CHAPTER XLVII

MR. TOM TAILINGS

E mentioned incidentally that our hero, Mr. Jasper Goldspink, had a sporting chum, the ostler’s son at the Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, at Mayfield, and coming performances requiring that he should be more specifically introduced, we will here take the liberty of doing so. His name was Tailings, Mr. Thomas Tailings, son of the bowlegged old ostler, who had fairly worn off his cow-lock by touching it for eleemosynary shillings and sixpences, for hoisting half-drunken farmers and others on to their horses. Old Tom had a good strain of sporting blood in his nerves, being a son of the well-known old Tailings, the ostler at the Eclipse Inn at Easingwold, in the palmy days of “eight out and four in;” and though Tailings, the father, had never been able to recreate his sporting propensities as he could wish, yet he was right glad to see “wor Tom,” as he called his son, in a better position, more particularly as the pursuit brought him in money, and caused him to rise from the obscurity of fustian into the smart bow-legged swell, whiffing his cigar, with his dirty-nailed hands deeply ensconsed in his well puckered peg-top trouser pockets, so familiar to turfites on a variety of race-courses. Notwithstanding the garnish of dress, however, there is still the same manifest likeness between Tailings the father, and Tailings the son, as there is between Her Most Gracious Majesty’s profile on a half-crown, and Her Most Gracious Majesty’s profile on a half-penny; the same square Tailings face, the same Tailings pug nose, the same little ferrety eye, the same sly mouth, above all, the same beautiful bow-legs, so inviting to a headstrong run-a-way pig to pop through.

Although it is pleasant in this hard-featured money-striving world, to see honest, plodding industry gradually surmount the difficulties of life, and rise to eminence and distinction; yet there is no such feeling engendered in beholding the mushroom exhalations of the turf expanding under the sunshine of prosperity; for somehow the “critturs,” as Jock Haggish would call them, never know how to behave themselves. They always do something preposterous, either burst out into gaudy-coloured liveries, or carriages with two grooms in the rumble, or make some such outrageous extravagant display as causes the public to laugh, and their comrades to blush for their impudence.

Indeed we do not know, but that compelling them to exhibit themselves in some such way, is the best punishment for their audacity; for assuredly there is no position in which a man who has no business in one, feels so awkward as when shut up in a close carriage. The contortions of a half-drunken sailor enjoying himself is nothing to it; for Jack thinks it is all right, and that everybody is envying him, while the poor turfite is soon most painfully convinced that everybody is laughing at him, even to the servants who take pay for sitting behind him. Fancy the honour of serving a blackleg! Somehow the service is generally of short duration, for, as we have said before, turf-gotten money never seems to prosper, the recipients being up to-day and down to-morrow. Like moths they flutter round the candle of prosperity, and then suddenly extinguish themselves, either with more betting, or brandy and water, or perhaps with a combination of both.

Mr. Tom Tailings, at the time of our story, had just about got to the half-way house of turf prosperity—the period of existence that in the corresponding life of an artisan, would lead him to call for sherry and water instead of ale, wine-drinking being considered by some as the first stage on the road to gentility. Tailings, however, was a good deal in advance of the sherry; he called for champagne, a beverage that is also a good deal in advance of its time, seeing that there is about quadruple the quantity consumed that the vineyards produce. However, Tom paid for it as champagne, and he had a right to call it so if he liked. In addition to the fine clothes, the fine ties, the fine pins, and the “excellent sparkling,” Tom had secured some two or three hundred pounds, which he complimented by calling thousands or “thoosands,” as he pronounced it; and leg-like, he yearned to display it. If a trader gets into a good thing he keeps it to himself, or perhaps runs it down while he quietly feathers his nest; but a “leg” likes to be noisy, and brawling, and attracting attention.

Kind fortune soon sent Mr. Tom the means of distinguishing himself. It so happened that the ill luck of the Forty Thieves, pursued them to the end of the season, and made them resolve at the end of the “hay and straw meeting,” to convert some of their horses into money; and steam enabling a man to be anywhere and everywhere, Mr. Tom Tailings duly appeared with our hero among the select circle formed round the temporary rostrum of Mr. Dweller, the auctioneer, who was entrusted with the dispersion of the draft, to effect the sale of which of course a good many were introduced into the catalogue that were not meant to be parted with, except at full, or perhaps fancy, prices.

Time was that the tap of the auctioneer’s hammer was supposed to denote the conversion of property into money, but modern “science” long since introduced a custom,—chiefly among household goods but now extended to horses, and perhaps to everything else—whereby the efforts of the auctioneer are but preliminary to the completion of the transfer, the intermediate process being what is technically called the “knock out.” At every sale there are certain parties present who are ready to take things at their own price; but this of course, not being agreeable to the honourable fraternity generally, they form themselves into a sort of joint-stock company, for the purpose of running up any bonâ fide bidder who declines to avail himself of the terms of the “knock out.” If, however, an intending purchaser does agree to come in, then one of the party bids, and the rest direct their energies to ridiculing and running down the lot—declaring, if a carpet, that a person can see through it; if a carriage, that the wheels are so rotten the wood won’t hold the nails; and if a horse, that he is either touched in the wind, or so slow, that a man could beat him on foot, by which means in nine cases out of ten perhaps, where the property is for absolute sale, they succeed in getting it at half its real value. The hammer having fallen, then comes the real legitimate—or, more correctly speaking, illegitimate sale; the late runners down now become the runners up, the lot is assessed at something like its fair value, and the transaction closes with a gain to both buyers, and, of course, a loss to the owner of the property; and also to the auctioneer, who is thus defrauded, or at all events, deprived of a portion of his fees.

That is now a common process, and it seems that where honour has ceased to exist amongst thieves, no number—not even forty—will restore its equilibrium; for the united confederates were subjected to the same treatment on the reduction of their stud, as old farmer Hobnail would have to undergo on the seizure of his pigs, and his poultry for rent. Our new acquaintance, Mr. Tailings, having a half-cousin in the “knock out” line, commissioned him to bid for two or three lots, whose pedigrees and performances did not threaten to make too great a hole in his “thoosands,” and after the usual amount of laughing, throat-squeezing, rib-thumping, trottings up and trottings down, with exhortations from Mr. Dweller to the company to bid, a very good-looking bay colt, with a white ratch down its face, called Honest Billy, by Pickpocket, was knocked down at an apparently very low figure.

The same observation that we made with regard to people’s heads, namely, that no amount of outward inspection will enable a person to say where the brains are, and where they are not, applies also to the speed, if not to the endurance of horses, for assuredly no one seeing an animal huddled up in straw, or at exercise in sheeting and hoods, or trotting along to the excitement of the hammer, can predict how he may be endowed with speed on a suitable course, with ground to his mind, and all the other contingencies that constitute the uncertainties of a race. True, the Forty Thieves had tried Honest Billy, and found him wanting; but then, the thieves go for the great stakes, whereas our confederates were only nibblers, who would be content with the pickings of the minor courses, and Tailings’ half-cousin intimating that our friends might be good customers, the members of the “knock out,” consented to let them have the horse for twenty pounds more than they gave. And so our hero was launched on the turf.

Honest Billy, however, was not destined to retrieve his lost laurels under his old name, for the purchase being made just at the time that the Banker incautiously hollo’d about the estate, it was resolved that it would only be a proper compliment to call the horse after the property, namely, “Garlandale.” So Honest Billy was duly re-christened under a proper discharge of the “best sparkling,” and many predictions were indulged in as to the money he would win, and the cups and trophies with which he would decorate the sideboard of the diningroom in the projected new Hall. How far the anticipations were fulfilled will appear as we proceed in our story.