see, a horse of great power, speed, and substance, equal to any weight—”
“How can we see his speed?” inquired a drunken-looking groom, in an out-of-place costume, covered buttons, and so forth.
“Hold your tongue, sir, and listen to me!” said Mr. Palmer with an air of authority.
“He is, as you see, gentlemen,” resumed the auctioneer, “a horse of great power, speed, and substance, up to any weight, and quiet—”
“Quiet enough,” observed a bystander, “if you hadn’t figged him.”
“And is only sold,” continued the auctioneer, “because his owner has no further use for him.”
“Highly probable!” exclaimed a voice.
“No one else, I should think!” rejoined another.
“He’s an undeniable leaper!” whispered Mr. Jorrocks.
“As a leaper this horse is not to be surpassed!” observed the auctioneer.
“Temperate at his fences,” prompted Mr. Jorrocks, adding, “Vy don’t you go on, man?”
“Because you put me out,” replied the auctioneer, turning snappishly round, and saying, “Do hold your jaw!”
“Blast your imperance!” roared Mr. Jorrocks, an exclamation that produced a burst of laughter, during which Mr. Palmer turned again, and had a conference with Jorrocks behind. After a few seconds’ parley, during which Mr. Jorrocks assured the auctioneer that he’d set to and sell the “’osses” himself, if he didn’t take care, Mr. Palmer resumed in a more submissive tone,—
“I was going to observe, gentlemen,” said he, “that as you are not all in the habit of hunting with the celebrated hounds in this neighbourhood, that this horse is the property of the renowned Mr. Jorrocks, and has been ridden by him during the whole of the past season, and is equal to any weight you can possibly put upon him.”
“Aye is he!” exclaimed Pigg, rubbing the horse’s great Roman nose: “top huss! best we have, by far.”
“Now ’bout Surrey,” whispered Mr. Jorrocks.
“And, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Palmer, looking sadly disconcerted, “before coming here, this horse was a distinguished performer in the Surrey Hunt—a hunt that beats all other hunts, except the Handley Cross Hunt, for intensity of ardour and desperate conflixion.”
“Well done!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, patting the orator’s back.
“Keep the tambourine a rowlin’!” growled Pigg, turning his quid, and patting the horse’s head.
“All round my ’at!” squeaked Benjamin in the crowd.
“Now ’bout the cut-me-downs,” whispered Mr. Jorrocks.
“And, gen’lemen, he is favourably known in the out-’em-down and ’ang-’em-up-to-dry countries, where his distinguished owner has frequently shown them the way.”
“Werry good,” said Mr. Jorrocks, chuckling and rubbing his hands. “So I do—so I do—the way to open the gates at least.”
“He is quite in his prime,” continued the auctioneer, “fresh and fit for immediate work. Now what will any gentleman give for this celebrated hunter? Put him in at whatever you like: he is to be sold! Shall I say a hundred and fifty for him?”
“Shillin’s?” exclaimed one of the auctioneer’s tormentors.
“Will any gentleman give a hundred and fifty guineas for the horse?” continued Mr. Palmer, without noticing the interruption; “a hundred and fifty guineas! No one say a hundred and fifty? A hundred and forty, then?—a hundred and thirty?—one hundred guineas, then?— throwing him away!”
“Deed is’t!” exclaimed Pigg.
Still no one was sensible enough to see the matter in this light, and after a pause, during which a seedy-looking little fellow, in a very big bad hat, a faded green kerchief, and a long, dirty, drab great-coat, that concealed a pair of nearly black top-boots, requested to see Arterxerxes run down; and having visited him with a severe punch in the ribs on his return and a nip in the neck, coolly observed that he was a bull.3
“No more than yourself!” roared Mr. Jorrocks.
“Will you warrant him, then?” inquired Drab-coat.
“Varrant him!” repeated Mr. Jorrocks, “I never varrants—wouldn’t varrant that he’s an ’oss, let alone that he’s sound.”
“You knows better!” replied Drab-coat, examining the horse’s eyes as he spoke; adding, “I’m not sure but he’s a-going blind, too!”
“You be d—d!” growled Pigg, doubling his fist as he spoke.
“Pray keep order, gentlemen!” interposed the auctioneer.
“What teeth he has!” exclaimed Drab-coat—“long as my arm!”
“You must have length somewhere; and I’m blowed he harn’t got it nowhere else,” rejoined a confederate.
“Come, gentlemen, let’s have no more of your chaffing, but proceed to business,” interrupted the auctioneer. “What will any one give for this valuable—”
“Dray-horse!” exclaimed some one.
“Hunter!” continued the auctioneer, without noticing the interruption.
“Fifteen pund,” said Drab-coat.
“Fifteen pund!” exclaimed the auctioneer, in disgust. “You must bid in guineas, sir.”
“Then fourteen guineas!” replied the man.
“Fourteen guineas,” said the auctioneer. “Come, gentlemen, please to go on—quick.” Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, eighteen in two places, nineteen, and twenty were bid without any further persuasion. “Twenty guineas are only bid for this beautiful animal!” exclaimed Mr. Palmer, flourishing his hammer. “Why, his tail’s worth all the money.”
“For a hat-peg!” exclaimed some one.
“His head would make a fine fiddle-case,” observed Drab-coat, with a sneer.
“He’s up to any weight with any hounds,” observed Mr. Palmer.
“He’ll be more at home with millers’ sacks,” rejoined the confederate.
“’Ard as iron,” whispered Mr. Jorrocks.
“Very stout!” exclaimed the auctioneer.
“’Deed is he!” rejoined Drab-coat, punching his fat sides.
“Confound your imperance!” muttered Mr. Jorrocks, over the rostrum: “I’ll skin you alive!”
“Ar’ll tan your hide enow!” said Pigg, looking indignantly round.
“Now, gentlemen, please keep order, and go on,” urged the auctioneer. “Twenty guineas are only bid for this valuable hunter, and I can’t dwell. And you all done at twenty guineas?”
“One,” nodded some one.
“Two!”
“Three!”
“Four!”
“Five!” and again the biddings came to a pause. Drab-coat retires, his commission being exhausted.
“Twenty-five guineas!” recapitulated the auctioneer. “Five-and-twenty guineas only bid for this splendid hunter—master of great weight—great cut-’em-down powers—giving him away—but I can’t dwell. Are you all done at twenty-five guineas, gentlemen? Going! for the last time,” lifting his hammer as he spoke.
Just as the fatal blow was about to be struck, Jorrocks’s conscience smote him at parting with a faithful old animal that had carried him triumphantly through many a glorious chase—the model, too, of his mount on the silver steak dish handle—causing him to blurt out “three ’underd!” which had the effect of saving the lot and spoiling the sale of the rest, people grumbling and saying they didn’t come there to be made fools of by him, and so on. Arterxerxes then returned to his stable, and was replaced at the hammer by Xerxes, who came with his great switch tail sticking up like Gabriel Junks’. Again Mr. Palmer’s persuasive powers were put forth to induce the audience to look favourably on the horse’s pretensions; all the good qualities ascribed to his late comrade were freely transferred to him; indeed, if anything, Xerxes was rather the better horse of the two. Drab-coat puts him in again at a low figure, and the same scene of complimentary politeness ensues that marked the course of Arterxerxes.
The biddings being languid, and the auctioneer seeing little chance of bona-fide ones, took up the running himself at a brisk pace, and knocked the horse down at sixty guineas, announcing Mr. Scroggins as the buyer. This gave the thing a fillip, and Dismal Geordy was knocked down to Captain Shortflat for eight-and-twenty pounds, ten more than Mr. Jorrocks gave for him. The captain then received the usual compliments on his purchase, one man asking him if he was “fond of walking;” another observing that he supposed the captain had purchased the horse for his farm, to which latter the captain replied, with a growl, that he had bought him to go in a bathing machine—a retort that had the effect of suppressing the rest of their chaff. The other lots were then proceeded with; some being sold and others retained. Thus closed the Handley Cross hunting season.—
Mr. Jorrocks having instructed James Pigg what to do, and taken an affectionate leave of Gabriel Junks, set off for London, leaving Mrs. Jorrocks and Co. to follow as soon as Mrs. Jorrocks had paid her bills and left her P. P. C.’s.
Then, as she drove from house to house, knocking and ringing and leaving of cards, significant looks and knowing sentences passed respecting Belinda.
Disappointed mammas, who had risked the season in vain, “supposed they ought to congratulate Mrs. Jorrocks. For their parts, they saw little cause for rejoicing in losing an object both near and dear, and they hoped they might never know the affliction.”
Mrs. Jorrocks ’oped they never might.
Ladies who had gentlemen in tow were more amiable, and thought it was an exceedingly nice thing. Others, whose pretensions to beauty were eclipsed by Belinda, were sincerely glad to hear she was going to be married Hoped she meant to come a good deal amongst them after.
Mrs. Jorrocks heard all they had to say, and kept bobbing, and bowing, and muttering something about “much obleged—werry gratifyin’—not settled—let them know first,” which being construed into an admission, the old women set to and abused both Belinda and Charley, while the young ones sought out their threads and their worsteds to work her a collar or a piece of crochet work each.
