Roper had another prodigious advantage over me. Edith was fond of riding, an exercise to which, from my earliest years, I have had the utmost abhorrence. I am not, I believe, constitutionally timid, and yet I do not know almost any ordeal which I would not cheerfully undergo, to save me from the necessity of passing along a stable behind the heels of half-a-dozen stationary horses. Who knows at what moment the concealed demon may be awaked within them? They are always either neighing, or pulling at their halters, or stamping, or whisking their tails, in a manner which is absolutely frightful; and it is impossible to predict the exact moment they may select for lashing out, and, it may be, scattering your brains by the force of a hoof most murderously shod with half a hundredweight of iron. The descent of Hercules to Hades seems to me a feat of mere insignificance compared with the cleaning out of the Augean stables, if, as I presume, the inmates were not previously removed.
Roper, on the contrary, rode like a Centaur, or the late Ducrow. He had several brutes, on one or other of which you might see him every afternoon prancing along Princes Street, and he presently contrived to make himself the constant companion of Edith in his daily rides. What took place on these occasions, of course I do not know. It was, however, quite clear to me, that the sooner this sort of thing was put an end to the better; nor should I have cared one farthing had a civil war broke out, if that event could have insured to me the everlasting absence of the pert and pestilential dragoon.
In this dilemma I resolved to make a confidante of my cousin Mary Muggerland. Mary and I were the best possible friends, having flirted together for five successive seasons, with intermissions, on a sort of general understanding that nothing serious was meant, and that either party was at liberty at any time to cry off in case of an extraneous attachment. She listened to the history of my sorrows with infinite complacency.
“I am afraid, George,” she said, “that you have no chance whatever; I know Edith well, and have heard her say, twenty times over, that she never will marry any man unless he belongs to the army.”
“Then I have been exceedingly ill-used!”
“O fie, George—I wonder at you! Do you think that nobody besides yourself has a right to change their mind? How often, I should like to know, have you varied your attachments during the last three years?”
“That is a very different matter, Mary.”
“Will you have the kindness to explain the difference?”
“Pshaw! is there no distinction between a mere passing flirtation and a deep-rooted passion like mine?”
“I understand—this is the first time there has been a rival in the case. Well—I am sorry I cannot help you. Rely upon it that Roper is the man; and, to be plain with you, I am not at all surprised at it.”