"Doesn't look like it, does he, Miss Preece?" retorted Kate, as Joe champed his bit and pawed the velvet turf. Polly hated to be called Miss Preece by Kate, and would fain have passed for her bosom friend; but Kate unfortunately chose her own friends for herself, and Polly was not of them.
"Cousin Kate is a rare believer in the old horse," remarked George Vernon as he joined the two girls.
"Yes," assented Polly, "your cousin is a very antiquary; she likes everything that is old, and only what is old. She has even spoken slightingly of this miracle of Mr Busvine's. From politics to petticoats, Miss Lowry is a Tory, like her father!"
"I admit all you say, Miss Preece, and glory in it. I do prefer old habits, sartorial and otherwise, to any others."
There was a deepening in the blue of Kate's eyes as this word-play went on, which looked as if she was more than half in earnest.
"Well, I don't agree with you, and for the sake of example I will back my young chestnut against your veteran in the field to-day," quoth Polly.
"Oh, come, Miss Preece, that's hardly fair," broke in George; six against twenty-six, isn't it, Kate?"
"It may be, Cousin George, but the old horse can quite take care of himself, thank you. Yes, I'll match my old one against your chestnut, owners up; who is to be judge?"
"Would you mind, Captain Vernon?" pleaded Polly.
"Oh, say a pair of gloves; I am too much of a pauper to make the bet in dozens," replied Kate, and so the bet was made.
The morning was a bright one, with a touch of hoar frost on the grass, which none but the early risers saw.
At 11.15 the rime had all gone, and the air was as "balmy as May," the sun shone brightly, and men's spirits were as brilliant as the weather.
But the first draw was a long one, and a blank. The second was like it, and again no noisy note replied to what Captain Pennell Elmhirst calls "the huntsman's tuneful pleading."
Faces began to lengthen. A blank at Tod Hall had never been heard of in the memory of man. The gentlemen in velveteen who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the morning's proceedings had disappeared by noon, and men spoke disparagingly of the race which some sportsmen aver is a compound of policeman and poacher.