Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [an ebook reader .TXT] 📗

pleased with the present he had received that morning. He was heartily ashamed of himself in that he had listened with a certain degree of complacency to his cousin’s tempting; but he had no idea that the subject would be repeated⁠—and then repeated, too, before his father, in a manner to vex him on such a day as this, before such people as were assembled there. He was very angry with his cousin, and for a moment forgot all his hereditary respect for a de Courcy.

“I tell you what, John,” said he, “do you choose your day, some day early in the season, and come out on the best thing you have, and I’ll bring, not the black horse, but my old mare; and then do you try and keep near me. If I don’t leave you at the back of Godspeed before long, I’ll give you the mare and the horse too.”

The Honourable John was not known in Barsetshire as one of the most forward of its riders. He was a man much addicted to hunting, as far as the getup of the thing was concerned; he was great in boots and breeches; wondrously conversant with bits and bridles; he had quite a collection of saddles; and patronised every newest invention for carrying spare shoes, sandwiches, and flasks of sherry. He was prominent at the cover side;⁠—some people, including the master of hounds, thought him perhaps a little too loudly prominent; he affected a familiarity with the dogs, and was on speaking acquaintance with every man’s horse. But when the work was cut out, when the pace began to be sharp, when it behoved a man either to ride or visibly to decline to ride, then⁠—so at least said they who had not the de Courcy interest quite closely at heart⁠—then, in those heart-stirring moments, the Honourable John was too often found deficient.

There was, therefore, a considerable laugh at his expense when Frank, instigated to his innocent boast by a desire to save his father, challenged his cousin to a trial of prowess. The Honourable John was not, perhaps, as much accustomed to the ready use of his tongue as was his honourable brother, seeing that it was not his annual business to depict the glories of the farmers’ daughters; at any rate, on this occasion he seemed to be at some loss for words; he shut up, as the slang phrase goes, and made no further allusion to the necessity of supplying young Gresham with a proper string of hunters.

But the old squire had understood it all; had understood the meaning of his nephew’s attack; had thoroughly understood also the meaning of his son’s defence, and the feeling which actuated it. He also had thought of the stableful of horses which had belonged to himself when he came of age; and of the much more humble position which his son would have to fill than that which his father had prepared for him. He thought of this, and was sad enough, though he had sufficient spirit to hide from his friends around him the fact, that the Honourable John’s arrow had not been discharged in vain.

“He shall have Champion,” said the father to himself. “It is time for me to give it up.”

Now Champion was one of the two fine old hunters which the squire kept for his own use. And it might have been said of him now, at the period of which we are speaking, that the only really happy moments of his life were those which he spent in the field. So much as to its being time for him to give up.

VI Frank Gresham’s Early Loves

It was, we have said, the first of July, and such being the time of the year, the ladies, after sitting in the drawing-room for half an hour or so, began to think that they might as well go through the drawing-room windows on to the lawn. First one slipped out a little way, and then another; and then they got on to the lawn; and then they talked of their hats; till, by degrees, the younger ones of the party, and at last of the elder also, found themselves dressed for walking.

The windows, both of the drawing-room and the dining-room, looked out on to the lawn; and it was only natural that the girls should walk from the former to the latter. It was only natural that they, being there, should tempt their swains to come to them by the sight of their broad-brimmed hats and evening dresses; and natural, also, that the temptation should not be resisted. The squire, therefore, and the elder male guests soon found themselves alone round their wine.

“Upon my word, we were enchanted by your eloquence, Mr. Gresham, were we not?” said Miss Oriel, turning to one of the de Courcy girls who was with her.

Miss Oriel was a very pretty girl; a little older than Frank Gresham⁠—perhaps a year or so. She had dark hair, large round dark eyes, a nose a little too broad, a pretty mouth, a beautiful chin, and, as we have said before, a large fortune;⁠—that is, moderately large⁠—let us say twenty thousand pounds, there or thereabouts. She and her brother had been living at Greshamsbury for the last two years, the living having been purchased for him⁠—such were Mr. Gresham’s necessities⁠—during the lifetime of the last old incumbent. Miss Oriel was in every respect a nice neighbour; she was good-humoured, ladylike, lively, neither too clever nor too stupid, belonging to a good family, sufficiently fond of this world’s good things, as became a pretty young lady so endowed, and sufficiently fond, also, of the other world’s good things, as became the mistress of a clergyman’s house.

“Indeed, yes,” said the Lady Margaretta. “Frank is very eloquent. When he described our rapid journey from London, he nearly moved me to tears. But well as he talks, I think he carves better.”

“I wish you’d had to