“If he follows me, let him take care of his neck,” said that youth.
“Why, Ferdinand, he can beat you in anything!” exclaimed Rose, imprudently.
But the truth was, she was now more restless than ever. She was not distant with Evan, but she had a feverish manner, and seemed to thirst to make him show his qualities, and excel, and shine. Billiards, or jumping, or classical acquirements, it mattered not—Evan must come first. He had crossed the foils with Laxley, and disarmed him; for Mel his father had had him well set up for a military career. Rose made a noise about the encounter, and Laxley was eager for his opportunity, which he saw in the proposed mad gallop.
Now Mr. George Uploft, who usually rode in buckskins whether he was after the fox or fresh air, was out on this particular morning; and it happened that as the cavalcade wound beneath the down, Mr. George trotted along the ridge. He was a fat-faced, rotund young squire—a bully where he might be, and an obedient creature enough where he must be—good-humoured when not interfered with; fond of the table, and brimful of all the jokes of the county, the accent of which just seasoned his speech. He had somehow plunged into a sort of half engagement with Miss Carrington. At his age, and to ladies of Miss Carrington’s age, men unhappily do not plunge head-foremost, or Miss Carrington would have had him long before. But he was at least in for it half a leg; and a desperate maiden, on the criminal side of thirty, may make much of that. Previous to the visit of the Countess de Saldar, Mr. George had been in the habit of trotting over to Beckley three or four times a week. Miss Carrington had a little money: Mr. George was heir to his uncle. Miss Carrington was lean and blue-eyed: Mr. Geoge black-eyed and obese. By everybody, except Mr. George, the match was made: but that exception goes for little in the country, where half the population are talked into marriage, and gossips entirely devote themselves to continuing the species. Mr. George was certain that he had not been fighting shy of the fair Carrington of late, nor had he been unfaithful. He had only been in an extraordinary state of occupation. Messages for Lady Roseley had to be delivered, and he had become her cavalier and escort suddenly. The young squire was bewildered; but as he was only one leg in love—if the sentiment may be thus spoken of figuratively—his vanity in his present office kept him from remorse or uneasiness. He rode at an easy pace within sight of the home of his treasure, and his back turned to it. Presently there rose a cry from below. Mr. George looked about. The party of horsemen hallooed: Mr. George yoicked. Rose set her horse to gallop up; Seymour Jocelyn cried “fox,” and gave the view; hearing which, Mr. George shouted, and seemed inclined to surrender; but the fun seized him, and, standing up in his stirrups, he gathered his coat-tails in a bunch, and waggled them with a jolly laugh, which was taken up below, and the clamp of hoofs resounded on the turf as Mr. George led off, after once more, with a jocose twist in his seat, showing them the brush mockingly. Away went fox, and a mad chase began. Seymour acted as master of the hunt. Rose, Evan, Drummond, and Mrs. Evremonde and Dorothy, skirted to the right, all laughing, and full of excitement. Harry bellowed the direction from above. The ladies in the carriage, with Lady Jocelyn and Andrew, watched them till they flowed one and all over the shoulder of the down.
“And who may the poor hunted animal be?” inquired the Countess.
“George Uploft,” said Lady Jocelyn, pulling out her watch. “I give him twenty minutes.”
“Providence speed him!” breathed the Countess with secret fervour.
“Oh, he hasn’t a chance,” said Lady Jocelyn. “The Squire keeps wretched beasts.”!
“Is there not an attraction that will account for his hasty capture?” said the Countess, looking tenderly at Miss Carrington, who sat a little straighter, and the Countess hating manifestations of stiff-backedness, could not forbear adding: “I am at war with my sympathies, which should be with the poor brute flying from his persecutors.”
She was in a bitter state of trepidation or she would have thought twice before she touched a nerve of the enamoured lady, as she knew she did in calling her swain a poor brute, and did again by pertinaciously pursuing: “Does he then shun his captivity?”
“Touching a nerve” is one of those unforgiveable small offences, which, in our civilised state, produce the social vendettas and dramas that, with savage nations, spring from the spilling of blood. Instead of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we demand a nerve for a nerve. “Thou hast touched me where I am tender—thee, too, will I touch.”
Miss Carrington had been alarmed and hurt at the strange evasion of Mr. George: nor could she see the fun of his mimicry of the fox, and his flight away from instead of into her neighbourhood. She had also, or she now thought it, remarked that when Mr. George had been spoken of casually, the Countess had not looked a natural look. Perhaps it was her present inflamed fancy. At any rate the Countess was offensive now. She was positively vulgar, in consequence, to the mind of Miss Carrington, and Miss Carrington was drawn to think of a certain thing Ferdinand Laxley had said he had heard from the mouth of this lady’s brother when ale was in him. Alas! how one seed of a piece of folly will lurk and sprout to confound us; though, like the cock in the eastern tale, we peck up zealously all but that one!
The carriage rolled over the turf, attended by Andrew and Lady Jocelyn, and the hunt was seen; Mr. George some forty paces a-head; Seymour gaining on him, Rose next.
“Who’s that breasting Rose?” said Lady Jocelyn, lifting her glass.
“My brother-in-law, Harrington,” returned Andrew.
“He doesn’t ride badly,” said Lady Jocelyn. “A little too military. He must have been set up in England.”
