CHAPTER LXVI

A SHOCKING BAD SADDLE

THE next day was as bright and cheerful as its predecessors had been dull and gloomy. Nature would seem to have shed her tears, dried her eyes, and put her pocket-handkerchief away. The sun shone forth with redoubled splendour; the noisy geese went screeching and crackling and clapping their wings over the green to the water; the emancipated pigs roved leisurely about; the sparrows twittered on the eaves; while the fluttering pigeons were here, there, and everywhere. It was a fortunate circumstance that the weather had changed, for the Duke of Tergiversation had fixed upon this day to exhibit the prowess of his pack to his illustrious guest the Prince Pirouetteza. To this end all the odd horses had been put in requisition, and all the old yellow coats exhumed from their boxes to put upon helpers and straps, to swell the number and importance of the retinue. Great was the preparation at the Castle—Mr. Haggish alone was moody and thoughtful; for, independently of the noise and mischief of these amateur whips, the loss of his “varra best hound” was generally the result of a show day. However, the Duke willed it so, and Mr. Haggish was obliged to comply.

It was with great satisfaction, after two days’ confinement to the house, that our friend Mr. Bunting arrayed himself in his hunting costume—smart new scarlet, with anonymous buttons, white tops, and leathers to match. He was not one of the “fine old English gentlemen-school” of sportsmen, with their queer-cut coats, ugly drabs, and inky pig-jobber-like boots. His was the gay butterfly costume, further enlivened with a heart’s-ease, embroidered blue cravat, a pink-stripped shirt, with carbuncle studs and a worked buff vest, all covered with foxes’ heads. Having made a middling breakfast, he got on his spurs, and, after a satisfactory survey of himself in the mirror, with palpitating heart went clonk, clonk, clonking down stairs. Arrived in the yard, he gave his whip a crack to announce his approach, when the stable-door flew open, and Owen Ashford’s gray head protruded at the portals.

The first thing that struck our friend was that the bridle was very bad. “Oh dear, the bridle was very bad!” That, however, was immediately eclipsed by the saddle, which indeed passed all comprehension. If our excellent coadjutor, Leech, were to draw such a thing, people would say it was a caricature—that such a saddle never was seen. And certainly it bore no affinity to the handsome horse on which it was placed, or to the delicate cream-coloured leathers with which it sought to be invested. It was old and black, and battered, and patched, and capped, in almost every part and place—patched, too, in the roughest, coarsest way, with great long dog-teeth-like stitches, instead of the beautiful little sewing that marks the production of the London workman. Even the very seat had given way in the middle and been stitched up into a thing that looked like a map of the lake of Geneva. Oh dear, Mr. Bunting was shocked, the whole being so unlike what were supplied to him by those great masters of arts in Oxford-street, who puzzle their customers so to know “which is which.”

“Why what the deuce have you put these things on for?” exclaimed he, taking the weather-bleached rein of the old Pelham bridle between his finger and thumb.

“They are what I got with the osses, sir,” replied Crop, eyeing his master’s look of disgust.

“But you don’t mean to say you’ve got nothing better than this!” exclaimed Mr. Bunting, placing his hand on the lumpy pommel of the variegated saddle, with its frayed unmatching girths.

“Nothing else for this oss, sir,” replied Crop.

“Oh dear, you must have made a mistake, and come away with the exercising things!” exclaimed Mr. Bunting.

“They are just what they gave me at the Mews,” replied Crop.

“Oh dear, oh dear; but I would never have taken such things,” rejoined his master, frowning. “Captain Chichester could never have ridden on such a pack-saddle thing as this,” said Mr. Bunting, slapping it, adding, “Couldn’t you see what sort of a thing it was?”

“There was a cover over it, sir,” replied Crop, popping into the stable and producing one as he spoke.

“Why, the cover’s as bad as the saddle!” exclaimed Mr. Bunting, throwing it down, adding, “It’s clearly a mistake, and they have given you the exercising things—deuced bad uns they are, too.”

The question then was, what to do. There stood a swell all ready for hunting, and there stood a horse ready to go if he had but a decent saddle and bridle.

At this juncture sore-eyed Sam, who was as fertile in expedients as he was in excuses, suggested that “p’raps Mr. Buckwheat, the sporting farmer, could let them have what they wanted.”

“Go and see,” replied Mr. Bunting, adding to Crop, “and you be getting the other horse ready in case of accidents.”

Crop, without telling his master that the other saddle and bridle were equally bad, then proceeded to strip the Exquisite; but ere he had got him rubbed over and turned round in the stall, Sam returned, bearing a very passable-looking bridle and saddle, which fortunately fitted the gray not amiss, wherewith being invested, Mr. Bunting drew on his other doe-skin glove, and, gathering his whip, proceeded to mount the now greatly improved handsome animal. The important adjustments of seat and stirrups being next accomplished, he then drew rein, and feeling his horse gently with his heel, passed under the archway of the Lord Cornwallis Inn into the open space of Burton St. Leger. Here, as he got a glance of himself in Miss Muslin the milliner’s plate-glass window, he thought that Owen Ashford and he looked very well together. With this pleasing conviction he rose in his stirrups, and, putting his horse into a gentle trot, passed up the straggling street, to the great admiration of the women, who drew to their windows as though a telegraphic message had announced his approach. Great was their curiosity to know who he could be. All towns have their attendant toll-bars—the penalty of greatness; and Hooker gate paid, the excitement of observation was over, while a liberal grass siding now enabled our hero to commence an estimate of his mount on Owen Ashford. For this purpose he put along a little quicker, and proceeded to think of him, and him only. The horse was weak under him—weak certainly, Mr. Bunting thought—not the springing elasticity of either the Bard or the Kitten. And now he began to wheeze and cough. “Confound the animal,” growled Mr. Bunting, as he went grunting and wheezing up the green siding. “May have got something into his throat,” thought he, easing him down into a walk. He then became a little better.