Tales from Blackwood Volume Ii Part 12

"No more than yourself, but I suppose we shall contrive to stick on somehow."

"Would it not be as well to have a trial?" said I, with considerable intrepidity. "Suppose we go together to the riding-school, and have an hour or two's practice."

"I have no earthly manner of objection," said Anthony. "I presume there's lots of sawdust there and the exhibition will, at any rate, be a private one. _Allons!_" and we departed for the amphitheatre.

We inquired for a couple of peaceable hacks, which were forthwith furnished us. I climbed up with some difficulty into the saddle, and having submitted to certain partial dislocations of the knee and ankle, at the hands of the master of the ring (rather a ferocious Widdicomb, by the way), and having also been instructed in the art of holding the reins, I was p.r.o.nounced fit to start. Anthony, whose legs were of a parenthetical build, seemed to adapt himself more easily to his seat.

"Now then, trot!" cried the sergeant, and away we went with a wild expenditure of elbow.

"Toes in, toes in, gentlemen!" bellowed our instructor; "blowed but you'd drive them wild if you had spurs on! You ain't been at the dancing-school lately, have you? Steady--steady--very good. Down your elbows, gentlemen, if you please! them bridles isn't pumps. Heads up!

now gallop! Bravo! very good. Screw in the knees a little. Hold on--hold on, sir, or damme you'll be off!"

And sure enough I was within an ace of canting over, having lost a stirrup, when the sergeant caught hold of me by the arm.

"I'll tell you what, gents," he said, "you'll never learn to ride in this 'varsal world, unless you tries it without the irons. Nothing like that for giving a man a sure seat So, Bill, take off the stirrups, will you! Don't be afeard, gentlemen. I'll make riders of you yet, or my name isn't Kickshaw."

Notwithstanding the comforting a.s.surances of Kickshaw, I felt considerably nervous. If I could not maintain my seat with the a.s.sistance of the stirrups, what the mischief was I to do without them?

I looked rebelliously at Anthony's stirrup, but that intrepid individual seemed to have nerved himself to meet any possible danger. His enormous legs seemed calculated by nature to embrace the body of his charger, and he sat erect like an overgrown Bacchus bestriding a kilderkin of beer.

"Trot, gentlemen!" and away we went. I shall never forget the agony of that hour! The animal I rode was peculiarly decided in his paces; so much so that at each step my _os coccygis_ came down with a violent thump upon the saddle, and my teeth rattled in my head like dice in a backgammon-box. How I managed to maintain my posture I cannot clearly understand. Possibly the instinct of self-preservation proved the best auxiliary to the precepts of Sergeant Kickshaw; for I held as tight a hold of the saddle as though I had been crossing the bridge of Al Sirat, with the flames of the infernal regions rolling and undulating beneath.

"Very good, gentlemen--capital!--you're improving vastly!" cried the complimentary sergeant. "Nothing like the bare saddle after all--damme but I'll make you take a four-barred gate in a week! Now sit steady.

Gallop!"

Croton oil was a joke to it! I thought my whole vitals were flying to pieces as we bounded round the oval building, the speed gradually increasing, until my diseased imagination suggested that we were going at the pace of Lucifer. My head began to grow dizzy, and I clutched convulsively at the pommel.

"An-tho-ny!" I gasped in monosyllables.

"Well?"

"How--do--you--feel?"

"Monstrous--shakey," replied Anthony in dis-syllables.

"I'm off!" cried I; and, losing my balance at the turn, I dropped like a sack of turnips.

However, I was none the worse for it. Had it not been for Anthony, and the dread of his report, I certainly think I should have bolted, and renounced the yeomanry for ever. But a courageous example does wonders.

I persevered, and in a few days really made wonderful progress. I felt, however, considerably sore and stiff--straddled as I walked along the street, and was compelled to have recourse to diachylon. What with riding and the foot-drill I had hard work of it, and earnestly longed for the time when the regiment should go into quarters. I almost forgot to mention that Masaniello turned out to be an immense black brute, rather aged, but apparently sound, and, so far as I could judge, quiet.

There was, however, an occasional gleam about his eye which I did not exactly like.

"He'll carry you, sir, famously--no doubt of it," said Kickshaw, who inspected him; "and, mind my words, he'll go it at the charge!"

CHAPTER III.

It was a brilliant July morning when I first donned my regimentals for actual service. Dugald M'Tavish, a caddy from the corner of the street, had been parading Masaniello, fully caparisoned for action, before the door at least half an hour before I was ready, to the no small delectation of two servant hizzies who were sweeping out the stairs, and a diminutive baker's boy.

"Tak' a cup o' coffee afore ye get up on that muckle funking beast, Maister George," said Nelly; "and mind ye, that if ye are brocht hame this day wi' yer feet foremost, it's no me that has the wyte o't."

"Confound you, Nelly! what do you keep croaking for in that way?"

"It's a' ane to me; but, O man, ye're unco like Rehoboam! Atweel ye needna flounce at that gate. Gang yer wa's sodgerin', and see what'll come o't. It's ae special mercy that there's a hantle o' lint in the hoose, and the auld imbrocation for broken banes; and, in case o' the warst, I'll ha'e the la.s.s ready to rin for Doctor Scouther."

This was rather too much; so, with the reverse of a benediction on my gouvernante, I rushed from the house, and, with the a.s.sistance of Dugald, succeeded in mounting Masaniello, a task of no small difficulty, as that warlike quadruped persisted in effecting a series of peripherical evolutions.

"And whan wull ye be back, and what wall ye ha'e for denner?" were the last words shouted after me as I trotted off to the rendezvous.

It was still early, and there were not many people abroad. A few faces, decorated with the picturesque mutch, occasionally appeared at the windows, and one or two young rascals, doubtless descendants of the disaffected who fell at Bonnymuir, shouted "Dook!" as I rode along.

Presently I fell in with several of my comrades, amongst whom I recognised with pleasure Randolph and Anthony Whaup.

"By Jove, M'Whirter!" said the former, "that's a capital mount of yours.

I don't think there is a finer horse in the troop; and I say, old chap, you sit him as jauntily as a janissary!"

"He has had hard work to do it though, as I can testify," remarked Anthony, whose gelding seemed to be an animal of enviable placidity. "I wish you had seen us both at Kickshaw's a week ago."

"I dare say, but there's nothing like practice. Hold hard, M'Whirter!

If you keep staring up that way, you may have a shorter ride of it than you expect. Easy--man--easy! That brute has the mettle of Beelzebub."

The remark was not uncalled for. We were pa.s.sing at that moment before the Bogles' house, and I could not resist the temptation of turning round to gaze at the window of Edith, in the faint hope that she might be a spectator of our expedition. In doing so, my left spur touched Masaniello in the flank, a remembrancer which he acknowledged with so violent a caper, that I was very nearly pitched from the saddle.

"Near shave that, sir!" said Hargate, who now rode up to join us; "we'll require to put you into the rear rank this time, where, by the way, you'll be remarkably comfortable."

"I hope," said Anthony, "I may be ent.i.tled to the same privilege."

"Of course. Pounset, I think, will be your front-rank man. He's quite up to the whole manoeuvre, only you must take care of his mare. But here we are at Abbey-hill gate, and just in time."

I was introduced in due form to the officers of the squadron, with none of whom I was previously acquainted, and was directed to take my place as Randolph's rear-rank man, so that in file we marched together. Before us were two veteran yeomen, and behind were Anthony and Pounset.

Nothing particular occurred during our march to Portobello sands.

Masaniello behaved in a manner which did him infinite credit, and contributed not a little to my comfort. He neither reared nor plunged, but contented him at times with a resolute shake of the head, as if he disapproved of something, and an occasional sniff at Randolph's filly, whenever she brought her head too near.

On arriving at the sands we formed into column, so that Anthony and I were once more side by side. The other squadrons of the regiment were already drawn up, and at any other time I should no doubt have considered the scene as sufficiently imposing. I had other things, however, to think of besides military grandeur.

"I say, Anthony," said I, somewhat nervously, "do you know anything about these twistified manoeuvres?"

"Indeed I do not!" replied Whaup, "I've been puzzling my brains for the last three days over the Yeomanry Regulations, but I can make nothing out of their 'Reverse flanks' and 'Reforming by sections of threes?'"

"And I'm as ignorant as a baby! What on earth are we to do? That big fellow of a sergeant won't let us stand quietly, I suppose."

"I stick to Pounset," said Whaup. "Whatever he does I do, and I advise you to do the same by Randolph."

"But what if they should ride away? Isn't there some disgusting nonsense about forming from threes?"

"I suppose the horses know something about it, else what's the use of them? That brute of yours must have gone through the evolutions a thousand times, and ought to know the word of command by heart--Hallo!--I say, Pounset, just take care of that mare of yours, will ye! She's kicking like the very devil, and my beast is beginning to plunge!"

"I wouldn't be Pounset's rear-rank for twenty pounds," said a stalwart trooper to the left. "She has the ugliest trick of using her heels of any mare in Christendom."

"Much obliged to you, sir, for the information," said Whaup, controlling, with some difficulty, the incessant curveting of his steed.