“Hell, yes,” said I, thinking of Pat.
Ethel frowned at me and explained to Cherry the bad influence under which we had been.
“No, we’re going to get a team to take us up. We only took this because we would have missed the train if we had walked.”
“Don’t do any such thing,” said Cherry. “It will be perfectly delicious to ride up in a cart, and in that lovely new-mown hay. Mmh, how sweet it smells.”
“No evening clothes for me,” thought I, and I was right. Cherry had come up to have a good time and to forget that such a place as New York and its exactions ever existed, and when she had settled herself in the hay with her traps all about her and her trunk for her to lean her back against, we started out for the return trip, while Ethel told her of our good luck with the piano.
I will confess that the inhabitants of Egerton eyed us curiously, for Ethel did not look like a carter, and Cherry was very modish, and I was not in the costume of a teamster. And we had to stop at the grocery store to get lemons and things.
Altogether these were not pleasant moments, and I was glad when we turned our backs on Egerton and began the ascent of the hills.
“Th’ ould scut” was a good walker and he went up the hills as if he smelt his dinner ahead of him.
“Think of it,” said Ethel. “The harness hasn’t broken yet!”
“How perfectly delicious to think of it,” said Cherry. “It really looks as if each moment would be its next. How was he ever ingenious enough to tie it all together in that fascinating way? He must be a character. I do wish the horse would stop. So you could start him again.”