Frank immediately crossed the path of the runaway animal, and succeeded in catching it.
“I hope you have not been thrown or hurt,” he said, as he restored it to its owner.
“Oh no, thank you,” she replied. “I’m so much obliged to you. We—that is, some friends and myself—are up in these hills to-day, on a picnicking excursion. My mare was hung up to a tree, and while we were looking after the provisions, she broke her bridle and got off.”
Several gentlemen now came running up. They thanked Frank for his timely help, and asked him if he would not come and join their party. There was a heartiness and cheeriness of manner about them which made it impossible for him to say, “No,” so he assented, and followed them to an open space a short way off the road, round the next turn, where a very merry company were gathered among the trees, with the scarlet-embroidered sward for their table.
“Pray, take a seat among us,” said one of the gentlemen who had invited him. “I’ll secure your horse—is he tolerably quiet?”
“Perfectly so; but you’d better take his saddle off, lest he should be inclined to indulge in a roll.”
“I am sure, sir, I owe you many thanks,” said the young lady whose horse he had caught; “for, if you had not stopped my mare, she would have been half-way to Adelaide by this time, and one of us must have walked.”
Frank made a suitable reply, and was at once quite at ease with his new companions. There were four gentlemen and as many ladies, the latter in the prime of life, and full of spirits, which the stranger’s presence did not check. No spot could be more lovely than the one chosen for their open-air meal. Before them was the deep, sloping chasm, revealing the distant town and ocean, and clothed on either side with unbroken forests. All around was the brilliant carpeting of flowers; overhead, the intensely blue sky, latticed here and there with the interlacing boughs of trees. The dinner or luncheon was spread out on a white cloth, and consisted of the usual abundance of fowls, pies, and tarts, proper to such occasions, and flanked by what was evidently considered no secondary part of the refreshments—a compact regiment of pale ale, porter, wine, and spirit-bottles. Under ordinary circumstances such a sight would have been very inviting; but it was doubly so to Frank, after his long and hot ride. All were disposed to treat him, as the stranger, with pressing hospitality; but his own free and gentlemanly bearing, and the openness with which he answered the questions put to him, as well as the hearty geniality of his conversation, made all his new acquaintances delighted with him, and eager to supply his wants as their guest. It is not, therefore, much to be wondered at that any half-formed resolutions as to total abstinence which he might have vaguely entertained soon melted away before the cordial entreaties of the gentlemen that he would not spare the ale, wine, or spirits.
“You’ll have found riding in such a sun thirsty work, I’m sure, sir,” said a stout, jolly-looking man, who was evidently one of the leaders of the party. Frank made just a feeble answer about not drinking, and a pretence of holding back his glass, and then allowed himself to be helped first to one tumbler, then another, and then another, of foaming Bass. He was soon past all qualms, regrets, or misgivings.
“Capital stuff this,” he said; “do you know where I can get some?”