“That’s the way to make a hunter!” I exclaimed enthusiastically; for I confess I felt my blood stir at John’s description; “and to ride in that form, no doubt you require the very best, such as you seem to have got here.”
“We doesn’t grudge price, you see, sir,” answered John confidentially. “When we hears of what we think likely to suit, at Tattersall’s or elsewhere, we comes down with the money at once: two hundred, three hundred—no matter what, so long as they are _real_ good ones. Now there’s Lady-Killer, (Here! Tom, take and strip that bay horse,) we bought him at The Corner, with never a character, for two hundred and fifty guineas. Know’d nothing at all about him, except that we’d seen him out, and seen him gallop. Well, Mason would have had him if we hadn’t. First day as we rode him, and first fence as we put him at, blessed if it wasn’t the park pales, up in Deersley Chase. My Lord’s hounds, they found their fox like winking, and away right over the park and amongst the fallow-deer, as if they was tied to him. What a scent there was, to be sure! Never checked nor hovered, nor seemed to take no notice of the riot; but away, with their heads up-wind, as straight and as even as the crop of my whip. Well, there was an awful scrimmage, to be sure: such a rush among the fast ones! and we was a-going slap in front of the whole on ’em, with our hands down, I can tell you. It is a pleasure to see us, sir. Three-quarters-of-a-mile of grass had just got the horses into their swing, when the hounds came to the park pales, and over, like a stream of water across a mill-dam. No time to think about it. While two or three of the tail hounds were falling back from the top, the others were rising the opposite hill, running _alarming_. It was a regular case of ‘jump, or else go home.’ Some of the gentlemen pulls up, and some goes shying away to look for a gate; and one—a young gent he was, from college—takes and rides at it; but his horse turns round and kicks. So there was plenty of room, you see, for anybody who wanted to go and try. We catches hold of the bay horse, very steady and determined, and we rides him at it, so that he could not have refused, if it had been ever so. I don’t think, myself, he knowed anything about timber, for he just took it with his knees, and turned completely over on the top of us. ‘Killed! by jingo!’ says my Lord, turning as white as ashes, for he had waited to see us have a drive at it afore he galloped away to the gate. ‘Worth a dozen dead ones yet, my Lord!’ says we, jumping into the saddle again as light as a feather, and away after the hounds. So from that time we called the bay horse ‘Lady-Killer,’ although I never knowed him touch a rail since, and now he’s as safe a timber-jumper as we’ve got in the stable!”