He considered himself thoroughly disappointed and annoyed.  There was not another mount in the stable for himself and his servant besides Meg and Rattler.  It was vexatious; just when he wanted to get out of the way for a week or two.  It seemed culpable in Providence to allow such a combination of circumstances.  To be shut up at the Chase with a broken arm when every other fellow in his regiment was enjoying himself at Windsor—­shut up with his grandfather, who had the same sort of affection for him as for his parchment deeds!  And to be disgusted at every turn with the management of the house and the estate!  In such circumstances a man necessarily gets in an ill humour, and works off the irritation by some excess or other.  “Salkeld would have drunk a bottle of port every day,” he muttered to himself, “but I’m not well seasoned enough for that.  Well, since I can’t go to Eagledale, I’ll have a gallop on Rattler to Norburne this morning, and lunch with Gawaine.”

Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one.  If he lunched with Gawaine and lingered chatting, he should not reach the Chase again till nearly five, when Hetty would be safe out of his sight in the housekeeper’s room; and when she set out to go home, it would be his lazy time after dinner, so he should keep out of her way altogether.  There really would have been no harm in being kind to the little thing, and it was worth dancing with a dozen ballroom belles only to look at Hetty for half an hour.  But perhaps he had better not take any more notice of her; it might put notions into her head, as Irwine had hinted; though Arthur, for his part, thought girls were not by any means so soft and easily bruised; indeed, he had generally found them twice as cool and cunning as he was himself.  As for any real harm in Hetty’s case, it was out of the question:  Arthur Donnithorne accepted his own bond for himself with perfect confidence.

So the twelve o’clock sun saw him galloping towards Norburne; and by good fortune Halsell Common lay in his road and gave him some fine leaps for Rattler.  Nothing like “taking” a few bushes and ditches for exorcising a demon; and it is really astonishing that the Centaurs, with their immense advantages in this way, have left so bad a reputation in history.

After this, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that although Gawaine was at home, the hand of the dial in the courtyard had scarcely cleared the last stroke of three when Arthur returned through the entrance-gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the house to take a hasty luncheon.  But I believe there have been men since his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it.  It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own.

“The cap’n’s been ridin’ the devil’s own pace,” said Dalton the coachman, whose person stood out in high relief as he smoked his pipe against the stable wall, when John brought up Rattler.