"A fine horse! A capital horse!" said several of the connoisseurs. "What do you ask for him?"
"A hundred and fifty pounds," said I.
"Why, I thought you would have asked double that amount! You do yourself injustice, young man."
"Perhaps I do," said I; "but that's my affair. I do not choose to take more."
"I wish you would let me get into the saddle," said the man. "The horse knows you, and therefore shows to more advantage; but I should like to see how he would move under me, who am a stranger. Will you let me get into the saddle, young man?"
"No," said I.
"Why not?" said the man.
"Lest you should be a Yorkshireman," said I, "and should run away with the horse."
"Yorkshire?" said the man. "I am from Suffolk--silly Suffolk--so you need not be afraid of my running away with him."
"Oh, if that's the case," said I, "I should be afraid that the horse would run away with you!"
Threading my way as well as I could through the press, I returned to the yard of the inn, where, dismounting, I stood still, holding the horse by the bridle. A jockey, who had already bargained with me, entered, accompanied by another individual.
"Here is my lord come to look at the horse, young man," said the jockey. My lord was a tall figure of about five-and-thirty. He had on his head a hat somewhat rusty, and on his back a surtout of blue rather worse for wear. His forehead, if not high, was exceedingly narrow; his eyes were brown, with a rat-like glare in them. He had scarcely glanced at the horse when, drawing in his cheeks, he thrust out his lips like a baboon to a piece of sugar.
"Is this horse yours?" said he.
"It's my horse," said I. "Are you the person who wishes to make an honest penny by it?" alluding to a phrase of the jockey's.
"How?" said he, drawing up his head with a very consequential look, and speaking with a very haughty tone. "What do you mean?" We looked at each other full in the face. "My agent here informs me that you ask one hundred and fifty pounds, which I cannot think of giving. The horse is a showy horse. But look, my dear sir, he has a defect here, and in his near foreleg I observe something which looks very much like a splint! Yes, upon my credit, he has a splint, or something which will end in one! A hundred and fifty pounds, sir! What could have induced you to ask anything like that for this animal? I protest--Who are you, sir? I am in treaty for this horse," said he, turning to a man who had come up whilst he was talking, and was now looking into the horse's mouth.
"Who am I?" said the man, still looking into the horse's mouth. "Who am I? his lordship asks me. Ah, I see, close on five," said he, releasing the horse's jaws.
Close beside him stood a tall youth in a handsome riding dress, and wearing a singular green hat with a high peak.
"What do you ask for him?" said the man.
"A hundred and fifty," said I.
"I shouldn't mind giving it to you," said he.
"You will do no such thing," said his lordship. "Sir," said he to me, "I must give you what you ask."
"No," said I; "had you come forward in a manly and gentlemanly manner to purchase the horse I should have been happy to sell him to you; but after all the fault you have found with him I would not sell him to you at any price."
His lordship, after a contemptuous look at me and a scowl at the jockey, stalked out.
"And now," said the other, "I suppose I may consider myself as the purchaser of this here animal for this young gentleman?"
"By no means," said I. "I am utterly unacquainted with either of you."
"Oh, I have plenty of vouchers for my respectability!" said he. And, thrusting his hand into his bosom, he drew out a bundle of notes. "These are the kind of things which vouch best for a man's respectability."
"Not always," said I; "sometimes these kind of things need vouchers for themselves." The man looked at me with a peculiar look. "Do you mean to say that these notes are not sufficient notes?" said he; "because, if you do, I shall take the liberty of thinking that you are not over civil; and when I thinks a person is not over and above civil I sometimes takes off my coat; and when my coat is off----"
"You sometimes knock people down," I added. "Well, whether you knock me down or not, I beg leave to tell you that I am a stranger in this fair, and shall part with the horse to nobody who has no better guarantee for his respectability than a roll of bank-notes, which may be good or not for what I know, who am not a judge of such things."
"Oh, if you are a stranger here," said the man, "you are quite right to be cautious, queer things being done in this fair. But I suppose if the landlord of the house vouches for me and my notes you will have no objection to part with the horse to me?"
"None whatever," said I.
Thereupon I delivered the horse to my friend the ostler. The landlord informed me that my new acquaintance was a respectable horse-dealer and an intimate friend of his, whereupon the purchase was soon brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
IV.--A Recruiting Sergeant
Leaving Horncastle the next day, I bent my steps eastward, and on the following day I reached a large town situated on a river. At the end of the town I was accosted by a fiery-faced individual dressed as a recruiting sergeant.
"Young man, you are just the kind of person to serve the Honourable East India Company."
"I had rather the Honourable Company should serve me," said I.
"Of course, young man. Take this shilling; 'tis service money. The Honourable Company engages to serve you, and you the Honourable Company."
"And what must I do for the Company?"
"Only go to India--the finest country in the world. Rivers bigger than the Ouse. Hills higher than anything near Spalding. Trees--you never saw such trees! Fruits--you never saw such fruits!"
"And the people--what kind are they?"
"Pah! Kauloes--blacks--a set of rascals! And they calls us lolloes, which, in their beastly gibberish, means reds. Why do you stare so?"
"Why," said I, "this is the very language of Mr. Petulengro."
"I say, young fellow, I don't like your way of speaking; you are mad, sir. You won't do for the Honourable Company. Good-day to you!"
"I shouldn't wonder," said I, as I proceeded rapidly eastward, "if Mr. Petulengro came from India. I think I'll go there."
M. E. BRADDON
Lady Audley's Secret
Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, youngest daughter of Henry Braddon, solicitor, and widow of John Maxwell, publisher, was born in London in 1837. Early in life she had literary aspirations, and, as a girl of twenty-three, wrote her first novel, "The Trail of the Serpent," which first appeared in serial form. "Lady Audley's Secret" was published in 1862, and Miss Braddon immediately sprang into fame as an authoress, combining a graphic style with keen analysis of character, and exceptional ingenuity in the construction of a plot of tantalising complexities and dramatic dénouement. The book passed through many editions, and there was an immediate demand for other stories by the gifted authoress. That demand was met with an industry and resource rarely equalled. Every year since, Miss Braddon, who throughout retained her maiden as her pen-name, furnished the reading public with one, and for a long period two romances of absorbing interest.
I.--The Second Lady Audley
SIR MICHAEL AUDLEY was fifty-six years of age, and had married a second wife nine months before. For seventeen years he had been a widower with an only child--Alicia, now eighteen. Lady Audley had come into the neighbourhood from London, in response to an advertisement in the "Times," as a governess in the family of Mr. Dawson, the village surgeon. Her accomplishments were brilliant and numerous. Everyone, high and low, loved, admired, and praised her, and united in declaring that Lucy Graham was the sweetest girl that ever lived. Sir Michael Audley expressed a strong desire to be acquainted with her. A meeting was arranged at the surgeon's house, and that day Sir Michael's fate was sealed. One misty June evening Sir Michael, sitting opposite Lucy Graham at the window of the surgeon's little drawing-room, spoke to her on the subject nearest his heart.