LORD BROMLEY INTERVIEWS DUTTON.
Ere long a challenge and a cheer
Came floating down the wind;
'Twas Mermaid's note, and the huntsman's voice
We knew it was a find.
The dull air woke us from a trance
As sixty hounds joined chorus,
And away we went, with a stout dog fox
Not a furlong's length before us.
Lawrence.
Nearly every one was going by a late train the following day, intending to hunt in the morning; for it was a favourite meet in some of the best country of ——shire. Kate was the only fair equestrian, and Harry was to escort her.
There was one old hunter in the stables who loyally carried the young man without taking advantage of his maladroitness. Kate always insisted, when he accompanied her, on his being committed—I may say to the care of this faithful equine, who knew its business far better than its rider, and, if it did not lead him to glory, at least avoided disgrace.
Whatever she might have felt about the approaching departure of Colonel Dashwood certainly did not appear, for Kate was in glorious spirits,—her pretty figure, always well on horseback, set off still more by the elastic action of her beautiful dark chestnut.
Where is the thorough-bred without "opinions?"—and when of that excitable colour, you may generally reckon on a handful! "Childe Harold" was vexed at galloping on a different strip of turf to his companions, and delivered himself of seven buck-jumps successively. Kate, quite at her ease, was repressing his efforts to get his head down, with the same smile on her face that some absurdity of Harry's had provoked; but just as she began to tire a bit, and fancy her hat was loosening, "Childe Harold," who might then, perhaps, have had one conquering buck, as suddenly gave it up, in the fatuous way a horse will, when he is nearest success, if he only knew it.
"Two or three of those would have settled me," said Harry, good-humouredly coming to her side. "What an ass a fellow looks who can't ride!"
"Well, I will say for you you don't funk," said Kate consolingly; "and I suppose all sailors ride like monkeys.—There are the hounds going on; we are only just in time."
Coquettish Kate was soon surrounded. If she rode fair and didn't cross men at their fences, still less did she want assistance at any practicable leap. "Childe Harold," too, was indifferent to a lead; so, beholden to none, she rode her own line, and, with her merry smile and gay tongue, with the whole field, from the gallant master to the hard-riding farmer, there were few greater favourites than Harry's cousin Kate.