CHAPTER XVI
HORSE AND HOUND
In spite of the fact that Fitz had accepted Alexander O'Mulligan's invitation to witness "Burns's do with the 'Gunner'" at the National Sporting Club that evening, he retrieved his motor from the garage in Regent Street, wherein Illyrian diplomacy had placed it, and immediately after luncheon set out for the country with that other item of his recovered property. He was accompanied by Coverdale. The Chief Constable seemed to feel that the peace of our county could not endure if he spent another night in the metropolis. He was certainly able to return in the simple consciousness of having done his duty. Like a man and a brother he had stood by a fellow Englishman in the hour of his need.
To one of primitive rural instincts, such as myself, London under even the most favourable conditions is apt to pall. During the reaction which followed the excitements of the previous night it filled me with loathing. But I owed it to an ingrained love of veracity that I should drive to Bolton Street to offer consolation to my grandmother in the hour of her affliction. She is a charming old lady, and she knows the world. She was unaffectedly glad to see me and immediately ordered a fire to be lit in the guest-chamber, although "she really didn't know that I was in need of money." My explanation that it was spontaneous natural affection which had led me to seek first-hand information on the perennial subject of her bronchitis, merely provoked a display of the engaging scepticism that seems to flourish in the hearts of old ladies of considerable private means.
At the first moment consistent with honour—to be precise, on the following Monday at noon—I found myself on No. 2 platform at the Grand Central. The guilt of my conscience was agreeably countered by the thrill of relief in my heart. I was going back to the Madam and Miss Lucinda. Less than three days ago long odds had been laid by an overwrought fancy that I should never see them again. Howbeit, the fates, in their boundless leniency, had ordained that I should return to tell the tale.
Yet, if I must confess the truth, such havoc had been worked with the delicately hung nervous system of "a married man, a father of a family, and a county member" that it would not have surprised me in the least, even now I had taken my ticket for Middleham, to find the hand of a well-dressed detective laid on my shoulder, or to find a revolver next my temple at the instance of some sombre alien. Still, these fears were hardly worthy of the broad light of day or of the distinction of my escort. Not only was my relation by marriage returning with me, but he had prevailed upon the amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain to accept Brasset's cordial invitation that he should satisfy himself that the gentle art of chasing the fox was quite as well understood by the Crackanthorpe Hounds as by the Galway Blazers.
In the presence of Alexander O'Mulligan's epic breadth of manner it was impossible for a man to take pessimistic views of his destiny. If I had a suspicion of the skill of a Dickens or a Thackeray I should try to give that "touch of the brogue" which flavoured the conversation of this paladin like a subtle condiment. Attached to our express in a loose box, in the care of a native of Kerry, was "an accomplished lepper" up to fifteen stone, not merely the envy of the Blazers, but of every man, woman, and child in the kingdom of Ireland. If his price was not three hundred of the yellow boys, his owner cordially invited anybody—anybody to contradict him violently.
Next to Alexander O'Mulligan's horse and his breadth of manner, his clothes call for mention. Their cut and style must be pronounced as "sporting." In particular his waistcoat was a thing of beauty. It was a canary of the purest dye, forming a really piquant, indeed æsthetic, contrast to the delicate tint of green in his eye. The presence in that organ of that genial hue is thought by some to invite the presumption of the worldly; but according to Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, whose humble devotion to his hero was almost pathetic, it called for a very stout fellow indeed "to try it on" with the amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain.
Nevertheless, like every paladin of the great breed, Alexander O'Mulligan was as gentle as he was brave. He had hardly set foot in Dympsfield House, which he did somewhere about tea-time on the day of his arrival in our parish, before he captured the heart of Miss Lucinda. He straightway assumed the rôle of a bear with the most realistic and thrilling completeness. Not only was his growl like distant thunder in the mountains, but also he had the faculty of rolling his eyes in a savage frenzy, and over and above everything else, a tendency to bite your legs upon little or no provocation. It was not until he had promised to marry her that she could be induced to part with him.