A lot of hoof-marks and a gap in a big boundary fence soon showed us where the hunt had gone. We were now on some low-lying meadows, and he said it looked as if we’d have to jump the Harcombe brook. As we approached it there was a shout from downstream and we caught sight of someone in distress. A jolly faced young farmer was up to his armpits in the water with his horse plunging about beside him.
“Hullo, it’s Bob Millet and his tubed mare!” Stephen jumped off Jerry and hurried to the rescue.
“I’m having the devil’s own job to keep the water out of my mare,” shouted Millet, who didn’t seem to be worrying much about getting soaked to the skin.
“Haven’t you got a cork?” inquired Stephen.
“No, Mr. Colwood, but I’m keeping my finger on the hole in her neck. She’ll be drowned if I don’t.”
This peculiar situation was solved by Stephen, who held the mare by her bridle and skilfully extricated her after several tremendous heaves and struggles.
We then crossed the brook by a wooden bridge a few hundred yards away—young Millet remarking that he’d never come out again without his cork. Soon afterwards we came up with the hounds, who had lost their fox and were drawing the Binsted covers without much enthusiasm. Colonel Hesmon commiserated with us for having missed “quite a pretty little dart in the open.” If he’d been on his brown mare, he said, he’d have had a cut at the Harcombe brook. “But this cob of mine won’t face water,” he remarked, adding that he’d once seen half the Quorn field held up by a brook you could have jumped in your boots.
The huntsman now enlivened the deflated proceedings by taking his hounds to a distant holloa on the other side of the brook. A man on a bicycle had viewed our fox returning to Basset Wood. The bicyclist (Stephen told me as we passed him in the lane where he’d been providing the flustered huntsman with exact information) was none other than the genius who reported the doings of the Hunt for the Southern Daily News. In the summer he umpired in county cricket matches, which caused me to regard him as quite a romantic personality.
While they were hunting slowly back to the big wood on a very stale line, young Lewison reappeared on my hireling. Looking more doleful than ever, he asked how I liked Cockbird. Before I had time to answer Stephen interposed with “He makes a distinct noise, Tony, and his wind’s bound to get worse. But my friend Sherston likes the feel of him and he’ll give you fifty.”
I concealed my surprise. Stephen had already assured me that the whistle was so slight as to be almost undetectable. He had also examined Cockbird’s legs and pronounced them perfect. Almost imperceptible, too, was the wink with which Stephen put me wise about his strategic utterance, and I met Lewison’s lacklustre eyes with contrived indifference as I reiterated my willingness to give him fifty. Internally, however, I was in a tumult of eagerness to call Cockbird my own at any price, and when my offer had been definitely accepted nothing would induce me to get off his back. We soon arranged that Mr. Whatman’s second horseman should call for the hireling at Lewison’s house on his way back to Downfield.
“We’ll send you your saddle and bridle tomorrow,” shouted Stephen, as Cockbird’s ex-owner disappeared along the lane outside Basset Wood. “Tony never thinks of anything except getting home to his tea,” he added.
We then exchanged horses, and though the hounds did very little more that afternoon, our enthusiasm about my unexpected purchase kept our tongues busy; we marvelled more and more that anyone could be such a mug as to part with him for fifty pounds. As we rode happily home to the Rectory Cockbird jogged smoothly along with his ears well forward. Demure and unexcited, he appeared neither to know nor to care about his change of ownership.
“Mr. Pennett can go to blazes!” I said to myself while I was blissfully ruminating in my bath before dinner. Stephen then banged on the door and asked if I intended to stay in there all night, so I pulled the plug out, whereupon the water began to run away with a screeching sound peculiar to that particular bathroom. (Why is it that up-to-date bathrooms have so much less individuality than their Victorian ancestors? The Rectory one, with its rough-textured paint and dark wooden casing, had the atmosphere of a narrow converted lumber-room, and its hotwater pipes were a subdued orchestra of enigmatic noises.)
While the water was making its raucous retreat my flippant ultimatum to the family solicitor was merged in a definite anxiety about paying for Cockbird. And then there was (an additional fifteen guineas) the question of my subscription to the Ringwell.
“Of course, you’ll enter him for our point-to-point,” Stephen had said while we were on our way home. “He’s a lot faster than Jerry, and he’ll simply walk away with the Heavy Weights. Send in your sub and start qualifying him at once. You’ve only got to bring him out eight times. He’s done nothing today, so you can have him out again on Wednesday.”
The idea of my carrying off the Colonel’s Cup had caused me delicious trepidations. But now, in the draughty bathroom and by the light of a bedroom candle, I was attacked by doubts and misgivings. It was easy enough for Stephen to talk about “qualifying” Cockbird; but how about my own qualifications as a race-rider? The candle flickered as if in ominous agreement with my scruples. There was a drop of water on the wick and the flame seemed to be fizzling toward extinction. Making it my fortune-teller, I decided that if it went out I should fall off at the first fence. After a succession of splutters it made a splendid recovery and spired into a
