Sons of Fire: A Novel (Complete)

"Can he jump?" asked Allan, as he scrutinized the lean, upstanding bay; not a bad kind of horse by any means, but with that shabby, under-groomed and over-worked appearance common to hirelings.

"Can't he, sir? There ain't a better lepper in Wiltshire. And as clever as a cat! We had a lady staying here in the winter, Mrs. Colonel Parkyn, brought two 'acks of her own, besides the colonel's two 'unters, and liked this here horse better than any of 'em. She was right down mashed on him, as the young gents say."

"I wonder she didn't buy him," said Allan.

"She couldn't, sir. Money wouldn't buy such a hunter as this off my master. He's a fortune to us."

"I hope I may be of Mrs. Parkyn's opinion when I come home," said Allan. "Now then, ostler, just tell me which way I am to ride to get to the Pig and Whistle by eleven o'clock."

The ostler gave elaborate instructions. A public-house here, an accommodation lane there—a common to cross—a copse to skirt—three villages—one church—a post-office—and several cross-roads.

"You're safe to fall in with company before you get there," concluded the ostler, whisking a bit of straw out of the bay's off hind hoof, and eyeing him critically, previous to departure.

"If I don't, I doubt if I ever shall get there," said Allan, as he rode out of the yard.

He was a stranger in Matcham, a "foreigner," as the villagers called such alien visitors. He had never been in the village before, knew nothing of its inhabitants or its surroundings, its customs, ways, local prejudices, produce, trade, scandals, hates, loves, subserviencies, gods, or devils. And yet henceforward he was to be closely allied with Matcham, for a certain bachelor uncle had lately died and left him a small estate within a mile of the village—a relative with whom Allan Carew had held slightest commune, lunching or dining with him perhaps once in a summer, at an old family hotel in Albemarle Street, never honoured by so much as a hint at an invitation to his rural retreat, and not cherishing any expectation of a legacy, much less the bequest of all the gentleman's worldly possessions, comprising a snug, well-built house, in pretty and spacious grounds, with good and ample stabling, and with farms and homesteads covering something like fifteen hundred acres, and producing an income of a little over two thousand a year.

It need hardly be stated that Allan Carew was not a poor man when this unexpected property fell into his lap.

The children of this world are rarely false to the gospel precept—to every one which hath shall be given. Allan's father had changed his name, ten years before, from Beresford to Carew, upon his succession to a respectable estate in Suffolk, an inheritance from his maternal grandfather, old Squire Carew, of Fendyke Hall, Millfield.

Allan, an only son, was not by any means ill provided for when his maternal uncle, Admiral the Honourable Allan Darnleigh, took it into his head to leave him his Wiltshire property; but this bequest raised him at once to independence, and altogether dispensed with any further care about that gentleman-like profession, the Bar, which had so far repaid Mr. Carew's collegiate studies, labours, outlays, and solicitude by fees amounting in all to seven pounds seven shillings, which sum represented the gross earnings of three years.

So, riding along the rustic high-road, in the clear morning air, under a sapphire sky, just gently flecked with fleecy cloudlets, Allan Carew told himself that it was a blessed escape to have done with chambers, and reading law, and waiting for briefs; and that it was a good thing to be a country gentleman; to have his own house and his own stable; not to be obliged to ride another man's horses, even though that other man were his very father; not to be told after every stiffish day across country that he had done for the grey, or that the chestnut's legs had filled as never horse's legs filled before, nor to hear any other reproachful utterances of an old and privileged stud-groom, who knew the horses he rode were not his own property. Henceforth his stable would be his own kingdom, and he would reign there absolute and unquestioned. He could choose his own horses, and they should be good ones. He naturally shared the common creed of sons, and looked upon all animals of his father's buying as "screws" and "duffers." His own stables would be something altogether different from the drowsy old stables at home, where horses were kept and cherished because they were familiar friends, rather than with a view to locomotion. His stud and his stable should be as different as if horses and grooms had been bred upon another planet.