There were no bullets flying during the more peaceful contest which the club’s courtesy provided for the guest from a far country, none the less was there need of a strong arm and exceptional horsemanship. He was apparently no novice, inasmuch as, after dismounting and remounting with enviable activity, he finally won on the post, to the great joy and pride of his wife, and those friends who hailed from the gold-strewn lands under the Southern Cross. The President congratulated him in the handsomest manner, requesting his Australian address, in order that the prize for the race, which would be forwarded, might reach him safely.
So the Hurlingham expedition closed in a manner equally pleasing to the champion of Australian horsemanship and his compatriots. They went home together and heard all about the wedding, ‘in the merry month of May,’ and the honeymoon cottage on the river, where the nightingale sang to sympathetic listeners, and recalled Heine’s delicious poem. Nothing would satisfy the Bannerets but a ‘sacred promise,’ as Vanda called it, that they should stay for a week at Hexham when they returned from Paris, for which city of delights they were leaving on the morrow.
After such feats of horsemanship the youthful division became clamorous for half a dozen hunters, as the stable quad. (Eric said) was disgracefully empty. What were _one_ pair of carriage horses, another of ponies for their mother’s phaeton, the governor’s park hack, and one or two others? The hackney was a darling for beauty and manners, though the pater persisted in saying that in pace, elasticity, endurance—in fact, as an all-round horse—he was not a patch upon the famous Gaucho, or Graysteel, which he rode in his youth in Australia. He admitted that Count D’Orsay walked fast, cantered easily, trotted fairly, and, like his namesake and Private Willis, was very generally admired. No fault could be found with his manners and appearance. But where would he be at the end of a seventy-mile ride, which old Graysteel had several times performed, off _grass_, with ease to himself and comfort to his rider. Besides, he did _not_ believe in hackney blood. They were very sweet to look at—perfect almost in shape, carriage, and other requisites for ornamental equitation.