"All right?" queried Scarsdale, looking up; and on receiving an answer in the affirmative, added: "Keep your feet well under his ears, and hit him on the head with your stick if he gets fractious. All you need do is to follow our carriage. Trust to his judgment about bridges; he knows what will hold him."
Arrangements, on a liberal scale, having been made for the use of the conveyance which had brought them from the station, they were ready to start in a very short space of time; Scarsdale stipulating that they head towards Southampton, taking the least travelled roads, and in any event giving Salisbury a wide berth. This was agreed to; and thereupon commenced one of the most extraordinary progresses that had ever stirred up a staid and conventional countryside: Scarsdale and Mrs. Allingford leading off in the landau, since it was necessary to keep the horse well in front of the elephant, and Tom and his charge plodding on in their wake.
As they left the lodge behind them and came out into the open country, the Consul's wife, turning to her companion in misfortune, said, between tears and smiles:
"What do you think is going to happen next?"
CHAPTER XI
IN WHICH THERE ARE TWO CLAIMANTS FOR ONE DINNER
The village clock was on the stroke of one when the little procession drew up before the door of the principal inn in the main square of a small town on the road between Salisbury and Southampton.
Scarsdale had been surprised to find how little excitement they had created in their progress through the countryside; but then he had chosen the most unfrequented roads, avoiding villages as he would a pestilence. Man and beast must be fed somewhere, however, and, according to Tom, the elephant was giving no uncertain signs that he wanted his dinner. So, against his better judgment, Scarsdale had turned aside into a neighbouring town, whence, after an hour's rest and refreshment, he determined to push on that afternoon to a quiet inn he knew of, near Fording Bridge, and thence to Christchurch the following morning.
Both he and Mrs. Allingford had been as quiet as mice during the last hour; indeed, the novel position in which they found themselves inclined them rather to thought than conversation.