A VERY LITTLE HUNTING.
If more were needed to make a man feel at home--more than old Meriton
itself, Jack Rock with his beef, and the clasp of Harry Belfield's
hand--the meet of the hounds supplied it. There were hunts in other
lands; Andy could not persuade himself that there were meets like this,
so entirely English it seemed in the manner of it. Everybody was there,
high and low, rich and poor, young and old. An incredible coincidence of
unplausible accidents had caused an extraordinary number of people to
have occasion to pass by Fyfold Green that morning at that hour, let
alone all the folk who chanced to have a "morning off" and proposed to
see some of the run, on horseback or on foot. The tradesmen's carts were
there in a cluster, among them two of Jack Rock's: his boys knew that a
blind eye would be turned to half an hour's lateness in the delivery of
the customers' joints. For centre of the scene were the waving tails,
the glossy impatient horses, the red coats, the Master himself, Lord
Meriton, in his glory and, it may be added, in the peremptory mood which
is traditionally associated with his office.
Andy Hayes moved about, meeting many old friends--more, indeed, than he
recognized, till a reminiscence of old days established for them again a
place in his memory. He saw Tom Dove--the Bird--mounted on a showy
screw. Wat Money--Chinks--was one of those who "happened to be passing"
on his way to a client's who lived in the opposite direction. He gave
Andy a friendly greeting, and told him that if he thought of taking a
house in Meriton, he should be careful about his lease: Foulkes,
Foulkes, and Askew would look after it. Jack Rock was there, of course,
keeping himself to himself, on the outskirts of the throng: the young
horse was nervous. Harry Belfield, in perfect array, talked to Vivien
Wellgood, her father on a raking hunter close beside them. A great swell
of home-feeling assailed Andy; suddenly he had a passionate hope that
the timber business would develop; he did not want to go back to Canada.
It was a good hunting morning, cloudy and cool, with the wind veering to
the north-east and dropping as it veered. No frost yet, but the
weather-wise predicted one before long. The scent should be good--a bit
too good, Andy reflected, for riders on shanks' mare. Their turn is best
served by a scent somewhat variable and elusive. A check here and there,
a fresh cast, the hounds feeling for the scent--these things, added to a
cunning use of short cuts and a knowledge of the country shared by the
fox, aid them to keep on terms and see something of the run--just as
they aid the heavy old gentlemen on big horses and the small boys on fat
ponies to get their humble share of the sport.
But in truth Andy cared little so that he could run--run hard, fast, and
long. His powerful body craved work, work, and work yet more abundantly.
His way of indulging it was to call on it for all its energies; he
exulted in feeling its brave response. Fatigue he never knew--at least
not till he had changed and bathed; and then it was not real fatigue: it
was no more than satiety. Now when they had found--and they had the luck
to find directly--he revelled in the heavy going of a big ploughed
field. He was at the game he loved.
Yes, but the pace was good--distinctly good. The spirit was willing, but
human legs are but human, and only two in number. Craft was required.
The fox ran straight now--but had he never a thought in his mind? The
field streamed off to the right, lengthening out as it went. Andy bore
to his left: he remembered Croxton's Dip. Did the fox? That was the
question. If he did, the hunt would describe the two sides of a
triangle, while Andy cut across the base.
He was out of sight of the field now, but he could hear the hounds
giving tongue from time to time and the thud of the hoofs. The sounds
grew nearer! A thrill of triumph ran through him; his old-time knowledge
had not failed him. The fox had doubled back, making for Croxton's Dip.
Over the edge of yonder hill it lay, half a mile off--a deep depression
in the ground, covered with thick undergrowth. In the hope of catching
up, Andy Hayes felt that he could run all day and grudge the falling of
an over-hasty night.
"Blown," indeed, but no more than a rest of a minute would put right, he
reached the ledge whence the ground sloped down sharply to the Dip. He
was in time to see the hunt race past him along the bottom--leaders, the
ruck, stragglers. Jack Rock and Wellgood were with the Master in the
van; he could not make out Harry Belfield; a forlorn figure looking like
the Bird laboured far in the rear.
They swept into the Dip as Andy started to race down the slope. But to
his chagrin they swept out of it again, straight up a long slope which
rose on his left, the fox running game, a near kill promising, a fast
point-to-point secured. The going was too good for shanks' mare to-day.
Before he got to the bottom even the Bird had galloped by, walloping his
showy screw.
To the left, then, and up that long slope! There was nothing else for
it, if he were so much as to see the kill from afar. This was exercise,
if you like! His heart throbbed like the engines of a great ship; the
sweat broke out on him. Oh, it was fine! That slope must be won--then
Heaven should send the issue!
Suddenly--even as he braced himself to face the long ascent, as the last
sounds from the hunt died away over its summit--he saw a derelict, and,
amazed, came to a full stop.
The girl was not on her pony; she was standing beside it. The pony
appeared distressed, and the girl looked no whit more cheerful. With a
pang to the very heart, Andy Hayes recognized a duty, and acknowledged
it by a snatch at his cap.
"I beg your pardon; anything wrong?" he asked.
He had been interested in Vivien Wellgood the evening before, but he was
much more than interested in the hunt. Still, she looked forlorn and
desolate.
"Would you mind looking at my pony's right front leg?" she asked. "I
think he's gone lame."
"I know nothing about horses, but he does seem to stand rather gingerly
on his--er--right front leg. And he's certainly badly blown--worse than
I am!"
"We shall never catch them, shall we? It's not the least use going on,
is it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I know the country; if you'd let me pilot you--"
"Harry Belfield was going to pilot me, but--well, I told him not to wait
for me, and he didn't. You were at the meeting last night, weren't you?
You're Mr. Hayes, aren't you? What did you think of the speeches?"
"Really, you know, if we're to have a chance of seeing any more of
the--" It was not the moment to discuss political speeches, however
excellent.
"I don't want to see any more of it. I'll go home; I'll risk it."
"Risk what?" he asked. There seemed no risk in going home; and there
was, by now, small profit in going on.
She did not answer his question. "I think hunting's the most wretched
amusement I've ever tried!" she broke out. "The pony's lame--yes, he is;
I've torn my habit" (she exhibited a sore rent); "I've scratched my
face" (her finger indicated the wound); "and here I am! All I hope is
that they won't catch that poor fox. How far do you think it is to
Nutley?"
"Oh, about three miles, I should think. You could strike the road half a
mile from here."
"I'm sure the pony's lame. I shall go back."
"Would you like me to come with you?"
During their talk her eyes had wavered between indignation and
piteousness--the one at the so-called sport of hunting, the other for
her own woes. At Andy's question a gleam of welcome flashed into them,
followed in an instant by a curious sort of veiling of all expression.
She made a pathetic little figure, with her habit sorely rent and a
nasty red scratch across her forehead. The pony lame too--if he were
lame! Andy hit on the idea that it was a question whether he were lame
enough to swear by: that was what she was going to risk--in a case to be
tried before some tribunal to which she was amenable.
"But don't you want to go on?" she asked. "You're enjoying it, aren't
you?" The question carried no rebuke; it recognized as legitimate the
widest differences of taste.
"I haven't the least chance of catching up with them. I may as well come
back with you."
The curious expression--or rather eclipse of expression--was still in
her eyes, a purely negative defensiveness that seemed as though it could
spring only from an instinctive resolve to show nothing of her feelings.
The eyes were a dark blue; but with Vivien's eyes colour never counted
for much, nor their shape, nor what one would roughly call their beauty,
were it more or less. Their meaning--that was what they set a man asking
after.
"It really would be very kind of you," she said.
Andy mounted her on the suppositiously lame pony--her weight wouldn't
hurt him much, anyhow--and they set out at a walk towards the highroad
which led to Nutley and thence, half a mile farther on, to Meriton.
She was silent till they reached the road. Then she asked abruptly, "Are
you ever afraid?"
"Well, you see," said Andy, with a laugh, "I never know whether I'm
afraid or only excited--in fighting, I mean. Otherwise I don't fancy I'm
either often."
"Well, you're big," she observed. "I'm afraid of pretty nearly
everything--horses, dogs, motor-cars--and I'm passionately afraid of
hunting."
"You're not big, you see," said Andy consolingly. Indeed her hand on the
reins looked almost ridiculously small.
"I've got to learn not to be afraid of things. My father's teaching me.
You know who I am, don't you?"
"Oh yes; why, I remember you years ago! Is that why you're out hunting?"
"Yes."
"And why you think that the pony--?"
"Is lame enough to let me risk going home? Yes." There was a hint of
defiance in her voice. "You must think what you like," she seemed to
say.
Andy considered the matter in his impartial, solid, rather slowly moving
mind. It was foolish to be frightened at such things; it must be
wholesome to be taught not to be. Still, hunting wasn't exactly a moral
duty, and the girl looked very fragile. He had not arrived at any final
decision on the case--on the issue whether the girl were silly or the
father cruel (the alternatives might not be true alternatives, not
strictly exclusive of one another)--before she spoke again.
"And then I'm fastidious. Are you?"
"I hope not!" said Andy, with an amused chuckle. A great lump of a
fellow like him fastidious!
"Father doesn't like that either, and I've got to get over it."
"How does it--er--take you?" Andy made bold to inquire.
"Oh, lots of ways. I hate dirt, and dust, and getting very hot, and
going into butchers' shops, and--"
"Butchers' shops!" exclaimed Andy, rather hit on the raw. "You eat meat,
don't you?"
"Things don't look half as dead when they're cooked. I couldn't touch a
butcher!" Horror rang in her tones.
"Oh, but I say, Jack Rock's a butcher, and he's about the best fellow in
Meriton. You know him?"
"I've seen him," she admitted reluctantly, the subject being evidently
distasteful.
For the second time Andy Hayes was conscious of a duty: he must not
be--or seem--ashamed of Jack Rock, just because this girl was
fastidious.
"I'm related to him, you know. My stepmother was his sister. And I'm
staying in his house."
She glanced at him, a slight flush rising to her cheeks; he saw that her
lips trembled a little.
"It's no use trying to unsay things, is it?" she asked.
"Not a bit," laughed Andy. "Don't think I'm hurt; but I should be a
low-down fellow if I didn't stand up for old Jack."
"I should rather like to have you to stand up for me sometimes," she
said, and broke into a smile as she added, "You're so splendidly solid,
you see, Mr. Hayes. Here we are at home--you may as well make a complete
thing of it and see me as far as the stables."
"I'd like to come in--I'm not exactly a stranger here. I've often been a
trespasser. Don't tell Mr. Wellgood unless you think he'll forgive me,
but as a boy I used to come and bathe in the lake early in the
morning--before anybody was up. I used to undress in the bushes and slip
in for my swim pretty nearly every morning in the summer. It's fine
bathing, but you want to be able to swim; there's a strong undercurrent,
where the stream runs through. Are you fond of bathing?"
Andy was hardly surprised when she gave a little shudder. "No, I'm
rather afraid of water." She added quickly, "Don't tell my father, or I
expect I should have to try to learn to swim. He hasn't thought of that
yet. No more has Isobel--Miss Vintry, my companion. You know? You saw
her at the meeting. I have a companion now, instead of a governess.
Isobel isn't afraid of anything, and she's here to teach me not to be."
"You don't mind my asking your father to let me come and swim, if I'm
here in the summer?"
"I don't suppose I ought to mind that," she said doubtfully.
The house stood with its side turned to the drive by which they
approached it from the Meriton road. Its long, low, irregular front--it
was a jumble of styles and periods--faced the lake, a stone terrace
running between the facade and the water; it was backed by a thick wood;
across the lake the bushes grew close down to the water's edge. The
drive too ran close by the water, deep water as Andy was well aware, and
was fenced from it by a wooden paling, green from damp. The place had a
certain picturesqueness, but a sadness too. Water and trees--trees and
water--and between them the long squat house. To Andy it seemed to brood
there like a toad. But his healthy mind reverted to the fact that for a
strong swimmer the bathing was really splendid.
"Here comes Isobel! Now nothing about swimming, and say the pony's
lame!"
The injunction recalled Andy from his meditations and also served to
direct his attention to Miss Vintry, who stood, apparently waiting for
them, at the end of the drive, with the house on her right and the
stables on her left. She was dressed in a business-like country frock,
rather noticeably short, and carried a stick with a spike at the end of
it. She looked very efficient and also very handsome.
Vivien told her story: Andy, not claiming expert knowledge, yet stoutly
maintained that the pony was--or anyhow had been--lame.
"He seems to be getting over it," said Miss Vintry, with a smile that
was not malicious but was, perhaps, rather annoyingly amused. "I'm
afraid your having had to turn back will vex your father, but I suppose
there was no help for it, and I'm sure he'll be much obliged to--"
"Mr. Hayes." Vivien supplied the name, and Andy made his bow.
"Oh yes, I've heard Mr. Harry Belfield speak of you." Her tone was
gracious, and she smiled at Andy good-humouredly. If she confirmed his
impression of capability, and perhaps added a new one of masterfulness,
there was at least nothing to hint that her power would not be well used
or that her sway would be other than benevolent.
Vivien had dismounted, and a stable-boy was leading the pony away, after
receiving instructions to submit the suspected off fore-leg to his
chief's inspection. There seemed nothing to keep Andy, and he was about
to take his leave when Miss Vintry called to the retreating stable-boy,
"Oh, and let Curly out, will you? He hasn't had his run this afternoon."
Vivien turned her head towards the stables with a quick apprehensive
jerk. A big black retriever, released in obedience to Isobel Vintry's
order, ran out, bounding joyously. He leapt up at Isobel, pawing her and
barking in an ecstasy of delight. In passing Andy, the stranger, he gave
him another bark of greeting and a hasty pawing; then he clumsily
gambolled on to where Vivien stood.
"He won't hurt you, Vivien. You know he won't hurt you, don't you?" The
dog certainly seemed to warrant Isobel's assertion; he appeared a most
good-natured animal, though his play was rough.
"Yes, I know he won't hurt me," said Vivien.
The dog leapt up at her, barking, frisking, pawing her, trying to reach
her face to lick it. She made no effort to repel him; she had a little
riding-whip in her hand, but she did not use it; her arms hung at her
side; she was rather pale.
"There! It's not so terrible after all, is it?" asked Isobel. "Down,
Curly, down! Come here!"
The dog obeyed her at her second bidding, and sat down at her feet. Andy
was glad to see that the ordeal--for that was what it looked like--was
over, and had been endured with tolerable fortitude; he had not enjoyed
the scene. Somewhat to his surprise Vivien's lips curved in a smile.
"Somehow I wasn't nearly so frightened to-day," she said. Apparently the
ordeal was a daily one--perhaps one of several daily ones, for she had
already been out hunting. "I didn't run away as I did yesterday, when
Harry Belfield was here."
"You are getting used to it," Isobel affirmed. "Mr. Wellgood's quite
right. We shall have you as brave as a lion in a few months." Her tone
was not unkind or hard, neither was it sympathetic. It was just
extremely matter-of-fact. "It's all nerves," she added to Andy. "She
overworked herself at school--she's very clever, aren't you,
Vivien?--and now she's got to lead an open-air life. She must get used
to things, mustn't she?"
Andy had a shamefaced feeling that the ordeals or lessons, if they were
necessary at all, had better be conducted in privacy. That had not
apparently occurred to Mr. Wellgood or to Isobel Vintry. Indeed that
aspect of the case did not seem to trouble Vivien herself either; she
showed no signs of shame; she was smiling still, looking rather puzzled.
"I wonder why I was so much less frightened." She turned her eyes
suddenly to Andy. "I know. It was because you were there!"
"You ran away, in spite of Mr. Harry's being here yesterday," Isobel
reminded her.
"Mr. Hayes is so splendidly big--so splendidly big and solid," said
Vivien, thoughtfully regarding Andy's proportions. "When he's here, I
don't think I shall be half so much afraid."
"Oh, then Mr. Wellgood must ask him to come again," laughed Isobel. "You
see how useful you'll be, Mr. Hayes!"
"I shall be delighted to come again, anyhow, if I'm asked--whether I'm
useful or not. And I think it was jolly plucky of you to stand still as
you did, Miss Wellgood. If I were in a funk, I should cut and run for
it, I know."
"I thought you'd been a soldier," said Isobel.
"Oh, well, it's different when there are a lot of you together.
Besides--" He chuckled. "You're not going to get me to let on that I was
in a funk then. Those are our secrets, Miss Vintry. Well now, I must go,
unless--"
"No, there are no more tests of courage to-day, Mr. Hayes," laughed
Isobel.
Vivien's eyes had relapsed into inexpressiveness; they told Andy nothing
of her view of the trials, or of Miss Vintry, who had conducted the
latest one; they told him no more of her view of himself as she gave him
her hand in farewell. He left her still standing on the spot where she
had endured Curly's violent though well-meant attentions--again rather a
pathetic figure, in her torn habit, with the long red scratch (by-the-by
Miss Vintry had made no inquiry about it--that was part of the system
perhaps) on her forehead, and with the background, as it were, of
ordeals, or tests, or whatever they were to be called. Andy wondered
what they would try her with to-morrow, and found himself sorry that he
would not be there--to help her with his bigness and solidity.
It was difficult to say that Mr. Wellgood's system was wrong. It was
absurd for a grown girl--a girl living in the country--to be frightened
at horses, dogs, and motor-cars, to be disgusted by dirt and dust, by
getting very hot--and by butchers' shops. All these were things which
she would have to meet on her way through the world, as the world is at
present constituted. Still he was sorry for her; she was so slight and
frail. Andy would have liked to take on his broad shoulders all her
worldly share of dogs and horses, of dust, of getting very hot (a thing
he positively liked), and of butchers; these things would not have
troubled him in the least; he would have borne them as easily as he
could have carried Vivien herself in his arms. As he walked home he had
a vision of her shuddering figure, with its pale face and reticent eyes,
being led by Isobel Vintry's firm hand into Jack Rock's shop in High
Street, and there being compelled to inspect, to touch, to smell, the
blue-rosetted, red-rosetted, and honourably mentioned carcasses which
adorned that Valhalla of beasts--nay, being forced, in spite of all
horror, to touch Jack Rock the butcher himself! Isobel Vintry would, he
thought, be capable of shutting her up alone with all those dead things,
and with the man who, as she supposed, had butchered them.
"I should have to break in the door!" thought Andy, his vanity flattered
by remembering that she had seen in him a stand-by, and a security which
apparently even Harry Belfield had been unable to afford. True it was
that in order to win the rather humble compliment of being held a
protection against an absolutely harmless retriever dog he had lost his
day's hunting. Andy's heart was lowly; he did not repine.