In the Riding School; Chats With Esmeralda - Theo. Stephenson Browne
"I like this kind of trot," you say sweetly. "It's easier than
the other kind."
"It isn't a trot; it's a canter," says your master, with a
suspicion of dryness in his voice, "but you may make him trot if
you like. Shorten both reins, especially the left. Whoa, Charlie!
Wait until I say 'Now,' before you do it! Shorten both reins,
especially the left; that will keep him to the wall, Then extend
your left arm a little, and draw back your right; draw back your
left and extend your right, and repeat until he comes down to a
trot. That saws his mouth, and gives him something besides
scampering to occupy his mind. Now we will start up again at a
canter. Lengthen your reins, but remember to shorten them when
you want to trot."
"Shall I tell you before hand, so that you may have time to make
your horse trot, too?" you ask.
Esmeralda, you must have been reading one of those sweet books on
etiquette which advise the horsewoman to be considerate of her
companions. How much notice do you think your master requires to
"make his horse trot"? You will blush over the memory of that
question next year, although now you feel that you have been very
ladylike, even very Christian, in putting it, for have you not
shown that your temper is unruffled and that you are thinking how
to make others happy?
Your master answers that his horse may be trusted, and that if
you prefer to take your own time to change from the canter to the
trot, rather than to wait for him to say, "Now," you may do so.
And the canter begins again, and, after a round or two, you try
the mouth-sawing process, doing it very well, for it is an ugly
little trick at best, rarely found necessary by an accomplished
rider, and beginners seldom fail to succeed in it at the very
first attempt. If it were pretty and graceful, it would be more
difficult. Down to the trot comes the obedient Charles, and up
you go one, two, three, four! And down you come, until you really
expect to find yourself and the saddle in the tan between the two
halves of your horse.
Of what can the creature's spinal column be made, to bear such a
succession of blows! You begin by pitying the horse, but after
about half a circuit, you think that human beings have their
little troubles also, and you feel a suspicion of sarcasm in your
master's gentle: "You need not do French trot any longer, unless
you like. It will be easier for you to rise."
You give a frantic hop in your stirrup at the wrong minute, and
begin a series of jumps in which you and the horse rise on
alternate beats, by which means your saddle receives twice as
much pounding as at first, and then you have breath enough left
to gasp "Stop," and in a second you are walking along quietly,
and your master is saying in a matter-of-fact way: "You would
better keep your left heel down all the time, and turn the toe
toward the horse's side and keep your right foot and leg close to
the saddle below the knee; swing yourself up and down as a man
does; don't drop like a lump of lead."
"Like a snowflake," you murmur, for you fancy that you have a
pretty wit like Will Honeycomb.
"Not at all," says your master. "The snowflake comes down because
it must, and comes to stay. You come because you choose, and come
down to rise again instantly. You must keep your right shoulder
back, and your hands on a level with your elbows, and you must
turn the corners, not let your horse turn them as he pleases--
but more pupils are coming now and I must give you another horse.
You may have Billy Buttons." The change is effected, the other
pupils begin their lessons, and you and Billy walk deliberately
about in the centre of the ring.
At first he keeps moderately near the wall, but after a time you
find that the circle described by his footsteps has grown
smaller, and that he apparently fancies himself walking around a
rather small tree. Your master rides up as you are pulling and
jerking your left rein in the endeavor to come nearer to the
wall, and says, "Try Billy's canter. I'll take a round with you.
Strike him on the shoulder, and when you want him to trot,
shorten your reins and touch him on the flank. Those are the
signals which he minds best. Now! Canter."
You remember having heard of a "canter like a rocking-chair."
Charlie had it, but you were too inexperienced to know it, but
bad riders long ago deprived Billy of any likeness to a rocking-
chair. He knows that if he should let himself go freely, you
would come near to making him rear by pulling on the reins,
and so he goes along "one, two, three, one, two, three,"
deliberately, and you feel and look, as you hear an unsympathetic
gazer in the gallery remark, "like a pea in a hot skillet." You
prided yourself on keeping your temper unruffled under the wise
criticism of your master, but in truth you did not really believe
him. You said to yourself that he was too particular, and you
even thought of informing him that he must not expect perfection
immediately, but this piece of impudence, spoken by a person
who, for aught that you can tell, does not know Billy from a
clotheshorse, convinces you instantly, and you decide to canter
no more, but to trot, and so you "shorten your reins and strike
him on the flank."
As you shorten the right rein more than the left, and as your
whip falls as lightly as if you meant the blow for yourself,
Billy goes to the centre of the ring, but you jerk him to the
wall, and in time, trot he does. But your left foot swings now
forward and now outward, and you cannot rise. The regular,
pulsating count by which a clever girl is moving like a machine,
irritates you, and you tell another beginner, "They really ought
to let us rise on alternate bats at first, until we are more
accustomed to the motion," and she agrees with you, and both of
you try this, which might be called trotting on the American
pupil plan, but even the calm Billy manages to take about six
steps between what you regard as the "alternate beats," and at
last breaks into a canter, and you hear yourself ordered, very
peremptorily, to "sit down." You obey, but begin the pea in the
skillet performance again, and at last you tell your master that
you will not try to trot anymore, but would like to know all
about managing the reins.
"And then," you say, looking as wise as the three Gothamites of
the nursery song, "even if I should not be able to trot long, and
should fall behind my friends on the road, I shall have perfect
control of my horse, and can walk on until they miss me and turn
back for me. Will you please tell me all the ways of holding the
reins?"
Your master does not laugh; the joke is too venerable, and he
feels awe-struck as he hears it, so ancient does it seem.
"If you take your reins in one hand," he says, "an easy way is to
hold the snaffle on your ring finger, and the left curb outside
the little finger, with the right curb between the middle and
fore fingers. Then, when you want to use both hands, put your
right little finger and ring finger between the right curb and
right snaffle, and hold your hands at exactly even distances from
your horse's head, with the two reins firmly nipped by the thumbs
resting on top of the fore-fingers. This is the way recommended
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in Colonel Dodge's 'Patroclus
and Penelope,' and you will see it in many very good hunting
pictures.
"Colonel Anderson, in his 'On Horseback,' recommends dividing
the curb reins by the little finger of the left hand and the
snaffle reins by the middle finger, carrying the ends up
through the hand, and holding them by the thumb. Mr. Mead, in his
'Horsemanship for Women,' mentions this hold, but prefers taking
the curb on the ring finger, and the snaffle outside the little
finger, and between the forefinger and middle finger. This hold
is used in the British army, and it is convenient in school,
because if it be desirable to drop the curb in order to ride with
the snaffle only, you can do it by dropping your ring finger,
and, if your horse be moderately quiet, you can knot the curb
rein and let it lie on his neck. Besides, it makes the snaffle a
little tighter than the curb, and that is held to be a good thing
in England. An English soldier is prone to accuse American
cavalrymen of riding too much on the curb, and by the way, I have
heard English soldiers assert that they were taught the second
method, but it was a riding master formerly in the Queen's
service who told me that the third was preferred.
"M. de Bussigny, in his little 'Handbook for Horsewomen,' gives
the preference to crossing the reins, the curb coming outside the
little finger and between the ring and middle finger, and the
snaffle between the little and ring fingers and the middle finger
and forefinger. I hold my won in that way when training a horse,
but it is better for you to use both hands on the reins, and he
would tell you so. You are more likely to sit square; it gives
you twice the hold, and then, too, you know where your right hand
is, and are not waving it about in the air, or devising queer
ways of holding your whip. Now your hour is over, and I will take
you off your horse. Wait until he is perfectly still, and the
groom has him by the head. Now drop your reins; let me take off
the foot straps; take your foot out of the stirrup; turn in the
saddle; put one hand on my shoulder and one on my elbow, and slip
down as lightly as you can."
You glance at the clock, perceive that you have been I the saddle
almost an hour and a half, and murmur an apology. "Don't mind," is
the encouraging answer. "As long as a pupil does not complain and
call us stingy when we make her dismount, we do not say much. But
are you really going on the road, Monday, Miss Esmeralda?" "Yes,
I am," you answer. "Ah, well," he says, a little regretfully,
"don't forget, then. Hold on with your right knee and sit down
for the canter."
What shall you do by way of exercise before Monday? Practise all
the old movements, a little of each one at a time, and take two
lengths of ribbon as wide as an ordinary rein, or, better still,
two leather straps, and fasten one to the knobs on the two sides
of a door and run the other through the keyhole. Call the knob
straps the snaffle reins, and the keyhole straps the curb, and,
sitting near enough to let them lie in your lap, practice picking
them up and adjusting them with your eyes shut. When you can do
it quickly and neatly, try and see with how little exertion you
can sway the door to left and right, and then practice holding
these dummy reins while standing on one foot and executing the
movement used in trotting. If the door move by a hair's breadth,
it will show you that you are pulling too much, and you must
remember that your hold on your horse's mouth gives you greater
leverage than you have on the door, and then, perhaps, you will
pity the poor beast a little now and then.
What is that? Your master treated you as if you were an ignorant
girl? So you are, dear, and even if you were not, if you knew all
that there is in all the books, you might still be a bad
horsewoman, because you might now know enough to use your
knowledge. You don't care, and you feel very well, and are very
glad that you went? Of course, that is the invariable cry! And
you mean to take some more lessons if you find that you really
need them? Then leave your skirt in the dressing-room locker! You
will come back from your ride a wiser, but not a sadder, girl.
One cannot be sad on horseback.
V.
--Pad, pad, pad! Like a thing that was mad,
My chestnut broke away.
_Thornbury_.
Esmeralda was puzzled when she returned from her first riding
party. In the morning, looking very pretty in her borrowed riding
habit, her English hat with the hunting guard made necessary by
the Back Bay breezes, her brown gauntlets, and the one scarlet
carnation in her button-hole, she drove to the riding-school,
where she had agreed to meet Theodore and her other friends, not
like Mrs. Gilpin, lest all should say that she was proud, but
because her master had promised to lend her one of the school
horses, to put her ion the saddle and to adjust her stirrup, and
because she secretly felt that she would better give herself
every possible advantage in what, as it came nearer, assumed the
aspect of a trial rather than a pleasure.
Beholding Ronald, the promised horse, severely correct in his
road saddle, and looking immensely tall as he stood on the stable
floor, she inly applauded her own wisdom, strongly doubting that
Theodore's unpractised arm would have tossed her into her place
as lightly as the master's, and she was secretly overjoyed when
the master himself mounted and joined the party with her, making
its number nine; Esmeralda herself, the graduate of three
lessons; Theodore, all his life accustomed to ride anything
calling itself a horse, but making no pretenses to mastery of the
equestrian science; the lawyer, understood, on his own authority,
to be well informed in everything; the society young lady,
erect, precise, self-satisfied; the Texan, riding with apparent
laziness, his hands rather high and seldom quiet, but not to
be shaken from his seat; the beauty, languid and secretly
discontented because her horse was "intended for a brunette, and
a ridiculous mount for a blonde"; Versatilia, who had "taken
up riding a little," and the cavalryman, calm, quiet, and
fraternally regarded by the master, as he reviewed the little
flock from the back of a horse which had been offered to him as
the paragon of its species, and for which and its kind, as he
announced after riding a square or two, he "was not paying a cent
a carload."
"It is a lovely horse," said the beauty. "It is such a beautiful
color. But men never care for color."
"Good color is a good thing, undoubtedly," said the master, "but
a beautiful horse is a good horse, not necessarily an animal
which would look well in a painted landscape, because its color
would harmonize with the hue of the trees."
"She is a beautiful girl, isn't she," said Esmeralda, looking
admiringly at the beauty, who, having just remembered Tennyson's
line about swaying the rein with flying finger tips, was
executing some movements which made her horse raise his ears to
listen for the cause of such conduct, and then shake his head in
mild disapproval.
"What do I care for a pretty girl?" demanded the master. "Pretty
rider is what I want to see, and 'pretty rider' is 'good rider.'
Wait until that girl trots three minutes or so, and see whether
or not she is pretty."
The party went through the streets at a rapid walk, now and then
meeting a horse-car, now and then a stray wagon, but invariably
allowed to take its own way, with very little regard for the rule
of the road. The American who drives, whatever may be his social
station, admires the courage of the woman who rides, but he is
firmly convinced that she does not understand horses, and gives
her all the space available wherein to disport herself.
"Are we all right in placing the ladies on the left?" asked
Theodore, turning to the master.
"Of course," cried the lawyer. "We follow the English rule, and
the left was the place of safety for the lady in the days when
English equestrianism was born. Travelers took the left of the
road, and this placed the cavalier between his lady and any
possible danger."
"And in the United States they take the right, and she is between
him and any possible danger," said the master. "It is the custom,
but it seems illogical and foolish. True, it removes any danger
that the lady may be crushed between her own horse and her
escort's, but who protects her from any passing car or carriage,
and in case of a runaway what can her escort, his left hand
occupied with his own reins, do to aid her with hers, or to
disentangle her foot from the stirrup or her habit from the
pommels in case she is thrown? Can he snatch her from the saddle,
after the matter of one of Joaquin Miller's young men? The truth
is that since the rule of the road is 'keep to the right,' the
rule of the saddle should be 'sit on the right,' but with a lady
on his bridle hand the horseman could not be at his best as an
escort, even then.
"It is one of the many little absurdities in American customs; the
old story of the survival of the two buttons at the back of the
coat, and, by the way, Miss Esmeralda, the two buttons on the
back of your habit are out of place, not because of your tailor's
fault, but because of yours. They should make a line at right
angles with your horse's spinal column. Draw yourself back a
little, until you can feel the pommel under your right knee.
'Draw' yourself back; don't lean, but keep yourself perfectly
erect, your back perpendicular to your horse's. Sit a little to
the left; lean a little to the right. Let your left shoulder go
forward a little, your right shoulder backward. Now you are
exactly right. Try to remember your sensations at this minute, in
order to be able to reproduce them. When I say 'Careful,' pass
yourself in review and endeavor to feel where you are wrong.
But," addressing the cavalryman, who was in advance with
Versatilia, "is this procession a funeral?"
"Not exactly," said the cavalryman, and the, after a backward
glance, he cried, in the fashion of a military riding-school
master: "Pr-r-re-pare to tr-r-r-ot--Trot!"
Esmeralda remembered to shorten her reins, and resigned herself
to the Fates, who were propitious, enabling her to catch the
cadence of the trot, and to rise to it during the few seconds
before the cavalryman slackened rein. "Careful," said the master,
and she shook herself into place, eliciting a hearty "Good!" from
him. "Look at your pretty girl," he growled softly, but savagely,
and truly the beauty solicited attention. Slipping to the left in
her saddle, one elbow pointing toward Cambridgeport and the other
toward Dorchester, her right foot visible through her habit, and
her left all but out of the stirrup, she was attractive no
longer, and to complete the master's disgust she ejaculated: "My
hair is coming down!"
"Better bring a nurse and a ladies' maid for her," he muttered to
Esmeralda, confidentially. "Hairpins in your saddle pocket? Well,
you are a sensible girl," and he rode forward with the little
packet, giving it to the lawyer to pass to the unfortunate young
woman. But here arose a little difficulty. The space between the
lawyer's horse and the beauty's as they stood was too wide to
allow him to lay the parcel in her outstretched fingers. The
Texan, on her right hand, had enough to do to keep her horse and
his own absolutely motionless that she might not be thrown by any
unexpected motion of either animal. Versatilia exclaimed in
remonstrance, "Don't leave me," when the cavalryman said, "Wait a
second, I'll come and give them to her;" the master sat quiet and
smiling.
"Why don't you dismount and give them to her?" cried Theodore,
and was out of his saddle, had placed the parcel in her hand, and
was back in his place again before either of the other three men
could speak.
"Very well done," said the master, approvingly, "but not the
right thing to do. Never leave your saddle without good cause,
and never leave your horse loose for a moment. Yes, I saw that
you retained your hold of the reins; I was talking at Miss
Esmeralda."
"Why didn't you make your horse step sideways?" he asked the
lawyer.
"I can't. He won't. See there!"
Sundry pulls, precisely like those which he might have used had
he intended the horse to turn, a pair of absolutely motionless
legs, and an unused whip were accepted as evidence that the
lawyer's "I can't" was perfectly true, and the master and the
cavalryman exchanged comprehending glances as the latter said:
"Well, don't mind. An eminent authority announced after the
Boston horse show of 1889 that high-school airs were of no use on
the road. To make a horse move a step sideways is the veriest
little zephyr of an air, but it would have been of some use to
you, then. Are we ready now? What's that? Dropped your whip?"
Up went the Texan's left heel, catching cleverly on the saddle as
he dropped lightly to the right, after the fashion of the Arab,
the Moor, the Apache, of all the nations which ride for speed and
for fighting rather than for leaping and hunting, and he caught
the whip from the ground and was back in his place in a
twinkling. The ladies were unmoved, because inappreciative; the
lawyer looked savagely envious, the cavalryman and the master
approving, and Theodore, frankly admiring, but no one said
anything, the little cavalcade rearranged itself, and once more
moved on at a footpace until an electric car appeared.
"Ronald is like a rock," said the master, "and you need not be
afraid, but I'll take this beast along in advance. He will shy,
or do some outrageous thing, and he has a mouth as sensitive as
the Mississippi's, and no more."
The "beast" did indeed sidle and fret and prance, and manifest a
disposition to hasten to drown himself in the reservoir, beyond
the reach of self-propelling vehicles, and he repeated the
performance a the sight of two other cars, although evidently
less alarmed than at first, but the fourth car was in charge of a
kindly-disposed driver, who came to a dead stop, out of pure
amiability.
This was too much for the "beast" to endure; a moving house he
was beginning to regard as tolerable, but a house which stopped
short and glared at him with all its windows was more than horse
nature could endure, and he started for the next county to
institute an inquiry as to whether such actions were to be
allowed, but found himself forced to stop, and not altogether
comfortable, while the master cried good-naturedly: "Go along and
take care of your car. I'll take care of my horse!"
"More than some other folks can do," said the driver, with a
quiet grin at the lawyer, whose angry, "Here, what are you
doing!" shouted to his plunging steed, had brought all the women
in the car to the front, to explain to one another that "that man
was abusing his horse, poor thing."
The car glided off, and Versatilia turned to look at it; her
horse stumbled slightly, jerking her wrists sharply, and but for
the cavalryman's quick shifting of the reins to his right hand
and his strong grasp of her reins with his left, she might have
been in danger.
"Never look back," lectured the master. Esmeralda was his pupil,
and he would have taken the whole centennial quadrille and all
the cabinet ladies to point his moral, had he seen them making
equestrian blunders. "Where your horse has been, where, he is, is
the past. Look to the future, straight before you."
"The cavalryman looked back just now," Esmeralda ventured to say.
"Yes, but he turned his horse very slightly to do it, and he may
do almost anything because he has a perfect seat, and is a good
horseman."
"Suppose I hear something or somebody coming up behind me?"
"If it have any intelligence, it will not hurt you. If it have
none, looking will do you no good. Turn out to the right as far
as you can and look to the front harder than ever, so as to be
ready to guide your horse and to avoid any obstacles in case he
should start to run. What is the trouble with the ladies now?"
"O, dear!" cried the beauty to the society young lady, "your
horse."
"What's the matter with him?" asked the other, still very stately
and not turning.
"Oh! The dreadful creature has caught his tail on my horse's
bit," said the beauty.
"Then you'd better take your horse's bit away," retorted the
other. "My horse's eyes are not at that end of him, and he can't
be expected to look at his tail."
"And you may be kicked," added the Texan. "Check him a little;
there! We ought not to be so close together, and we ought to be
moving a little, I think. Shall we trot again?"
Everybody assented, the cavalryman and Versatilia set off, the
others followed as best they might, the beauty "going to pieces"
in a minute or two, according to the master, the society young
lady stiffening visibly, losing the cadence of the trot very
soon, but making no outcry as she was tossed about uncomfortably,
and not bending her head to look at her reins, as Versatilia did.
"There's the advantage of training in other things," said the
master. "She's a good dancer and a good amateur actress, and she
is controlling herself as she would on a ballroom floor, and
remembering the spectators as she would on the stage. She's no
rider, but is perfectly selfish and self-possessed, and she will
cheat her escort into thinking that she is one. Glad she's no
pupil of mine, however! She always heads the conversation, one of
her friends told me the other day. That is to say, she is always
acting. I can't teach such a person anything; nobody can. She can
teach herself, as she can think of herself and love herself, but
she can't go outside of herself--and the lawyer will find it
out after he has married her."
Esmeralda and Theodore stared in astonishment.
"Walk," said the master, noticing that his pupil looked too warm
for comfort, and the three allowed the others to go on without
them. "Careful," he added, and Esmeralda, adjusting herself
studiously, asked: "Is it really easier to ride on the road than
it is in the school? It seems so."