“I’m very glad to hear it. And now be off and get a good day’s sport, if you can. I shall want you to stick to your desk to-morrow.”
Harrington took up his crop and hurried out, with a heart as heavy as lead. Never until to-day had he told his father a deliberate falsehood; but Matthew Dalbrook’s searching look had frightened him out of his veracity. Only six months ago he had solemnly pledged himself to avoid debt, and he had broken his promise already, and owed eighty guineas for a beast which he could hardly hope to ride to hounds half a dozen times that season. He had involved himself for the beast’s maintenance also, for his father’s stables were full, and he had been obliged to put this new animal out at livery. He began to feel now that he had made a fool of himself; that he had been talked into buying a horse for which he had very little use.
He was jogging along in a low-spirited way when Sir Henry and his sister came up behind him at a sharp trot, whereat Mahmud gave a buck-jump that almost unseated him.
“The black looks a trifle fresh this morning,” said Sir Henry. “You’ll take it out of him presently. He suits you capitally, and he’s well up to your weight. I was a little bit too heavy for him. You’ll find him go like old boots.”
Miss Baldwin, flushed with fresh air and exercise, looked more than usually brilliant. She was particularly amiable too; and when Harrington complained that he might not be able to give Mahmud enough work she offered to meet the difficulty.
“Send him over to me whenever you don’t want him,” she said, cheerily. “I’ll make him handy for you.”
The black gave another buck-jump, and Harrington felt inclined to lay him at her feet there and then. It was only the remembrance of that horrid slip of stamped paper, which had doubtless already been turned into cash by Sir Henry, which restrained him. He made up his mind to send Mahmud to Tattersall’s at the end of the hunting season, to be sold without reserve. Juliet was riding a thoroughbred of which she was particularly fond, and was in very high spirits during the earlier part of the day; and in her lively society Harrington forgot the stamped paper, and gradually got on good terms with his horse. Mahmud had, indeed, no fault but age. He knew a great deal better how to keep near the hounds than his new master, and promised to be a valuable acquisition.
Harrington felt that he was distinguishing himself.
“The black suits you down to the ground,” shouted Sir Henry, in the middle of a run, as he bucketed past his friend upon a pulling chestnut that had no respect for anybody, but clove his way through the ruck of riders like a battering-ram.
Sir Henry boasted of this animal that he never kicked a hound.