As she spoke, she glanced meaningly towards Horace D’Almayne, at that moment engaged in drawing on a pair of kid gloves too small even for his delicate hands. Coming forward, he languidly, and in an absent manner, volunteered to drive Miss Marsden—an offer which that young lady quietly accepted, either not perceiving, or disregarding, the look of annoyance with which her cousin turned and left the spot.
“Oh, you are going to ride, Mr. Coverdale; here comes Sir Lancelot, looking like a picture,” exclaimed Tom Hazlehurst, a fine, handsome lad, anno ætatis fourteen, an Etonian, and (need we add?) a pickle—“Oh! do let me go with you; Alice will lend me her pony—won’t you, Alice? I’ll take such care of it, and you don’t want it yourself, you know—ask her to lend it to me, Mr. Coverdale, do please.”
If Harry had a weakness, it was that he could never say no, when his good nature was appealed to in any matter in which another’s pleasure was involved. Tom, moreover, had conceived for him one of those violent friendships which boys feel towards men a few years older than themselves who realise their beau ideal of perfection; and Harry, pleased with his undisguised admiration, responded to it by indulging the young scapegrace in all his vagaries.
“I’m afraid my voice is not so potential as you imagine, Tom,” was his reply; “but if my assurance that I will use my best endeavours to keep you and the pony in good order, will have any weight with Miss Hazlehurst, I am perfectly willing to give it.”
“If papa has no objection, Tom, you have my consent,” replied Alice, blushing and smiling, while, at the bottom of her heart she wished both Mr. Crane and Harry safely located at Coventry, Jericho, or any other refuge for bores, that might be suitable for putting those who are in the way out of the way; in which case she would herself have enjoyed a canter with Master Tom.
“Oh, the Governor won’t say no—will you Daddy?” was Tom’s confident reply; and Mr. Hazlehurst, who, being a dreadful autocrat to his elder children, made up for it by weakly indulging his youngest born, having signified his consent, the cavalcade proceeded to start—a close carriage and a barouche conveying the remaining juveniles, and all the elders of the party, with the exception of Mrs. Hazlehurst, who, being a confirmed invalid, remained at home, in company with a weather-wise old maid, proprietress of a meteorological corn, which having given warning that a change was at hand, led her to mistrust the brilliant sunshine.
“Can’t we find our way across the fields somehow, Tom, without riding along the dusty road the whole distance inquired Harry.
“To be sure we can,” was the reply; “don’t I know a way, that’s all? Turn down the next lane to the right, and then there are lots of jolly grass fields and a wide common, so that we can gallop as much as we like, and get there before them—won’t they be surprised to see us just?”
“What a lark!”
Tom’s topographical knowledge proving correct, they cantered away merrily over field and common, till they had ridden some five or six miles.