Suddenly he put down his pipe and called, "Kate."
"Yes, father."
"Come down again for a minute."
"All right, in half a second;" and almost as soon as she had promised Kate was in the room again.
"What is your will, sir?" said she with a little mocking courtesy.
"Why, child, I was thinking that you at any rate might ride to the meet. Your habit is packed away somewhere; Joe looked yesterday as fit as paint, and, as Tim expressed it, "is brimful of consate." I declare he has waxed fat and kicks, to the serious detriment of his old tumble-down box."
"No, father, if you don"t ride, I shan"t. If you run, so shall I."
"Do as you are bid, Kate, or rather, since you never do that, ride if it is only half-a-dozen fences, just to please your old father, and to show that young woman at the Hall the difference between riding and being carried, between hands and paws."
Those who loved Kate best would always have been the first to admit that she had just "the laste bit of the divvle in her, G.o.d bless her,"
and hence it was perhaps that her father"s diplomatic suggestion as to the eclipse of her rival brought the colour to her cheek and the light to her eyes.
"Do you really want me to, father?"
"Really, really, Kate, and now let us go and have a look at Joe."
I am ashamed to say how old Joe was. Like ladies, horses don"t care to have their ages published on every house-top, and though they cannot lie for themselves on this important point, they have no difficulty in finding many to lie for them.
Joe was said to have been eight when the Lowrys bought him, and they had ridden the gallant brown for seven years. But eight is a queer age in a horse, as expansive and uncertain as the adjective "young"
when applied to spinsters. At the lowest computation Joe was not less than fifteen, and a "vet." who wanted to buy him once pledged his professional credit that he was twenty-six at least. Be this as it may, when an hour later he walked out of his loose box, he looked the very type and _beau ideal_ of a twelve-stone hunter. From the carriage of his lean game head and trimly-docked tail, from the cheery snort with which he welcomed the fresh air, from the muscle on his square and ma.s.sive quarters, from his hard, clean legs and full, bold eye, you might have fancied he was a six-year-old. A veteran strapper who had followed the squire from the Hall to the cottage, had spent an hour in dressing the old horse, and the squire"s own hands had put the finishing touches to his toilette. Proud and gay the old rascal looked before his mistress mounted, but when she was in the saddle he gave one wild kick from mere exuberance of spirits and then trotted out of the yard, as old Tim expressed it, "for all the world as if he was tridding on eggs."
"Ye G.o.ds! she is a dazzler! Quite takes my breath away," said a shiny-hatted, faultlessly-breeched stranger from Dublin to a young local Nimrod; "why, there are not half-a-dozen girls, even with the Meath, who have ventured out yet in Busvine"s scarlet array, and here is a young lady in the wilds of Gonaway with a seat like a sack of potatoes and raiment more magnificent than Solomon in all his glory."
"Fits her well for all that, and suits her style, milk and roses and that sort of thing, you know," replied the local, himself rather a captive to the fair equestrienne.
"Milk and roses! Milk and fiddlestick! Lemon and white I should describe her if she was in the setter cla.s.s; but tell me, who is she, and has she any money?"
Needless, perhaps, to explain that poor Polly Preece was the subject of this irreverent banter, which in a measure perhaps she had deserved, for though a pretty woman in "the lady"s pink" is a fair picture in a showy frame, she must not be hurt if she is a little stared at on her first appearance. And, indeed, Polly was not hurt. On the contrary she was flattered and in high spirits. Her new jacket fitted her to perfection; her horse was well-mannered and easy to ride; she had drawn the attention of every one to her sweet self, and she felt for the moment that "blues" or fear had for her neither existence nor meaning.
A large group of late comers was still standing in the doorway and on the broad steps of the hall, chaffing each other or pledging their host in a last stirrup cup.
"What is that madcap daughter of mine about now?" exclaimed old Preece, as Polly broke from the throng and sent her horse along over the turf at a rattling gallop, followed by two or three of her admirers.
From the steps to the line of elms no fence was visible to the spectators, and yet before reaching the avenue, three of the horses rose at something, and the fourth and his rider seemed to be swallowed up.
"Good heavens! young Voyle is down in the Park fence," cried Preece; and sure enough the exquisite from Dublin shortly after emerged from the abyss, his hat crushed, his breeches smirched, and his temper somewhat soured by the loss of a good horse.
"Really, Mr Preece, you must curb that young lady"s pluck; she will break her neck some day if you don"t take care," suggested an elderly friend.
"Break her neck," growled old Preece; "it isn"t pluck, it is folly; wait until she has had a fall; you"ll see she will learn better."
Kate had been sitting a quiet spectator of this little episode, though the old horse had backed and fidgetted with impatient desire to join in the fun.
As Polly rode back from the fence she caught sight of Kate, and with that sweetness which women show to rivals they detest, wreathed her face in smiles and laid a caressing hand on Joe"s mane.
"Oh, Kate, how glad I am to see you out! I wish, dear, you had let me know that you meant to come. You might have ridden Dennis or my bay. I am afraid your dear old horse is almost past work now!"
"Doesn"t look like it, does he, Miss Preece?" retorted Kate, as Joe champed his bit and pawed the velvet turf. Polly hated to be called Miss Preece by Kate, and would fain have pa.s.sed for her bosom friend; but Kate unfortunately chose her own friends for herself, and Polly was not of them.
"Cousin Kate is a rare believer in the old horse," remarked George Vernon as he joined the two girls.
"Yes," a.s.sented Polly, "your cousin is a very antiquary; she likes everything that is old, and only what is old. She has even spoken slightingly of this miracle of Mr Busvine"s. From politics to petticoats, Miss Lowry is a Tory, like her father!"
"I admit all you say, Miss Preece, and glory in it. I do prefer old habits, sartorial and otherwise, to any others."
There was a deepening in the blue of Kate"s eyes as this word-play went on, which looked as if she was more than half in earnest.
"Well, I don"t agree with you, and for the sake of example I will back my young chestnut against your veteran in the field to-day," quoth Polly.
"Oh, come, Miss Preece, that"s hardly fair," broke in George; six against twenty-six, isn"t it, Kate?"
"It may be, Cousin George, but the old horse can quite take care of himself, thank you. Yes, I"ll match my old one against your chestnut, owners up; who is to be judge?"
"Would you mind, Captain Vernon?" pleaded Polly.
"No, certainly. What are the stakes?"
"Oh, say a pair of gloves; I am too much of a pauper to make the bet in dozens," replied Kate, and so the bet was made.
The morning was a bright one, with a touch of h.o.a.r frost on the gra.s.s, which none but the early risers saw.
At 11.15 the rime had all gone, and the air was as "balmy as May," the sun shone brightly, and men"s spirits were as brilliant as the weather.
But the first draw was a long one, and a blank. The second was like it, and again no noisy note replied to what Captain Pennell Elmhirst calls "the huntsman"s tuneful pleading."
Faces began to lengthen. A blank at Tod Hall had never been heard of in the memory of man. The gentlemen in velveteen who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the morning"s proceedings had disappeared by noon, and men spoke disparagingly of the race which some sportsmen aver is a compound of policeman and poacher.
It was easy by two o"clock to tell the men who rode horses from those who only "talked horse."
The "customers" were all looking grim and silent; the men of the road were brightly conversational, and sat in groups discussing their cigars and whisky flasks at every point from which they could not possibly see, should the hounds slip quietly and suddenly away.
The little group near the corner of the covert had grown weary of waiting. The glow which follows a sharp trot to covert on your favourite hack, and the consumption of "just one gla.s.s" of orange brandy, had worn off, and the damp chill of a November afternoon had begun to pierce through the stoutest of pinks and to chill the gayest of hearts.
The horses had fretted themselves into a white lather with impatience, or stood with drooping heads and staring coats, mute witnesses to the chill which had come with afternoon and hope deferred. Everything suggested that fox-hunting was an overrated amus.e.m.e.nt.
Little by little the hounds had drawn away from the Hall and its overstocked coverts, until now, at 2 P.M., they were thrown into a small outlying wood, where pheasants were never reared and rarely shot.