‘There’s only one fly, sir, and that’s from the King’s Head for Mr Beecham. That you, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then here you are, sir: it’s old Jerry Mogridge who’s driving, and he can’t get off the seat easy owing to the rheumatics. The Harvest Festival is on at Kingshope to-day, and there wasn’t another man to spare. But you couldn’t have a surer driver than old Jerry, though he be failed a bit.’
Mr Beecham took his place in the fly; and after inquiring if the gentleman was comfortable, old Jerry drove away at an easy pace—indeed, the well-fed, steady-going old mare could not move at any other than an easy pace. A touch of the whip brought her to a stand-still until she had been coaxed into good-humour again. It was the boast of the King’s Head landlord that this was a mare ‘safe for a baby to drive.’
There was something in Mr Beecham’s expression—an occasional dancing of the eyes—as he gazed round on the rich undulating landscape, which suggested that he had been familiar with the scene in former days, and was at intervals recognising some well-remembered spot.
September was closing, and stray trees by the roadside were shorn of many leaves, and had a somewhat ragged, scarecrow look, although some of them still flaunted tufts of foliage on high branches, as if in defiance of bitter blasts. But in the Forest, where the trees were massed, the foliage was still luxuriant. The eyes rested first on a delicate green fringed with pale yellow, having a background of deepening green, shading into dark purple and black in the densest hollows.
The day was fine, and as the sun had cleared away the morning haze, there was a softness in the air that made one think of spring-time. But the falling of the many-coloured leaves, and the sweet odours which they yielded under the wheels, told that this softness was that of the twilight of the year; and the mysterious whisperings of the winds in the tree-tops were warnings of the mighty deeds they meant to do by sea and land before many days were over.
‘You have been about Kingshope a long time?’ said Mr Beecham, as the mare was crawling—it could not be called walking—up a long stretch of rising ground.
‘More’n eighty year, man and boy,’ answered old Jerry with cheerful pride. ‘Ain’t many about as can say that much, sir.’
‘I should think not. And I suppose you know everybody here about?’