“Tubby’s found a fox,” cried Phillip. “Whoa, boy!” He stood up in his stirrups and placed a hand at his mouth.
“Ha-arkaway!” he called shrilly. “Harkaway! After him, Tubby, old boy!”
The rustling of the underbrush died away and Tubby’s voice from a distance took on a worried, whining tone.
“He’s lost him,” laughed Phillip. “Come on, Winchester.” They rode on in a silence disturbed only by the tread of the horses on the soft wagon path, the musical creaking of leather and the occasional rustling or chirp of birds preparing for the night. When they reached the top of the hill Elaine lay before and below them, a misty white blur picked out with tiny lights, while in the east, over a dark rampart of forests, the moon was sailing, its lower edge caught in the topmost branches of a distant tree.
“By Jove,” said John softly, “but that’s beautiful!”
“Yes,” answered Phillip, as their horses, scenting the stables, tugged at the reins and began the descent; and after a moment he added thoughtfully, “I wonder if Margey told Aunt Cicely to have cakes for supper.”
It is probable that she did, for when, an hour later, they sat at table, Uncle Casper began a series of excursions to the kitchen which John thought would never end, returning each time laden with steaming, golden-brown griddle-cakes and offering them to the guest with a murmured and persuasive “Hot cakes, sir?” that John found difficult to resist. Between Uncle Casper and Phillip—continually challenging John, to renewed excesses—and Mrs. Ryerson, who apparently believed that he was about to die of starvation under her eyes, he was in danger of doing mortal injury to his digestion. The only thing that saved him was the fact that as soon as he had prepared his cakes and had taken his first mouthful or two, Uncle Casper would appear at his elbow with a fresh plate.
“Mr. North, do take some more and butter them while they’re hot,” Mrs. Ryerson would beg; and in that moment of hesitation which is fatal Uncle Casper would whisk away his plate and present a new one, and John would begin all over again. But his ride—to Crupples’s and back was reckoned six miles—had given him a keen appetite, and he thoroughly enjoyed his supper and would have been enabled to rival Phillip in the consumption of cakes had that dish not been preceded by a bountiful repast of country sausage, baked potatoes, salad and divers kinds of hot bread.
The dining-room was large and high-ceilinged, but furnished in such a way that the effect was one of coziness rather than spaciousness. The table was small and oval and was lighted only by the two old-fashioned candelabra. Phillip sat at the head and his mother at the foot, Margaret and John facing each other on the sides—an arrangement that the latter heartily approved of.