“I think you are very rash to put me up on your horses when you don’t in the least know how I can ride.”
“Ah! well, I’ll trust you; though, indeed, after the funk you were put into by poor old Moll, I suppose I may expect to see you turning back at the first fence.”
To this sally I vouchsafed no reply.
“I must take the mare out this afternoon,” he continued, “to try can she jump. Blackthorn wants shoeing, or you should ride him; but I thought perhaps you’d like to walk up to the farm to see me schooling the mare. It’s only as far as those fields opposite the lodge that I’ll go.”
This was, I thought, a very good suggestion. A prospective day with the hounds made me anxious to see what Irish fences were like, and we settled to start early in the afternoon.
At lunch Uncle Dominick was more conversational than I had yet seen him.
“What have you been doing with yourself this morning, Theo, my dear?”—for the first time adopting the more familiar form of my name. “The roses in your cheeks do credit to our Irish air.”
Uncle Dominick’s faded gallantry always had the effect of making me shy and constrained. I laughed nervously, and before I could reply Willy struck in—
“She was round to the stables with me, sir.”
“Oho! so that was it, was it?” said my uncle, with the smile I disliked so much; and I felt that at that moment my cheeks more resembled peonies than roses.