Chapter XIII: Mounting

For the polishing of gems the dust of gems is necessary. And for the training of boys other boys are essential. Eager cast about for other boys against whom his colts might wear off some of their angles.

Some men have a wonderful power of attracting and drawing out all that is best in their fellows. Personal magnetism, we call it, and it is a mighty gift of the gods.

Charles Eager had that gift in a very remarkable degree, and with it many others that appealed to the most difficult of all sections of the community. Boys hate being made good. The man who can lift them to higher planes without any unpleasant consciousness thereof on their part is a genius, and more than a genius. We have, some of us, met such in our lives, and we think of them with most affectionate reverence and crown them with glory and honour, though, all too often, the world passes them by with but scant acknowledgment.

But diamond-dust alone will polish diamonds. Softer stuff is useless, and the supply of boy-diamond-dust in that neighbourhood was small. So he laid masterful hands on what there was.

Just outside Wyvveloe, between that and Wynsloe, lay Knoyle, the residence of Sir George Herapath, the great army contractor. He was a man of sixty-five, tall, gray-bearded, genial, enjoying a well-earned rest from a life of many activities. He had married late, and had one son, George, aged fifteen, and one daughter, Margaret, a year younger. His wife was dead.

The firm of Herapath & Handyside, and its trade-mark of interlocked H.'s, was as well known in army circles as the War Department's own private mark. During the Napoleonic wars its business dealings were on a gigantic scale. It fed and clothed and sheltered armies in many lands, and carried out its every undertaking to the letter, cost what it might. The first consideration with the firm of H. and H. was perfect fulfilment of its obligations. None knew better how much depended on its exertions--how helpless the most skilful commander was unless he could count absolutely on his supplies. H. and H. never failed in their duty, and the firm reaped its reward, both in honours and in cash. But to both Herapath and his partner Handyside the honour they cherished most of all was the fact that their name and mark stood everywhere as a guarantee of reliability and fair dealing.

Handyside died five years after his partner's baronetcy, and left the bulk of his money to Herapath, having no near relatives of his own. And Sir George, desirous of rest before he grew past the enjoyment of it, took into partnership his right-hand man, Ralph Harben, who had grown up with the firm, strung another H on to the bar of the first big one, which represented himself--so that the mark of the firm came to look something like a badly made hurdle--and left the direction of affairs chiefly in his hands.

Eager, in the course of his duties, had called at Knoyle and had met with a congenial welcome. George and Margaret Herapath would be useful to his cubs now that they were licking into shape. His thoughts turned to them at once.

There had been another boy with them at church the previous Sunday, he noticed. The more the merrier. He would rope them all in, for games good enough with four are many times as good with eight or more.

"Yes, I heard you'd tackled the Carron colts," smiled Sir George. "Bit of a handful, I should say, from all accounts."

"I like bits of handfuls," said Eager. "I've got good material to work on. I shall make men of those two."

"You'll have done a good work. And how can Knoyle be of service to you, Mr. Eager?"

"In heaps of ways. I want your two in our games. Four are really not enough for proper work. Who's the new youngster I saw with you on Sunday?"

"That's young Harben, my partner's son. His father is in Spain just now, and his mother's dead, so I've taken him in for a time."

"The more the merrier! I wish you had another half-dozen."

"H'm! I don't. My two keep me quite lively enough."

"I want you to let me break my two in on some of your horses, too. You've got more than you can keep in proper condition, and the old curmudgeon at Carrie flatly refuses to buy them ponies. I've done my best with him, and riding's about due with my two. They can fence and swim and box. They beat me at running. Boating's no good here, and wouldn't be much use to them later, anyway. They're for the army, of course. Your boy, too, I suppose?"

"Yes, George is for the army, and young Harben too, I judge, from his talk. Suppose you bring your two up, say, to-morrow, and they can have a fling at the ponies, and----"

"And you can form your own judgment of them," said Eager, with a quiet chuckle. "That's all right. They're presentable, or I should not have proposed it, and yours will help to polish them, and that's what I want."

"I see. To-morrow morning, then, and they can tumble off the ponies in the paddock to their hearts' content."

So--three very excited faces, and three pairs of very eager eyes, as they pressed up the avenue to Knoyle next morning, and keen little noses sniffing anxiously for ponies, for Gracie was not going to miss such a chance, and as for the boys, wild mustangs of the prairies would not have daunted them.

Life--what with swimming and fencing and boxing and cricket and hockey and football--had suddenly widened its bounds beyond belief almost, and now, the crowning glory of horses loomed large in front.

Picture them in their scanty blue knee-breeches and blue jerseys, no hats, but fine crops of black hair, their eager, handsome faces the colour of the sand, with the hot blood close under the tan, bare legs and homely leather sandals, black eyes with sparks in them; Gracie in a little blue jersey also and a short blue frock, bare-legged and in sandals too, for life on the sands had proved altogether too destructive of stockings; on her streaming hair, and generally hanging by its strings, a sunbonnet originally blue, but now washing out towards white.

"There they are!" gasped Gracie, dancing with excitement as usual. "In that field over there----"

"And here are Sir George and the others. Remember to salute him, boys; and look him straight in the eye when he speaks to you. He's a jolly old boy."

"And, for goodness' sake, don't fight if you can possibly help it!" said Gracie impressively.

"I congratulate you on your colts, Mr. Eager," said Sir George, as they followed the youngsters to the paddock. "They're miles ahead of what I expected. I had my misgivings, I confess, but now they are gone. You've done wonders with them already."

"Good material, Sir George. But there's plenty still to do. You can't cure the neglect of years in a few months."

"If any man could, you could. They're a well-set-up pair, and look as fit as fiddles."

"Their free life on the sands has done that for them at all events. If they've missed much, they have also gained much, and, by God's help, I'm going to supply the rest. There are the makings of two fine men there."

"You'll do it. Why! What are they up to now?"

"Only fighting," laughed Eager. "They rarely dispute in words, always _vi et armis_. Jack! Jim! Stop that! What's the matter now?" as the boys got up off the ground with flushed faces and dancing eyes. "A mighty good-looking pair!" thought Sir George to himself. "And which is which and which is t'other, I couldn't tell to save my life."

"I was going to help Gracie over, and he cut in," said Jack.

"I wanted to help her over too," grinned Jim.

"Sillies!" said Gracie. "I didn't need you. I got through. Oh, what beauties!" as a bay pony and a grey came trotting up to their master and mistress for customary gifts and caresses.

"This is mine," said Margaret, kissing the soft dark muzzle. "Dear old Graylock! Want a bit of sugar? There then, old wheedler!" And Graylock tossed his head and savoured his morsel appreciatively, with a mouth that watered visibly for more.

"Lend me a bit, Meg," begged her brother. "I forgot the greedy little beggars. You spoil 'em. Here you are, Whitefoot."

"Bridles only, at present, Bob," said Sir George, to a stable-boy who had come down laden with gear. "Let the youngsters begin at the beginning. Now you, Jack and Jim--I don't know which of you's which--have a go at them barebacked, and let's see what you're made of." And the boys flung themselves over the ponies with such vehemence that Jim came down headlong on the other side while Graylock danced with dismay; and Jack hung over Whitefoot like a sack, but got his leg over at last, with such a yell of triumph that his startled steed shot from under him and left him in a heap on the grass.

But they were both up in a moment and at it again.

"Twist yer hand in his mane," instructed Bob, "an' hang on like the divvle. There y'are! Now clip him tight wi' yer knees an' shins. You're aw reet!" And Jim and Graylock went off down the paddock in a series of wild leaps and bounds, while Bob ran after them administering counsel.

"Loose yer reins a bit! Don't tickle him wi' yer toes! . . . Stiddy then! Go easy, my lad! Don't fret 'im!"--as Jack and Whitefoot bore down upon him in like fashion.

"They'll ride aw reet," he said, as he came back crab-fashion to the lookers-on, with his eyes fixed on the riders. "Stick like cats, they do. And them ponies is enjoying theirselves."

"Promising, are they, Bob?" asked Sir George.

"They're aw reet. They'll ride," said Bob emphatically. When the horsemen wore round towards the group they were in boastful humour.

"I was up first," from Jack.

"I was off first," from Jim.

"Ay--on ground!"

"Nay, on pony! You were sitting on grass."

"You fell over t'other side."

"I'll fight you!" And in a moment they were off their steeds and locked in fight, to the great scandal of Gracie.

"Oh you dreadful boys!" And she danced wildly about them. "Didn't I tell you----"

"Stop it, boys!" And Eager laughingly shook them apart.

"The old Adam will out," he said to Sir George, who was enjoying them mightily.

"They've no lack of pluck. Keep 'em on right lines, Mr. Eager, and you'll make men of them. Now then, who's for next mount? Rafe, my lad, what do you say to a bareback?"

"Sooner have a saddle, sir," said young Harben, and sat tight on the paling.

"You, missie?" as Gracie danced imploringly before him. "Saddle up, Bob. . . . Well, I'm----!" as the ponies went off down the field again with the boys struggling up into position. "Oh, they'll do all right. I like their spirit."

When the ponies were captured, Gracie had her ride under Margaret's care, and expressed herself very plainly on the subject of side-saddles and the advantages of being a boy. And the boys took to saddle and stirrups as they had to the swimming.

"They'll ride," was Bob's final and emphatic verdict again.

Sir George insisted on their waiting for midday dinner, an experience which some of them enjoyed not at all and would gladly have escaped.

Gracie sat between Jack and Jim, and got very little dinner because of her maternal anxieties on their account. By incessant watchfulness on both sides at once she managed to keep them from any very dreadful exhibition of inexperience, but she got very red in the face over it, and rather short in the temper, which perhaps was not to be wondered at considering the state of her appetite and the many tempting dishes she had no time to do justice to.

The boys scuffled through somehow, with very wide eyes--to say nothing of mouths--for hitherto untasted delicacies. Mrs. Lee's commissariat tended to the solidly essential, and disdained luxuries for growing lads.

Muter Harben made the Little Lady's ears tingle more than once with an Appreciative guffaw at her protégés' solecisms, and if quick indignant glances could have pierced him he would have suffered sorely. As it was, Margaret frowned him back to decency, and George intimated in unmistakable gesture that punishment awaited him in the privacy of the immediate future.

But Jack and Jim, the prime causes of all this disturbance, ate on imperturbably, and followed the directions, conveyed by their monitress in brief fierce whispers and energetic side-kicks, to the best of their powers, so long as these imposed no undue restraint on the reduction of two healthy appetites.

And more than once Eager caught Sir George's eye resting thoughtfully on the pair, and knew what he was thinking.

"I suppose you know them apart?" he asked quietly, one time when Eager caught him watching them.

"Oh yes, I know them, but it took me a few days."

"A deuced troublesome business! No wonder the old man's gone sour over it. I don't see what he can do."

"He can do nothing but wait."

"And it's bitter waiting when the sands are running out."

On the way home the Little Lady blew away some of the froth of their exultation at their own prowess, by her biting comments on their shortcomings at table. But this new and grand addition to their lengthening list of acquirements overtopped everything else, and they exulted in spite of her.

"We stuck on barebacked, anyway," said Jim; "and what does it matter how you eat?"

"It matters a great deal if you want to be gentlemen," said Gracie vehemently.

"We're going to be soldiers," said Jack.