Run to Earth: A Novel

by M. E. Braddon

"Indeed!"

"Yes, sir; I war down at the rectory stables yesterday arternoon, and see the animal—a splendid bay, rising sixteen hands."

Carrington turned his horse's head in the direction of Hallgrove Rectory. He knew enough of the character of Lionel Dale to be aware that no opposition would be made to his loitering about the premises. He rode boldly up to the door, and asked for the rector. He was out, the servant said, but would the gentleman walk in and wait, or would he leave his name. Mr. Dale would be in soon; he had gone out with Captain and Miss Graham. Victor Carrington smiled involuntarily as he heard mention made of Lydia. "So you are here, too," he thought; "it is just as well you should not see me on this occasion, as I am not helping your game now, as I did in the case of Sir Oswald, but spoiling it."

No, the stranger gentleman thanked the man; he would not wait to see Mr. Dale (he had carefully ascertained that he was out before riding up to the house); but if the servant would show him the way, he would be glad, to get out on the lower road; he understood the rectory grounds opened upon it, at a little distance from the house. Certainly the man could show him—nothing easier, if the gentleman would take the path to the left, and the turn by the shrubbery, he would pass by the stables, and the lower road lay straight before him. Victor Carrington complied with these directions, but his after-conduct did not bear out the impression of his being in a hurry, which his words and manner had conveyed to the footman. It was at least an hour after he had held the above-mentioned colloquy, when Victor Carrington, having made himself thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the rector's premises, issued from a side-gate, and took the lower road, leading back to Frimley.

Then he went straight to the stable-yard, saw Mr. Spavin's groom, and dismissed him.

"I shall take the 'Buffalo' down to my friend's place this afternoon," he said to Hawkins. "Here's your money, and you can get back to London as soon as you like. I think my friend will be very well pleased with his bargain."

"Ay, ay," said Mr. Hawkins, whose repeated potations of execrable brandy had rendered him tolerably indifferent to all that passed around him, and who was actuated by no other feeling than a lively desire to obtain, the future favours of a liberal employer; "he's got to take care of hisself, and we've got to take care of ourselves, and that's all about it."

And then Mr. Hawkins, with something additional to the stipulated reward in his pocket, and a pint bottle of his favourite stimulant to refresh him on the way, took himself off, and Carrington saw no more of him. The people about the inn saw very little of Carrington, but it was with some surprise that the ostler received his directions to saddle the horse which stood in the stable, just when the last gleam of the short winter's daylight was dying out on Christmas-day. Carrington had not stirred beyond the precincts of the inn all the morning and afternoon. The strange visitor was all uninfluenced either by the devotional or the festive aspects of the season. He was quite alone, and as he sat in his cheerless little bedroom at the small country inn, and brooded, now over a pocket volume, thickly noted in his small, neat handwriting, now over the plans which were so near their accomplishment, he exulted in that solitude—he gave loose to the cynicism which was the chief characteristic of his mind. He cursed the folly of the idiots for whom Christmas-time had any special meaning, and secretly worshipped his own idols—money and power.

The horse was brought to him, and Carrington mounted him without any difficulty, and rode away in the gathering gloom. "Wild Buffalo" gave him no trouble, and he began to feel some misgivings as to the truth of the exceedingly bad character he had received with the animal. Supposing he should not be the unmanageable devil he was represented,—supposing all his schemes came to grief, what then? Why, then, there were other ways of getting rid of Lionel Dale, and he should only be the poorer by the purchase of a horse. On the other hand, "Wild Buffalo," plodding along a heavy country road, almost in the dark, and after the probably not too honestly dispensed feeding of a village inn, which Carrington had not personally superintended, was no doubt a very different animal to what he might be expected to prove himself in the hunting-field. Pondering upon these probabilities, Victor Carrington rode slowly on towards Hallgrove. He had taken accurate observations; he had nicely calculated time and place. All the servants, tenants, and villagers were gathered together under Lionel Dale's hospitable roof. To the feasting had succeeded games and story-telling, and the absorbing gossip of such a reunion. That which Victor Carrington had come to do, he did successfully; and when he returned to his inn, and gave over his horse to the care of the ostler, no one but he, not even the man who was there listening to every word spoken among the servants at the rectory, and eagerly scanning every face there, knew that "Niagara" was in the inn-stable, and "Wild Buffalo" in the stall at Hallgrove.

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