Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/746

736 as to leave his rider little to do; and Yorke, satisfied now that he might have done worse than make his début in a strange country on a hack-hunter, felt all the delight of a first introduction to the sport of kings. They were not quite in the first flight, although well up; for the young lady rode coolly and without pressing forward, and Yorke could not deny himself the pleasure of watching his companion take her fences, and so rode a few paces behind her and on one side. He had never seen a lady leaping before. She was certainly made for a cavalry officer's wife, he said to himself more than once, as he watched his fair partner now flying a fence, now cleverly topping a bank, and now, with equal address, jumping in and out of a lane, her pale face showing an unwonted bloom from the exercise and excitement, while honest Joseph executed his share of the task with unswerving adroitness.

It was a splendid day for the majority of those out, and a capital specimen of what the thing was like for a man who had never hunted before. The scent, without being strong enough to make a speedy finish, was held without a check for some miles, and the large field which had managed to keep up gave unusual animation to the scene. But now a new phase came over the landscape, which became wilder and less enclosed. They were going down the slope of a large stretch of coarse pasture land, which rose again opposite to them. Yorke noticed that several of the riders ahead were streaming away to the right or left, only some three or four keeping the straight line just in front of them; nor did it need the straggling line of pollards along the foot of the incline to indicate the presence of water there must of course be a stream of some sort at the meeting of these two long grassy slopes, probably something big. He looked at his companion to see whether she would go on; but either she did not see the obstacle, for she was very short-sighted, and her eye-glass was now flying about behind her neck, or she intended to charge it, for the young lady held her course. It was evidently a stiff thing, for one of the three riders still ahead went in, and another refused, although the practicability of the jump was proved by the third horseman clearing it. For a moment Yorke hesitated for the young lady's sake; but excitement overcame the spirit of self-denial, and as it was evidently a time for discarding etiquette, putting on pace he pressed Joseph past his companion, and crammed him at the jump. The brook or watercourse was not so very wide after all, but the water ran deep, and judging from the appearance of the fallen rider just emerging, there must be a still further depth of muddy slush beneath the sluggish current; and the banks being rotten, and the take-off bad, the little horse did not do more than clear it, and Yorke turned round in some anxiety to see how his companion would fare.

Miss Cathy had pulled up at the brink.

"Horse refused?" said Yorke, pulling up, and coming back to the edge.

"Partly the horse, partly the rider," said she, looking in consternation at the obstacle.

"I think he would clear it all right," said Yorke, who, in all the excitement of the run was anxious to push on, "if you send him at it well." And the young lady thus hidden, taking a short canter round, galloped her horse up again to the brook, but again stopped short at the margin.

"I can't do it," she said, piteously, and looking quite pale; "pray go on, Colonel Yorke, and never mind me; you will be thrown out altogether if you stop here any longer."

But Yorke could not do this. William, the groom, had of course long ago lost sight of them; and all the field behind them had disappeared, having turned aside to find a bridge. The rider whose horse refused had galloped off to a place higher up. The man who went in, having got his horse out and mounted again, was riding slowly up the slopes, refreshing himself as he went with the contents of his flask; the hounds had become lost to view over the top of the hill; they two were left alone on opposite sides of the stream, and Yorke, still hot and excited, was fain to jump back again and rejoin the young lady, a much more ticklish proceeding than the first jump, since Joseph showed manifest disinclination to this retrograde movement.

He then proposed that they should try to find a better place where he might give her a lead over, but she had evidently lost heart.

"I can't think what has come over me," she said. "I feel as if nothing could make me face that ditch; but you will get thrown out of the hunt; please go on, Colonel Yorke, please do, and never mind me." But this of course was not to be thought of. Then Miss Cathy thought that by going round a certain line that she