“Good morning, sir,” said the parlour-maid feelingly. “I hope you’ll get home before the storm starts.”
But Andy did not care, as he jogged along home again, whether the rain fell or not. He had come in the cart so as to present an immaculate appearance to the Beloved and the Beloved’s aunt, and he had used nearly quarter of a bottle of brilliantine to ensure his curls remaining flat under any stress of circumstance, and now she was out. He didn’t care what happened after that. Somehow he had never expected her to be out when he wanted to ask her to marry him. He felt vaguely that fate ought to have waited on so important an event.
The pony took his own time, clicking doggedly on the long way back, “Come on—Come on—Come on,” and about half-way home a heavy thunderstorm broke over the country, lightning zigzagged in streaks across the horizon, and at length followed a deluge of rain. Andy had brought no mackintosh or overcoat, and the big drops whistled down in sheets from a still, low sky upon his shoulders and the pony’s back.
It was such a storm as sometimes comes in an English summer after a long spell of dryish weather, and it seemed capable of going on for ever.
Andy eyed the landscape with a dreary gaze, and felt a savage pleasure in being as uncomfortable as possible until he remembered that his best suit was being ruined, and that the pony and cart had absorbed all his available spare cash. If the time ever came when the Beloved were at home—but that now seemed vague and improbable—he would have to court her in his second-best suit.
Another grievance against fate.
He was surveying the trotting pony with an uninterested gaze, including even that new and cherished possession amongst the things that did not matter, when his glance suddenly sharpened. What on earth——? He jumped out of the cart and ran round to the pony’s left side. Yes, his sight had not deceived him. A faint patch of yellowish drab was appearing where before had been only a rather different shade of brown. And there was another similar patch on the animal’s hindquarters.
He looked at the pony, and the pony flicked his tail as much as to say, “This is really no affair of mine—I must leave it for you humans to settle among yourselves.”
Andy climbed back into the trap again, and drove for another hour through the deluge with an eye upon the increasing paleness of the drab patches. By the time he reached Gaythorpe he was driving an openly and flagrantly piebald pony in a green cart picked out with bright red, and it really did look a little gay for a country vicar.
“Sam!” shouted Andy at the top of his voice, as he drove into the great stable-yard where the little pony was to reign alone.