Chapter 16

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_ CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

My mother and my uncle came over to see me twice during their stay at Hastings, and during one of the visits my uncle spoke to the Doctor about the drill-master, and, after expressing a wish that I should pay attention to that part of my studies, with fencing, asked if this instructor had been in the foot or horse.

"Oh, he was in the cavalry, uncle," I said.

"Good; then, if Doctor Browne does not object, I should like him to give you a few preliminary lessons in riding, so as to get a military seat while you are young, boy."

The Doctor expressed his willingness, but he said with a slight cough,--

"Would not a horse be necessary, or a pony?"

"Well, yes," said my uncle dryly, "I think it would, sir; but that difficulty will be got over. Sir Hawkhurst Rye has offered the boy the use of a stout cob. One of the grooms will bring it over two or three times a week; and, if you would allow me, I should like to have a few words with the old sergeant."

The Doctor was perfectly agreeable; and when they were going, I had the pleasure--for it was a pleasure--of taking them down to Lomax's little, neatly-kept place, where the old sergeant stood ready to draw himself up and salute, with his eyes lighting up, and a proud look of satisfaction in his hard face.

My uncle took him aside, and they remained talking together, while my mother walked up and down with me, holding my hand through her arm, and eagerly whispering her hopes--that I would be very careful, that I would not run into any danger with the riding, and, above all, mind not to do anything my uncle would not like.

Of course I promised with the full intention of performing, and soon after my uncle marched back with Lomax--they did not seem to walk. Everything had apparently gone off satisfactorily, and after plenty of advice from my uncle, he handed my mother into the carriage, followed and they were driven off.

I stood watching the carriage till it was out of sight, and then turned to Lomax, who was standing as upright as if he were on parade, till he caught my eye, and then he gave himself a jerk, thrust one hand into his pocket, and gave the place a slap.

"You're a lucky one," he said, "to have an uncle like that, sir. Hah! there's nothing like a soldier."

"How am I lucky?" I said rather sourly, for I was low-spirited from the parting I had just gone through.

"Lucky to have a fine old officer like that to want me to make a man of you, and teach you everything you ought to know to become an officer and a gentleman."

"Oh, bother!" I said. "Look here, Lomax; you're to teach me riding. Can you?"

"Can I?" he said, with a little laugh; "wait till the horse comes round, and I'll show you, my boy."

"I can ride, you know," I said; "but not military fashion."

"You? you ride, sir?" said the old soldier scornfully. "Rubbish! Don't talk to me. I know how you ride--like a sack of wool with two legs. Knees up to your chin and your nose parting the horse's mane all down his neck."

"Oh, nonsense, Lom!"

"Fact, sir, fact. Think I don't know? A civilian rides, sir, like a monkey, bumping himself up and down, and waggling his elbows out like a young chicken learning to fly. There, you be easy, and I'll teach you how to ride same as I did how to fight."

"But I don't know that you have taught me how to fight. I haven't tried yet."

Lomax chuckled.

"Wait a bit," he said. "You don't want to fight. It's like being a soldier--a British soldier, sir. He don't want to fight, and he will not if he can help it. He always hangs back because he knows that he can fight. But when he does--well, I'm sorry for the other side."

"Then you think I could lick Eely if he knocked me about, or big Dicksee?"

"No, I don't think anything about it, my boy. You wait. Don't fight if you can help it, but if you're obliged to, recollect all I've shown you, and let him have it."

I did not feel in any hurry, and when I talked to Tom Mercer about what I had said to Lomax, he agreed with me that he felt a little nervous about his powers, and said that he should like to try a small boy or two first; but I said no, that would not do; it would be cowardly.

"So it would," said Mercer; "besides, it would let the cat out of the bag, wouldn't it? Look here, I know: we ought to have a quiet set to up in the loft some day."

"But that would only be boxing," I said.

"Why not make a fight of it?" suggested Mercer.

"But we couldn't fight without there was a genuine quarrel."

"Let's quarrel, then."

"What about?"

"Oh, I don't know. Anything. You call me a fool, and I'll hit you, and then you go at me again, and we should know then what we could do."

"Get out!" I said. "I shan't call you a fool; but if I did, you wouldn't be such a beast as to hit me, and if you did, I should be so sorry that I shouldn't hit you again. That wouldn't do."

Tom Mercer scratched his head.

"No," he said dryly, "that wouldn't do. It seems precious rum, though."

"What does?"

"That I shouldn't care to hit you. I feel as if I couldn't hit a fellow who saved my life."

"Look here," I said angrily, "you're always trying to bring up that stupid nonsense about the holding you up on the penstock. If you do it again, I will hit you."

"Boo! Not you. You're afraid," cried Mercer derisively. "Who pulled the chap out of the water when he was half drowned, and saved him? Who--"

I clapped my hand over his mouth.

"Won't do, Tom," I said. "It's all sham. We can't fight. I daresay old Lom's right, though."

"What do you mean?"

"That we shall be able to knock Eely and Dicksee into the middle of next week."

"But it seems to me as if they must feel that we have been learning, or else they would have been sure to have done something before now."

"Never mind," I said, "let's wait. We don't want to fight, as Lom says, but if we're obliged to, we've got to do it well."

The occasion for trying our ability did not come off, though it was very near it several times; but as I grew more confident, the less I felt disposed to try, and Mercer always confessed it was the same with him, though the cock of the school and his miserable toady, Dicksee often led us a sad life.

One morning, soon after the last visit of Uncle Seaborough, Lomax came to the schoolroom door, just as Mr Hasnip was giving me a terrible bullying about the results of a problem in algebra, on to which he had hurried me before I had more than the faintest idea of the meaning of the rules I had been struggling through.

I suppose I was very stupid, but it was terribly confusing to me for the most part. I grasped very well the fact that a plus quantity killed a minus quantity if they were of equal value, and that a little figure two by the side of a letter meant its square, and I somehow blundered through some simple equations, but when Mr Hasnip lit a scholastic fire under me, and began to force on bigger mathematical flowers from my unhappy soil in the Doctor's scholastic hothouse, I began to feel as if I were blighted, and as if quadratic equations were instruments of torture to destroy boys' brains.

On that particular morning, I was, what fat Dicksee called, "catching it," and I was listening gloomily to my teacher's attempts at being witty at my expense.

"How a boy can be so stupid," he said, "is more than I can grasp. It is perfect child's play, and yet you have gone on getting the problem into a hopeless tangle--a ridiculous tangle. You have made a surd perfectly absurd, and--"

"Mr Hasnip!" came from the other end of the great room. Mr Hasnip looked up.

"The drill-master is here. The horse has arrived for Burr junior's riding lesson. Can you excuse him?"

"Certainly, sir," and Mr Hasnip looked at me, showing his teeth in a hungry kind of smile, as if a nice morsel were being snatched from him, and I stood with my heart beating, and the warm blood tingling in my cheeks, conscious that all the boys were looking at me.

"Here, take your book, Burr junior," said my tutor. "Very glad to go, I daresay. Now aren't you?"

I looked up at him, but made no reply.

"Do you hear me, sir?"

"Yes, sir."

"I said, 'Aren't you glad to go?'"

"Yes, sir."

"Of course. There, be off. You'll never learn anything. You are the stupidest boy I ever taught."

My cheeks burned, and as I turned to go, there was fat Dicksee grinning at me in so provoking a way, that if we had been alone, I should in my vexation have tried one of Lomax's blows upon his round, smooth face. But as it was, I went back to my place, where Mercer was seated, with his hands clasped and thrust down between his knees, his back up, and his head down over his book, apparently grinding up his Euclid, upon which he kept his eyes fixed.

"Oh ho!" he whispered; "here you are. Without exception, sir, the stupidest boy I ever taught."

"I'll punch your head by and by, Tom, if you're not quiet," I said.

"Who made the surd absurd?"

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes. Oh, you lucky beggar! Who are you, I should like to know, to be having your riding lessons?"

"Less talking there, Burr junior."

This from Mr Rebble, and I went out, passing close to Burr major, who looked me up and down contemptuously, as he took out his watch, and said to the nearest boy,--

"Rank favouritism! if there's much more of it, I shall leave the school."

But I forgot all this directly, as I stepped out, where I found Lomax standing up as stiff as a ramrod, and with a walking cane thrust under his arms and behind his back, trussing him like a chicken, so as to throw out his chest.

He saluted me in military fashion.

"Mornin', sir. Your trooper's waiting. Looks a nice, clever little fellow."

"Trooper?" I faltered in a disappointed tone. "What do you mean? I thought it was the horse come."

"So it is."

"But trooper?"

"Of course. Well, charger, then. Officers' horses are chargers; men's horses, troopers."

"Oh!" I cried, brightening up, but with a feeling of nervousness and excitement making my heart beat more heavily still. "Where is it?"

"Paddock!" said Lomax shortly, and without the slightest disposition to be conversational. In fact, he became more military every moment, and marched along by me, delivering cuts at nothing with his cane, as if he were angry with the air.

Then all at once he glanced at me, looking me up and down.

"Humph! No straps to your overalls," he said snappishly.

"Overalls?"

"Well, trousers, sir. They'll be crawling all up your legs. Get some buttons put on by next time."

He turned into the field devoted to the Doctor's cows and to the junior boys' football, and there I saw the General's groom holding a fiery, untamed-looking steed, as it seemed to me, arching its neck and snorting, as it stood champing its bit till the white foam flew from its mouth.

The groom touched his hat to me as we came up.

"Master's compliments, sir, and as he wants me," he said, "would you mind riding the cob back to the house?"

"Oh yes, of course," I said, glancing at the fierce-looking animal, and mentally asking myself whether he would allow me to ride him home. "Is--is he quiet?"

"Quiet, sir! why, he's like a lamb. Bit playful sometimes, but no more vice in him than there is in an oyster. Mornin', sir."

The man touched his hat and went off, leaving Lomax and me with the horse, which looked enormous then.

Lomax strode round the animal, examining it, and making remarks as he went on.

"Very well groomed," he said. "Saw your old friend Magglin before breakfast. Good legs. Like to get taken on again, he says. Tail wants topping--too long. Lucky for him he didn't get before the magistrates. Doctor won't have him again. Very nice little nag, but too small for service. I told him that all he was fit for was to enlist; some sharp drill-sergeant might knock him into shape in time. He's no use as he is. Now, then, ready?"

"Yes," I said shrinkingly, "I suppose so."

"That's right," cried Lomax, and, lifting up the flap of the saddle, he busied himself, as I supposed, tightening the girths, but all at once they dropped to the ground, and, with the rein over his arm, Lomax lifted off the saddle and placed it upon the hedge.

"Now then," he cried, "come along and I'll give you a leg up."

"But you've taken the saddle off."

"Of course I have. I'm going to teach you how to ride."

"Without a saddle or stirrups?"

"Of course. A man wants to feel at home on a horses, so does a boy. Now then, I'll give you a leg up."

I was like wax in his hands. On lifting one leg as he bade me, the next moment I was sent flying, to come down on the horse's back astride, but so much over to the right that I had to fling myself forward and clutch the mane.

"Bravo! Well done!" cried Lomax sarcastically.

"I'm all right now," I cried.

"All right! Here, come down, sir. Do you know what would have happened if that had been some horses?"

"No," I said, dismounting clumsily.

"Well, then, I'll tell you. They'd either have sent you flying over their heads, or bolted."

"I'm very sorry," I faltered.

"Sorry! I should think you are. Got up like a tailor, sir, and you've come down like one. Bah! It's horrible."

"Well, but you've got to teach me better," I cried.

"True. Good lad. So I have. Now then, give me your leg. That's it. Steady. Up you go."

"That's better," I cried, settling myself into my place.

"Better! No, it isn't. It's not so bad only, sir. Now, then, sit up so that a line dropped from your temple would go down by your heel. Better. Get your fork well open."

"What?"

"Sit close down on the horse's back, then. No, no, you don't want to scratch your ear."

"Well, I know, that," I said, laughing.

"Then what did you cock up your knee that way for? Let your legs hang down. That's better. Toes up and heels well down."

"What for, Lomax?"

"Don't ask questions. Do as I tell you. Well, there you're right. Toes up so that they just rest in the stirrups."

"But I haven't got any stirrups."

"Then act as if you had."

"But why don't you let me have some?"

"Silence in the ranks, sir. Now then, keep your balance. Advance at a walk."

The horse started.

"Halt!" shouted Lomax, and the horse pulled up so short that I went forward.

"What are you doing, sir? You don't want to look into the horse's ears."

"I wasn't trying to," I said sharply.

"What were you going to do, then?--whisper to him to stop?"

"I say, don't tease me, Lom," I said appealingly; "you know I couldn't help it."

"Right, my lad, I know. But 'tention; this won't do. I've got to teach you to ride with a good military seat, and we're not friends now. You're a private, and I'm your riding-master."

"Yes, but one minute, Lom--"

"Sergeant Lomax, sir."

"Yes, Sergeant Lomax. I say, do let me have a saddle."

"What for, sir?"

"It's so much more comfortable."

"A soldier, sir, is a man who scorns comfort and takes things as they come. You've got to learn to ride."

"Of course. Then where's the saddle?"

"When you can ride well without a saddle, you shall have one. Now: no more talking. 'Tention! By your right--March!"

The horse started off without my influencing him in the slightest degree, but before we had got ten yards, the sergeant's stern, "Halt!" rang out again, and the horse stopped as suddenly as before, but I was aware of it this time, and gripped him hard with my knees.

"Good. Well done. But you went too far forward. Take a good hold with your knees. And that's not the way to hold your reins. Look here, one rein--no, no, not the curb--the snaffle--that's it now--one rein outside your little finger and one in, and the rest of the rein through your hand, between your forefinger and thumb. Good. Now pick up the curb rein off your horse's neck and let it rest lightly in your hand."

"What for?"

"Don't ask questions. Because it's right. Ready for use if the horse pulls too much or bolts."

"Is he likely to pull too much or bolt?"

"Don't ask questions. No, he isn't. Soldiers generally ride on the curb, but a horse like this don't want it. He has been ridden with cavalry, too. Now then, once more at a walk--March!"

The horse started again, with his soft, warm back feeling terribly slippery, but I sat quite stiffly upright, and he walked straight up the paddock, and seemed as if he were going to leap the hedge, making me wonder which side I should fall; but just as we were close up, the sergeant's voice rang out,--

"Right wheel!"

The horse turned to the right instantly, and had gone a dozen yards when the sergeant shouted again, "Right wheel!" and directly after, "Forward!" with the result that we were now facing him, and went slowly down the paddock, till the sergeant shouted, "Halt!" just as I was beginning to feel a little more comfortable, and not as if I must slide off right or left at any moment.

"Well, that's pretty fair, sir," cried Lomax, as the horse stopped short. "Chest out more, back hollow. Keep your knees well in. Capital horse for you to learn on. Knows all his work. Well, we won't waste time walking. You shall do that now at a trot."

"Without a sad--"

"'Tention. No talking in the ranks."

The horse didn't want to be turned, but came round quickly, almost on a pivot, very much disturbing my equilibrium again; but by gripping tightly with my legs I managed to hold on, and looked anxiously at Lomax.

"Ah," he shouted, "eyes straight for the horse's ears! Now then, you will sit firm, elbows close to your sides. 'Tention! The squadron will advance at a walk. Forward--tr-r-r-ot!"

The horse had only walked a few paces when the second order came, and he broke directly into a trot, which sent me bumping up and down, now a little inclined to the right, then more to the left, then my balance was gone. I made a desperate effort to save myself, and then, perfectly certain that the horse would trample me to death beneath his feet, down I went on my back, and began to scramble up, with my mount stock still beside me.

"Not hurt a bit!" cried Lomax, running up and handing me my cap, which had come off.

"No," I said, beginning to feel myself all over; "I don't think anything is broken."

"And I'm sure there isn't," cried Lomax. "Now then, I'll give you a leg up."

"Am I to get up again--now?" I faltered.

"Without you want to say you haven't pluck enough to learn to ride."

"No," I said; "I haven't pluck enough to say that."

"Not you. Up you go. There. Now that is better. Stick on this time."

"I could if I had stirrups," I said, "and a saddle."

"No, you couldn't, sir, so don't talk nonsense. You've just learnt the finest thing a lad who wants to ride can learn--the thing that gives him plenty of confidence."

"What's that?" I asked; "that it's very hard to keep on?"

"No; that it's very easy to come off and roll on the ground without hurting yourself a bit. Off you go again. Forward--trot!"

The horse snorted and went on, shaking me almost to pieces, and sometimes I was nearly off on one side, sometimes nearly off on the other, but I kept on.

"Right wheel!" came from the other end of the field, then, "Right wheel!" again. "Forward!" and the horse was taking me--for I had nothing whatever to do with him--back toward where the sergeant stood.

I kept my balance pretty well, but my trousers were running up my legs, and I felt as if everything belonging to me was shaken up. Then once more my balance was gone, and off I went on to my back, and over and over a few yards from the sergeant, who ran up, the horse once more stopping short by my side.

"Bravo!" cried Lomax, as I sat up. "You're getting on."

"I thought I was getting off," I said dolefully.

"Rubbish, sir; improving fast. Here, up with you again. It's all strange to you at first, but you've got to grow to that horse's back, till it's like one animal--horse and man. You've got to learn to grip him till you feel as if you can't tumble off."

"But I never shall," I cried.

"Don't tell me. I'll make you. Now then; there you are. Now you just trot down to the bottom and back without coming off like a sack of shavings. Never mind the reins. Let him have his head, and you put all your sperrit into your knees. Keep your position and preserve your balance."

"I know I shall fall again soon."

"Very well, then, fall. But I don't believe you will. Now then, once more."

He gave the order, the horse walked a few steps, then at the second order broke into a trot, and, to my utter astonishment, as I drove my knees into the warm soft sides, away we went, wheeled to the right, then to the right again, and trotted back to the sergeant, who shouted,--

"Halt! Bravo! There, what did I say? Make much of your horse."

The lesson was kept on for fully two hours, and then, to make up, I suppose, for a good deal of bullying, my instructor was loud in his praise, and, opening the gate after replacing the saddle, he signed to me to mount, but I tried and could not, for my legs felt stiff and stretched, my back ached, and there was a peculiar sensation of soreness about the knees.

"Shall I trot him back?" said Lomax.

"If you would, please," I said. "I do feel so stiff."

"I will, my lad. To-morrow morning same time; and I'll get some of that stiffness out of you."

"Thank you," I said rather dolefully; and then I could not help watching the old dragoon with a feeling of envy as he placed one foot in the stirrup, drew himself up till he stood upright, then deliberately threw the right leg over the horse's back, slowly dropped into his place as upright as a dart, and trotted steadily out into the road and away out of sight, while, after closing the gate, I began to retrace my steps in the direction of the school, just as the boys came trooping out for their regular run till the room was ventilated, and the cloth laid for dinner.

"Oh, I say, it's rank favouritism!" came from the middle of a group. "I shall speak to the Doctor about it."

Some one answered this, but I did not hear the words, and I hobbled to the door, and went up to my room, wondering how any one could be envious of the sensations I was experiencing then. _

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