Volume Ii Part 12 (2/2)

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.

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