Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Part 91

His companion, Mr. Watchorn, is very great, and hardly condescends to know the country people who claim his acquaintance as a huntsman. He is a Hotel Keeper--master of the Hen Angel, Newington b.u.t.ts. Enoch Wriggle stands beside them, dressed in the imposing style of a c.o.c.kney sportsman. He has been puffing 'Sir Danapalus (the Bart.)' in public, and taking all the odds he can get against him in private. Watchorn knows that it is easier to make a horse lose than win. The restless-looking, lynx-eyed caitiff, in the dirty green shawl, with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of the brown tarriar coat, is their jockey, the renowned Captain Hangallows; he answers to the name of Sam Slick in Mr. Spavin the horse-dealer's yard in Oxford Street, when not in the country on similar excursions to the present. And now in the throng on the princ.i.p.al line are two conspicuous horses--a piebald and a white--carrying Mr. Sponge and Lucy Glitters. Lucy appears as she did on the frosty-day hunt, glowing with health and beauty, and rather straining the seams of Lady Scattercash's habit with the additional _embonpoint_ she has acquired by early hours in the country. She has made Mr. Sponge a white silk jacket to ride in, which he has on under his grey tarriar coat, and a cap of the same colour is in his hard hat. He has discarded the gosling-green cords for cream-coloured leathers, and, to please Lucy, has actually subst.i.tuted a pair of rose-tinted tops for the 'hogany bouts'. Altogether he is a great swell, and very like the bridegroom.

But hark--what a cras.h.!.+ The leaders of Sir Harry Scattercash's drag start at a blind fiddler's dog stationed at the gate leading into the fields, a wheel catches the post, and in an instant the sham captains are scattered about the road: Bouncey on his head, Seedeyhuck across the wheelers, Quod on his back, and Sir Harry astride the gate. Meanwhile, the old fiddler, regardless of the shouts of the men and the shrieks of the ladies, sc.r.a.pes away with the appropriate tune of 'The Devil among the Tailors!' A rush to the horses' heads arrests further mischief, the dislodged captains are at length righted, the nerves of the ladies composed, and Sir Harry once more essays to drive them up the hill to the stand. That feat being accomplished, then came the unloading, and consternation, and huddling of the tight-laced occupants at the idea of these female _women_ coming amongst them, and the usual peeping and spying, and eyeing of the '_creatures_.' 'What impudence!' 'Well, I think!' "Pon my word!' 'What next!'--exclamations that were pretty well lost upon the fair objects of them amid the noise and flutter and confusion of the scene. But hark again!

What's up now?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

'Hooray!' 'hooray!' 'h-o-o-o-ray!' 'Three cheers for the Squire!

H-o-o-o-ray!' Old Puff as we live! The 'amazin' instance of a pop'lar man'

greeted by the Swillingford sn.o.bs. The old frost-bitten dandy is flattered by the cheers, and bows condescendingly ere he alights from the well-appointed mail phaeton. See how graciously the ladies receive him, as, having ascended the stairs, he appears among them. 'A man is never too old to marry' is their maxim.

The cry is still, 'They come! they come!' See at a hand-gallop, with his bay pony in a white lather, rides Pacey, grinning from ear to ear, with his red-backed betting-book peeping out of the breast pocket of his brown cutaway. He is staring and gaping to see who is looking at him.

Pacey has made such a book as none but a wooden-headed boy like himself could make. He has been surfeited with tips. Peeping Tom had advised him to back Daddy Longlegs; and, _nullus error_, Sneaking Joe has counselled him that the 'Baronet' will be 'California without cholera, and gold without danger'; while Jemmy something, the jockey, who advertises that his 'tongue is not for falsehood framed,' though we should think it was framed for nothing else, has urged him to back Parvo to half the amount of the national debt.

Altogether, Pacey has made such a mess that he cannot possibly win, and may lose almost any sum from a thousand pounds down to a hundred and eighty.

Mr. Sponge has got well on with him, through the medium of Jack Spraggon.

Pacey is now going to what he calls 'compare'--see that he has got his bets booked right; and, throwing his right leg over his cob's neck, he blobs on to the ground; and, leaving the pony to take care of itself, disappears in the crowd.

What a hubbub! what roarings, and shoutings, and recognizings! 'Bless my heart! who'd have thought of seeing you?' and, 'By jingo! what's sent _you_ here?'

'My dear Waffles,' cries Jawleyford, rus.h.i.+ng up to our Laverick Wells friend (who is looking very debauched), 'I'm overjoyed to see you. Do come upstairs and see Mrs. Jawleyford and the dear girls. It was only last night we were talking about you.' And so Jawleyford hurries Mr. Waffles off, just as Waffles is _in extremis_ about his horse.

Looking around the scene there seems to be everybody that we have had the pleasure of introducing to the reader in the course of Mr. Sponge's Tour.

Mr. and Mrs. Springwheat in their dog-cart, Mrs. Springey's figure looking as though 'wheat had got above forty, my lord'; old Jog and his handsome wife in the ugly old phaeton, well garnished with children, and a couple of sticks in the rough peeping out of the ap.r.o.n, Gustavus James held up in his mother's arms, with the curly blue feather nodding over his nose. There is also Farmer Peastraw, and faces that a patient inspection enables us to appropriate to Dribble, and Hook, and Capon, and Calcot, and Lumpleg, and Crane of Crane Hall, and Charley Slapp of red-coat times--people look so different in plain clothes to what they do in hunting ones. Here, too, is George Cheek, running down with perspiration, having run over from Dr.

Latherington's, for which he will most likely 'catch it' when he gets back; and oh, wonder of wonders, here's Robert Foozle himself!

'Well, Robert, you've come to the steeple-chase?'

'Yes, I've come to the steeple-chase.'

'Are you fond of steeple-chases?'

'Yes, I'm fond of steeple-chases.'

'I dare say you never were at one before,' observes his mother.

'No, I never was at one before,' replies Robert.

And though last not least, here's Facey Romford, with his arm in a sling, on Mr. Hobler, come to look after that sivin-p'und-ten, which we wish he may get.

Hark! there's a row below the stand, and Viney is seen in a state of excitement inquiring for Mr. Washball. Pacey has objected to a gentleman rider, and Guano and Puffington have differed on the point. A nice, slim, well-put-on lad (Buckram's rough rider) has come to the scales and claimed to be allowed 3 lb. as the Honourable Captain Boville. Finding the point questioned, he abandons the 'handle', and sinks into plain Captain Boville.

Pacey now objects to him altogether. 'S-c-e-u-s-e me, sir; s-c-e-u-s-e me, sir,' simpers our friend d.i.c.k Bragg, sidling up to the objector with a sort of tendency of his turn-back-wristed hand to his hat. 'S-c-e-u-s-e me, sir; s-c-e-u-s-e me,' repeats he, 'but I think you was wrong, sir, in objecting to Captain Boville, sir, as a gen'l'man rider, sir.'

'Why?' demands Pacey, in the full flush of victory.

'Oh, sir--because, sir--in fact, sir--he _is_ a gen'l'man, sir.'

'_Is_ a gentleman! How do _you_ know?' demands Pacey, in the same tone as before.

'Oh, sir, he's a gen'l'man--an undoubted gen'l'man. Everything about him shows that. Does nothing--breeches by Anderson--boots by Bartley; besides which, he drinks wine every day, and has a whole box of cigars in his bedroom. But don't take my word for it, pray,' continued Bragg, seeing Pacey was wavering; 'don't take my word for it, pray. There's a gen'l'man, a countryman of his, somewhere about,' added he, looking anxiously into the surrounding crowd--there's a gen'l'man, a countryman of his, somewhere about, if we could but find him,' Bragg standing on his tiptoes, and exclaiming, 'Mr. Buckram! Mr. Buckram! Has anybody seen anything of Mr.

Buckram!'

'Here!' replied a meek voice from behind; upon which there was an elbowing through the crowd, and presently a most respectable, rosy-gilled, grey-haired, hawbuck-looking man, attired in a new brown cutaway, with bright b.u.t.tons and a velvet collar, with a buff waistcoat, came twirling an ash-stick in one hand, and fumbling the silver in his drab trousers' pocket with the other, in front of the bystanders.

'Oh! 'ere he is!' exclaimed Bragg, appealing to the stranger with a hasty '_You_ know Captain Boville, don't you?'

'Why, now, as to the matter of that,' replied the gentleman, gathering all the loose silver up into his hand and speaking very slowly, just as a country gentleman, who has all the live-long day to do nothing in, may be supposed to speak--' Why, now, as to the matter of that,' said he, eyeing Pacey intently, and beginning to drop the silver slowly as he spoke, 'I can't say that I've any very 'ticklar 'quaintance with the captin. I knows him, in course, just as one knows a neighbour's son. The captin's a good deal younger nor me,' continued he, raising his new eight-and-sixpenny Parisian, as if to show his sandy grey hair. 'I'm a'most sixty; and he, I dare say, is little more nor twenty,' dropping a half-crown as he said it.

'But the captin's a nice young gent--a nice young gent, without any blandishment, I should say; and that's more nor one can say of all young gents nowadays,' said Buckram, looking at Pacey as he spoke, and dropping two consecutive half-crowns.

'Why, but you live near him, don't you?' interrupted Bragg.

'Near him,' repeated Buckram, feeling his well-shaven chin thoughtfully.

'Why, yes--that's to say, near his dad. The fact is,' continued he, 'I've a little independence of my own,' dropping a heavy five-s.h.i.+lling piece as he said it,' and his father--old Bo, as I call him--adjoins me; and if either of us 'appen to have a _battue_, or a 'aunch of wenzun, and a few friends, we inwite each other, and wicey wersey, you know,' letting off a lot of s.h.i.+llings and sixpences. And just at the moment the blind fiddler struck up 'The Devil among the Tailors,' when the shouts and laughter of the mob closed the scene.

And now gentlemen, who heretofore have shown no more of the jockey than Cinderella's feet in the early part of the pantomime disclose of her ball attire, suddenly cast off the pea-jackets and bearskin wraps, and shawls and overcoats of winter, and s.h.i.+ne forth in all the silken flutter of summer heat.

We know of no more humiliating sight than misshapen gentlemen playing at jockeys. Playing at soldiers is bad enough, but playing at jockeys is infinitely worse--above all, playing at steeple-chase jockeys, combining, as they generally do, all the worst features of the hunting-field and racecourse--unsympathizing boots and breeches, dirty jackets that never fit, and caps that won't keep on. What a farce to see the great bulky fellows go to scale with their saddles strapped to their backs, as if to ill.u.s.trate the impossibility of putting a round of beef upon a pudding plate!

But the weighed-in ones are mounting. See, there's Jack Spraggon getting a hoist on to Daddy Longlegs! Did ever mortal see such a man for a jockey? He has cut off the laps of a stunner tartan jacket, and looks like a great backgammon-board. He has got his head into an old gold-banded military foraging-cap, which comes down almost on to the rims of his great tortoise-sh.e.l.l spectacles. Lord Scamperdale stands with his hand on the horse's mane, talking earnestly to Jack, doubtless giving him his final instructions. Other jockeys emerge from various parts of the farm-buildings; some out of stables; some out of cow-houses; others from beneath cart-sheds. The scene becomes enlivened with the varied colours of the riders--red, yellow, green, blue, violet, and stripes without end. Then comes the usual difficulty of identifying the parties, many of whose mothers wouldn't know them.

'That's Captain Tongs,' observes Miss Simperley, 'in the blue. I remember dancing with him at Bath, and he did nothing but talk about steeple-chasing.'

'And who's that in yellow?' asks Miss Hardy.

'That's Captain Gander,' replies the gentleman on her left.

'Well, I think he'll win,' replies the lady.

'I'll bet you a pair of gloves he doesn't,' snaps Miss Moore, who fancies Captain Pusher, in the pink.

'What a squat little jockey!' exclaims Miss Hamilton, as a little dumpling of a man in Lincoln green is led past the stand on a fine bay horse, some one recognizing the rider as our old friend Caingey Thornton.

'And look who comes here?' whispers Miss Jawleyford to her sister, as Mr.

Sponge, having accomplished a mount without derangement of temper, rides Hercules quietly past the stand, his whip-hand resting on his thigh, and his head turned to his fair companion on the white.

'Oh, the wretch!' sneers Miss Amelia; and the fair sisters look at Lucy and then at him with the utmost disgust.

Mr. Sponge may now be doubled up by half a dozen falls ere either of them would suggest the propriety of having him bled.

Lucy's cheeks are rather blanched with the 'pale cast of thought,' for she is not sufficiently initiated in the mysteries of steeple-chasing to know that it is often quite as good for a man to lose as to win, which it had just been quietly arranged between Sponge and Buckram should be the case on this occasion, Buckram having got uncommonly 'well on' to the losing tune.

Perhaps, however, Lucy was thinking of the peril, not the profit of the thing.

The young ladies on the stand eye her with mingled feelings of pity and disdain, while the elderly ones shake their heads, call her a bold hussy--declare she's not so pretty--adding that they 'wouldn't have come if they'd known,' &c. &c.

But it is half-past two (an hour and a half after time), and there is at last a disposition evinced by some of the parties to go to the post.

Broad-backed parti-coloured jockeys are seen converging that way, and the betting-men close in, getting more and more clamorous for odds. What a hubbub! How they bellow! How they roar! A universal deafness seems to have come over the whole of them. 'Seven to one 'gain the Bart.!' screams one--'I'll take eight!' roars another. 'Five to one agen Herc'les!' cries a third--'Done!' roars a fourth. 'Twice over!' rejoins the other--'Done!'

replies the taker. 'Ar'll take five to one agin the Daddy!'--'I'll lay six!' 'What'll any one lay 'gin Parvo?' And so they raise such an uproar that the squeak, squeak, squeak of the