“‘Of course, Miss Fairley,’ interrupted my Major, with a nasty little laugh, ‘if you prefer to have your ride a solitude à deux, and I am in—’
“‘Shall we start?’ interrupted Miss Fairley, her cheeks very red, and her eyes blazing. She didn’t wait for an answer, but touched up the filly into a trot, and for the first mile or two not a word would she say to my colleague; and even when he finally got her to answer him, she showed that she wasn’t going to forget that speech.
“Well, what began like this went from bad to worse. He wasn’t even aware that he had been shockingly rude, and never so much as apologised for his speech. When Miss Fairley didn’t ask him to ride with them the next day, he ordered me saddled, and joined them on the road; and this he did again and again, though she was dreadfully cool to him. My dear seemed unable to behave. He couldn’t be himself. He was rude to Mr. Lewis, sulky to Miss Fairley, and kept a dreadful rein on me. That week was the only time in my life when he rode me steadily on the curb. My grief! how my jaw did ache!”
“I wish it would now,” interrupted the cob, sulkily. Let it be said here that horses are remarkably sweet-natured but this particular one was developing a splint, and was inevitably cross.
“Don’t be a nag,” requested one of the mares.
“The roan filly always blamed my Major for making such a mess of the whole thing; but even though I recognised how foolish he was to kick over the traces, I saw there were reasons enough to excuse him. In the first place, he enlisted when he was only nineteen, and having served straight through, he had had almost no experience of women. Then for six months he had been suffering terribly with his arm, with the result that what was left of his nerves were all on edge. He began to ride before he ought, and though I did my best to be easy, I suppose that every moment in the saddle must have caused him intense pain. Finally, he had entered himself for the running only after Mr. Lewis had turned the first mile-post and had secured the inside track. I really think, if ever a man was justified in fretting on the bit my chum was.
“At the end of the week Miss Gaiety bade me good-bye. ‘I heard Mr. Fairley say that we could now go back to Yantic; that’s where we live, you know,’ she told me. ‘It’s been a long job getting our claim for uniforms and blankets allowed, but the controller signed a warrant yesterday. I’m really sorry that we are to be separated. If your associate had behaved decently, you might have been asked to visit us.’
“‘Yes,’ announced the big grey; ‘Miss Fairley has asked the bully who rides me and myself to spend a few days with you next week. I suppose they’ll settle it then.’
“But the officer and horse who commanded the battery which held the Weldon railroad weren’t going to be beaten as easily as that, you may be sure! When I took my rider back to the stable that afternoon, I heard him say to the orderly: ‘Jackson, I’m going north next week, and shall want Reveille to start before me. I’m in too much pain to give you your orders now, but come round to-morrow morning and get your instructions.’
“Yantic was nothing but a little village clustered about a great woollen-mill, without any stable or hotel to live in, so we had to put up at Norwich, a place seven miles away; and it was a case of put up, I tell you, in both food and attendance! For a decently brought up horse to come down to a hotel livery-stable is a trial I never want to go through again. In the field I never minded what came, but I do hate musty corn and damp bedding.