"Home! What for?" said he.
MARGOT: "Are you sure Havoc is not tired?"
PETER: "I wish to God he was! But I daresay this infernal Bicester
grass, which is heavier than anything I saw in Yorkshire, has
steadied him a bit; you'll see he'll go far better with you this
afternoon. I'm awfully sorry and would put you on my second
horse, but it isn't mine and I'm told it's got a bit of a temper;
if you go through that gate we'll have our lunch together. ...Have
a cigarette?"
I smiled and shook my head; my mouth was as dry as a Japanese toy
and I felt shattered with fatigue. The ground on which I was
standing was deep and I was afraid of walking in case I should
leave my boots in it, so I tapped the back of Havoc's fetlocks
till I got him stretched and with great skill mounted myself. This
filled Peter with admiration; and, lifting his hat, he said:
"Well! You are the very first woman I ever saw mount herself
without two men and a boy hanging on to the horse's head."
I rode towards the gate and Peter joined me a few minutes later on
his second horse. He praised my riding and promised he would mount
me any day in the week if I could only get some one to ask me down
to Brackley where he kept his horses; he said the Grafton was the
country to hunt in and that, though Tom Firr, the huntsman of the
Quorn, was the greatest man in England, Frank Beers was hard to
beat. I felt pleased at his admiration for my riding, but I knew
Havoc had not turned a hair and that, if I went on hunting, I
should kill either myself, Peter or some one else.
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