"I'll wait till you are mounted. You'll be better for somebody with you. You've got the mare, have you? You'll show some of them your heels if they get away from here. Is she as fast as she was last year, do you think?"

"Upon my word I don't know," said Larry, as he dragged himself into the saddle.

"Shake yourself, old fellow, and don't carry on like that. What is she after all but a girl?" The poor fellow looked at his intending comforter, but couldn't speak a word. "A man shouldn't let hisself be put upon by circ.u.mstances so as to be only half hisself. Hang it, man, cheer up, and don't let 'em see you going about like that. It ain't what a fellow of your kidney ought to be. If they haven't found I'm a n.i.g.g.e.r,--and by the holy he's away. Come along Larry and forget the petticoats for half an hour." So saying, Runciman broke into a gallop, and Larry's mare doing the same, he soon pa.s.sed the innkeeper and was up at the covert side just as Tony Tuppett with half a score of hounds round him, was forcing his way through the bushes, out of the coverts into the open field. "There ain't no poison this time, Mr. Twentyman," said the huntsman, as, setting his eye on a gap in the further fence, he made his way across the field.

The fox headed away for a couple of miles towards Impington, as was the custom with the Dillsborough foxes, and then turning to the left was soon over the country borders into Ufford. The pace from the first starting was very good. Larry, under such provocation as that of course would ride, and he did ride. Up as far as the country brook, many were well up. The land was no longer deep; and as the field had not been scattered at the starting, all the men who usually rode were fairly well placed as they came to the brook; but it was acknowledged afterwards that Larry was over it the first. Glomax got into it,--as he always does into brooks, and young Runce hurt his horse's shoulder at the opposite bank. Lord Rufford's horse balked it, to the Lord's disgust; but took it afterwards, not losing very much ground. Tony went in and out, the crafty old dog knowing the one bit of hard ground. Then they crossed Purbeck field, as it is still called--which, twenty years since was a wide waste of land, but is now divided by new fences, very grievous to half-blown horses. Sir John Purefoy got a nasty fall over some stiff timber, and here many a half-hearted rider turned to the right into the lane. Hampton and his Lordship, and Battersby, with Fred Botsey and Larry, took it all as it came, but through it all not one of them could give Larry a lead. Then there was manoeuvring into a wood and out of it again, and that saddest of all sights to the riding man, a cloud of hors.e.m.e.n on the road as well placed as though they had ridden the line throughout. In getting out of the road Hampton's horse slipped up with him, and, though he saw it all, he was never able again to compete for a place. The fox went through the Hampton Wick coverts without hanging a moment, just throwing the hounds for two minutes off their scent at the gravel pits. The check was very useful to Tony, who had got his second horse and came up sputtering, begging the field for G----'s sake to be,--in short to be anywhere but where they were. Then they were off again down the hill to the left, through Mappy springs and along the top of Ilveston copse, every yard of which is gra.s.s,--till the number began to be select. At last in a turnip field, three yards from the fence, they turned him over, and Tony, as he jumped off his horse among the hounds, acknowledged to himself that Larry might have had his hand first upon the animal had he cared to do so.

"Twentyman, I'll give you two hundred for your mare," said Lord Rufford.

"Ah, my Lord, there are two things that would about kill me."

"What are they, Larry?" asked Harry Stubbings.

"To offend his Lordship, or to part with the mare."

"You shall do neither," said Lord Rufford; "but upon my word I think she's the fastest thing in this county." All of which did not cure poor Larry, but it helped to enable him to be a man.

The fox had been killed close to Norrington, and the run was remembered with intense gratification for many a long day after.

"It's that kind of thing that makes hunting beat everything else,"

said Lord Rufford, as he went home. That day's sport certainly had been "tanti," and Glomax and the two counties boasted of it for the next three years.

CHAPTER XX.

BENEDICT.

Lady Penwether declared to her husband that she had never seen her brother so much cowed as he had been by Miss Trefoil's visit to Rufford. It was not only that he was unable to a.s.sert his usual powers immediately after the attack made upon him, but that on the following day, at Scrobby's trial, on the Sat.u.r.day when he started to the meet, and on the Sunday following when he allowed himself to be easily persuaded to go to church, he was silent, sheepish, and evidently afraid of himself. "It is a great pity that we shouldn't take the ball at the hop," she said to Sir George.

"What ball;--and what hop?"

"Get him to settle himself. There ought to be an end to this kind of thing now. He has got out of this mess, but every time it becomes worse and worse, and he'll be taken in horribly by some harpy if we don't get him to marry decently. I fancy he was very nearly going in this last affair." Sir George, in this matter, did not quite agree with his wife. It was in his opinion right to avoid Miss Trefoil, but he did not see why his brother-in-law should be precipitated into matrimony with Miss Penge. According to his ideas in such matters a man should be left alone. Therefore, as was customary with him when he opposed his wife, he held his tongue. "You have been called in three or four times when he has been just on the edge of the cliff."

"I don't know that that is any reason why he should be pushed over."

"There is not a word to be said against Caroline. She has a fine fortune of her own, and some of the best blood in the kingdom."

"But if your brother does not care for her,--"

"That's nonsense, George. As for liking, it's all the same to him.

Rufford is good-natured, and easily pleased, and can like any woman.

Caroline is very good-looking,--a great deal handsomer than that horrid creature ever was,--and with manners fit for any position.

I've no reason to wish to force a wife on him; but of course he'll marry, and unless he's guided, he'll certainly marry badly."

"Is Miss Penge in love with him?" asked Sir George in a tone of voice that was intended to be provoking. His wife looked at him, asking him plainly by her countenance whether he was such a fool as that? Was it likely that any unt.i.tled young lady of eight-and-twenty should be wanting in the capacity of being in love with a young lord, handsome and possessed of forty thousand a year without enc.u.mbrances? Sir George, though he did not approve, was not eager enough in his disapproval to lay any serious embargo on his wife's proceedings.

The first steps taken were in the direction of the hero's personal comfort. He was flattered and petted, as his sister knew how to flatter and pet him;--and Miss Penge in a quiet way a.s.sisted Lady Penwether in the operation. For a day or two he had not much to say for himself;--but every word he did say was an oracle. His horses were spoken of as demiG.o.ds, and his projected fishing operations for June and July became matters of most intense interest. Evil things were said of Arabella Trefoil, but in all the evil things said no hint was given that Lord Rufford had behaved badly or had been in danger. Lady Penwether, not quite knowing the state of his mind, thought that there might still be some lurking affection for the young lady. "Did you ever see anybody look so vulgar and hideous as she did when she marched across the park?" asked Lady Penwether.

"Thank goodness I did not see her," said Miss Penge.

"I never saw her look so handsome as when she came up to me," said Lord Rufford.

"But such a thing to do!"

"Awful!" said Miss Penge.

"She is the pluckiest girl I ever came across in my life," said Lord Rufford. He knew very well what they were at, and was already almost inclined to think that they might as well be allowed to have their way. Miss Penge was ladylike, quiet, and good, and was like a cool salad in a man's mouth after spiced meat. And the money would enable him to buy the Purefoy property which would probably be soon in the market. But he felt that he might as well give them a little trouble before he allowed himself to be hooked. It certainly was not by any arrangement of his own that he found himself walking alone with Miss Penge that Sunday afternoon in the park;--nor did it seem to be by hers. He thought of that other Sunday at Mistletoe, when he had been compelled to wander with Arabella, when he met the d.u.c.h.ess, and when, as he often told himself, a little more good-nature or a little more courage on her grace's part would have completed the work entirely.

Certainly had the Duke come to him that night, after the journey from Stamford, he would have capitulated. As he walked along and allowed himself to be talked to by Miss Penge, he did tell himself that she would be the better angel of the two. She could not hunt with him, as Arabella would have done; but then a man does not want his wife to gallop across the country after him. She might perhaps object to cigars and soda water after eleven o'clock, but then what a.s.surance had he that Arabella would not have objected still more loudly. She had sworn that she would never be opposed to his little pleasures; but he knew what such oaths were worth. Marriage altogether was a bore; but having a name and a large fortune, it was inc.u.mbent on him to transmit them to an immediate descendant. And perhaps it was a worse bore to grow old without having specially bound any other human being to his interests. "How well I recollect that spot," said Miss Penge. "It was there that Major Caneback took the fence."

"That was not where he fell."

"Oh no;--I did not see that. It would have haunted me for ever had I done so. But it was there that I thought he must kill himself. That was a terrible time, Lord Rufford."

"Terrible to poor Caneback certainly."

"Yes, and to all of us. Do you remember that fearful ball? We were all so unhappy,--because you suffered so much."

"It was bad."

"And that woman who persecuted you! We all knew that you felt it."

"I felt that poor man's death."

"Yes;--and you felt the other nuisance too."

"I remember that you told me that you would cling on to my legs."

"Eleanor said so;--and when it was explained to me, what clinging on to your legs meant, I remember saying that I wished to be understood as being one to help. I love your sister so well that anything which would break her heart would make me unhappy."

"You did not care for my own welfare in the matter?"

"What ought I say, Lord Rufford, in answer to that? Of course I did care. But I knew that it was impossible that you should really set your affections on such a person as Miss Trefoil. I told Eleanor that it would come to nothing. I was sure of it."

"Why should it have come to nothing,--as you call it?"

"Because you are a gentleman and because she--is not a lady. I don't know that we women can quite understand how it is that you men amuse yourselves with such persons."

"I didn't amuse myself."

"I never thought you did very much. There was something I suppose in her riding, something in her audacity, something perhaps in her vivacity;--but through it all I did not think that you were enjoying yourself. You may be sure of this, Lord Rufford, that when a woman is not specially liked by any other woman, she ought not to be specially liked by any man. I have never heard that Miss Trefoil had a female friend."

From day to day there were little meetings and conversations of this kind till Lord Rufford found himself accustomed to Miss Penge's solicitude for his welfare. In all that pa.s.sed between them the lady affected a status that was altogether removed from that of making or receiving love. There had come to be a peculiar friendship,--because of Eleanor. A week of this kind of thing had not gone by before Miss Penge found herself able to talk of and absolutely to describe this peculiar feeling, and could almost say how pleasant was such friendship, divested of the burden of all amatory possibilities. But through it all Lord Rufford knew that he would have to marry Miss Penge.

It was not long before he yielded in pure weariness. Who has not felt, as he stood by a stream into which he knew that it was his fate to plunge, the folly of delaying the shock? In his present condition he had no ease. His sister threatened him with a return of Arabella. Miss Penge required from him sensational conversation. His brother-in-law was laughing at him in his sleeve. His very hunting friends treated him as though the time were come. In all that he did the young lady took an interest which bored him excessively,--to put an end to which he only saw one certain way. He therefore asked her to be Lady Rufford before he got on his drag to go out hunting on the last Sat.u.r.day in March. "Rufford," she said, looking up into his face with her l.u.s.trous eyes, and speaking with a sweet, low, silvery voice,--"are you sure of yourself?"

"Oh, yes."