The others drew the rein, and left him to gallop alone. Accordingly,
he made the round of the hill and came back, his horse covered with
lather and its tail trembling. "There," said he to Lucy, with an air
of radiant self-satisfaction, "he clapped on sail without orders from
quarter-deck, so I made him carry it till his bows were under water."
"You will kill my uncle's horse," was the reply, in a chilling tone.
"Heaven forbid!"
"Look at its poor flank beating."
David hung his head like a school-girl rebuked. "But why did he clap
on sail if he could not carry it?" inquired he, ruefully, of his
monitress.
The others burst out laughing; but Lucy remained grave and silent.
David rode along crestfallen.
Mrs. Bazalgette brought her pony close to him, and whispered, "Never
mind that little cross-patch. _She_ does not care a pin about the
_horse;_ you interrupted her flirtation, that is all."
This piece of consolation soothed David like a bunch of
stinging-nettles.
While Mrs. Bazalgette was consoling David with thorns, Kenealy and
Talboys were quizzing his figure on horseback.
He sat bent like a bow and visibly sticking on: _item,_ he had no
straps, and his trousers rucked up half-way to his knee.
Lucy's attention being slyly drawn to these phenomena by David's
friend Talboys, she smiled politely, though somewhat constrainedly;
but the gentlemen found it a source of infinite amusement during the
whole ride, which, by the way, was not a very long one, for Miss
Fountain soon expressed a wish to turn homeward.
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