"
"You shall either ride her, Miss Trefoil, or my little horse Jack.
But I warn you beforehand that as Jack is the easiest ridden horse
in the country, and can scramble over anything, and never came down
in his life, you won't get any honour and glory; but on Jemima you
might make a character that would stick to you till your dying
day."
"But if I ride Jemima that dying day might be to-morrow. I think
I'll take Jack, Lord Rufford, and let Major Caneback have the
honour. Is Jack fast?" In this way the anger arising between the
Senator and the Major was assuaged. The Senator still held his own,
and, before the question was settled between Jack and Jemima, had
told the company that no Englishman knew how to ride, and that the
only seat fit for a man on horseback was that suited for the pacing
horses of California and Mexico. Then he assured Sir John Purefoy
that eighty miles a day was no great journey for a pacing horse,
with a man of fourteen stone and a saddle and accoutrements
weighing four more. The Major's countenance, when the Senator
declared that no Englishman could ride, was a sight worth seeing.
That evening, even in the drawing-room, the conversation was
chiefly about horses and hunting, and those terrible enemies Goarly
and Scrobby. Lady Penwether and Miss Penge who didn't hunt were
distantly civil to Lady Augustus of whom of course a woman so much
in the world as Lady Penwether knew something.
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