Page:Crawford - Love in idleness.djvu/186

 here and there with their hands as they spoke. Fanny reined in her mare and backed a little, as though she were going to jump again. The animal seemed nervous, stamping and pawing, and laying back her small ears.

A hundred yards or more in the direction from which they had come the road made a short bend round the foot of the spur of the hill, known as Pickett's. Just as Fanny put the mare at the fence a third time, a coach and four turned the corner of the road at a smart pace, leaders cantering and wheelers at a long trot.

Seeing three horses apparently halting in the way, some one in the coach sent a terrific and discordant blast from a post-horn ringing along the road as a warning. At that moment Fanny's mare was rising at the bars. She cleared them as easily as ever, but on reaching the ground instantly bolted across the grass, head down, ears back, heels flying. It all happened in a moment. The two men, Brinsley and groom, knew too much to scare the thoroughbred by a pursuit, and confident in Fanny's good riding, sat motionless on their horses in the road, after drawing away enough to let the coach pass.