Northampton - Horse - Breaking - Snoring.
TIRED at length with my vain efforts to account for the term which in my time was so much in vogue amongst commercial gentlemen I left the little parlour, and repaired to the common room. Mr Pritchard and Mr Bos were still there smoking and drinking, but there was now a candle on the table before them, for night was fast coming on.
Mr Bos was giving an account of his travels in England, sometimes in Welsh, sometimes in English, to which Mr Pritchard was listening with the greatest attention, occasionally putting in a "see there now," and "what a fine thing it is to have gone about." After some time Mr Bos exclaimed:
"I think, upon the whole, of all the places I have seen in England I like Northampton best.""I suppose," said I, "you found the men of Northampton good-tempered, jovial fellows?"
"Can't say I did," said Mr Bos; "they are all shoe-makers, and of course quarrelsome and contradictory, for where was there ever a shoemaker who was not conceited and easily riled? No, I have little to say in favour of Northampton as far as the men are concerned. It's not the men but the women that make me speak in praise of Northampton. The men all are ill-tempered, but the women quite the contrary. I never saw such a place for merched anladd as Northampton. I was a great favourite with them, and could tell you such tales."And then Mr Bos, putting his hat rather on one side of his head, told us two or three tales of his adventures with the merched anladd of Northampton, which brought powerfully to my mind part of what Ellis Wynn had said with respect to the practices of drovers in his day, detestation for which had induced him to put the whole tribe into Hell.
All of a sudden I heard a galloping down the road, and presently a mighty plunging, seemingly of a horse, before the door of the inn.
I rushed out followed by my companions, and lo, on the open space before the inn was a young horse, rearing and kicking, with a young man on his back. The horse had neither bridle nor saddle, and the young fellow merely rode him with a rope passed about his head -presently the horse became tolerably quiet, and his rider jumping off led him into the stable, where he made him fast to the rack and then came and joined us, whereupon we all went into the room from which I and the others had come on hearing the noise of the struggle.
"How came you on the colt's back, Jenkins?" said Mr Pritchard, after we had all sat down and Jenkins had called for some cwrw. "Idid not know that he was broke in."
"I am breaking him in myself," said Jenkins speaking Welsh. "Ibegan with him to-night."
"Do you mean to say," said I, "that you have begun breaking him in by mounting his back?""I do," said the other.
"Then depend upon it," said I, "that it will not be long before he will either break his neck or knees or he will break your neck or crown. You are not going the right way to work.""Oh, myn Diawl!" said Jenkins, "I know better. In a day or two Ishall have made him quite tame, and have got him into excellent paces and shall have saved the money I must have paid away, had Iput him into a jockey's hands."
