“Coming,” cried Burr major. Then to me: “After morning studies, you sir. I don’t suppose I shall forget.”
“If you do, I shan’t, bully,” I said, and he turned upon me more astonished than ever, and then burst into a fit of derisive laughter.
“He’s mad,” he cried. “Here, boys, Senna’s been gammoning him into taking some of his physic, and he don’t know what he’s saying.”
“Dicksee—Burr major. Come, boys.”
Mr Rebble was standing in the schoolhouse doorway, and all but Burr major ran off. He took out his watch, and walked away importantly after the others, while I felt a peculiar nervous thrill run through me, and began wondering whether I had been too bold, as I went off hurriedly now to where Lomax was waiting with the horse.
“I don’t care,” I said; “he may thrash me, but I won’t be bullied like that, and insulted, without a try.”
“Come, young gentleman,” cried the sergeant. “I began to think you were going to shirk it.”
“Not I, Lom,” I cried, and, feeling peculiarly excited, I went up to the horse’s head and patted him, while the sergeant removed the stirrups. Then he gave me a leg up, and I was hoisted into my seat, and went through my lesson—walk, trot, and gallop, with the saddle seeming less slippery, and without coming off once.
The sergeant, I noticed, was very severe, and barked and shouted at me and the horse, keeping us doing the same things over and over again, and growing more exacting as we went on. But I hardly noticed him, for my head was all in a whirl, and I was thinking about after lessons, and what would happen then. So occupied was I with my thoughts that I never once felt nervous, but as if all I had to do was to sit still and let the horse obey the orders.
Lomax finished me off with a canter round the paddock, which was taken at a pretty good pace, and very easy the horse’s pace was, but I was thinking of Burr major’s sneering face all the time, and his long arms and bony white hands. Then about Mercer, and what he would say—what he would do.