“Yes,” returned I, “I know it well; it is a favourite meet of the hounds, about twelve miles hence. I'll find him, and bring him here—what time is it? just two—if I could get a horse I would do it easily.”
“My tilbury and horse are up at the village,” said Archer; “now Harry's horses are at home, they could not take mine in at the hall.”
“The very thing,” said I, “we shall not lose a moment in that case. Is your horse fast? I shall have to try his mettle.”
“He'll not fail you,” was the reply, “but don't spare him—I would rather you should ruin fifty horses than arrive too late.”
On reaching the inn we had to rouse a drowsy hostler in order to procure the key of the stables, and it was half-past two before I was able, to start.
The road to Harley End was somewhat intricate, more than once I took a wrong turning, and was forced to retrace my steps; being aware also of the distance I had to perform, I did not dare to hurry the horse too much, so that it only wanted a quarter to four when I reached my destination. Here, however, fortune favoured me. Mr. Ellis, it appeared, being an ardent disciple of Isaac Walton, had resolved to rise at day-break in order to beguile sundry trout, and, at the entrance of the village, I met him strolling along, rod in hand. Two minutes sufficed to make him acquainted with the object of my mission, and in less than five minutes more (a space of time which I employed in washing out the horse's mouth at an opportune horse-trough, with which I took the liberty of making free) he had provided himself with a case of instruments and other necessary horrors, all of which he described to me seriatim, as we returned, with an affectionate minuteness for which I could have strangled him.
We started at a rattling pace on our homeward drive, hedgerow and fence gliding by us like slides in a magic lantern. Archer's horse did not belie the character he had given of him. With head erect, and expanded nostril, he threw his legs forward in a long slashing trot, whirling the light tilbury along at the rate of at least eleven miles an hour; and fortunate it was that he did not flinch from his work, for we had between thirteen and fourteen miles to perform in an hour and ten minutes in order to reach the appointed spot by five o'clock. In our way we had to pass within a quarter of a mile of Heathfield Hall; all seemed quiet as we did so, and I heard the old clock over the stables strike a quarter to five.
“We shall be in capital time,” said I, drawing a long breath, as I felt relieved from an anxious dread of being too late. “It was a near thing though, and if I had not met you as I did, we should scarcely have done it.”
“Famous horse,” replied Ellis; “but you've rather over-driven him the last two or three miles; if I were Archer, I should have a little blood taken from him—nothing like venesection; it's safe practice in such cases as the present. You've a remarkably clear head, Fairlegh, I know; now I'll just explain to you the common sense of the thing: the increased action of the heart forces the blood so rapidly through the lungs, that proper time is not allowed for oxygenisation——”
“We shall be in sight of the place when we have advanced another hundred yards,” interrupted I, as we turned down a green lane.