CHAPTER X
THE FLYING FEET OF THE DANCERS
It was now after ten o’clock, and, although they had ridden a good fifteen miles, much of it had been in a circle, and they were not more than five miles from Bendover. Sally Carteret led the procession back to Bendover, along the country roads, in the clear wintry noon. The farmers and their wives came running out to their gates to know if the fox was killed, and rejoiced to know that he was dead on the very scene of his iniquities.
The sharp air and the exciting exercise had fired the blood of all. They laughed and sang, and the gentlemen complimented the ladies upon their pluck, and got compliments in return. Fortescue thought that the clock of the centuries had turned back—it was so quaint, so old-fashioned. The modern, eager, bustling, anxious world was forgotten; it was like the hunting and hawking of the eighteenth century.
The cavalcade rode onto the lawn at Bendover soon after twelve o’clock. Other guests had arrived by that time, and then was served the real hunt breakfast. The hunting people had the keen appetites that are bred by five hours in the saddle on a wintry day, and swarmed merrily into the dining-room, where the long table was again set out with the inevitable deviled turkey, oysters, old hams, and all the seductions of a Virginia hunt breakfast. When at last breakfast was over, the brush, which had been cleaned and rudely mounted in a wooden splint, was brought in, and Fortescue, with a little speech presented it to Betty. Then, somebody began the old hunting song of “John Peel,” which accompanies the ceremony of presenting the brush, and a rousing chorus rang out—it is easy to start a rousing chorus at Christmas time in Virginia, especially when the memory of John Peel is recalled at a Christmas hunt.
“D’ ye ken John Peel, d’ ye ken John Peel,
With his horse and his hounds in the morning?
His view-halloo will awaken the day,
Or the fox from his lair in the morning.”
Sally Carteret went to the piano in the drawing-room and began to play a waltz. That was enough. In half a minute every girl in the party was waltzing with her cavalier, in the big uncarpeted hall. The girls who had ridden to the hounds tucked up their short riding-skirts and danced energetically, for a Virginia girl is born and lives dancing. Of course, Fortescue had the first waltz with Betty, and saw in her eyes a shy kindness that thrilled him. When Sally Carteret had done her duty at the piano, another girl took her place conscientiously, and gave Sally her chance with the gentlemen, especially Sheldon, one of the young officers who were guests at Rosehill, and who had developed an admiration for Sally scarcely inferior to Fortescue’s for Betty Beverley.
The dancing kept up for an hour or two, but as there was a ball ahead for that night, and for every night that week, the party dispersed by three o’clock. Some went home, others were quartered in the neighborhood, for the Virginia houses were always wide open to guests for the night as well as for the day.
Betty, with the fox-brush fastened to her pommel, rode back in triumph to Holly Lodge, escorted by Fortescue and his three guests. The Colonel hobbled out with his stick to greet Betty, and afar off down the little lane Betty saw him, and waved the brush at him triumphantly. When the party rode up to the little porch, Fortescue flung himself off his horse and assisted Betty.