In the Riding-School; Chats with Esmeralda Part 4

"That's tautology," said Theodore.

VI.

A solitary horseman might have been seen.

_G.P.R. James_.

And so you are feeling very meek after your road lesson and your runaway, Esmeralda, and are a perfect Uriah Heep for 'umbleness, and are, henceforth and forever, going to believe every syllable that your master utters, and to obey every command the instant that it is given, and--there, that will do! And you are going to take one private lesson so as to learn a few little things before you display your progress before any other pupils again?

One private lesson! Did your master advise it? No-no, but he consented to give it, when you had persuaded him that it would be best for you? When you had persuaded him? Behold the American pupil's definition of obedience: to follow commands dictated by herself! However, there is no use in trying to eradicate the ideas bequeathed and fostered by a hundred years of national self-government, so go to the school at the hour when no other pupils are expected.

The horses pace very solemnly around the great ring, and you adjust yourself with wonderful dignity, feeling that your master must perceive by your improved carriage and by the general perfection of your aspect that your exquisite timidity and charming shyness have been responsible for your awkwardness in former lessons, when other pupils were present, but now he leaves your side and takes a position in the centre of the ring, whence he addresses you thus:

"Keep your reins even! The right ones are too short, the left too long! Stop him! That is not stopping him! He took two steps forward after he checked himself. Go forward, and try again when I tell you. Stop! Not so hard, not so hard! You are making him back! Extend your arms forward! There! A little more, and you would have made him rear! Whoa! Wo-ho! Now listen! Not so! Don't drop your reins in that way, and sit so carelessly that a start would throw you from your place! Never leave your horse to himself a second! Sit as well as you can, look between your horse's ears and listen! Always use some discretion in choosing your place to stop. Do not try to stop when turning a corner, even to avoid danger, but rather change your direction. In the ring, never stop on the track, unless in obedience to your masters order, but turn out into the centre, but when you have once told your horse to stop, make him do it, for his sake, as well as for your own, if you have to spend an hour in the effort.

And it will be an hour well spent, so that you need not lose patient, and if you do lose it, do not allow your horse to perceive it.

"To stop, you should press your leg and your whip against your horse's sides; lift your hands a very little, and turn them in toward your body, lean back and draw yourself up. There are six things to do: two to your horse, one on each side of him, two with your hands and two with your body, and you must do them almost simultaneously. Unless you do the first two, your horse will surely take a forward step or two after stopping, in order to bring himself into a comfortable position. If you do not cease doing the last four the moment that your horse has stopped, he may rear or he may back several steps, and he should never do that, but should await an order for each step. Now, do you remember the six things? Very well! Go forward! Stop! Did I tell you to do anything with your arms? No> Well, why did you bring your elbows back of your waist, then? It is allowable to do that --to save your life, but not to stop your horse. Bend your hands at the wrist, turning the knuckles, if need be, until they are at right angles with their ordinary position, so that the back of your hand is toward your horse's ears, but keep the thumb uppermost all the time.

"Now, think it over a moment! Go forward! Stop! Pretty well! Go on! Don't lean forward too much when you start, and sit up again instantly.

"Now walk around the school once, and go into all the corners.

Stop! You stopped pretty well, but you leaned back too far, and you did not draw yourself up at all. Mind, you draw 'yourself'

up; you don't try to pull the bit up through the corners of your horse's mouth. What I wanted to say was that a turn is just half a stop as far as your hands, leg and whip are concerned. To turn to the right, use your right hand and whip, but keep your left leg and hand steady; to turn to the left, use your left leg and hand and keep your whip and whip hand steady. When you turn to the right, lean to the right instead of backward; 'lean,' not twist to the right, and turn your head to the right so as to see what may be there.

"If you were on the road, and did not turn your head before going down a side street, you might knock over a bicycle rider, and thereby hurt your horse, which would be a pity," he says, with apparent indifference as to the bicycle rider's possible injuries. "Now go around the school again. Left shoulder forward!

Right shoulder back! Sit to the right! Lean to the left! I told you to sit to the left, the other day? And that is the reason that I have told you to sit to the right to-day. You over-do it.

Miss Esmeralda, if I were talking for my own pleasure, I should say pretty things to you, but I am talking to teach you, and when I say 'This is wrong! This is wrong!' and again 'This is wrong!'

I do it for you, not for myself. When your father and mother say 'This is wrong; you must not do it, or you will be sorry,' you do not look at them as if you thought them to be unreasonable--or, I trust that you do not," he adds, mentally. "Heaven only knows what an American girl may do when anybody says, 'You must not' to her.

"Now," he goes on aloud, "it is the same with your teacher; he says 'You are wrong,' lest you should be sorry by and by, and he is patient and says it many times, as your father and mother do, and he says it every time that you do anything wrong, unless you do so many wrong things at once that he cannot speak of each one.

Now you shall turn to the right, and remember that a turn is half a stop. Go across the school and then turn to the left! Keep a firm hold on your right rein now so as to keep your horse close to the wall. Where, where are your toes? It was not necessary to make you turn so as to see your right foot through your riding habit as I can now, to know that they were pointing outward. Your right shoulder told the story by drooping forward. M. de Bussigny lays especial stress on this point in his manual, and you will find that your whole position depends more on that seemingly unimportant right foot than on many other things, so bend your will to holding it properly, close against the saddle. Walk on now, keeping on a straight line. If you cannot do it in the school, you cannot on the road, and many an ugly sc.r.a.pe against walls, horse-cars, and other horses you will receive unless you can keep to the right and in a straight line. Now turn to the left, and go straight across the school. Straight! Fix your eye on something when you start, and ride at it with as much determination as if it were a fence; now you turn to the right again and go forward. Have you read Delsarte?"

No, you murmur to yourself, you have not read Delsarte, and, if you had, you do not believe that you could remember it or anything else just at present. What an endless string of directions! You wish that there was another pupil with you to take the burden of a few of them! You wish you were--oh!

Anywhere. This is your obedience, is it Esmeralda? Well, you don't care! This is dull! Your horse thinks so, too. He gently tries the reins, and, finding that you offer no resistance, he decides to take a little exercise, and starts off at a canter, keeping away from the wall most piously, avoiding the corners as if some Hector might be in ambuscade there to catch and tame him, and rus.h.i.+ng on faster and faster, as you do nothing in particular to stop him.

"Lean to the right," cries the master, and you obey, but the horse continues his canter, almost a gallop now, when suddenly your wits return to you, you draw back first the right hand and then the left, he begins to trot, and by some miracle you begin to rise, and continue to do it, you do not know exactly how, feeling a delight in it, an exhilarating, exultant sensation as if flying. "Keep your right leg close to the saddle below the knee and turn your toes in!" You obey, and even remember to press your left knee to the saddle also and to keep your heel down.

"Don't rise to the left! Rise straight! Your horse is circling to the right, and you must lean to the right to rise straight! Take him into the corners so that he will move more on a straight line, and you can rise straight and be as much at ease as if on the road. Whoa! Now, don't change your position, but look at yourself! You did not shorten your reins when you began to trot, and, if your horse had stumbled, you could not have aided him to regain his balance. Had you shortened them properly, you could, by sitting down, using your leg and whip lightly and turning your hands toward your body, have brought him down to a walk without hurling yourself forward against the pommel in that fas.h.i.+on. Now, adjust yourself and your reins, and start forward once more," and you obey, and are beginning to flatter yourself that your master does not know that your canter was accidental, when he warns you against allowing a horse to do anything unbidden.

"You should have stopped him at once," he says. "He will very likely try to repeat his little maneuver in a few minutes. When he does, check him instantly, not by your voice, but as you have been directed. And now, have you read Delsarte? No? If you have time, you might read a chapter or two with advantage, simply for the sake of learning that a principle underlies all att.i.tudes.

"He divides the body into three parts; the head, torso, and legs, and he teaches that the first and third should act on the same line, while the second is in opposition to them. For instance, if you be standing and looking toward the right, your weight should rest on your right leg and your torso should be turned to the left. Neither turn should be exaggerated, but the two should be exactly proportioned, one to another.

"Now for riding, your body is divided into three parts, your head and torso making one, your legs above the knee, the second, and your legs below the knee, the third, and you will find that the first and third will act together, whether you desire it or not.

Your right foot is properly placed now, but turn its toes outward and upward; you see what becomes of your right shoulder. Now try to make a circle to the right, a volte we call it, because it is best to become accustomed to a few French words, as there are really no English equivalents for many of the terms used in the art of equestrianism.

"To make a volte you have only to turn to the right and to keep turning, going steadily away from the wall until opposite your starting point, and then regaining it by a half-circle. Making voltes is not only a useful exercise, showing your horse that you really mean to guide him, and teaching you to execute a movement steadily, but it affords an excellent way of diverting the horse's attention from the mischief which Satan is always ready to find for idle hoofs. Give him a few voltes and he forgets his plans for setting off at a canter. Do you understand? Very well.

When you are half-way down the school try to make a volte. I will give you no order. Your horse would understand if I did and would begin the movement himself, and you should do it unaided."

You try the volte, and convince yourself that the geometry master who taught you that a circle was a polygon with an infinite number of sides was more exact and less poetical than you thought him in the days before the riding-school began to reform your judgment on many things. You are conscious of not making a respectable curve in return, and you draw a deep breath of disgust as you say, "That was very bad, wasn't it?"

"Not for the first time. Keep your left hand and leg steady, and try it again on the other side of the ring. Better! Now walk around, and make him go into the corners, if you have to double your left wrist in doing it, but don't move your arm, and when you begin to bend you right wrist to turn, straighten your left, and remember to lean your body and turn your head, if you want your horse to turn his body. Your wrist acts on his head and keeps him in line; your whip and leg bring his hind legs under him, but you must move your body if you want him to move his.

"Now, you shall make a half volte, or shall 'change hands,' as it is sometimes called, because, if you start with your left hand nearest the wall, you will come back to the wall with your right hand nearest to it; or, to speak properly, 'if you start on the right hand of the school, you will end on the left hand.' For the half volte, make a half circle to the right, and then ride in a diagonal line to a point some distance back on your track, and when you are close to it make three quarters of a turn to the left and you will find yourself on the left of the school, and in a position to practice keeping your horse to the right. Try it, beginning about two thirds of the way down the long side of the school. Now to get back to the right hand, you may turn to the left across the school, and turn to the left again.

"There is a better way of dong it, but that is enough for to-day.

Walk now. Do you see how much better your horse carries himself, and how much better you carry your hands, after those little exercises? Now you must try and imagine yourself doing them over and over and over again, to accustom your mind to them, just as when learning to play scales and five-finger exercises you used to think them out while walking. Shall you not need pictures and diagrams to a.s.sist you? Not if you have as much imagination as any horsewoman should have. Not if you have enough imagination to manage a cow, much more to enter into the feelings of a good horse. Pictures are invaluable to the stupid; they benumb and enervate the clever, and turn them into apish imitators, instead of making them able to act from their own knowledge and volition.

Theory will not make you a good rider, but a really good rider without theory is an impossibility, and your theory must have a deeper seat than your retinae. Now, you shall have a very little trot, and then you may walk for ten minutes, and try to do voltes and half voltes by yourself, asking me for aid if you cannot remember how to execute the movements. Doing them will help you to pa.s.s away the time when you are too tired to trot, and will keep you from having any dull moments."

And you, Esmeralda, you naughty girl! You forgot all about your sulkiness half an hour ago, and, looking your master in the face, you say: "But n.o.body ever has dull moments in riding-school."

There! Finish your lesson and walk off to the dressing-room; you will be trying to trade horses with somebody the next thing, you artful, flattering puss!

VII.

Here we are riding, she and I!

_Browning_.

What is it now, Esmeralda? By your blus.h.i.+ng and stammering it is fairly evident that another of your devices for learning on the American plan--that is to say, by not studying--is in full possession of your fancy, and that again you expect to become a horsewoman by a miracle; come, what is it? A music ride? Nell has an acquaintance who always rides to music, and a.s.serts that it is as easy as dancing; that the music "fairly lifts you out of the saddle," and that the pleasure of equestrian exercise is doubled when it is done to the sound of the flute, violin, and ba.s.soon, or whatever may be the riding-school subst.i.tutes?

As for lifting you out of the saddle, Esmeralda, it is quite possible that music might execute that feat, promptly and neatly, once, and might leave you out, were it produced suddenly and unexpectedly by "dot leetle Sherman bad," and it is undoubtedly true that, were you a rider, music would exhilarate you, quicken your motions, stimulate your nerves, and a.s.sist you as it a.s.sists a soldier when marching. It is also true that it will aid even you somewhat, by indicating on what step you should rise, so that your motions will not alternate with those of your horse, to your discomfiture and his disgust, and that thus, by mechanically executing the movement, you may acquire the power of seeing that you are not performing it when you rise once a minute or thereabouts, but a music ride is an exercise which a wise pupil will not take until advised thereto by her master. Still, have your own way! Why did George Was.h.i.+ngton and the other fathers of the republic exist, if its daughters must be in bondage to common sense and expediency?

Borrow Nell's habit once more, for the criticism to be undergone on the road is mild compared to that of a gallery of spectators before whom you must repeatedly pa.s.s in review, and who may select you as the object of their especial scrutiny. Dress at home, if possible; if not, go to the school early, and array yourself rapidly, but carefully, for there may be fifty riders present during the evening, and there will be little room to spare on the mounting-stand, and no minutes to waste on b.u.t.toning gloves, shortening skirt straps or tightening boot lacings.

Remember all that you have been taught about mounting and about taking your reins, and think a.s.siduously of it, with a determination to pay no attention to the gallery. There will be no spectators on the mounting-stand, and Theodore, who will take charge of you in the ring, will mount before you do, and when you have been put in your saddle by one of the masters, and start, he will take his place on your right, nearer the centre of the ring.

While you are walking your horses slowly about, turning corners carefully and never ceasing to control your reins, warn him that when you say, "Centre," he must turn out to the right instantly, that you also may do so. If possible, you will not p.r.o.nounce the word, but will ride as long as the horses canter or trot in time to the music.

"Do you understand," Theodore asks, "that these horses adjust their gait to the music?"

"So Nell's friend says."

"Well, I don't believe it. They are good horses, but I don't believe that they practice circus tricks. Why must I go to the centre the minute that you bid me? Why couldn't you pull up and pa.s.s out behind me?"

"Because if I did, somebody might ride over me. It is not proper to stop while on the track."

"Oh-h! How long do they trot or canter at a time? Half an hour?"

"Only a few minutes," you answer, wondering whether Theodore really supposes that you could canter, much less trot half an hour, even if stimulated by the music of the spheres.

"That's a pretty rider," he says, as a girl circles lightly past, sitting fairly well, and rising straight, but with her arms so much extended that her elbow is the apex of a very obtuse angle, though her forearms are horizontal. You explain this point to Theodore, who replies that she looks pretty, and seems to be able to trot for some time, whereupon your heart sinks within you.

What will he say when he sees the necessary brevity of your performance?

Other riders enter: two or three men mounted on their own horses, beautiful creatures concerning whose value fabulous tales are told in the stable; the best rider of the school, very quietly and correctly dressed, and managing her horse so easily that the women in the gallery do not perceive that she is guiding him at all, although the real judges, old soldiers, a stray racing man or two, the other school pupils and the master--regard her admiringly, and the grooms, as they bring in new horses, keep an eye on her and her movements, as they linger on their way back to the stable.