"Quite right too," I said, with dowager-like propriety. "And I should wish it to be clearly understood that if, at the last moment, your friend Mr. Lyney should be too drunk to ride, I will not take his place."
"He doesn't drink," said Dr. Fraser, who has an unsympathetic way of keeping to the point. "He's been a great friend of mine ever since I mended a broken finger for him."
There was a stir among the cormorants on the lower tier of boulders, a shot was fired at the far end of the course, every one began to shout, and an irregularly shaped mass was detached from the crowd, and resolved itself into a group of seven horses, pounding towards us at a lumbering canter. One of the riders had a green jacket, the others were in shirt sleeves, with coloured scarves over their shoulders; all were bareheaded. As they neared the first jump, I found myself on my feet on my boulder, with two unknown men hanging on to me to steady themselves.
"That's no throuble to them!" shouted one of my attachés, as each horse in turn galloped over or through the barrier of furze in the gap.
"Which is Lyney Garrett?" I asked.
"That's him on the chestnut mare—the jock that have the dhress on him." He pointed to the wearer of the green jacket.
"Ah ha! Lyney's the boy! Look at him now, how he'll stoop and leave the horse to go for herself! He'll easy the horse, and he'll easy himself!"
"That Rambling Katty he's riding's a nice loose mare—she has a good fly in her," said another.
"Lyney's built for it. If there's any sort of a spring in a horse at all, he'll make him do it."
"He'd make a donkey plough!" flung in another enthusiast.