Mr. Pacey presently went swaggering across it, cracking his jockey whip against his leg, followed by Mr. Leather, with a saddle on his shoulder and a bridle in his hand.

‘He’d better keep his whip quiet,’ observed Mr. Sponge, with a shake of his head, as he watched Pacey’s movements.

‘The beggar thinks he can ride anything,’ observed Jack.

‘He’ll find his mistake out just now,’ replied Sponge.

Presently the stable-door opened, and the horse stepped slowly and quietly out, looking blooming and bright after his previous day’s gallop.  Pacey, running his eyes over his clean muscular legs and finely shaped form, thought he hadn’t done so far amiss after all.  Leather stood at the horse’s head, whistling and soothing him, feeling anything but the easy confidence that Mr. Pacey exhibited.  Putting his whip under his arm, Pacey just walked up to the horse, and, placing the point of his foot in the stirrup, hoisted himself on by the mane, without deigning to take hold of the reins.  Having soused himself into the saddle, he then began feeling the stirrups.

‘How are they for length, sir?’ asked Leather, with a hitch of his hand to his forehead.

‘They’ll do,’ replied Pacey, in a tone of indifference, gathering up the reins, and applying his left heel to the horse’s side, while he gave him a touch of the whip on the other.  The horse gave a wince, and a hitch up behind; as much as to say, ’If you do that again I’ll kick in right earnest,’ and then walked quietly out of the yard.

‘I took the fiery edge off him yesterday, I think,’ observed Jack, as he watched the horse’s leisurely movements.

‘Not so sure of that,’ replied Sponge, adding, as he left the passage-window, ’He’ll be trying him in the park; let’s go and see him from my window.’

Accordingly, our friends placed themselves at Sponge’s bedroom window, and presently the clash of a gate announced that Sponge was right in his speculation.  In another second the horse and rider appeared in sight—­the horse going much at his ease, but Mr. Pacey preparing himself for action.  He began working the bridle and kicking his sides, to get him into a canter; an exertion that produced quite a contrary effect, for the animal slackened his pace as Pacey’s efforts increased.  When, however, he took his whip from under his arm, the horse darted right up into the air, and plunging down again, with one convulsive effort shot Mr. Pacey several yards over his head, knocking his head clean through his hat.  The brute then began to graze, as if nothing particular had happened.  This easy indifference, however, did not extend to the neighbourhood; for no sooner was Mr. Pacey floored than there was such a rush of grooms, and helpers, and footmen, and gardeners—­to say nothing of women, from all parts of the grounds, as must have made it very agreeable to him to know how he had been watched.  One picked him up—­another his hat-crown—­a third his whip—­a fourth his gloves—­while Margaret, the housemaid, rushed to the rescue with her private bottle of sal volatile—­and John, the under-butler, began to extricate him from the new-fashioned neckcloth he had made of his hat.