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Towards the hour of ten on that eventful day, numerous gaitered, trousered,
and jacketed grooms began to ride up and down the High Street, most of them
with their stirrups crossed negligently on the pommels of the saddles, to
indicate that their masters were going to ride the horses, and not them.
The street grew lively, not so much with people going to hunt, as with
people coming to see those who were. Tattered Hibernians, with rags on
their backs and jokes on their lips; young English _chevaliers
d'industrie_, with their hands ready to dive into anybody's pockets but
their own; stablemen out of place, servants loitering on their errands,
striplings helping them, ladies'-maids with novels or three-corner'd notes,
and a good crop of beggars.
'What, Spareneck, do you ride the grey to-day? I thought you'd done
Gooseman out of a mount,' observed Ensign Downley, as a line of
scarlet-coated youths hung over the balcony of the Imperial Hotel, after
breakfast and before mounting for the day.
Spareneck.--'No, that's for Tuesday.


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