Lewis looked at his watch, muttering, “More than an hour to Walter’s dinner-time.” He then continued, “Get up, Richards; I have not quite done with these horses yet;” adding, in reply to the man’s questioning glance as he reseated himself, “I’m only going to teach them that a herd of deer is not such a frightful object as they seem to imagine it.”
“Surely you’re never agoin’ to take’em near the deer again, Mr. Arundel; they’ll never stand it, sir,” expostulated Richards.
“You can get down if you like,” observed Lewis, with the slightest possible shade of contempt in his tone. “I will pick you up here as I return.”
Richards was a thorough John Bull, and it is a well-known fact that to hint to one of that enlightened race that he is afraid to do the most insane deed imaginable is quite sufficient to determine him to go through with it at all hazards. Accordingly, the individual in question pressed his hat on his brows to be prepared for the worst, and folding his arms with an air of injured dignity, sat sullenly hoping for an overturn, which might prove him right, even at the risk of a broken neck.
Lewis’s quick eye had discerned the herd of deer against a dark background of trees which had served to screen them from the less acute perceptions of the servant, and he now contrived, by skirting the aforesaid belt of Scotch firs, to bring the phaeton near the place where the deer were stationed without disturbing them, so that the horses were able clearly to see the creatures which had before so greatly alarmed them. It has been often remarked that horses are greatly terrified by an object seen but indistinctly, at which, when they are able to observe it more closely, they will show no signs of fear. Whether for this reason, or that the discipline they had undergone had cooled their courage and taught them the necessity of obedience, the iron-greys approached the herd of deer without attempting to repeat the manoeuvre which had been so nearly proving fatal to their driver and his companion. Lewis drove them up and down once or twice, each time decreasing the distance between the horses and the animals, to the sight of which he wished to accustom them, without any attempt at rebellion on their part beyond a slight preference for using their hind legs only in progression, and a very becoming determination to arch their necks and point their ears after the fashion of those high-spirited impossibilities which do duty for horses in Greek friezes and in the heated imagination of young lady artists, who possess a wonderful (a very wonderful) talent for sketching animals. Having continued this amusement till the deer once again conveyed themselves away, Lewis, delighted at having carried his point and overcome the difficulties which had opposed him, drove gently back to Broadhurst; and having committed the reeking horses to the care of a couple of grooms, who began hissing at them like a whole brood of serpents, returned to make his report and soothe the tribulation of that anxious hyæna in petticoats, Miss Martha Livingstone.
CHAPTER XIX.—CHARLEY LEICESTER BEWAILS HIS CRUEL MISFORTUNE.
Frere’s answer to Lewis’s note made its appearance at Broadhurst on the morning of the second day after that on which the events narrated in the previous chapter took place. It ran as follows:—
“Dear Lewis,—I think I’ve told you before—(if it wasn’t you it was your sister, which is much the same thing)—not to write such a pack of nonsense as ‘adding to my many kindnesses,’ and all that sort of stuff, because it’s just so much time and trouble wasted. I see no particular kindness in it, that’s the fact. You and she live in the country, and I in town; and if there is anything that either of you want here, why of course it’s natural to tell me to get or to do it for you; and as to apologising, or making pretty speeches every time you require anything, it’s sheer folly; besides, I like doing the things for you. If I didn’t I wouldn’t do them, you may depend upon that; so no more of such rubbish ‘an you love me.’ And now, touching those interesting, or rather interested, individuals, Messrs. Jones & Levi. I thought when I read their letter they were rascals or thereabouts, but a personal interview placed the matter beyond doubt; and if you take my advice, you’ll see them—well, never mind where—but keep your £10 in your pocket, that’s all. Depend upon it, they are more used to making rich men poor than poor ones rich. However, I’ll tell you all their sayings and doings, as far as I am acquainted therewith, and then you can judge for yourself. As soon as I received your letter I trudged off into the city, found the den of thieves—I mean the lawyer’s office—of which I was in search, sent in my card by an unwashed Israelite with a pen behind each ear and ink all over him, whom I took to be a clerk, and by the same unsavoury individual was ushered into the presence of Messrs. Jones & Levi. Jones was a long cadaverous-looking animal, with a clever, bad face, and the eye of a hawk; Levi, a fat Jew, and apparently a German into the bargain, with a cunning expression of countenance and a cringing manner, who gave one the idea of having been fed on oil-cake till he had become something of the sort himself; a kind of man who, if you had put a wick into him, wouldn’t have made a bad candle, only one should so have longed to snuff him out. Well, I soon told these worthies what I was come about, and then waited to hear all they had to say for themselves. The Gentile, being most richly gifted with speech, took upon him to reply—