Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/405

 The day but half done. We had therefore leisure as we rode homeward* for a considerable amount of general chaff and criticism, which resulted, as usual, in wagers and a match or two.

Now my friend James Irvine of Dunmore had been riding the racing pony Skipjack, a very perfectly-shaped grey with a square tail, such being the mistaken fashion of that day and, I grieve to say, of the later one. He was an acknowledged flier, and having won races at Flemington (or the Melbourne Course as it was then called) was thought too good for anything in the provinces. I had always considered my black mare to be fast, but as she was wholly untried it might have been only the fond fancy which a man has for his favourite. Still I believed in her. It ended in my challenging the redoubtable Skipjack for a mile spin on the following day, present riders up.

The odds were against me, inasmuch as the mare was off grass and, excepting on this occasion, had not seen oats for months. She was not even shod, whereas her antagonist was, if not in training, in hard stable condition. Like many of the best hacks of those days he had been bred in Tasmania. He showed Arab blood, and probably owed his speed and strength to that ancient race. Tanny, on the other hand, was a Sydney-sider by extraction, her dam being brought over in 'Howie's mob,' one of the earliest lots of horses driven overland. I saw them sold in a cattle-yard, then standing at the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets. Mr. Purves senior afterwards occupied the cottage built there, for I remember him showing me Banker in the stable. Dr. Campbell lived there afterwards. A similar sale in the same spot would excite astonishment now in any given forenoon.

So it was an intercolonial contest. More than this, it was all Eumeralla against the Hopkins, inasmuch as Mr. Rodger abode at Merang, while the Dunmores and I rode home towards the setting sun from Port Fairy. Old Tom, a veteran in the pigskin and a judge of pace, told his friends that 'Tanny was the divil's own mare to pull, but if the masther could hould her the first half mile, she'd give Skipjack his work to do at the finish.' A trifle of speculation resulted, the odds being tempting. James Irvine was a well-known workman on the flat and a light weight. Bets were taken accordingly, and a