“Salve! All hail, Macbeth! Glorificamus, all round!” cried the former. “Roland, old chap, you don’t seem quite the thing. In the words of the poet, you look decidedly ‘chippy.’”
“Enough to make one, you ruffian, to have a cyclone like yourself bursting upon one’s quiet breakfast-room without any warning.”
“Haw! haw! Coffee, yes, decidedly. Breakfast? no—emphatically,” cried Eustace, running two replies into one. “And, Olive, I must say, it’s disgraceful of you, reared in the sweet seclusion of a virtuous rectory, only just sitting down to breakfast at ten o’clock. Disgraceful, I repeat.”
“Oh, Eusty, in the words of the poet—shut up!” laughed Olive. “Mr Marsland, I don’t think you’ve met my sister?” And she introduced them. Sophie had grown up a very pretty girl. Her vivacity, however, was dashed with a tinge of shyness in the company of strangers, which was rather “fetching.” Now she looked very engaging in her furry winter costume, her bright face sparkling with animation, and crowned by a becoming arrangement of golden hair. Marsland’s somewhat susceptible heart was impressed.
“No. But I think we should have broken the ice, anyhow, Mrs Dorrien,” he answered with a laugh.
“Break the ice? No you don’t,” cried the irrepressible Eustace. “At least not till this evening, when we flood it. And now, look sharp and finish the oats, good people, for we’ve come to pick you up, and Spelder Fields is over two miles off.”
“All right. I’ll send and order the waggonette,” said Roland, getting up.
“Waggonette be hanged!” was the ceremonious rejoinder. “We are going to ride Shanks His Mare. And I tell you what, Roland, you lazy dog, you had better do ditto. Some leg work, this gorgeous morning, will do you all the good in the world. Quite set you up again,” he grinned, with a wink at Marsland.
“Set me up, eh? But I turned in before you did!”
“Did he, Olive? No, I won’t bet. I’ll have no chance against your combined perjuries. But Roland, why didn’t you turn up at our place last night and feed, instead of sneaking off home. The dad was expecting you. He wanted to run you against that great gun, Hurrell, the padre who held forth. Wasn’t he lively, eh?”