Blair did not like the comparison between Hilary and the negro jockeys, but he, too, said:
“Done!� And Skelton added:
“Come to my house to-morrow, and we’ll arrange it.�
“No,� answered Blair stoutly. “Come to my house.�
“Certainly, if you wish,� replied Skelton courteously.
As Blair drove home with his wife through the odorous woods, already awaking to the touch of spring although it was only February, exultation possessed him. As for Jaybird, he had long been of the opinion that he was a leggy, overbred beast, all looks and no bottom; and then to be ridden by that black-eyed Pryor boy, that had learned to ride in a riding-school—why it would simply be beer and skittles for Hilary and Alabaster. Even if Jaybird could win the race, Lewis Pryor couldn’t. Mrs. Blair did not wholly share these glorious expectations, and hated the idea of Hilary having anything to do with it.
Skelton’s silent anger grew more and more, as he thought over the pit into which Blair had dropped him. He cared nothing for the money involved, but he cared tremendously for the issue between Blair and himself. And then, to put Lewis up against Hilary! Skelton would cheerfully at any moment have given half his fortune rather than Hilary should have any triumph over Lewis. Then, like Mrs. Blair, he did not think a precocious acquaintance with the race course a good thing for a boy, and so he counted this stroke of Blair’s as another grudge owed to him and assuredly to be paid off.
Bulstrode became every day more disgusted. Work on the great book had come to a standstill. Skelton still got piles of books every month from Europe, and stacks of letters from literary and scientific men, but his heart and soul apparently were in the Campdown course. The whole neighbourhood was arrayed in hostile camps on the question. Some of the women, like Mrs. Shapleigh, openly, and Elizabeth Blair, secretly, opposed it; but among the men, only Mr. Conyers and Bulstrode were not enthusiastically in favour of it. Skelton persistently described Blair’s horses as “the Newington stable,� although Blair himself continued to allude to them deprecatingly as his “horse or two.� And Skelton was always making inquiries into the pedigree of Blair’s horses, which rather staggered Blair, who knew that they were not above reproach, and that an occasional strain of good blood did not entitle him to call them thoroughbreds. Nevertheless, this could not cure him of his delusion that his “horse or two� would one day beat Skelton’s very best blood and brawn.
CHAPTER XI.
In the course of time the bishop arrived upon his yearly visitation. He was a large, handsome man, with an apostolic manner. He never condemned; he only remonstrated, and was in himself a harmless and well-meaning person. But he found a most unsatisfactory state of affairs in Abingdon parish. The breach between the pastor and the flock was so wide that, had they not been the slowest and least aggressive people in the world, they would have long since parted company.