"Regret horses not available; am trying to procure others; will send by next train if possible."
We said that there was no answer, and we finished our breakfasts in a gravity scarcely lightened by Flurry's almost religious confidence in Flavin's infallibility, and in his power of making horses out of rushes, like the fairies, if need be.
I was, I may admit, from the first thoroughly pessimistic. I almost went up and got into ordinary clothes; I at least talked of doing so, as a means of preparing Philippa for the worst. I said it was a mere waste of time to send the Butler-Knox coachman to the station, as had been arranged, and I did my best to dissuade Flurry from his intention of riding to the meet by way of the station to help in unboxing animals that could not possibly be there.
In abysmal dejection my wife and I surveyed the departing forms of Mr. and Mrs. Florence Knox; the former on the Dodger, a leggy brown four-year-old, the planting of whom upon General Porteous had been the germ of the expedition; while Sally skipped and sidled upon a narrow, long-tailed chestnut mare, an undefeated jumper, and up to about as much weight as would go by parcel post for ninepence. There then ensued a period of total desolation, in which we looked morosely at old photograph books in the drawing-room, and faced the prospect of a long day with the Butler-Knoxes, while heavy footsteps overhead warned us that our entertainers were astir, and that at any moment the day's conversation might begin.
I was engaged, not, I fancy, for the first time, in telling Philippa that I had always said that the entire expedition was a mistake, when Colonel Newcome again entered the room.
"The Master sent me to ask you, sir, if you'd like to have the pony-phaeton to drive down to the station to meet the half-past ten train. Flavin might be sending the horses on it, and it'd save you time to meet them there."
We closed with the offer; at its worst, the pony-carriage could be smoked in, which the drawing-room could not; at its best, it might save half-an-hour in getting to the meet. We presently seated ourselves in it, low down behind an obese piebald pony, with a pink nose, and a mane hogged to the height of its ears. As I took up the whip it turned and regarded us with an unblinkered eye, pink-lidded and small as a pig's.
"You should go through Fir Grove, sir," said the boy who had brought the equipage to the door, "it's half a mile of a short cut, and that's the way Tom will come with the horses. It's the first gate-lodge you'll meet on the road."
The mud was deep, and the piebald pony plodded through it at a sullen jog. The air was mild and chilly, like an uninteresting woman; the fore-knowledge of fiasco lay heavily upon us; it hardly seemed worth while to beat the pony when he sank into a walk; it was the most heart-broken forlorn hope that ever took the field.
The gate-lodge of Fir Grove fulfilled the assignation made for it by the stable boy, and met us on the road. The gates stood wide open, and the pony turned in as by an accustomed route, and crawled through them with that simulation of complete exhaustion that is the gift of lazy ponies. Loud narrative in a male voice proceeded from the dark interior of the lodge, and, as we passed, a woman's voice said, in horrified rejoinder: