“That’s the best fellow in England,” said Charlie, as he pointed out his friend to his companion. “I shall be glad when it’s settled, Mrs. Delaval, as I know it soon will be.” Mary thought they were on tender ground, and applied herself diligently to her driving without producing any great increase of pace on the part of philosophical Scrub. “Ah!” said Charlie, and his voice trembled as he spoke, “I’ve envied Frank all my life, and I envy him more than ever now.”
“You do?” replied Mary, glancing quickly at him, while her heart for the moment seemed to stand still.
“Not his bride, Mrs. Delaval,” replied Charlie, “for his bride you’ll see she will be. No, no; I’m very fond of Blanche, but not in that way.” Mary was blushing crimson, and it was surprising what a deal of driving that little pony required as Charlie proceeded. “But I envy him all he has that I can never have again—health, strength, all that makes life enjoyable—all that was once mine, but that I feel I have now lost for ever.”
“Don’t say so,” replied Mary, though her rising tears almost choked her utterance, “don’t say so. With care and good advice, and all of us to nurse you, oh, you must, you shall get well;” but even as she spoke she felt a sad foreboding at her heart. Charlie caught her glance, though it was almost instantly averted, and he proceeded as if half to himself—
“I could bear it well enough if I was like Frank in one respect, if I knew my life was bound to another’s, and that other the one I cared most for in the world. I could struggle on for her sake; but no, I shall leave none such behind me, and perhaps it is better.”
“Do you think we are so heartless?” she burst forth; “do you think we can part with you without a murmur? With you, for whom we have watched and prayed and longed all those dreary months; dreary indeed whilst you were——” Mary stopped short. She felt she had said too much, but it was Charlie’s turn to blush now. His breath came quick and short; the boy dared not look the woman in the face, but he put his hand into his bosom and drew out a glove—a white kid glove it was formerly, now sadly soiled and discoloured, for a gallant heart had been beating against it many a long month—but with a rim of velvet round the wrist; there was no doubt of its identity, nor of the fair hand it once had fitted. Charlie drew it out and pressed it to his lips. She turned on him one swimming glance. They understood each other; the moment had at length arrived when—
“Gently, Ravager! back, hounds, back!”—and the loud crack of a hunting-whip disturbed their romantic tête-à-tête at this critical moment, and announced the proximity of that well-known pack denominated the Hark-holloa Hounds, trotting gently on towards the place of meeting, and rapidly overtaking the pony-carriage and its pre-occupied inmates. The noble impulse of equine emulation, usually dormant in the shaggy form of Scrub, was now aroused by the inspiring influence of the passing pageant, and the clean, dainty-looking, motley-coloured pack; the neat, well-appointed servants in their bright scarlet coats and glossy velvet caps; the well-bred, well-groomed, hunting-looking horses they bestrode stepping airily along, jingling their bits, and snorting to the morning breeze. All these objects raised the mettle of Blanche’s quiet pony, and Mary had now enough to do in earnest, as he tugged at the reins and drew them rapidly on in rear of the pack towards a slight elevation in the distance crowned by a windmill, and rejoicing in the dignified title of Crop Hill. A renewal of the tender subject was impossible, for as they neared the trysting-place the plot thickened rapidly, and sportsman after sportsman cantering by on his covert-hack had a bow for Mrs. Delaval, and a word to exchange with Charlie; now congratulating him on his return, now condoling with him for his inability to ride, now cordially hoping that he will soon be in the saddle, with an inquiry after the welfare of the celebrated Haphazard. Charlie’s spirits rose as they proceeded, and ere they reached the windmill he was a boy again.
“Yoi, over there!” holloaed the huntsman, standing in his stirrups and waving the willing pack into the cover, a patch of sunny gorse lying on the south side of the hill, and commanding a vale of large green pastures that to contemplate alone brought the light into Charlie’s eye.
“This way,” said the General, sidling and piaffing and coming tail first towards the pony-carriage, for the double purpose of placing it in a favourable position for viewing the proceedings, and of exhibiting his own horsemanship before the eyes of Mrs. Delaval. The General was under the impression that if there was one thing in which more than another he excelled, it was the art of manège equitation, and perhaps on an animal less self-willed than the black cob he might have been a very Bellerophon, but certainly at the present juncture he jerked, and fumed, and kicked, and wiped his brows in anything but a graceful mode of progression.