He raised his hat, and would have ridden on, but the general himself came up with outstretched hand:
‘Allow me, Mr. Larkins, to congratulate you. As one of the old regiment, I take a pride in any one who has contributed to its credit. You have done so, and right well. I am glad to think you have met with your deserts.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ put in the sweet voice of the daughter, and somehow the simple words were far more grateful to Herbert’s ears than the sonorous praises which fell from her father’s lips. ‘Yes, indeed, Mr. Larkins, it was a noble action, and we are all proud of it.’
The bright maiden had now grown into the fair and more staid and self-conscious, but winsome girl. Yet she was the same attractive little person, no less engaging, and far more dangerous now in her budding womanly beauty than when he had seen her last, still almost a child in her white habit, patronising him at the general’s inspection, and, metaphorically, patting him on the back.
Herbert muttered a few words in acknowledgment of the general’s courteous approval. Edith he thanked by a grateful look, which had perhaps more meaning in it than he intended, or that she exactly liked.
‘I do believe they have found, father!’ she cried; and as she spoke there was a sudden stir and bustle at the far end of the field. Next moment came the whimper of a hound; then the cheering voice of the huntsman, then the twang of a horn, then a whole chorus of voices—for out here everyone acted as amateur whip and unprofessional aid—swelling up into a grand volume of sound.
‘Yoicks! For’rad! Ga—wn a—way!’
It promised to be a capital burst. They had been drawing the White House covert, and the fox headed for the Majarambu woods. The country was rough; now and again you came to a precipice like the side of a house; next to a long slope studded, as it might be, with the great boulders of an old world glacier or moraine; then broad uplands clothed with broad tufts of the gum cistus, just high enough to oblige your horse to take them in a series of quick jumps not always very easy to sit. The pace was good, the going difficult, and, an unusual thing, the run was protracted for more than a quarter of an hour. Ere long the field began to tail off, and presently there were very few people in the first flight. Bill Ackroyd, the huntsman, was one, so was the M.F.H., Herbert also, and Edith Prioleau, but without her papa. The general had got into difficulties at a wide drain, where, as some irreverent subalterns remarked, it was to be hoped he might stay, at least beyond the following Saturday, so that they might escape the usual weekly field-day upon the North Front.
In the exuberant enjoyment of galloping at top speed over a break-neck country, Edith had all but forgotten the existence of her father. No doubt he would turn up at the first check. Runs were not so plentiful, and this one was far too good to lose. She meant to see it out to the very last.
Not quite. There must be accidents sometimes, as the Spanish journals say when describing bull-fights; and all at once Edith’s horse, a not too surefooted barb, put his foot in a hole, and he and his rider came down together.