It was the happiest party that occupied the wagonette on that drive to and from Mr. Hannaford's farm at Market Roding. Lord Burdon, Rollo, Percival—each declared it that evening to have been the very jolliest time that ever was.
"Well, we have had a jolly day, haven't we, old man?" Lord Burdon said to Rollo when he kissed him good night. Lord Burdon had worn a shabby old suit and had told the boys stories till, as he assured them, his tongue ached; and had walked with them about Mr. Hannaford's farm, with Percival prancing on one side and Rollo quietly beaming on the other. In London, in the life that Lady Burdon directed at Mount Street, such careless, childish joys were impossible. Not since the day he had spent with Rollo at the Zoölogical Gardens, when Lady Burdon was at Ascot, had he so completely enjoyed himself—and not a doubt but that the bursting excitement of young Percival was responsible for the far greater joviality of this day at Mr. Hannaford's.
"Did I tell you about when they came to the ditch while we were walking over the farm?" Lord Burdon asked Lady Burdon. "That little beggar Percival—"
Lady Burdon looked at him over the book she was reading. "Not a sixth time, please, Maurice," she said. "I'm really rather tired of hearing it," and Lord Burdon assumed his foolishly distressed look and for the remainder of the evening sat smiling over the jolly day in silence.
The jolliest day for Rollo! He had been the quiet one of the party because to be retiring was his nature, but when Percival shouted and when Percival jumped, Rollo's heart was in the shout and Rollo's spirit bounded with the jump. He had never believed there could be such a friend for him or so much new fun in life. Hitherto his chief companion had been his mother, his constant mood a dreamy and shrinking habit of mind. Vigorous Percival introduced him to the novelty of "games," showed him what mirth was, and what vigorous young limbs could do. The jolliest day! He fell asleep that night thinking of Percival; in his dreams with Percival raced and shouted; awakened in the morning with Percival for his first thought.
And of course it was the jolliest day for Percival. "I never had such fun, you know," Percival declared to Aunt Maggie. "I rode the pony all alone and Mr. Hannaford said I was a Pocket Marvel; so I should like to know what you think of that?"
Mr. Hannaford, indeed, was mightily pleased with Percival. Mr. Hannaford was an immensely stout man with a tremendously deep voice and with very twinkling little eyes set in a superbly red face. He wore brown leather gaiters and very tight cord-breeches and a very loose tail-coat of tweed, cut very square. From his habit of never removing his bowler hat in the house even at meals, the common belief was that he slept in it, and he punctuated his sentences when he spoke, and marked his alternate strides when he walked, by tremendously loud cracks of a bamboo cane against a gaitered leg. It was his frequent habit when he desired emphasis to bless what he termed his "eighteen stun proper," and he caused Rollo to giggle by his trick of calling a horse "a norse."
Mr. Hannaford received his visitors by raising his hat as far from his head as any one had ever seen it, by giving three terrific cracks of his cane against his leg, and by extending to Rollo and Percival in turn a hand of the size of a small shoulder of mutton.
"Well, you've come to the right place for a little 'orse, me lord, bless my eighteen stun proper if you haven't," Mr. Hannaford declared. "And 'll want a proper little 'orse for your lordship's son, moreover," continued Mr. Hannaford, after another tremendous leg-and-cane crack and looking admiringly at Percival.
Percival was quick with the correction. "Oh, I'm not his son. I'm only a little boy, you know. I can ride, though, because sometimes I pretend I'm a horse all day long; so I should like to know what you think of that?"