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They'll knock us off the coach. 'Damme, coachee, says young my lord, 'you ain't afraid. Hoora, boys! let 'em have it. 'Hoora! sings out the others, and fill their mouths choke-full of peas to last the whole line. Bob, seeing as 'twas to come, knocks his hat over his eyes, hollers to his osses, and shakes 'em up; and away we goes up to the line on 'em, twenty miles an hour.
I reckon your spring ain't a dead-head, anyway.... Say, Mr McKeith, me and the boys are shifting our fire over to the other side of the creek.... Keep the 'osses from hevin' any more of their blessed starts.... Handier for gettin' them up in the morning. Lady Bridget McKeith had been married about a year and a quarter. Winter was now merging into spring. But it was not a bounteous spring.
It is represented in the old engraving with a coach-and-four drawn up before the door, surrounded by a crowd of spectators and passengers, some descending and ascending on ladders over the forward wheels; some looking with admiration at the scarlet coats of the pursy and consequential driver and guard; some exchanging greetings, others farewell salutations; ostlers in long waistcoats, plush or fustian shorts, and yellow leggings, standing bareheaded with watering-pails at the "'osses' 'eads;" trunks great and small going up and down; village boys in high excitement; village grandfathers looking very animated; the landlord, burly, bland, and happy, with a face as rotund and genial as the full moon shining upon the scene; and those round, rosy, sunny, laughing faces peering out of the windows with delightful wonderment and exhilaration, winked at by the driver, and saluted with a graceful motion of his whip-handle in recognition of the barmaid, chambermaid, and all the other maids of the house.
I wish you'd come yesterday, though, as I said before, I jest had two of the neatest nags a bay and a grey not that colour makes any matter to a judge like you; there's no sounder sayin' than that a good oss is not never of a bad colour; only to a young gemman, you know, it's well to have 'em smart, and the ticket, in short; howsomever, I must do the best I can for you, and if there's nothin' in that tickles your fancy, why, you must give me a few days to see if I can arrange an exchange with some other gent; but the present is like to be a werry haggiwatin' season; had more happlications for osses nor ever I remembers, and I've been a dealer now, man and boy, turned of eight-and-thirty years; but young gents is whimsical, and it was a young 'un wot got these, and there's no sayin' but he mayn't like them indeed, one's rayther difficult to ride that's to say, the grey, the neatest of the two, and he may come back, and if so, you shall have him; and a safer, sweeter oss was never seen, or one more like to do credit to a gent: but you knows what an oss is, Mr.
"I'm Viscount Devenham's con-fee-dential groom, mam, I am!" said he coldly, and with his most superb air. "Groom?" said the Duchess, staring, "what a very small one, to be sure!" "It ain't inches as counts wiv 'osses, mam, or hany-think else, mam, it's nerves as counts, it is." "Why, yes, you seem to have plenty of nerve!"
Being a high-bred hackney, and the pick of the Sir Bardolph three-year-olds, he was put down as a strawberry roan. Also he was the pride of Lochlynne. "'Osses, women, and the weather, sir, ain't to be depended on; but, barrin' haccidents, that 'ere Bonfire'll fetch us a ribbon if any does, sir."
The two men gazed in silence; even Pottinger, to whom his 'osses generally represented all that was beautiful in nature, gaped with wide-open mouth. "How's that for lofty, you unbeliever?" demanded Stafford. "Ever seen anything like that before?" Howard had been considerably startled, but, of course, he concealed his amazed admiration behind a mask of cynicism.
"Are you the General's orderly, then?" asked Stafford quizzically. "The orderly's gone w'ere 'e thought 'e'd find you, and I've come w'ere I know'd you'd be, sir." "Where did he think he'd find me?" "Wiv the 'osses, sir." A look of gratification crossed Stafford's face. He was well known in the army as one who looked after his horses and his men.
Hungry as I was, I made my way first of all to the postmaster, where he stood a big, athletic, horsey-looking man, blowing into a key in the corner of the yard. On my making my modest request, he awoke from his indifference into what seemed passion. "A po'-shay and 'osses!" he cried. "Do I look as if I 'ad a po'-shay and 'osses? Damn me, if I 'ave such a thing on the premises.
'Hur be gone to dipping-place, replied the boy. We went to a third door, and immediately he cried out, 'Thuck's our feyther's: the kay's in the thatch. We looked and could see the handle of the key sticking out of the eave over the door. 'Where are they all? I said. 'Aw, Bill's in the clauver; and Joe he's in th' turmuts; and Jack be at public, a' spose; and Bob's wi' the osses; and
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