“A nd the worst of it is the fellow’s right—what a bore life is—confound everything!—” As he gave utterance to this sweeping anathema, Harry Coverdale lifted a shaggy Scotch terrier by the ears out of an easy chair wherein it was reposing, and flinging himself on the seat thus made vacant, waited disconsolately till Hazlehurst should have finished a letter, which, with unwontedly grave brow he was perusing.
Having continued his occupation till his friend’s small stock of patience was becoming well-nigh exhausted, Hazlehurst closed the epistle, muttering to himself—“Well! they know best, I suppose—but I don’t admire the scheme, all the same—” then, turning towards his companion, he continued aloud—“I beg your pardon, my dear fellow! but the governor’s letter contains a budget of family politics, which is, of course, more or less interesting to me, especially as, in the event of certain contingencies, he talks of increasing my allowance, but you’re looking sentimental—what’s the matter?”
“Oh! nothing,” was the reply, “only that fellow Markum has been boring about the rabbits; he says we’ve worked them quite enough, and that the foxes will be pitching into the pheasants if they can’t get plenty of rabbits to eat, and that so much shooting will make the birds wild before the 1st.—I know it all as well as he does—there ought not to be another gun fired on the property till the 1st of September, but then what is a fellow to do with himself? I might go to Paris—but I’ve been there and done it all—besides I hate their dissipation, it bores me to death; London is empty, and if it wasn’t, it’s worse than Paris—more smoke and less fun. I’d start to America, and do Niagara, and all the other picturesque dodges, only, if the wind were to turn restive, or anything go wrong in the boiler-bursting line, I might be delayed and miss the first day of partridge shooting, so it would not do to risk it.”
“By no means,” rejoined Hazlehurst, shaking his head with an air of mock solemnity—“but luckily I’ve a better plan to propose; I must make my way home at once—you shall come with me, and stay till we are all mutually tired of each other.”
“But your father and mother?” urged Coverdale.
“Are more anxious than I am on the subject. Read that, you unbelieving Jew!” So saying, Hazlehurst turned down a portion of his letter, and handed it to Coverdale; it ran thus—“Mind you bring your friend with you; independently of our desire to become acquainted with one who has shown you such unvarying kindness, Mr. Coverdale is just the person to make up the party.”
“Yes, they’re very kind,” began Coverdale, returning the letter, “very kind, but—”
“But what, man,” rejoined Hazlehurst quickly, “we want you to come to us; you have not only no other engagement, but actually don’t know what to do with yourself, and yet you hesitate. However, to come to the point at once, I ask you plainly, and expect a plain answer—where’s the hitch?”
“Well done, most learned counsel, that is the way to browbeat a witness, and no mistake,” replied Coverdale, laughing at his friend’s vehemence; “however, I won’t provoke any farther display of your forensic talents by attempting to prevaricate. The fact is, I know you’ve a bevy of sisters, she cousins, and what not, very charming girls, I dare say; but you see I’m not fit for women’s society, and that’s the truth of it—I’ve chosen my line—I know what suits me best—and I dare say I shall live and die a bachelor, as the old Admiral did before me. I know what women are, and what they expect of one; if a fellow happens to be a little bit rough and ready, they call him a bear, and vow he’s got no soul; ’gad, that’s what the Turks say of them, by-the-bye!—Poetical justice; eh?”
“My dear boy, you’ll excuse my saying so, but you really are talking great nonsense,” interrupted Hazlehurst; “You’re a thorough gentleman in mind, manners, and appearance, if I know the meaning of the term, and neither my sisters, nor my cousin (there is but one), have such bad taste as to prefer a finical fop to a fine manly fellow like yourself—no, they’re more likely to fall into the other extreme.”
“And that would be the worst of the two by long odds,” exclaimed Harry aghast; “only fancy me with a wife in the shooting-season—bothering me to stay at home with her, or to drive her out in a four-wheeled arm-chair with a pair of little hopping rats of ponies, that the best whip in the three kingdoms could not screw above six miles an hour out of, if he were to flog their hides off; or, worse still, to take me boxed up in a close carriage to call upon somebody’s grandmother, and I breaking my heart all the time to be blazing away at the partridges. I know what it is—I was staying down in Leicestershire, before I went abroad, with poor Phil Anderton, as stanch a sportsman, and as thoroughly good a fellow, as ever drew trigger, before he married Lady Mirvinia Bluebas. Well, they hadn’t been coupled six months before she’d got him so tight in hand that he daren’t smoke a cigar without a special licence. The first season, she let him shoot Wednesdays and Fridays, and hunt Thursdays and Saturdays. The next year she made him sell off his guns, dogs, and horses, and carried him over to the Continent. What was the result?—why, the poor fellow became so bored and miserable, that he took to gambling, lost every farthing he had in the world at roulette, and—didn’t blow his brains out; so my lady has the pleasure of keeping him, and living herself, upon five hundred a-year pin-money.”
“Verdict, served her right”—observed Hazlehurst judicially; “but you forget, my dear boy, that Anderton, though a good fellow enough in his way, was made of such yielding materials, that anybody could do what they liked with him—rather soft here,” he continued, tapping his forehead; “now you have got sterner stuff in you, and if a woman were to try it on with you in that style, it strikes me she’d find her master.”
“Ah! I don’t know,” sighed Coverdale reflectively; “its easier to talk about managing women than to do it—they’ve got a way with ’em, at least the pleasant ones have, of coming over a fellow somehow, and making him fancy for the moment (it doesn’t last, mind you—and there’s the nuisance of it), that he’d rather do what they wish him, than what he wants to do himself. Then again, if a man offends you, you can quietly knock him down, and if he feels aggrieved, he can have you out (not that I admire duelling); but if you quarrel with a woman, there’s no dernier ressort, you can’t knock her down, poor weak thing, and so you’re reduced to growl like a dog, and she to spit like a cat, and you leave off as you began, without having attained any definite result.”
“I have heard of such a thing as moral force,” suggested Hazlehurst ironically.
“That’s one’s only chance,” returned Coverdale, “though it is one that, to speak seriously and sensibly, I’ve tolerably strong faith in. A fellow must be wanting in manliness of character, if he cannot contrive to manage a woman by moral force, as you call it; there’s a quiet way of doing that as well as everything else, only it’s such a confoundedly slow process.”
“No making ’em to come to the point, eh?” rejoined Hazlehurst; “Well, I have my own ideas about it; how they would work, remains to be proved; but as you’ve such splendid theories on the subject, don’t pretend you’re unfitted for woman’s society. Why, man, you’re equal to a whole seminary of young ladies—your ‘quiet manner’ would prove as irresistible with them as it did with the redoubtable Mr. Styles.”
By way of reply to this impertinent allusion, Coverdale shook his clenched fist (which still bore traces of his late encounter) in his friend’s face with a pseudo-threatening gesture. Hazlehurst sprang back in pretended alarm, with to sudden a movement as to arouse the Scotch terrier from his nap, who, waking up in a fright, immediately recurred to his leading idea that there were thieves in the house, and rushed to the door barking furiously. When the laughter, which this little incident excited, had in some degree abated, Hazlehurst resumed—
“But seriously, Harry, I want you to come home with me, and I’ll tell you in confidence why. You and I have known each other from the time we were schoolboys together, and though, as in re Styles, you act a little hastily sometimes, there is no man on whose clear judgment and high principle I’ve greater reliance than on yours. I’ve received a letter from home this morning, which has annoyed me more than I can tell you. To come to the point at once, the case stands thus:—My father’s pet weakness (rather a creditable one) is family pride; now the Grange has belonged to the Hazlehursts for the last three hundred years, but in my great-grandfather’s time the estate became woefully diminished—the old scamp was a regular wild one, and not only made ducks and drakes of everything he could lay his hands on, but as soon as my grandfather came of age, induced him to cut on the entail, and sold the best half of the family property; some of this my grandfather contrived to redeem in his lifetime, and my Governor has been scheming and screwing all his days in order to buy back the rest. In an evil hour he was induced to invest his savings in a railroad, hoping to attain his object sooner; of course it paid beautifully at first; of course in due time a crash came, and the Pater not only lost all his savings, but was forced to sell a farm of five hundred acres, dear to him as the apple of his eye. The individual who purchased it, and who owns the property my great-grandfather sold, is a certain millionaire cotton spinner, as rich as Crœsus; the fellow is said to have £20,000 a-year. Well, since the railroad affair, a jolly old aunt has died, and left the Governor some tin, and he’s breaking his heart to buy back the farm, but cotton spinner refuses to sell. How at the last Hunt Ball, my eldest sister, came out—she is very pretty, and a nice, taking sort of girl in society—and said cotton spinner came, saw, and was conquered! so much so, that having offered serious intentions ever since, he has ended by offering himself. Thereupon arose a difference of opinion between Alice and the Governor—Alice pleading that she didn’t love cotton spinner one bit, and didn’t expect she ever should do so, and Governor declaring that it was all sentimental bosh, and that if she married the man, as much love as it was at all proper for a young lady to feel, would come afterwards. At last, they made a compromise—Alice was to consent to see more of Mr. Crane, and do her best to like him, in which case, said Crane would allow her to postpone her decision till a future period: to this Alice was fain to consent, and now the suitor is coming to the Grange, on approval, and the Governor’s asked a party of people to meet him.”
“And how do you stand affected towards the proposed alliance?” inquired Coverdale, lifting the Skye terrier into his lap by the nape of its neck, and then curling it up like a fried whiting.
“Not over favourably,” returned Hazlehurst, “which, by the way, is very disinterested of me; for if the affair comes off, and the Governor buys his farm back again—which of course is what he is looking to—he promises to settle the residue of the aunt’s legacy upon me, by which I should be some £200 a-year the better; but it would not be a match to please me. I’m very fond of Alice; she is a dear good girl as ever lived, and I don’t admire the cotton spinner: in the first place, he’s nearly, or quite forty, while she was nineteen last term; in the second place, he’s a slow coach, good-natured enough, and all that, but nothing in him.”
“No soul”—suggested Harry.
“Not enough to animate a kitten, I should imagine,” was the reply;—“not that the man’s a fool—indeed, in his own line he is said to be clever. He invented some dodge to simplify his machinery, by which he nearly doubled his fortune.”
“That was decidedly clever”—remarked Harry, busily engaged in dressing the “Skye” in a muslin “anti-macassar,” placed clean upon the sofa that morning.
“To come to the point, however,” continued Hazlehurst—“I want you to see the man, and try and find out what he’s made of.”
“Fool’s-flesh probably”—suggested Coverdale sotto voce.
“I wish you would try and be serious for five minutes,” returned Hazlehurst testily; “nothing is more provoking than small attempts at wit, when one wants a man to give his attention sensibly to that which one is saying.”
“I stand, or more properly sit, corrected: so continue, most sapient and surly brother!”—was the mocking answer.
Hazlehurst tried to look angry and dignified, but a glance at his friend’s handsome, merry, and, withal, slightly impudent face, disarmed his wrath, and muttering—“Confound you for a stupid, provoking, old humbug”—he burst into a fit of laughter. As soon as he had recovered his gravity, he resumed: “As I said before, I want you to come and make your observations on the cotton spinner, and if your opinion agrees with mine, you must back me up in making a serious remonstrance with the Governor. I know the old gentleman well, and am sure he’ll think twice as much of what I say when he finds that you, a man of the world and a large landed proprietor (that’ll tell with him immensely) look upon the matter in the same light. And now you know my reasons, what do you say?”
“Say! what can I say but that I—ahem!—respect the sacred call of friendship, and am prepared to sacrifice myself upon its altar: that’s the correct phraseology, isn’t it? I tell you what, though,” continued Harry gravely, “I make one condition, without which I don’t stir a peg: I’m at your service and that of the cotton spinner, as much as you please; but beyond the requirements of society, I’m not to be expected to concern myself about the women—I’m not to be forced into tête-a-tête drives in pony-chaises, or set to turn over music-books at the piano—I know what all that sort of thing leads to well: is it a bargain?”
“Of course it is,” returned Hazlehurst eagerly; “come to please me, and I leave you to please yourself when you get there.”
“Then, as Sam Weller says, ‘You may take down the bill, for I’m let to a single gentleman,’” was Coverdale’s reply—and so the affair was settled.
HAZLEHURST Grange was a picturesque old mansion, modernised out of all resemblance to its moated namesake which Tennyson has immortalised, by the addition of gay flower-beds, closely-shaven lawns, judiciously-planted shrubberies, and other appliances of landscape gardening. It was situated about eighteen miles from Coverdale Park, a distance which Harry’s trotting mare, who had grown plump and saucy upon rest and good keep, accomplished, to her owner’s intense satisfaction, in less than five minutes over the hour and a-half.
“Pretty fair travelling that, eh, Master Arthur,” he observed, replacing his watch in his waistcoat pocket, “and what I particularly like about it is, that the mare did it all willingly and of her own accord, took well to collar at starting, and kept it up steadily, and in a business-like manner, till her work was done.”
“In fact, behaved as utterly unlike a female throughout the whole affair, as if she had belonged to the nobler sex,” returned Hazlehurst, sarcastically.
“Infandum renovare dolorem!—why will you remind me of my coming trials, and not suffer me to enjoy the pleasures of forgetfulness while I may?” was Coverdale’s desponding rejoinder.
“Simply because, unless I am greatly mistaken, they literally are coming trials,” was the reply. “Look through that belt of trees on the left; don’t you see the flutter of something white?”
“Muslin, by all that’s flimsy, frivolous, and feminine!” exclaimed Harry, aghast: “I say, Arthur, can’t we turn off somewhere?”
“By all means, if you wish it; there’s a gravel-pit on the right-hand, and a precipitous bank sloping down to the river on the left, which will you prefer?” was the obliging rejoinder. As he spoke, a turn in the road disclosed to their view a group of three figures, slowly advancing in the same direction as that in which they were themselves proceeding.
“My cousin, Kate Marsden, my sister Alice, and a gent, name unknown,” observed Hazlehurst, as his eyes fell upon the trio. “Why, surely it is—no, it can’t be—yes it is, Horace D’Almayne.”
“Allowing, merely for the sake of argument, that it is the individual you mention, who may he happen to be?” inquired Harry, taking up the whip which had hitherto reposed innocuously between them, and performing rash feats with it over the ears of “My old Aunt Sally”—(for so in honour of the Ethiopian Serenaders, then in the zenith of their popularity, had Harry named his new favourite).
“My dear fellow, you don’t mean to say that you never heard of him? Not to know Horace D’Almayne argues yourself unknown; why, man, he is a noted wit, a successful poet, the greatest dandy, and the most incorrigible male flirt about town: knows everybody, has been everywhere, and done everything.”
“What is he like across a stiff line of country, and how many brace can he bag to his own gun?” inquired Harry drily.
“Not knowing can’t say,” was the rejoinder, “but that’s not at all in his way; he affects, if it is affectation, the man of sentiment; however, just now he is believed in to the fullest extent, and considered a regular lion.”
“A regular tiger, I should have fancied rather,” was the cynical reply. “Why, the brute actually wears moustaches.”
“He has served in the Austrian army, and sports the mouse-tails on the strength of his military pretensions,” was the reply.
After a minute’s pause, Coverdale observed, inquiringly, “I suppose we must needs pull up and do the civil by these good people.”
“Why, considering that I have not seen my sister for the last five months, family affection (to say nothing of the duties of society) demands the sacrifice,” returned Hazlehurst.
“Cut it short then, there’s a good fellow, the mare’s too hot to be allowed to stand long, and I would not have anything go wrong with her after the splendid manner in which she has brought us to-day, for three times the money I gave for her.”
As he spoke, Harry again impatiently flirted the whip over the ears of “My old Aunt Sally,” an indignity which excited the fiery disposition of that highly-descended quadruped, who, throwing up her head and tail, flinging out her fore feet, as though she were sparring with the distance her speed must overcome, and altogether looking her very handsomest, dashed up to the group of pedestrians so suddenly as to cause the two ladies to draw back in alarm; while even the redoubtable Horace himself sprang out of the way with a degree of alacrity which evinced a stronger regard for his personal safety than might have been expected from so heroic a character. For this sacrifice of dignity to the first law of nature, self-preservation, he endeavoured to compensate himself by stroking his moustaches, and staring superciliously at the new comers.
While Hazlehurst, who sprang down the moment the dog-cart stopped, was exchanging greetings with his cousin and sister, Harry was left undisturbed to make his observations on the trio to whom he was about to be introduced. The elder of the two young ladies, who responded to the definition, “My cousin, Miss Kate Marsden,” was above the middle height, and of a singularly graceful figure; her features were delicately formed and regular, her complexion pale, but clear, her hair and eyes dark, the latter being large and expressive, her hands and feet small, and her whole bearing and appearance refined and aristocratic in the extreme; but her features bore a look of proud reserve, which interfered with the effect which her beauty would otherwise have produced—an inscrutable look, which seemed to say, “I have a peculiar and decided character, but I defy you to read it.”
It is of no use to attempt to describe Alice Hazlehurst, for the simple reason that no description could convey an adequate idea of her. Not that she was anything particularly wonderful; she was not even a miracle of beauty—she was only about the best thing this fallen world of ours contains—a bright, high-spirited, pure, simple, true-hearted, lovely, and loveable young girl, just emerging into graceful womanhood; very shy, slightly romantic, full of kindly sympathies and generous impulses, which she concealed as carefully as bad men hide unpopular vices, and with all the deep and noble qualities of her woman’s nature, as well as, alas! its faults and foibles, lying dormant within her, either to be developed in their full completeness, or dwarfed into comparative insignificance, as the hands into which she might fall should prove fitted or unfitted to the great, yet enviable, responsibility of forming her character. As Hazlehurst leapt down, she sprang forward to meet him; then drew back from his hearty embrace with a smile and a blush, which very unnecessarily made her appear prettier than before, to acknowledge, with a bow, her introduction to her brother’s friend.
The third member of the party, Horace D’Almayne, had been well fitted by nature to sustain the character of “exquisite”—tall, and with a graceful, slender figure, his well-formed and regular features, soft dark hair, and brilliant complexion, gave him an undoubted right to the epithet handsome, although it was in a style suited rather to a woman than to a man. The expression of his face, cynical and supercilious when in repose, or when he spoke to one of his own sex, relaxed into a smile of sentimental self-confidence when he addressed a woman. He appeared very young, probably not above two or three and twenty, and was dressed up to the ne plus ultra of refined dandyism.
“‘Why, D’Almayne,” exclaimed Hazlehurst, “how is it that we come to be honoured by your company? I was not even aware that my father possessed the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“Nor did he a week ago; but the matter came about thus,” was the reply. “During the London season I was introduced at one of the Duke of D———’s parties, to an opulent individual of the name of Crane, learned his opinion prospective and retrospective in regard to the weather, bowed adieu, and straightway forgot him. About a month since, being in a café at Baden-Baden, my attention was attracted by an awful charivari; and on attempting to investigate the cause thereof, discovered Friend Crane lamenting himself pathetically in bad French and worse German, and surrounded by a mob of foreigners. Having in some degree appeased his polyglot passion, I soon contrived to make out, that his pocket having been picked by A., he had accused innocent B., and denounced unoffending C.—a vicarious system of reprisals which those victimised individuals appeared, not unnaturally, inclined to resent. Understanding somewhat better than our irascible friend the language and customs of the natives, I contrived to extricate him from the dilemma; for which act of good Samaritanism I have been, from that time forward, more or less the victim of his indefatigable gratitude. Your worthy father finding me a few days since located in the Château Crane, politely included me in his invitation. I arrived this morning, and under the able tuition of your cousin and sister, was rapidly becoming acquainted with the beauties of Hazlehurst, when you drove up.”
As he insinuated this skilfully-veiled compliment, the exquisite Horace pointed its application by favouring Alice with a languishing œillade, which was certainly not without effect; for it excited in the breast of Harry Coverdale a sudden, intense, and unreasonable desire then and there heartily to kick the talented originator of the compliment. This impulse he was only enabled to check by a powerful effort, which caused him to twitch the reins so suddenly, as painfully to compress the delicate mouth of “My Aunt Sally,” to an extent which justified that outraged quadruped in converting herself for the time being into a biped, by standing erect on her hind legs, and pawing the air with her fore feet.
“Soho, girl! gently, gently!” exclaimed Hazlehurst, who, not having perceived the exciting cause of the manœuvre, attributed the mare’s unmannerly behaviour to an outbreak of inherent viciousness. “Why, Harry, what on earth is the matter with the creature?”
“Probably nothing more than a reasonless caprice natural to her sex,” was Harry’s ungallant reply. “Possibly she may have the bad taste to prefer the creature comforts of a cool stable and a good feed of corn, to remaining in the broiling sunshine, even with the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the beauties of Hazlehurst;” and as he made this sarcastic remark, Harry glanced, carelessly round over wood and field, so that any one not well acquainted with the play of his features would have been puzzled to decide whether he was himself aware of the full meaning of his words.
“A pretty broad hint that I am not to keep the mare standing any longer,” returned Hazlehurst, turning to his cousin and sister. “That fellow cares for nothing in the world but his horses, except his dogs and his double-barrel. Well, I suppose you girls will be coming home soon.”
“Quite as soon as we are wanted, if your amiable and complimentary friend has any voice in the matter,” returned Alice, sotto voce.
“Nonsense,” was the reply in the same tone; “you know nothing about him, you silly child. Harry is the kindest-hearted, best-tempered fellow in the world, as you’ll find out before long.”
Alice’s only reply was an incredulous toss of her pretty head, and the parties separated.
“Of all the puppies I ever beheld, that creature D’Almayne is the most insufferable—the very sight of him irritates me. What business has he to pay his absurd compliments to your sister, when he has only known her for a few hours? If I were you, I should not stand it.”
“At all events, his compliments are of a more civil nature than yours,” returned Hazlehurst with a smile; “why, Harry, you are becoming as peppery a character as your namesake Hotspur himself.”
“I am like him in one particular, at all events,” was the reply, “for I cannot abide a coxcomb.”
“It strikes me, that is not the only point in which you resemble the ‘gunpowder Percy,’ as old Falstaff calls him. By the way,” he continued, “what in the world was the matter with ‘Aunt Sally,’ a minute ago she seems to go quietly enough now.”
“I rather fancy something must have hurt her mouth,” replied Harry, turning away his head to conceal a smile. As he spoke, they drove round the gravel sweep leading to the hall door of Hazlehurst Grange. Beneath the porch stood two gentlemen—in one of whom, corpulent and elderly, Coverdale had little trouble in recognising, from his likeness to his friend, Mr. Hazlehurst senior; while the other, tall, thin, and cadaverous-looking, he rightly conjectured to be the opulent and amorous cotton spinner, Jedediah Crane.
Nearly a week had elapsed since Harry Coverdale had first become an inmate of Hazlehurst Grange, during which period he had contrived to win the good opinion of the elders of the party, pique the young ladies by his brusquerie and neglect, annoy Hazlehurst by his insensibility and determination not to make himself agreeable, and finally to have provoked the enmity of the fascinating Horace D’Almayne, which last piece of delinquency was a source of unmitigated satisfaction to its perpetrator. The day on which we resume the thread of our narrative, was to be devoted to a picnic party, the object being to devour unlimited cold lamb and pigeon-pie amongst the ruins of an old abbey, some eight miles from the Grange. The morning was lovely, every one appeared in high spirits, and the expedition promised to be a prosperous one.
“Now, then, good people,” exclaimed Arthur Hazlehurst, “what are the arrangements—who rides, who drives, who goes with who?—come to the point and settle something, for the tempus is fugit-ing at a most alarming pace.”
“I am desirous,” observed Mr. Crane slowly and solemnly, “of soliciting the honour of driving Miss Hazlehurst in my phaeton, if I may venture to hope such an arrangement will not be disagreeable to that lady:” and as he spoke, the cotton spinner, whose tall, ungainly figure, clad in a dust-coloured wrapper, white trousers, and white hat, gave him the appearance of a superannuated baker’s boy run very decidedly to seed, bowed appealingly to Alice, who, perceiving her father’s eye upon her, was forced unwillingly to consent.
“Mr. Coverdale, will you drive a lady in the pony-chaise?” inquired Hazlehurst père. “My niece will be happy to accompany you, or my saucy little Emily here,” he continued, gazing with paternal fondness on his younger daughter, a pretty but slightly pert girl of sixteen.
“I should have much pleasure,” muttered Harry; “but—but—I contrived to hurt my right hand a few days ago, and—ar—not being used to the ponies, I should scarcely feel justified in undertaking the charge.”
“Indeed,” was the rejoinder; “I noticed you always wore a glove—how did the accident happen, pray?”
“I hit—that is—I struck my hand against something very hard,” stammered Harry, actually colouring like a girl, as he caught Hazlehurst’s suppressed chuckle, and observed Alice’s bright eyes fixed upon him inquisitively.
“Kate, if nobody else will drive you, I suppose I must take compassion on you myself,” remarked Arthur, sotto voce, to his cousin.
“Ah! but here comes somebody who intends to relieve you of the trouble,” was the reply, in the same low tone; “do not make any objection,” she continued, quickly, “you will only annoy my uncle to no purpose; he would not have even a feather of the Crane’s tail ruffled on any account.”
As she spoke, she glanced meaningly towards Horace D’Almayne, at that moment engaged in drawing on a pair of kid gloves too small even for his delicate hands. Coming forward, he languidly, and in an absent manner, volunteered to drive Miss Marsden—an offer which that young lady quietly accepted, either not perceiving, or disregarding, the look of annoyance with which her cousin turned and left the spot.
“Oh, you are going to ride, Mr. Coverdale; here comes Sir Lancelot, looking like a picture,” exclaimed Tom Hazlehurst, a fine, handsome lad, anno ætatis fourteen, an Etonian, and (need we add?) a pickle—“Oh! do let me go with you; Alice will lend me her pony—won’t you, Alice? I’ll take such care of it, and you don’t want it yourself, you know—ask her to lend it to me, Mr. Coverdale, do please.”
If Harry had a weakness, it was that he could never say no, when his good nature was appealed to in any matter in which another’s pleasure was involved. Tom, moreover, had conceived for him one of those violent friendships which boys feel towards men a few years older than themselves who realise their beau ideal of perfection; and Harry, pleased with his undisguised admiration, responded to it by indulging the young scapegrace in all his vagaries.
“I’m afraid my voice is not so potential as you imagine, Tom,” was his reply; “but if my assurance that I will use my best endeavours to keep you and the pony in good order, will have any weight with Miss Hazlehurst, I am perfectly willing to give it.”
“If papa has no objection, Tom, you have my consent,” replied Alice, blushing and smiling, while, at the bottom of her heart she wished both Mr. Crane and Harry safely located at Coventry, Jericho, or any other refuge for bores, that might be suitable for putting those who are in the way out of the way; in which case she would herself have enjoyed a canter with Master Tom.
“Oh, the Governor won’t say no—will you Daddy?” was Tom’s confident reply; and Mr. Hazlehurst, who, being a dreadful autocrat to his elder children, made up for it by weakly indulging his youngest born, having signified his consent, the cavalcade proceeded to start—a close carriage and a barouche conveying the remaining juveniles, and all the elders of the party, with the exception of Mrs. Hazlehurst, who, being a confirmed invalid, remained at home, in company with a weather-wise old maid, proprietress of a meteorological corn, which having given warning that a change was at hand, led her to mistrust the brilliant sunshine.
“Can’t we find our way across the fields somehow, Tom, without riding along the dusty road the whole distance inquired Harry.
“To be sure we can,” was the reply; “don’t I know a way, that’s all? Turn down the next lane to the right, and then there are lots of jolly grass fields and a wide common, so that we can gallop as much as we like, and get there before them—won’t they be surprised to see us just?”
“What a lark!”
Tom’s topographical knowledge proving correct, they cantered away merrily over field and common, till they had ridden some five or six miles.
“You really have an uncommonly good seat, Tom,” observed his friend; “only remember to turn your toes in, and keep your bridle hand low, and you’ll do—you’ve plenty of pluck, and when you’ve acquired a little more judgment and experience, you’ll be able to ‘hold your own’ across a country with some of the best of ’em.
“Ah, shouldn’t I like to go out hunting, that’s all?” exclaimed the boy eagerly.
“Have you never done so,” inquired his friend.
“No; I tried it on last winter, but the Governor cut up rough, and wouldn’t stand it.”
“Can you sit a leap?” asked Harry.
“I believe you, rayther, just a very few,” was the confident reply.
“Well, you must come to Coverdale, in the Christmas holidays, and I’ll mount you and take you out with me; I mean to get up a stud, and hunt regularly this season,” observed Harry.
“Won’t that be jolly, just?—I’ll come whether they’ll let me or not, depend upon it; but now this is the last grass field, let’s have a race for a wind up.” So saying, Master Tom laid his whip smartly across his pony’s shoulder, and dashed off, while Coverdale, gradually giving his spirited but perfectly broken horse the rein, soon overtook him. A brushing gallop of five minutes brought them to the border of the field, which was surrounded by a ditch and bank, with a sufficiently high rail at top to constitute an awkward leap.
“How are we going to find our way out?” inquired Harry.
“Get off, pull down a rail, and then jump it,” was the reply.
“Yes, that will be the best way for you and the pony to get over,” returned Coverdale, “but I’ll take it as it stands. I’ve never yet had a chance of trying Lancelot at a stiff fence, and I want to see how he’ll act: don’t you attempt to follow me; as soon as I am over, I’ll dismount and pull down the rail for you.”
As he spoke Harry put his horse in motion, cantered him up to the fence, and faced him at it. Sir Lancelot did not belie the character that had been given of him. As he approached the bank he quickened his pace of his own accord, gathered his legs well under him, and then rising to the leap, sprang over with a motion so easy and elastic that his rider appeared scarcely to move in his saddle. The descent on the farther side was steeper than Harry had expected, and the leap altogether might be considered a difficult one. Delighted with his horse’s performance, Harry pulled up, and turned, with the intention of alighting, in order to remove a rail of the fence, and thus facilitate the transit of Tom and the pony; when, to his alarm and vexation, he perceived that the boy, deceived by the apparent ease with which he had accomplished the task (a delusive appearance, produced as much by the coolness and address of the rider as by the power and excellent training of the horse), had determined to display his prowess by following him; nor could Harry interfere to prevent him, for at the moment he turned, Tom was in the act of galloping up to the fence: all that remained for him, therefore, was to shout, “Give the pony his head, and hold tight with your knees,” and to await the result. The pony, excited by seeing its companion on the other side, faced the leap boldly, and cleared the ditch and bunk, but catching its hoofs against the rail, fell, pitching its rider over its head into the field beyond, where he lay as if stunned. In an instant Harry had sprung from his saddle and lifted him in his arms. “Thank Heaven!” he exclaimed as the boy opened his eyes, and, perceiving Coverdale bending over him, smiled to evince his gratitude.
“You don’t feel as if you were seriously hurt anywhere, do you?”
“All right!” was the reply. “I feel a little bit shaky and confused; rather as if somebody had gone and kicked me into the middle of next week, that’s all.”
“Then you’ve escaped more easily than you had any right to expect, you heedless, impetuous young monkey,” returned Coverdale, sharply. “You must have been mad to suppose that a half-bred, thick-headed beast like that pony, would carry you over such a fence as that. Why, I know men, who call themselves good riders, who would refuse it, unless they were very well mounted.”
“If the pony did not carry me over, he shot me over, and that did just as well,” was the careless reply. “But I say, Mr. Coverdale, only look at his knees? Oh! shan’t we get into a jolly scrape just.”
Thus appealed to, Harry turned to examine the pony, which, in his anxiety for the safety of the boy, he had hitherto forgotten. The result of his scrutiny was by no means satisfactory.
“He has broken both knees!” he exclaimed; “the right one is cut severely, and however favourably it may go on, there will always remain a scar; you’ve knocked ten pounds off the pony’s price by that exploit of yours, Master Tom, besides rendering the animal unsafe for your sister to ride.”
“You’ve put your foot in it as well as I, Mr. Coverdale,” returned the young imp, grinning. “You promised Alice you would do your best to keep me, and the pony too, in proper order, you know!”
“Why, you ungrateful young scamp, I’m sure I told you not to attempt the leap,” replied Harry, restraining a strong inclination to lay his horsewhip across the young pickle’s shoulders.
“Yes; and then you and Lancelot went flying over it as lightly as if he had wings, like that fabulous humbug Pegasus, that old Buzwig is always bothering us about. The copy-book says, ‘Practice before precept,’ and so say I. Why, you did not expect I was going to be such a muff as to stay behind, did you?”
“I was a fool if I did, at all events,” muttered Harry, sotto voce; then turning good-naturedly to the boy, he continued, “The copy-book also says, ‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ does it not, Tom? So we must get out of the scrape as best we can. We’ll leave the pony at the nearest farm-house, and I’ll send my groom to doctor him—so lead him by the rein and come along.”
Of course, when they joined the rest of the party and told their misdeeds, Alice lamented over the pony’s troubles after the usual fashion of tender-hearted young ladies. Of course, Hazlehurst senior, discerning a long farrier’s bill in prospective, with the possibility of being coaxed out of a new pony as a not unlikely contingent result, was grumpy, as Governors usually are when they foresee a strain upon their purse strings; and of course, although these lamentations and threatenings were launched at the curly head of Master Tom, they yet glanced off that unimpressible substance, only to fall upon and overwhelm with shame and confusion Harry Coverdale, who began mentally to curse the day when, false to his own presentiments, he had yielded to his friend’s importunities, and suffered himself to become an inmate of Hazlehurst Grange.
Bent on avoiding young ladies, and having no taste for the society of old ones, Harry wandered about disconsolately, until, attracted by a dark archway and a worm-eaten winding staircase, which, as Master Tom expressed it, looked “jolly queer and ghostified;” he made his way up the mouldering steps until he found himself at the top of a battlemented tower, where he was repaid for the trouble of the ascent, by a beautiful and widely-extending view. Having contrived to get rid of the voluble and restless Etonian, Coverdale seated himself on a projecting fragment of masonry, and glancing round to see that he was not observed or observable, lit a cigar, and, his ruffled feelings being soothed by its mollifying influence, remained lazily watching the movements of the pleasure-seekers—his reflections running somewhat after the following fashion:—
“There’s old Crane maundering about after Alice as usual—don’t think he gets on with her though, rather t’other way—decided case of jibbing I should say. She looked awfully bored and frightened too, up in that phaeton with him; and no wonder either, for the old boy is nothing of a whip—I should be sorry to trust a cat of mine to his driving. Ah! she’s given him the slip, and that Miss Marsden has taken him in tow. I can’t make that woman out—she is so civil to him; perhaps she thinks the affair with Alice may miss fire, and she is looking out for the reversion of the cotton spinner herself. Arthur says she’s very poor, and that there are a large family of them; if so, it’s not a bad dodge, and, supposing she plays her cards well, one by no means unlikely to succeed. There’s that confounded puppy D’Almayne swaggering up to Alice, stroking his stupid moustaches—yes, and she smiles and takes his arm, of course—believes all his lies, and thinks him a hero, I dare say. Oh! the poor silly fools of women that can’t distinguish a man from a jackanapes—I should have fancied Alice had more sense; but they’re all alike. Look at the idiot simpering; that’s only to show his white teeth now: the brute has no idea of a real joke—hasn’t got it in him. Well, thank goodness, it’s no concern of mine: but if I were Crane, I’d interfere with his flirting rather. The fellow talks as if he were a dreadful fire-eater—I should like to try what he’s made of: but I expect it’s all talk and nothing else—I wish I could coax him into putting on the gloves with me some day—I’d astonish his moustaches for him. Well, he has walked her off at all events. I wonder where they’re going to. Are they? Yes—no—yes, by Jove, if he isn’t going to take her across that field which Tom and I rode through, where the bull was grazing—the brute is mischievous, too, or I am much mistaken—confound the fool, he’ll go and frighten the poor girl out of her senses, and, perhaps, get her hurt into the bargain; for, if the bull really is vicious, ten to one Moustaches loses pluck, and bolts, or something ridiculous. I’ve a great mind to follow them, it can do no harm, and may do some good—’gad I will too. Alice is far too pretty to be gored by a bull; besides, for Arthur’s sake, one is bound to take care of her—luckily, I’ve just finished the cigar, so off we go.”
Having arrived at this point in his meditations, Harry rose from his seat, ran lightly down the stairs till he reached a ruined window about six feet from the ground, through which he leaped, then settling into a long swinging trot, he ran, at a pace with which few could have kept up, in the direction taken by Alice and D’Almayne; they had, however, obtained so greatly the start of him, that they had already entered the field occupied by the dangerous bull, ere he had overtaken them.
It was a remarkably warm day—the field in which pastured the alarming bull was distant from the abbey ruins half-a-mile at the very least. Now, to jump through a window six feet or thereabouts from the ground, run at the top of one’s speed half-a-mile, leaping recklessly over two gates and a stile in the course of it; and to do all this in a state of anxious excitement on a day when the thermometer stands at 70° in the shade, naturally tends to make a man not only hot, but (if his temper be not semiangelic) cross also. At all events, Harry Coverdale was in the former, if not the latter, condition, when, panting and breathless, he overtook Alice Hazlehurst and Horace D’Almayne, half way across the dangerous field.