'I will go round to the High Street again,' said Robina. 'Some of them will be sure to come back to look for me.'
'Where did you have luncheon? Will not they be there?'
'At Mr. Welsh's; but I don't think we were to go back there. We were to get in at the inn where the carriage was to be put up, only I don't know the name of it. My brother drove there after setting us down.'
Lord Ernest applied to a policeman for the name and locality of the principal stables. 'The Antelope,' he said; but it proved to be in the opposite direction to Mr. Welsh's, and so distant that Robina doubted whether Felix could have gone thither. She begged not to delay her companion; and he answered, as she knew he would, that he was quite at her service; indeed, she was quite at her ease so far as he was personally concerned, and if it had been any other town in the kingdom except perhaps Bexley, Oxford, or Minsterham, she would sooner have trusted to him in a difficulty than to any one whose name did not end with wood. He was too considerate to worry her with talking during the quick walk, and with some difficulty he caught a busy ostler, who averred that Mr. Underwood's carriage had not been there at all—no, not the horse, which he knew perfectly well. He evidently thought the new Squire's family rightly served for deserting their ancient haunt, and he ran away instead of answering whether there were other yards nearer Mr. Welsh's.
Nothing remained but to retrace their steps up the steep High Street that climbed the Castle cliff, meeting many a load of happy people who had found their carriages. Presently they came full on Mrs. Fulbert Underwood, who had been one of the callers in the last week, but who would have passed without recognition, but for Robina's despairing entreaty, 'Could you tell me where our carriage can be put up?'
'What! Rosina Underwood! I am surprised!'
'I have missed the others in the crowd at the Castle. I thought I should have met them at the Antelope, but our carriage has not been there.'
'We always put up at the Antelope,' said Mrs. Underwood; 'there may be inferior stables, but I do not know them. I have not been to all this lecturing—I don't like such things for ladies; but I can go round by Vale Leston, and set you down.'
'No, thank you. I could walk if that were all, only I must find the others, for they will not go without me.'
'Oh! if you are better off—I did not see that you had a beau. Mr. Harewood?'