“What, with them horses, sir? Yes, easy. They’ve got a shocking bad team. They never have a decent change here. Lookye here, sir. You put on a decent canter, and you’ll be up to them before they get to Drumley. The road’s awful for wheels for about six miles; but when you get about a mile on from here, you can turn off the road on the off-side, and there’s five miles of good, close turf for you where a chaise couldn’t go, but there’s plenty of room for a horse. Good-night, sir; thankye, sir. Good luck to you.”
Mellersh said “good-night” and cantered off after his companions, his steed needing no urging to join its fellows.
“Anyone would think that a guinea dissolved into golden oil and made a man’s temper and his tongue run easily. I can’t prove it, but I should not be surprised if that was one of Rockley’s own guineas. Odd. Running him down with his own horses, and his own coin. Well, he deserves it all.”
“We’re on the track right enough, Dick,” he cried, as he overtook Linnell; Bell, in his impatience, being a couple of hundred yards ahead.
“Are you sure? I don’t understand this fellow. Why should he be so eager to overtake that scoundrel?”
“Can’t say. Puzzled me,” replied Mellersh drily.
“Is he leading us wrong?”
“No. We are well on our way, and shall overtake them by the time they reach the next posting house. Forward.”
Mellersh did not feel quite sure, but his confidence increased as he found the postboy’s words correct about the badness of the road, and the smooth turf at the side, on to which they turned, and cantered along easily for mile after mile.
Every now and then Bell burst forth with some fierce expletive, as if he could not contain his rage; and they gathered that at times it was against himself, at others against Rockley. As fierce a rage, too, burned in Linnell’s breast, compounded of bitter hatred, jealousy, and misery.