“Just in time!” he called out to the guard; “my luggage is on, I hope?”
He turned to Isoline’s aunt, hat in hand.
“As I am going down to Waterchurch to-day,” he said, “I hope you will allow me to look after Miss Ridgeway’s comfort and be of any use I can to her on the way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fenton,” she replied, “I am pleased to think my niece has the escort of some gentleman whom I know. It will relieve my mind greatly.”
Isoline said nothing, but she smiled brilliantly behind her veil; then kissing her aunt, she got into her place, followed by Harry; the coachman raised his chin at the ostlers, who whipped the rugs from the horses, and they were off.
Is there anything in this steam-driven world, except perhaps trotting to covert on a fresh February morning, which gives a more expectant fillip to the spirits and a finer sense of exhilaration than starting on a journey behind four good horses? The height at which one sits, the rush of the air on one’s face, the ring of the sixteen hoofs in front, the rocking-horse canter of the off-leader ere he makes up his lordly mind to put his heart into the job and settle to a steady trot, the purr of the wheels on the road, the smell of the moist country as the houses are left behind, and the brisk pace now that the first half-mile has been done and the team is working well together—surely the man whose blood does not rise at all these, must have the heart of a mollusc and the imagination of a barn-door fowl.
Harry had travelled so often behind the blue roan and three bays that he knew their paces, history, and temper nearly as well as the man who drove them, and for some time his interest in them was so great as to make him almost unconscious of Isoline’s presence. As they bowled along she sighed softly, drawing up her rug round her. If it had not been for the society in which she found herself, she would willingly have changed places with Miss Crouch inside. The country conveyed nothing to her eye; it was cold, Harry’s want of appreciation was anything but flattering—and she was accustomed to think a good deal about what was flattering and what was not; it was rather a favourite word of hers. She had never looked at the horses, because it had not occurred to her to do so; in her mind they were merely four animals whose efforts were necessary to the coach’s progress. How could one wonder at her want of interest in ideas and things of which she had no knowledge? To her town-bred soul, outdoor life was a dull panorama seen at intervals through a plate-glass window. Nevertheless, had it been otherwise, she would not have changed her point of view much, being one of those women whose spirits rise at no exercise, whose blood is stirred by no encounter; you might have run the Derby under her nose without taking her mind from her next neighbour’s bonnet.
Presently Harry looked round and saw her arranging the rug that had fallen again.
“I beg your pardon,” he cried, “what an oaf you must think me, Miss Ridgeway! I promised to take care of you, and I don’t even see that you are comfortable.”