"In that case, why not propose? I have been doing the preliminaries--sounding your praises."

Mr. Talboys (tyrannically). "I propose next Sat.u.r.day."

Mr. Fountain. "Very well."

Talboys. "In the boat."

"In the boat? What boat? There's no boat."

"I have asked her to sail with me from ---- in a boat; there is a very nice little lugger-rigged one. I am having the seats padded and stuffed and lined, and an awning put up, and the boat painted white and gold."

"Bravo! Cleopatra's galley."

"I a.s.sure you she looks forward to it with pleasure; she guesses why I want to get her into that boat. She hesitated at first, but at last consented with a look--a conscious look; I can hardly describe it."

"There is no need," cried Fountain. "I know it; the jade turned all eyelashes."

"That is rather exaggerated, but still--"

"But still I have described it--to a hair. Ha! ha!"

Talboys (gravely). "Well, yes."

Mr. Talboys, I am bound to own, was accurate. During the last day or two Lucy had taken a turn; she had been bewitching; she had flattered him with tact, but deliciously; had consulted him as to which of his beautiful dresses she should wear at the masked ball, and, when pressed to have a sail in the boat he was fitting for her, she ended by giving a demure a.s.sent.

Chorus of male readers, _"Oh, les femmes, les femmes!"_

David Dodd had by nature a healthy as well as a high mind; but the fever and ague of an absorbing pa.s.sion were telling on it. Like many a great heart before his day, his heart was tossed like a ship, and went up to heaven, and down again to despair, as a girl's humor shifted, or seemed to shift, for he forgot that there is such a thing as accident, and that her s.e.x are even more under its dominion than ours. No; whatever she did must be spontaneous, voluntary, premeditated even, and her lightest word worth weighing, her lightest action worth anxious scrutiny as to its cause.

Still he had this about him that the peevish and puny lover has not.

Her bare presence was joy to him. Even when she was surrounded by other figures, he saw and felt but the one; the rest were nothings.

But when she went out of his sight, some bright illusion seemed to fade into cold and dark reality. Then it fell on him like a weighty, icy hammer, that in three days he must go to sea for two years, and that he was no nearer her heart now than he was at Font Abbey. Was he even as near?

So the next afternoon he thrust in before Talboys, and put Lucy on her horse by brute force, and griped her stout little boot, which she had slyly subst.i.tuted for a shoe, and touched her glossy habit, and felt a thrill of bliss unspeakable at his momentary contact with her; but she was no sooner out of sight than a hollow ache seized the poor fellow, and he hung his head and sighed.

"I say, capting," said a voice in his ear. He looked up, and there stood Tom, the stable-boy, with both hands in his pockets. Tom was not there by his own proper movement, but was agent of Betsy, the under-housemaid.

Female servants scan the male guests pretty closely too, without seeming to do it, and judge them upon lamentably broad principles--youth, health, size, beauty, and good temper. Oh, the coa.r.s.e-minded critics! Hence it befell that in their eyes, especially after the fiddle business, David was a king compared with his rivals.

"If I look at him too long, I shall eat him," said the cook-maid.

"He is a darling," said the upper housemaid.

Betsy aforesaid often opened a window to have a sly look at him, and on one of these occasions she inspected him from an upper story at her leisure. His manner drew her attention. She saw him mount Lucy, and eye her departing form sadly and wistfully. Betsy glowered and glowered, and hit the nail on the head, as people will do who are so absurd as to look with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions instead of other people's. After this she took an opportunity, and said to Tom, with a satirical air, "How are you off for nags, your way?"

"Oh, we have got enough for our corn," replied Tom, on the defensive.

"It seems you can't find one for the captain among you."

"Will you give a kiss if I make you out a liar?"

"Sooner than break my arm. Come, you might, Tom. Now is it reasonable, him never to get a ride with her, and that useless lot prancing about with her all day long?"

"Why don't you ride with 'em, capting?"

"I have no horse."

"I have got a horse for you, sir--master's."

"That would be taking a liberty."

"Liberty, sir! no; master would be so pleased if you would but ride him. He told me so."

"Then saddle him, pray."

"I have a-saddled him. You had better come in the stable-yard, capting; then you can mount and follow; you will catch them before they reach the Downs." In another minute David was mounted.

"Do you ride short or long, capting?" inquired Tom, handling the stirrup-leather.

David wore a puzzled look. "I ride as long as I can stick on;" and he trotted out of the stable-yard. As Tom had predicted, he caught the party just as they went off the turn-pike on to the gra.s.s. His heart beat with joy; he cantered in among them. His horse was fresh, squeaked, and bucked at finding himself on gra.s.s and in company, and David announced his arrival by rolling in among their horses' feet with the reins tight grasped in his fist. The ladies screamed with terror. David got up laughing; his horse had hoped to canter away without him, and now stood facing him and pulling.

"No, ye don't," said David. "I held on to the tiller-ropes though I did go overboard." Then ensued a battle between David and his horse, the one wanting to mount, the other anxious to be unenc.u.mbered with sailors. It was settled by David making a vault and sitting on the animal's neck, on which the ladies screamed again, and Lucy, half whimpering, proposed to go home.

"Don't think of it," cried David. "I won't be beat by such a small craft as this--hallo!" for, the horse backing into Talboys, that gentleman gave him a clandestine cut, and he bolted, and, being a little hard-mouthed, would gallop in spite of the tiller-ropes. On came the other nags after him, all misbehaving more or less, so fine a thing is example. When they had galloped half a mile the ground began to rise, and David's horse relaxed his pace, whereon David whipped him industriously, and made him gallop again in spite of remonstrance.

The others drew the rein, and left him to gallop alone. Accordingly, he made the round of the hill and came back, his horse covered with lather and its tail trembling. "There," said he to Lucy, with an air of radiant self-satisfaction, "he clapped on sail without orders from quarter-deck, so I made him carry it till his bows were under water."

"You will kill my uncle's horse," was the reply, in a chilling tone.

"Heaven forbid!"

"Look at its poor flank beating."

David hung his head like a school-girl rebuked. "But why did he clap on sail if he could not carry it?" inquired he, ruefully, of his monitress.

The others burst out laughing; but Lucy remained grave and silent.

David rode along crestfallen.

Mrs. Bazalgette brought her pony close to him, and whispered, "Never mind that little cross-patch. _She_ does not care a pin about the _horse;_ you interrupted her flirtation, that is all."

This piece of consolation soothed David like a bunch of stinging-nettles.

While Mrs. Bazalgette was consoling David with thorns, Kenealy and Talboys were quizzing his figure on horseback.

He sat bent like a bow and visibly sticking on: _item,_ he had no straps, and his trousers rucked up half-way to his knee.