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.