Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/122



awaiting the fulfilment of these brilliant prognostications, Kehlmark applied himself again to those athletic exercises in which he had excelled at the boarding-school. Unfortunately, he brought to these sports the same fever and extravagance he put into his words and actions. He took pleasure in breakneck exploits, in swimming across broad rivers, in sailing boats in stormy weather, and in breaking in restive and vicious horses. One day his horse ran away, and galloped all along the railway, keeping head with an express train, side by side with the locomotive, until falling down exhausted, it dragged its rider under it. Kehlmark escaped with a sprain. Another time the same horse, whose recklessness was extreme, being then harnessed to a dog-cart, took offence at a mason's wheelbarrow, left in the middle of the street, and after a terrifying shy, took to