The present tenants had naturally selected the most weather-tight quarters, and these were in opposite ends of the venerable residence. As Gascoigne came whirling through the entrance gate, he was waylaid by three dogs, a fox-terrier, an Irish terrier, and a nondescript hound, and it was immediately evident that he belonged to them, from their yelps of hearty welcome, and the manner in which all three scuttled up the drive in the wake of Sally Lunn.
As the cart stopped, and the syce sprang down, Shafto appeared in the verandah. He wore the usual hot-weather mess dress, spotless white linen, and a coloured silk cummerband, and looked strikingly handsome as he stood bare-headed in the moonlight, gravely contemplating his comrade.
"Upon my soul, Phil, I began to think the brute had smashed you up at last! I've been sitting here listening hard for twenty minutes, precisely as if I were your anxious grandmother. I know Sally's trot half a mile away. What kept you?"
"Down dogs, down," cried their master, as he descended. "I had no notion it was so late, and for a drive, this is the best time of the whole day."
"Whole night you mean," corrected Shafto; "it's half-past eight—where have you been? Sally looks as if she had had enough for once."
"She's had about twenty-two miles," admitted her owner, now taking off his cap and subsiding into one of the two long chairs which furnished the verandah. "The Lucknow road is like a billiard table, and we made our own wind."
"We?" ejaculated his listener.
"Yes, I took that child Angel from next door; it was a rare treat for the poor little beggar, and she coaxed me to go on mile after mile."
"Oh, did she! Well, as long as she is only the angel next door I don't mind," said Shafto, tossing away the stump of a cigarette; "an angel in the house, I bar. This establishment is already the home of rest for lost dogs"—pointing to the trio—"ill-used ekka ponies, and a lame bullock. Don't, for God's sake, bring in a child."
"You need not alarm yourself," said his friend composedly. "I should not know what to do with her. The animals, at least, are grown up."