CHAPTER V.
A HUNTING MORNING
On such a morning as hunting folk live for, some ten days after the conversation between Stapledon and Mr. Endicott, Christopher, who did not himself hunt, drove Honor to a meet of the Mid Devon. Taking his dog-cart down a mossy by-path at the spinney-side, he stopped not fifty yards distant from where a patch of scarlet marked the huntsman's standpoint. Above was a race of broken clouds and gleam of sunshine from pale blue sky; below spread opaline air and naked boughs, save where great tods of ivy shone; while underneath nervous tails twitched among brown fern and wintry furzes. Then a whimper came from the heart of the wood, and two old hounds threw up their heads, recognised the sound for a youngster's excitement, and put nose to earth again. A minute later, however, and a full bay echoed deep and clear; whereupon the pair instantly galloped whence the music came.
Honor and her companion sat in Christopher's dog-cart behind a fine grey cob.
"They know that's no young duffer," said Yeoland, as the melody waxed and the hounds vanished; "he's one of their own generation and makes no mistake. If the fox takes them up to the Moor, sport is likely to be bad, for it's a sponge just now, and the field won't live with the hounds five minutes. Ah! he's off! And to the Moor he goes."
Soon a business-like, hard-riding, West Country field swept away towards the highlands, and silence fell again.
Christopher then set out for Little Silver, while conversation drifted to their personal interests and the prosperity in which each now dwelt—a thing foreseen by neither three short years before. They had no servant with them and spoke openly.
"My touchstone was gold; yours a husband of gold," said Christopher. "Money he possessed too, but it is the magic man himself who has made Endicott's what it is now."
"Yes, indeed—dear Myles. And yet I'm half afraid that the old, simple joy in natural things passes him by now. It seems as though he and I could never be perfectly, wholly happy at the same time. While I went dismal mad and must have made his life a curse, he kept up, and never showed the tribulation that he felt, but was always contented and cheerful and patient. Now that I am happier, I feel that he is not. Yes, he is not as happy as I am. He has told me a thousand times that content is the only thing to strive for; and certainly he proved it, for he was well content once; but now our positions are reversed, and I am contented with my life, while daily he grows less so."
"He's a farmer, and a contented farmer no man ever saw, because God never made one."