About a dozen riders had been whipped up to take part in this preposterous affair, and were standing about on the grass in front of Shreelane, cutting up the turf as much as the hardness of the ground would permit, and making as much noise as a pack of hounds at feeding time. The April sun glared hot, the better part of a north-easterly gale was blowing, the horses had over-eaten themselves with the bread of idleness, and were fat and frisky.
"Is he any good?" said Flurry to me in a low voice, with his eye on Andrew, who was sitting, shrouded in gloom and remoteness, on the chestnut horse.
"Ask Miss Longmuir," I said. "She was schooling with him on Saturday."
"I'll have plenty to do minding her, without asking her questions that she couldn't answer," returned Flurry. He resumed his survey of Andrew. "I wonder will he be able to hold that horse in a snaffle? He catches hold an odd time."
"Stand by!" said Doctor Hickey, his watch in his hand. "Fifteen seconds more before the hares start!"
"Well, if Larpent goes as big as he talks, he'll do," said Flurry, gathering up his reins.
The ten minutes of grace ebbed slowly away, and preposterous though I still held the affair to be, I do not deny that I was aware of an inward simmering of impatience.
"I'll have the face worn off my watch looking at it if you don't let us start soon!" said Miss Larkie McRory to Hickey.
She was mounted on a long-legged animal that had been summarised by Flurry as "the latter end of a car-horse," and was certainly in need of all the time it could get.
"Don't excite yourself now, or I'll be having to order you a cooling draught!" returned the Doctor, but I perceived that he, in common with everyone else, was edging his horse towards the point of departure.