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Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1. Lever Charles James
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Автор произведения Lever Charles James
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
So saying, he turned towards the stable, while I sauntered alone towards the road by which I expected the huntsman. I had not walked half a mile before I heard the yelping of the dogs, and a little farther on I saw old Brackely coming along at a brisk trot, cutting the hounds on each side, and calling after the stragglers.
“Did you see my horse on the road, Brackely?” said I.
“I did, Misther Charles; and troth, I’m sorry to see him. Sure yerself knows better than to take out the Badger, the best steeple-chaser in Ireland, in such a country as this, – nothing but awkward stone-fences, and not a foot of sure ground in the whole of it.”
“I know it well, Brackely; but I have my reasons for it.”
“Well, may be you have; what cover will your honor try first?”
“They talk of the Mill,” said I; “but I’d much rather try Morran-a-Gowl.”
“Morran-a-Gowl! Do you want to break your neck entirely?”
“No, Brackely, not mine.”
“Whose, then, alannah?”
“An English captain’s, the devil fly away with him! He’s come down here to-day, and from all I can see is a most impudent fellow; so, Brackely – ”
“I understand. Well, leave it to me; and though I don’t like the only deer-park wall on the hill, we’ll try it this morning with the blessing. I’ll take him down by Woodford, over the Devil’s Mouth, – it’s eighteen foot wide this minute with the late rains, – into the four callows; then over the stone-walls, down to Dangan; then take a short cast up the hill, blow him a bit, and give him the park wall at the top. You must come in then fresh, and give him the whole run home over Sleibhmich. The Badger knows it all, and takes the road always in a fly, – a mighty distressing thing for the horse that follows, more particularly if he does not understand a stony country. Well, if he lives through this, give him the sunk fence and the stone wall at Mr. Blake’s clover-field, for the hounds will run into the fox about there; and though we never ride that leap since Mr. Malone broke his neck at it, last October, yet upon an occasion like this, and for the honor of Galway – ”
“To be sure, Brackely; and here’s a guinea for you, and now trot on towards the house. They must not see us together, or they might suspect something. But, Brackely,” said I, calling out after him, “if he rides at all fair, what’s to be done?”
“Troth, then, myself doesn’t know. There is nothing so bad west of Athlone. Have ye a great spite again him?”
“I have,” said I, fiercely.
“Could ye coax a fight out of him?”
“That’s true,” said I; “and now ride on as fast as you can.”
Brackely’s last words imparted a lightness to my heart and my step, and I strode along a very different man from what I had left the house half an hour previously.
CHAPTER IV
Although we had not the advantages of a southerly wind and cloudy sky, the day towards noon became strongly over-cast, and promised to afford us good scenting weather; and as we assembled at the meet, mutual congratulations were exchanged upon the improved appearance of the day. Young Blake had provided Miss Dashwood with a quiet and well-trained horse, and his sisters were all mounted as usual upon their own animals, giving to our turnout quite a gay and lively aspect. I myself came to cover upon a hackney, having sent Badger with a groom, and longed ardently for the moment when, casting the skin of my great-coat and overalls, I should appear before the world in my well-appointed “cords and tops.” Captain Hammersley had not as yet made his appearance, and many conjectures were afloat as to whether “he might have missed the road, or changed his mind,” or “forgot all about it,” as Miss Dashwood hinted.
“Who, pray, pitched upon this cover?” said Caroline Blake, as she looked with a practised eye over the country on either side.
“There is no chance of a fox late in the day at the Mill,” said the huntsman, inventing a lie for the occasion.
“Then of course you never intend us to see much of the sport; for after you break cover, you are entirely lost to us.”
“I thought you always followed the hounds,” said Miss Dashwood, timidly.
“Oh, to be sure we do, in any common country, but here it is out of the question; the fences are too large for any one, and if I am not mistaken, these gentlemen will not ride far over this. There, look yonder, where the river is rushing down the hill: that stream, widening as it advances, crosses the cover nearly midway, – well, they must clear that; and then you may see these walls of large loose stones nearly five feet in height. That is the usual course the fox takes, unless he heads towards the hills and goes towards Dangan, and then there’s an end of it; for the deer-park wall is usually a pull up to every one except, perhaps, to our friend Charley yonder, who has tried his fortune against drowning more than once there.”
“Look, here he comes,” said Matthew Blake, “and looking splendidly too, – a little too much in flesh perhaps, if anything.”
“Captain Hammersley!” said the four Miss Blakes, in a breath. “Where is he?”
“No; it’s the Badger I’m speaking of,” said Matthew, laughing, and pointing with his finger towards a corner of the field where my servant was leisurely throwing down a wall about two feet high to let him pass.
“Oh, how handsome! What a charger for a dragoon!” said Miss Dashwood.
Any other mode of praising my steed would have been much more acceptable. The word “dragoon” was a thorn in my tenderest part that rankled and lacerated at every stir. In a moment I was in the saddle, and scarcely seated when at once all the mauvais honte of boyhood left me, and I felt every inch a man. I often look back to that moment of my life, and comparing it with similar ones, cannot help acknowledging how purely is the self-possession which so often wins success the result of some slight and trivial association. My confidence in my horsemanship suggested moral courage of a very different kind; and I felt that Charles O’Malley curvetting upon a thorough-bred, and the same man ambling upon a shelty, were two and very dissimilar individuals.
“No chance of the captain,” said Matthew, who had returned from a reconnaissance upon the road; “and after all it’s a pity, for the day is getting quite favorable.”
While the young ladies formed pickets to look out for the gallant militaire, I seized the opportunity of prosecuting my acquaintance with Miss Dashwood, and even in the few and passing observations that fell from her, learned how very different an order of being she was from all I had hitherto seen of country belles. A mixture of courtesy with naïveté; a wish to please, with a certain feminine gentleness, that always flatters a man, and still more a boy that fain would be one, – gained momentarily more and more upon me, and put me also on my mettle to prove to my fair companion that I was not altogether a mere uncultivated and unthinking creature, like the remainder of those about me.
“Here he is at last,” said Helen Blake, as she cantered across a field waving her handkerchief as a signal to the captain, who was now seen approaching at a brisk trot.
As he came along, a small fence intervened; he pressed his horse a little, and as he kissed hands to the fair Helen, cleared it in a bound, and was in an instant in the midst of us.
“He sits his horse like a man, Misther Charles,” said the old huntsman; “troth, we must give him the worst bit of it.”
Captain Hammersley was, despite all the critical acumen with which I canvassed him, the very beau-ideal of a gentleman rider; indeed, although a very heavy man, his powerful English thorough-bred, showing not less bone than blood, took away all semblance of overweight; his saddle was well fitting and well placed, as also was his large and broad-reined snaffle; his own costume of black coat, leathers, and tops was in perfect keeping, and