Thus wondering how Lydia would deal with the problems of matrimony, and almost bursting with her secret, Mrs. Cole walked her horse until the novelty of the revelation had worn off a little. When she left the covert at a point suggested by the baying of the dogs, she caught a glimpse of the hunt on the opposite side of the horizon to that where it had disappeared from view. Assuming that the finish was likely to occur in the meadow lands in the rear of the club-house, she proceeded to gallop briskly across the intervening valley in the hope of anticipating the hounds. Time, however, had slipped away faster than she supposed. At all events, when she was still some little distance from the field which was her destination she beheld the hounds scampering down the slope from the woodlands beyond. A moment later the air resounded with their yelpings as they attacked the raw meat provided as a reward for the deceit imposed on them by the anise-seed scent. Close on their heels came the Master and the leading spirits of the chase, and by the time Mrs. Cole arrived the entire hunt had put in an appearance or been accounted for, and was proceeding leisurely toward the club, gayly comparing notes on the incidents of the run. There had been amusing casualties. Douglas Hale's horse, having failed to clear a ditch, had tossed its ponderous rider over its head—happily without serious consequences—and in the act of floundering out had planted a shower of mud on the person of Guy Perry, so that the ordinarily spruce young broker was a sight to behold.
The Westfield Hunt Club was one of a number of social colonies in the eastern section of the country which in the course of the last twenty-five years have come into being and flourished. Three principal causes have contributed to their evolution: the increase in wealth and in the number of people with comfortable means, the growing partiality for outdoor athletic sports, and the tendency on the part of those who could afford two homes to escape the stuffy air of the cities during as many months as possible, and on the part of young couples with only one home to set up their household gods in the country. Our ancestors of consideration were apt to hug the cities and towns. Their summer excursions to the seaside rarely began before July, and fathers of families preferred to be safe at home before the brewing of the equinoxial storm. But the towering bricks and mortar and increasing pressure of urban life have little by little prolonged the season of emancipation in the fresh air, and spacious modern villas, with many bath-rooms and all the modern improvements, have supplanted the primitive cottages of the former generation, just as the rank fields of gay butter-cups and daisies have given place to velvety lawns, extensive stables, and terraced Italian gardens.
The Westfield Hunt Club was primarily a sporting colony—that is, outdoor sport was its ruling passion. Cross-country riding had been its first love, at a time when the free-born farmers of the neighborhood looked askance at the introduction of what they considered dudish British innovations. Yet it promptly offered hospitality to the rising interest in sports of every kind, and the devotees of tennis, polo and golf found there ample accommodation for the pursuit of their favorite pastimes.
At the date of our narrative the interest in tennis was at a minimum; polo, always a sport in which none but the prosperous few can afford to shine, had only a small following; but golf was at the height of its fashionable ascendency. Everybody was playing golf, not only the young and supple, the middle-aged and persevering, but every man however clumsy and every woman however feeble or gawky who felt constrained to follow the latest social fad as a law of his or her being. Every links in the country was crowded with agitated followers of the royal and ancient game, who bought clubs galore in the constant hope of acquiring distance and escaping bunkers, and who were alternately pitied and bullied by the attendant army of caddies, sons of the small farmers whose views regarding British innovations had been substantially modified by the accompanying shower of American quarters and dimes.
Indeed, it may be said that the attitude of the country-side regarding all the doings of the colony had undergone a gradual but complete change. This was due to the largess and social tact of the new-comers. To begin with, they were eager to pay roundly for the privilege of trampling down crops and riding through fences. Having thus put matters on a liberal pecuniary basis, they endeavored to translate grim forbearance for business reasons into a more genial frame of mind by horse shows with popular features, and country fairs where fat prizes for large vegetables and free dinners bore testimony to the good-will of the promoters. A ball at which the pink-coated male members of the club danced with the farmers' wives and daughters, and Mrs. Andrew Cunningham, with a corps of fair assistants, stood up with the country swains while they cut pigeon-wings in utter gravity, was an annual sop to local sensibilities and a bid for popular regard. Little by little the neighborhood had thawed. Surely the new-comers must be good fellows, if Westfield's tax receipts were growing in volume without demur, and there was constantly increasing employment for the people not only on the public roads, but in carpentry, plumbing, and all sorts of jobs on the new places, besides a splendid market for their sheep and chickens and garden produce. From Westfield's standpoint the ways of some of these individuals with "money to burn" were puzzling, but if grown-up folk could find amusement in chasing a little white ball across country, the common sense of Westfield could afford to be indulgent under existing circumstances.
The quarters to which the hunting party now repaired in gay spirits was, as its appearance indicated, a farm-house of ancient aspect, which had been altered over to begin with, and been amplified later to suit the greater requirements of the club. The rambling effect of the low-studded rooms had been enhanced by sundry wings and annexes, the result of which was far from convincing architecturally, but which suggested a quaint cosiness very satisfying and precious to the original members. Progress, reform, innovation—call it what you will—was already rife in the colony itself, a case, it would seem, of refining gold or painting the lily. One had only to observe the more elaborate character of the new houses to be convinced of this. The pioneers had been content to leave the original structures standing, and to do them over with new plumbing and new wall-papers. Then it occurred to some one richer than his fellows, or whose wife remembered the scriptural admonition against putting new wine into old bottles, to pull down an ancient farm-house and replace it with a comely modern villa. The villa was simple and an ornament to the landscape, and though the wiseacres shook their heads and described it as an entering wedge, the general consensus of the colony declared it an improvement. Others followed suit, and within two years there was a dozen of these pleasant-looking homes in the vicinity.
But latterly a new tendency had manifested itself. Three sportsmen of large possessions, who had decided to spend most of the year in the country, had erected establishments on an imposing scale, very spacious, very stately, with extensive stables and all the appurtenances befitting a magnificent country-seat. As the owners were building simultaneously, there had naturally been some rivalry to produce the most imposing result. The effect of these splendors was already perceptible. Others with large possessions were talking of invading Westfield, land was rising in value, and it cost the colony more to entertain. Most terrible of all to the pioneers, there was unconcealed whispering that the club-house must come down and be replaced by a convenient modern structure; that more commodious stables were needed; that the golf links should be materially lengthened, and that both the annual dues and the membership must be increased to help provide for these improvements. As a consequence most of the old members were irate on the subject, and Gerald Marcy was quoted as having said that to do away with the original quarters would be an act of sacrilege.
"Are not the rafters sacred from time-honored association?" he had inquired in a voice trembling with emotion.