to see these affairs patronised; and Pruner takes a good many of our things over. He generally carries off a few prizes. I see they’ve quite stripped the conservatory. You’ll go for me, won’t you?”
“Yes, father, if you wish it,” sighed Charley.
“I do wish it, my dear boy; but don’t sigh, pray!”
“All right, dad,” said the young man, brightening, and shaking Sir Philip’s hand, “I’ll go; give away the prizes, too, if they ask me,” he laughed. And the next moment the door closed upon his retreating form.
Sir Philip Vining listened to his son’s departing step, and then muttering, “They will ask him too,” he rose, and went to the window, from which he could just get a glimpse of the young man mounting at the hall-door. The next moment Charley cantered by upon a splendid roan mare, turning her on to the lawn-like sward, and disappearing behind a clump of beeches.
“He’s a noble boy!” muttered the father proudly; and then as he walked thoughtfully back to his chair, “A fine dashing fellow!”
But of course these were merely the fond expressions of a weak parent.
Volume One – Chapter Five.
Charley’s encounters
“Bai Jove, Vining! that you?” languidly exclaimed a little, thin, carefully-dressed man, ambling gently along on one of the most thoroughly-broken of ladies’ mares, whose pace was so easy that not a curl of her master’s jetty locks was disarranged, or a crease formed in his tightly-buttoned surtout. His figure said “stays” as plainly as figure could speak; he wore an eyeglass screwed into the brim of his very glossy hat; his eyes were half closed; his moustache was waxed and curled up at the ends like old-fashioned skates; and his carefully-trained whiskers lightly brushed their tips against his shoulders. And to set off such arrangements to the greatest advantage, he displayed a great deal of white wristband and shirt-front; his collar came down into the sharpest of peaks; and he rode in lemon-kid gloves and patent-leather boots.
“Hallo, Max!” exclaimed Charley, looking like some Colossus as he reined in by the side of the dandy, who was going in the same direction along a shady lane. “How are you? When did you come down?”
“So, so – so, so, mai dear fellow! Came down la-a-ast night. But pray hold in that confounded great beast of yours: she’s making the very deuce of a dust! I shall be covered!”
Charley patted and soothed his fiery curveting steed into a walk, which was quite sufficient to keep it abreast of Maximilian Bray’s ambling jennet, which kept up a dancing, circus-horse motion, one evidently approved by its owner for its aid in displaying his graceful horsemanship.
“Nice day,” said Charley, scanning with a side glance his companion’s “get-up,” and evidently with a laughing contempt.
“Ya-a-s, nice day,” drawled Bray, “but confoundedly dusty!”
“Rain soon,” said Charley maliciously. “Lay it well.”
“Bai Jove, no – surely not!” exclaimed the other, displaying a great deal of trepidation. “You don’t think so, do you?”
“Black cloud coming up behind,” said Charley coolly.
“Bai Jove, mai dear fellow, let’s push on and get home! You’ll come and lunch, won’t you?”
“No, not to-day,” said Charley. “But I’m going into the town to see the saddler. I’ll ride with you.”
“Tha-a-anks!” drawled Bray, with a grin of misery. “But, mai dear fellow, hadn’t you better go on the grass? You’re covering me with dust!”
“Confounded puppy! Nice brother-in-law! Wring his neck!” muttered Charley, as he turned his mare on to the grass which skirted the side of the road, as did Bray on the other, when, the horses’ paces being muffled by the soft turf, conversation was renewed.
“Bai Jove, Vining, you’ll come over to the flower-show to-morrow, won’t you? There’ll be some splendid girls there! Good show too, for the country. You send a lot of things, don’t you? – Covent-garden stuff and cabbages, eh?”
“Humph!” growled Charley. “The governor’s going to have some sent, I s’pose; our gardener’s fond of that sort of thing. Think perhaps I shall go.”
“Ya-a-s, I should go if I were you. It does you country fellows a deal of good, I always think, to get into society.”
“Does it?” said Charley, raising his eyebrows a little.
“Bai Jove, ya-a-s! You’d better go. Laura’s going, and the Lingon’s girls are coming to lunch. You’d better come over to lunch and go with us,” drawled the exquisite.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley, hesitating; for he was thinking whether it would not be better than going quite alone – “I don’t know what to say.”
“Sa-a-ay? Sa-a-ay ya-a-s,” drawled Bray. “Come in good time and have a weed first in my room; and then we’ll taste some sherry the governor has got da-awn. He always leaves it till I come da-awn from ta-awn. Orders execrable stuff himself, as I often tell him. Wouldn’t have a drop fit to drink if it weren’t for me. You’d better come.”
“Well, really,” said Charley again, half mockingly, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why, sa-a-ay ya-a-as, and come.”
“Well, then, ‘ya-a-as’!” drawled Charley, in imitation of the other’s tone.
But Maximilian Bray’s skin was too thick for the little barb to penetrate; and he rode gingerly on, petting his whiskers, and altering the sit of his hat; when, being thoroughly occupied with his costume, horse and man nearly came headlong to the ground, in consequence of the mare stumbling over a small heap of road-scrapings. But the little animal saved herself, though only by a violent effort, which completely unseated Maximilian Bray, who was thrown forward upon her neck, his hat being dislodged and falling with a sharp bang into the dusty road.
“All right! No bones broken! You’ve better luck than I have!” laughed Charley, as he fished up the fallen hat with his hunting-whip. “Nip her well with your knees, man, and then you won’t be unseated again in that fashion. Here, take your hat.”
“Bai Jove!” ejaculated the breathless dandy, “it’s too bad! That fellow who left the sweepings by the roadside ought to be shot! Mai dear fellow, your governor, as a magistrate, ought to see to it! Tha-a-anks!”
He took his hat, and began ruefully to wipe off the dust with a scented handkerchief before again covering his head; but though he endeavoured to preserve an outward appearance of calm, there was wrath in his breast as he gazed down at one lemon-coloured tight glove split to ribbons, and a button burst away from his surtout coat. He could feel too that his moustache was coming out of curl, and it only wanted the sharp shower which now came pattering down to destroy the last remains of his equanimity.
“Bai Jove, how beastly unfortunate!” he exclaimed, urging his steed into a smart canter.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley coolly, in his rough tweed suit that no amount of rain would have injured. “Better to-day than to-morrow. Do no end of good, and bring on the hay.”
“Ya-a-as,
