‘Twenty-six. What a splendid-looking lot they are!’
‘Oh! here comes Reggie! Who is that with him, Eric? He looks nice.’
‘He’s a Cambridge chum—same college, and a wonderfully good chap. A great hunting man in his own county. He’s always wanting us to go and stay with him at Castle Blake, where there’s no end of shooting and fishing. We’re going some day, when we can get away. They’re coming now, and Reggie will introduce him.’
At this moment the two young men came up. The stranger was a handsome young fellow with blue eyes of a daring and romantic character, and that expression of abandon so characteristic of every man of every class hailing from the Green Isle—when out for a holiday.
[280]
]‘Permit me to present my friend and college chum, Mr. Manus Beresford Blake, of Castle Blake, in the historic county of Galway. He’s making believe to study for the Church, though whether he follows up the profession after he’s taken his degree, I make bold to doubt. In the meantime, he’s coming to lunch with us, and will explain all about this race, as I believe he knows every racehorse and steeplechaser in Ireland.’
‘So much the better for us, my dear Reggie,’ said Mrs. Banneret, ‘for we know scarcely anything, and I feel sure the girls are dying to get reliable information.’
‘Here’s the very man! Manus, my boy! behold two young ladies whose minds you can store with every kind of useful knowledge about the noble animal. Only don’t be led into thinking that they are wholly ignorant of horse- and hound-lore, though they do come from a far country.’
‘I shall wait until our further acquaintance before I presume to add to the Miss Bannerets’ library of useful knowledge. I presume that they are accustomed to your vein of humour. Any hints which my acquaintance with so many honest horses, not quite so honest owners, enables me to give, I shall be proud to offer.’
‘You and Eric have been round the horses, Mr. Blake, I gather,’ said Hermione. ‘What do you think of our champion, the New Zealander?’
‘Moorfowl, is it? for that’s what I heard a bookmaker call him. A fine horse, there’s no [281] ]denying it, but I hardly think—I doubt, that is, whether he’s thorough-bred.’