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They had camped, hungry, in the paddock for provisions had run out, and on that account, and because the horses had strayed in the night, they had to go again to the house. The old man, sober and ashamed, captivated likewise by Lady Bridget's beauty and charm, apologised almost on his knees he made Biddy think of Thackeray's picture of Sir Pitt Crawley proposing to Becky Sharp.
Looking away toward the paddock that lay brilliant in sunshine on the skirts of the apple orchard, she asked in low slow tones, twisting her hands in her lap: "Don't you think that perhaps if B found out afterward-when she had married A, you know that she had cared for him so very, very much, he might be a little sorry?" "If he were a gentleman he would regret it deeply."
There was no man to disturb them; the whole perfect day was theirs. "No, thank you, child," said old Mrs. Fairfield, but the way at that moment she tossed the boy up and said "a-goos-a-goos-a-ga!" to him meant that she felt the same. The little girls ran into the paddock like chickens let out of a coop.
We picked our way across the shadows of big salt-bush and the rounded humps of cotton-bush, then brown and leafless, to the paddock, a mile square, where the other horses were at pasture, and as I rode sleep dropped away from me and my eyes opened and my lips grew moist as I sucked in the air of dawn. In the east the pale ghost of the day's forerunner stood waiting.
Certain it is that, even as she spoke, a rider on a sweating horse was seen coming at full speed up the flat; he put his horse over the sliprails that led into the house paddock without any hesitation, and came on at a swinging gallop. "What is this?" said Ellen Harriott, "more trouble? It is only trouble that comes so fast. Why, it is one of Red Mick's nephews!"
Then he fired. Instantly the deer sprang upwards into the air, gave two marvellous leaps forward, and then fell in a lifeless heap right in the centre of the paddock. Bob gave a cry of exultation and ran forwards towards his bag. So excited was he now that he did not notice how the turf shivered under his feet when first he stepped upon the edge of the clearing.
The fête was held on Easter Monday, which was kept as a holiday; and it commenced with a grand procession of Odd Fellows, Foresters, German Verein, Rechabites, and other clubs, all in their Sunday clothes, and many of them wearing very gorgeous scarfs. The German band headed the procession, which proceeded towards the paddock at MacCullum's Creek used on such festive occasions.
Old Man Curry, at the paddock gate, shook his head as the black horse floundered down the stretch, last by fifty yards, the blunt spurs tearing at his sides and the rawhide raising welts on his shoulders. The winning numbers had dropped into position before Eliphaz came under the wire. Major Pettigrew took one look at the horse and called to the official messenger.
Regally, one after another, in stately file, the turf kings, decked out with the silken jackets that rested a-top crimson, and gold, and blue, and white, and magpie, passed through the paddock gate to the newly smoothed course.
In this state he unconsciously retraced his steps, and had again reached the paddock adjoining his house, where, as he thought, the figure of his paramour stood before him. In a moment his former paroxysm returned, and with it the gloomy images of a guilty mind, charged with the extravagant horrors of brain-stricken madness. "What!" he exclaimed, "the band still on your forehead! Tear it off!"
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