‘You’ve taken on a new man in the stable, I hear, Edgar—to attend to your new horse, I suppose.’ ‘Only a new boy at fourteen bob a week, mother. We were rather short-handed.’ ‘Short-handed! With four men!’ Edgar could not stop to debate the matter. It was nine o’clock, and he was eating a hurried breakfast before starting on his useful covert hack for Snitterfield, where the hounds were to meet. It was to be the first meet of the season, an occasion for some excitement. Pleasant to see all the old company, with a new face or two perhaps among them, and a sprinkling of new horses—young ones whose education had only just begun. Edgar was going to exhibit his new mare, an almost thoroughbred black, and was all aglow with pride at the thought of the admiration she would receive. He looked his best in his well-worn red coat, new buckskins, and mahogany tops. ‘I hope you’ll be careful, Edgar,’ said his mother, hanging about him in the hall, ‘and that you won’t go taking desperate jumps with that new mare. She has a nasty vicious look in her hind legs; and yesterday, when I opened the stable-door to speak to Baker, she put back her ears.’ ‘A horse may do that without being an absolute fiend, mother. Black Pearl is the kindest creature in Christendom. Good-bye.’ ‘Dinner at eight, I suppose,’ sighed Mrs. Turchill, who preferred an earlier hour. ‘Yes, if you don’t mind. It gives me plenty of time for a bath. Ta, ta.’ He had swung himself on to the thick-set chestnut roadster, and was trotting merrily away on the other side of the drawbridge, before his mother had finished her regretful sigh. The groom had gone on before with Black Pearl. These hunting mornings were the only occasions on which Mr. Turchill forgot his disappointment. The keen delight of fresh air, a fast run, pleasant company, familiar voices, brushed away all dark thoughts. For the moment he lived only to fly across the level fields, in a country which seemed altogether changed from the scene of his daily walks and rides; all familiar things—hedges, bills, commons, brooks—taking a look of newness, as if he were galloping through a newly-invented world. For the moment he lived as the bird lives—a thing of life and motion, a creature too swift for thought or pain or care. Then, after the day’s hard riding, came the lazy homeward walk side by side with a friend, and friendly talk about horses and dogs and neighbours. Then a dinner for which even a lover’s appetite showed no sign of decay. Then pleasant exhaustion; a cigar; a nap; and a long night of dreamless rest.