for which the dealer took the pony in exchange and a promissory note for a sum which would make a formidable inroad on the young man's slender income; but he was just now in a reckless mood. "Poor little Jerry," said he, as he took the saddle off the pony named after his chum, "it seems a shame to turn you adrift after you have done your work, doesn't it? You ain't much to look at, but you know how to go, and you have taught me to ride at any rate. Many is the battle we have had to see who should be master — haven't we, you little beggar?" So saying, he gave the pony a farewell pat — to which the honest beast responded by putting back his ears as if preparatory to a bite or a kick, whichever might come readiest — and saddling his new purchase, rode it home.
The next day or two were passed mainly in looking after the new purchase, trying its paces, getting it shod properly, and teaching it to jump over a hurdle rigged up in the compound; proceedings in which Yorke's chum took as much interest as himself — for the arrival of a new horse is a great event in the household of a native-infantry subaltern; and the two young men might be seen for the greater part of the day before the shed in a corner of their compound which did duty for a stable, superintending the grooming-operations. Spragge might have grown jealous on comparing the good-looking grey with the insignificant occupant of the next stall that owned him as master, but that jealousy did not enter into Jerry's composition. "English blood there, and Arab too, I'll bet anything," said the young critic for the hundredth time, surveying the new purchase with admiration; "by Jove! I only wish I was out of debt, I'd buy a horse too. I say, old fellow, you must give me a mount on him sometimes."
The new horse being somewhat raw to the bit, and scarcely in form for appearance on the mall, Yorke took him for exercise at first to a piece of ragged ground in rear of the cantonments, which being in the vicinity of the station slaughter-houses, afforded perfect seclusion, while a number of small ravines running down to the river offered a variety of broken ground well adapted for breaking in a young horse.
Just as he was returning from this region one evening about dusk, Yorke heard the footstep of a horse coming up behind, and Falkland, cantering past on his Irish mare, on perceiving him pulled up alongside.
The colonel explained that he had been for a ride across country; he did not get enough exercise at the residency, he said, with merely a morning canter. "But what brings you to these unsavoury parts," he asked, "while all the gay world of Mustaphabad are listening to the band?"
Yorke replied that he was breaking in a new horse, and teaching him to jump ditches.
"A new purchase?" said the colonel, eyeing the horse, "and a very nice-looking one too — country-bred, I presume, but with some good blood in him evidently. So you are teaching him to jump? and a very proper thing too. Do you think he could manage this?" And so saying, the colonel turned to one side, and pressing his mare, put her at a small ravine. It was no great thing for the big mare, but a respectable jump for the little country-bred, which, however, Yorke, following the lead, sent across in good style.
"Very well done," said the colonel; "you have a good nag there, and know how to ride him. You ought to enter for the coming steeplechase."
Yorke thought he was joking; the idea of a country-bred running in a race of any sort, was like entering a hack for a flat race in England.
The colonel said he was quite in earnest. It was not a matter of speed or blood. "It is astonishing how few horses in this country can jump; want of practice, I suppose. If any horse succeeds in getting round the course, the chances are it will win, and your horse has some good blood in him, and some capital points for a fencer; but here we are in cantonments. Good evening. I must push on, or I shall be late for dinner;" and the colonel rode off.
CHAPTER VIII.
The next day, while Yorke and his chum were at breakfast, the tramp of a horse's feet was heard on the gravel outside, and looking out the young men descried before the door a horseman of the nawab's very irregular cavalry, a body which under treaty-engagements furnished orderlies for duty at the residency. The rider had evidently come from thence, for he produced a small note from the folds of his waist-cloth, which he delivered to the servant who was sitting in the veranda.
