Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/817

Rh him for the first time, and suddenly recognized his old friend Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, formerly surgeon of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards of Kirke's Horse. The old gentleman was somewhat greyer than when, he retired from the service four years before, but was otherwise little altered. Hearty greetings were of course exchanged between the two friends, and yet Yorke could not help noticing a certain constraint and confusion in the other's manner. He had been down to the neighbourhood of Castleroyal, Maxwell said, on some private business. He lived on his own little place in Fifeshire, and was staying for a short time in London. So much was explained during the short passage from the ticket platform to the terminus; and then Maxwell, shaking hands suddenly with his old friend, said he was in a great hurry to keep an appointment, jumped into a cab, and drove off without giving his town address.

Yorke felt surprised and hurt. Notwithstanding their difference of age. Maxwell and he had been on the footing of confidential friends; they had served together in the eventful defence of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards as close comrades throughout the rest of the sepoy war, and to Yorke alone had Maxwell confided his distress at Olivia's second marriage; and although he had left the regiment before ruin fell upon her and her husband, Maxwell had predicted some misfortune of the kind, and had himself told Yorke that he had left the regiment in order that he might not be present to witness it. Could it be that he resented the share Yorke himself had unwittingly had in that downfall? But no; nothing in Maxwell's manner implied resentment or reproach. His embarrassment obviously arose from something connected with himself, especially since, as it occurred to Yorke, Maxwell must surely have recognized him when he entered the carriage. For some reason, however, he had avoided recognition himself; and as Yorke thought over this strange and unsatisfactory meeting, the recollection of past days came up with unwonted force and freshness; and again indulging in the luxury of giving loose to the useless regrets over his wasted passion, in which he had allowed himself to indulge for so many years, the schemes for the future, which during the last few days he had amused himself in planning more or less vaguely, seemed to have lost all interest; and when, on returning next morning to "The Beeches," Lucy greeted him with a little blush, quite justified by certain passages which had passed between them, his manner was so cold and constrained that the poor girl could not conceal her distress. "What a brute I am, to be sure!" said Yorke to himself when alone later in the day, thinking over the episode. "Yet how am I to know that it is not all a pretence, the easy device of a practised flirt? No doubt the little jade has been taught to make eyes at every man she meets. Who am I to interpret a woman's looks? Whenever I meet one it seems my destiny to blunder."

 

, who had breakfasted before leaving town, expected to find Miss Cathy on his arrival ready to start for the meet, but when he drove up to the house she was still in walking-dress. Fred would not go hunting, she explained, and she did not like to leave him on his last day. That young gentleman could not go, she said, because he had no horse; but it appeared that he had declined to adopt his sister's suggestion to send to Castleroyal for one, and as of course he would not accept Yorke's offer of a mount on Jumping Joseph, the latter was fain to drive off alone in the dog-cart which awaited him under the portico, to the meet, whither that worthy animal had already been sent on.

The gathering, as usual in those parts, was a large one; but although Yorke noticed a detachment of evidently military men, probably from Castleroyal, he did not recognize any acquaintances among them, and found himself an entire stranger among the crowd. This made it rather dull work, more especially as the day was not destined to afford honest Joseph much opportunity for displaying his quality. One cover after another was drawn without success; and when at last a fox was found, the scent was bad and the checks frequent. Still the sport then became enjoyable enough to a man who had never hunted before; while there was a certain amount of opportunity offered for finding out what it was possible for a horse and rider to do.

It so happened that during one of these intermittent runs, a horseman just in front of Yorke came to grief. His horse blundered in taking a hedge with ditch beyond, but recovered itself cleverly without falling. Not so the rider, a stout young man, who having lost his seat remained poised for an instant on his horse's neck in a position of unstable equilibrium, and then