The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands Part 20

"I wonder," thought Queeker, as he sat biting the end of his quill--his usual method of courting inspiration, "I wonder if there is anything prophetic in these lines! Durant said that his friend has splendid horses. They may, perhaps, be hunters! Ha! my early ambition, perchance, youth's fond dream, may yet be realised! But let me not hope. Hope always tells a false as well as flattering tale _to me_.

She has ever been, in my experience" (he was bitter at this point) "an incorrigible li--ahem! story-teller."

Striking his clenched fist heavily on the table, Queeker rose, put on his hat, and went round to Mr Durant's merely to inquire whether he could be of any service--not that he could venture to offer a.s.sistance in the way of packing, but there _might_ be something such as roping trunks, or writing and affixing addresses, in regard to which he might perhaps render himself useful.

"Why, Miss Durant," he said, on entering, "you are _always_ busy."

"Am I?" said Katie, with a smile, as she rose and shook hands.

"Yes, I--I--a.s.sure you, Miss Durant," said Queeker, bowing to f.a.n.n.y, on whose fat pretty face there was a scarlet flush, the result either of the suddenness of Queeker's entry, or of the suppression of her inveterate desire to laugh, "I a.s.sure you that it quite rouses my admiration to observe the ease with which you can turn your hand to anything. You can write out accounts better than any fellow in our office. Then you play and sing with so much ease, and I often find you making clothes for poor people, with pounds of tea and sugar in your pockets, besides many other things, and now, here you are painting like--like--one of the old masters!"

This was quite an unusual burst on the part of Queeker, who felt as though he were making some amends for his unfaithfulness in thus recalling and emphatically a.s.serting the unquestionably good qualities of his lady-love. He felt as if he were honestly attempting to win himself back to his allegiance.

"You are very complimentary," said Katie, with a glance at her cousin, which threw that young lady into silent convulsions.

"Not at all," cried Queeker, forcing his enthusiasm up to white heat, and seizing a drawing, which he held up before him, in the vain attempt to shut f.a.n.n.y out of his sight.

"Now, I call this most beautiful," he said, in tones of genuine admiration. "I _never_ saw anything so sweet before."

"Indeed!" said Katie, who observed that the youth was gazing over the top of the drawing at her cousin. "I am _so_ glad you like it, for, to say truth, I have felt disappointed with it myself, and papa says it is only so-so. Do point out to me its faults, Mr Queeker, and the parts you like best."

She rose and looked over Queeker's shoulder with much interest, and took hold of the drawing to keep it firmly in its position.

There was an excessively merry twinkle in Katie's eyes as she watched the expression of Queeker's face when he exclaimed--

"Faults, Miss Durant, there are no--eh! why, what--"

"Oh you wicked, deceptive man, you've got it upside down!" said Katie, shaking her finger at the unhappy youth, who stammered, tried to explain--to apologise--failed, broke down, and talked unutterable nonsense, to the infinite delight of his fair tormentor.

As for f.a.n.n.y, that Hebe bent her head suddenly over her work-basket, and thrust her face into it as if searching with microscopic intensity for something that positively refused to be found. All that we can safely affirm in regard to her is, that if her face bore any resemblance to the scarlet of her neck, the fact that her workbox did not take fire is little short of a miracle!

Fortunately for all parties Queeker inadvertently trod on the cat's tail, which resulted in a spurt so violent as to justify a total change of subject. Before the storm thus raised had calmed down, Mr Durant entered the room.

At Jenkinsjoy Queeker certainly did meet with a reception even more hearty than he had been led to expect. Mr Durant's friend, Stoutheart, his amiable wife and daughters and strapping sons, received the youthful limb of the law with that frank hospitality which we are taught to attribute "to Merrie England in the olden time." The mansion was old-fashioned and low-roofed, trellis-worked and creeper-loved; addicted to oak panelling, bal.u.s.trades, and tapestried walls, and highly suitable to ghosts of a humorous and agreeable tendency. Indeed it was said that one of the rooms actually _was_ haunted at that very time; but Queeker did not see any ghosts, although he afterwards freely confessed to having seen all the rooms in the house more or less haunted by fairy spirits of the fair s.e.x, and masculine ghosts in buckskins and top-boots! The whole air and aspect of the neighbourhood was such that Queeker half expected to find a May-pole in the neighbouring village, sweet shepherdesses in straw hats, pink ribbons, and short kirtles in the fields, and gentle shepherds with long crooks, playing antique flageolets on green banks, with innocent-looking dogs beside them, and humble-minded sheep reposing in Arcadian felicity at their feet.

"Where does the meet take place to-day, Tom?" asked Mr Stoutheart senior of Mr Stoutheart junior, while seated at breakfast the first morning after their arrival at Jenkinsjoy.

"At Curmersfield," replied young Stoutheart.

"Ah, not a bad piece of country to cross. You remember when you and I went over it together, Amy?"

"We have gone over it so often together, papa," replied Amy, "that I really don't know to which occasion you refer."

"Why, that time when we met the hounds unexpectedly; when you were mounted on your favourite Wildfire, and appeared to have imbibed some of his spirit, for you went off at a tangent, crying out, `Come along, papa!' and cleared the hedge at the roadside, crossed Slapperton's farm, galloped up the lane leading to Curmersfield, took the ditch, with the low fence beyond at c.u.mitstrong's turnip-field, in a flying leap-- obliging me to go quarter of a mile round by the gate--and overtook the hounds just as they broke away on a false scent in the direction of the Neckornothing ditch."

"Oh yes, I remember," replied Amy with a gentle smile; "it was a charming gallop. I wished to continue it, but you thought the ground would be too much for me, though I have gone over it twice since then in perfect safety. You are far too timid, papa."

Queeker gazed and listened in open-mouthed amazement, for the young girl who acknowledged in an offhand way that she had performed such tremendous feats of horsemanship was modest, pretty, unaffected, and feminine.

"I wonder," thought Queeker, "if Fan--ah, I mean Katie--could do that sort of thing?"

He looked loyally at Katie, but thought, disloyally, of her cousin, accused himself of base unfaithfulness, and, seizing a hot roll, began to eat violently.

"Would you like to see the meet, Mr Queeker?" said Mr Stoutheart senior; "I can give you a good mount. My own horse, Slapover, is neither so elegant nor so high-spirited as Wildfire, but he can go over anything, and is quite safe."

A sensitive spring had been touched in the bosom of Queeker, which opened a floodgate that set loose an astonishing and unprecedented flow of enthusiastic eloquence.

"I shall like it of all things," he cried, with sparkling eyes and heightened colour. "It has been my ambition ever since I was a little boy to mount a thoroughbred and follow the hounds. I a.s.sure you the idea of `crossing country,' as it is called, I believe, and taking hedges, ditches, five-barred gates and everything as we go, has a charm for me which is absolutely inexpressible--"

Queeker stopped abruptly, because he observed a slight flush on f.a.n.n.y's cheeks and a pursed expression on f.a.n.n.y's lips, and felt uncertain as to whether or not she was laughing at him internally.

"Well said, Queeker," cried Mr Stoutheart enthusiastically; "it's a pity you are a town-bred man. Such spirit as yours can find vent only in the free air of the country!"

"Amy, dear," said Katie, with an extremely innocent look at her friend, "do huntsmen in this part of England usually take `everything as they go?' I think Mr Queeker used that expression."

"N-not exactly," replied Amy, with a smile and glance of uncertainty, as if she did not quite see the drift of the question.

"Ah! I thought not," returned Katie with much gravity. "I had always been under the impression that huntsmen were in the habit of going _round_ stackyards, and houses, and such things--not _over_ them."

Queeker was stabbed--stabbed to the heart! It availed not that the company laughed lightly at the joke, and that Mr Stoutheart said that he (Queeker) should realise his young dream, and reiterated the a.s.surance that his horse would carry him over _anything_ if he only held tightly on and let him go. He had been stabbed by Katie--the gentle Katie--the girl whom he had adored so long--ha! there was comfort in the word _had_; it belonged to the past; it referred to things gone by; it rhymed with sad, bad, mad; it suggested a period of remote antiquity, and pointed to a hazy future. As the latter thought rushed through his heated brain, he turned his eyes on f.a.n.n.y, with that bold look of dreadful determination that marks the traitor when, having fully made up his mind, he turns his back on his queen and flag for ever! But poor Queeker found little comfort in the new prospect, for f.a.n.n.y had been gently touched on the elbow by Katie when she committed her savage attack; and when Queeker looked at the fair, fat cousin, she was involved in the agonies of a suppressed but tremendous giggle.

After breakfast two horses were brought to the door. Wildfire, a sleek, powerful roan of large size, was a fit steed for the stalwart Tom, who, in neatly-fitting costume and Hessian boots, got into the saddle like a man accustomed to it. The other horse, Slapover, was a large, strong-boned, somewhat heavy steed, suitable for a man who weighed sixteen stone, and stood six feet in his socks.

"Now then, jump up, Queeker," said Mr Stoutheart, holding the stirrup.

If Queeker had been advised to vault upon the ridge-pole of the house, he could not have looked more perplexed than he did as he stood looking up at the towering ma.s.s of horse-flesh, to the summit of which he was expected to climb. However, being extremely light, and Mr Stoutheart senior very strong, he was got into the saddle somehow.

"Where _are_ the stirrups?" said Queeker, with a perplexed air, trying to look over the side of his steed.

"Why, they've forgot to shorten 'em," said Mr Stoutheart with a laugh, observing that the irons were dangling six inches below the rider's toes.

This was soon rectified. Queeker's glazed leather leggings--which were too large for him, and had a tendency to turn round--were put straight; the reins were gathered up, and the huntsman rode away.

"All you've to do is to hold on," shouted Mr Stoutheart, as they rode through the gate. "He is usually a little skittish at the start, but quiet as a lamb afterwards."

Queeker made no reply. His mind was brooding on his wrongs and sorrows; for Katie had quietly whispered him to take care and not fall off, and f.a.n.n.y had giggled again.

"I _must_ cure him of his foolish fancy," thought Katie as she re-entered the house, "for f.a.n.n.y's sake, if for nothing else; though I cannot conceive what she can see to like in him. There is no accounting for taste!"

"I can at all events _die_;"--thought Queeker, as he rode along, shaking the reins and pressing his little legs against the horse as if with the savage intention of squeezing the animal's ribs together.

"There _was_ prophetic inspiration in the lines!--yes," he continued, repeating them--

"Fly, fly, to earth's extremest bounds, With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds, And die--dejected Queeker!

"I'll change that--it shall be rejected Queeker _now_."

For some time Tom Stoutheart and Queeker rode over "hill and dale"--that is to say, they traversed four miles of beautiful undulating and diversified country at a leisurely pace, having started in good time.

"Your father," observed Queeker, as they rode side by side down a green lane, "said, I think, when we started, that this horse was apt to be skittish at the start. Is he difficult to hold in?"