CHAPTER V.—PROVES THE ADVISABILITY OF LOOKING BEFORE YOU LEAP.
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.