Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Read online

  CHAPTER II

  MR. BENJAMIN BUCKRAM

  Having dressed and sufficiently described our hero to enable our readers toform a general idea of the man, we have now to request them to return tothe day of our introduction. Mr. Sponge had gone along Oxford Street at asomewhat improved pace to his usual wont--had paused for a shorter periodin the ''bus' perplexed 'Circus,' and pulled up seldomer than usual betweenthe Circus and the limits of his stroll. Behold him now at the EdgewareRoad end, eyeing the 'buses with a wanting-a-ride like air, instead of thecontemptuous sneer he generally adopts towards those uncouth productions.Red, greenn, blue, drab, cinnamon-colour, passed and crossed, and jostled,and stopped, and blocked, and the cads telegraphed, and winked, and nodded,and smiled, and slanged, but Mr. Sponge regarded them not. He had a sort of''bus' panorama in his head, knew the run of them all, whence they started,where they stopped, where they watered, where they changed, and, wonderfulto relate, had never been entrapped into a sixpenny fare when he meant totake a threepenny one. In cab and ''bus' geography there is not a morelearned man in London.

  Mark him as he stands at the corner. He sees what he wants, it's thechequered one with the red and blue wheels that the Bayswater ones have gotbetween them, and that the St. John's Wood and two Western Railway ones aretrying to get into trouble by crossing. What a row! how the ruffians whip,and stamp, and storm, and all but pick each other's horses' teeth withtheir poles, how the cads gesticulate, and the passengers imprecate! nowthe bonnets are out of the windows, and the row increases. Six coachmencutting and storming, six cads sawing the air, sixteen ladies in flowersscreaming, six-and-twenty sturdy passengers swearing they will 'fine themall,' and Mr. Sponge is the only cool person in the scene. He doesn't rushinto the throng and 'jump in,' for fear the 'bus should extricate itselfand drive on without him; he doesn't make confusion worse confounded byintimating his behest; he doesn't soil his bright boots by stepping off thekerb-stone; but, quietly waiting the evaporation of the steam, and thedisentanglement of the vehicles, by the smallest possible sign in theworld, given at the opportune moment, and a steady adhesion to the flags,the 'bus is obliged either to 'come to,' or lose the fare, and he stepsquietly in, and squeezes along to the far end, as though intent on goingthe whole hog of the journey.

  Away they rumble up the Edgeware Road; the gradual emergence from the brickand mortar of London being marked as well by the telling out of passengersas by the increasing distances between the houses. First, it is all closehuddle with both. Austere iron railings guard the subterranean kitchenareas, and austere looks indicate a desire on the part of the passengers toguard their own pockets; gradually little gardens usurp the places of thecramped areas, and, with their humanizing appearance, softer looks assumethe place of frowning _anti_ swell-mob ones.

  Presently a glimpse of green country or of distant hills may be caughtbetween the wider spaces of the houses, and frequent settings down increasethe space between the passengers; gradually conservatories appear andconversation strikes up; then come the exclusiveness of villas, somedetached and others running out at last into real pure green fields studdedwith trees and picturesque pot-houses, before one of which latter a suddenwheel round and a jerk announces the journey done. The last passenger (ifthere is one) is then unceremoniously turned loose upon the country.

  Our readers will have the kindness to suppose our hero, Mr. Sponge, shotout of an omnibus at the sign of the Cat and Compasses, in the fullrurality of grass country, sprinkled with fallows and turnip-fields. Weshould state that this unwonted journey was a desire to pay a visit to Mr.Benjamin Buckram, the horse-dealer's farm at Scampley, distant some mileand a half from where he was set down, a space that he now purposedtravelling on foot.

  Mr. Benjamin Buckram was a small horse-dealer--small, at least, when he wasbuying, though great when he was selling. It would do a youngster good tosee Ben filling the two capacities. He dealt in second hand, that is tosay, past mark of mouth horses; but on the present occasion, Mr. Spongesought his services in the capacity of a letter rather than a seller ofhorses. Mr. Sponge wanted to job a couple of plausible-looking horses, withthe option of buying them, provided he (Mr. Sponge) could sell them formore than he would have to give Mr. Buckram, exclusive of the hire. Mr.Buckram's job price, we should say, was as near twelve pounds a month,containing twenty-eight days, as he could screw, the hirer, of course,keeping the animals.

  Scampley is one of those pretty little suburban farms, peculiar to thenorth and north-west side of London--farms varying from fifty to a hundredacres of well-manured, gravelly soil; each farm with its picturesque littlebuildings, consisting of small, honey-suckled, rose-entwined brick houses,with small, flat, pan-tiled roofs, and lattice-windows; and, hard by, alarge hay-stack, three times the size of the house, or a desolate barn,half as big as all the rest of the buildings. From the smallness of theholdings, the farmhouses are dotted about as thickly, and at such varyingdistances from the roads, as to look like inferior 'villas,' falling out ofrank; most of them have a half-smart, half-seedy sort of look.

  The rustics who cultivate them, or rather look after them, are neitherexactly town nor country. They have the clownish dress and boorish gait ofthe regular 'chaws,' with a good deal of the quick, suspicious, soursauciness of the low London resident. If you can get an answer from them atall, it is generally delivered in such a way as to show that the answererthinks you are what they call 'chaffing them,' asking them what you know.

  These farms serve the double purpose of purveyors to the London stables,and hospitals for sick, overworked, or unsaleable horses. All the greatjob-masters and horse-dealers have these retreats in the country, and thesmaller ones pretend to have, from whence, in due course, they can draw anysort of an animal a customer may want, just as little cellarlesswine-merchants can get you any sort of wine from real establishments--ifyou only give them time.

  There was a good deal of mystery about Scampley. It was sometimes in thehands of Mr. Benjamin Buckram, sometimes in the hands of his assignees,sometimes in those of his cousin, Abraham Brown, and sometimes John Doe andRichard Roe were the occupants of it.

  Mr. Benjamin Buckram, though very far from being one, had the advantage oflooking like a respectable man. There was a certain plump, well-fedrosiness about him, which, aided by a bright-coloured dress, joined to acontinual fumble in the pockets of his drab trousers, gave him the air of a'well-to-do-in-the-world' sort of man. Moreover, he sported a velvet collarto his blue coat, a more imposing ornament than it appears at first sight.To be sure, there are two sorts of velvet collars--the legitimate velvetcollar, commencing with the coat, and the adopted velvet collar, put onwhen the cloth one gets shabby.

  Buckram's was always the legitimate velvet collar, new from the first, and,we really believe, a permanent velvet collar, adhered to in storm and insunshine, has a very money-making impression on the world. It shows aspirit superior to feelings of paltry economy, and we think a person wouldbe much more excusable for being victimized by a man with a good velvetcollar to his coat, than by one exhibiting that spurious sign ofgentility--a horse and gig.

  The reader will now have the kindness to consider Mr. Sponge arriving atScampley.

  'Ah, Mr. Sponge!' exclaimed Mr. Buckram, who, having seen our friendadvancing up the little twisting approach from the road to his housethrough a little square window almost blinded with Irish ivy, out of whichhe was in the habit of contemplating the arrival of his occasional lodgers,Doe and Roe. 'Ah, Mr. Sponge!' exclaimed he, with well-assumed gaiety; 'youshould have been here yesterday; sent away two sich osses--perfect'unters--the werry best I do think I ever saw in my life; either would havebin the werry oss for your money. But come in, Mr. Sponge, sir, come in,'continued he, backing himself through a little sentry-box of a greenportico, to a narrow passage which branched off into little rooms on eitherside.

  As Buckram made this retrograde movement, he gave a gentle pull to thewooden handle of an old-fashioned wire bell-pull in the midst of buggy,four-in-h
and, and other whips, hanging in the entrance, a touch that wasacknowledged by a single tinkle of the bell in the stable-yard.

  They then entered the little room on the right, whose walls were decoratedwith various sporting prints chiefly illustrative of steeple-chases, withhere and there a stunted fox-brush, tossing about as a duster. Theill-ventilated room reeked with the effluvia of stale smoke, and the fadedgreen baize of a little round table in the centre was covered withfilbert-shells and empty ale-glasses. The whole furniture of the roomwasn't worth five pounds.

  Mr. Sponge, being now on the dealing tack, commenced in thepoverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his haton the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and given his hair a backwardrub with his right hand, he thus commenced:

  'Now, Buckram,' said he, 'I'll tell you how it is. I'm deucedhard-up--regularly in Short's Gardens. I lost eighteen 'undred on theDerby, and seven on the Leger, the best part of my year's income, indeed;and I just want to hire two or three horses for the season, with the optionof buying, if I like; and if you supply me well, I may be the means ofbringing grist to your mill; you twig, eh?'

  'Well, Mr. Sponge,' replied Buckram, sliding several consecutivehalf-crowns down the incline plane of his pocket. 'Well, Mr. Sponge, Ishall be happy to do my best for you. I wish you'd come yesterday, though,as I said before, I jest had two of the neatest nags--a bay and a grey--notthat 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' inthat tickles your fancy, why, you must give me a few days to see if I canarrange an exchange with some other gent; but the present is like to be awerry haggiwatin' season; had more happlications for osses nor ever Iremembers, and I've been a dealer now, man and boy, turned ofeight-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 ofthe two, and he _may_ come back, and if so, you shall have him; and asafer, sweeter oss was never seen, or one more like to do credit to a gent:but you knows what an oss is, Mr. Sponge, and can do justice to me, and Ishould like to put summut good into your hands--_that_ I should.'

  With conversation, or rather with balderdash, such as this, Mr. Buckrambeguiled the few minutes necessary for removing the bandages, hiding thebottles, and stirring up the cripples about to be examined, and the heavyflap of the coach-house door announcing that all was ready, he forthwithled the way through a door in a brick wall into a little three-sides of asquare yard, formed of stables and loose boxes, with a dilapidateddove-cote above a pump in the centre; Mr. Buckram, not growing corn, couldafford to keep pigeons.