The Duke's Children eBook

He did take the fence ahead,—­or rather tried to do so.  It was a bank and a double ditch,—­not very great in itself, but requiring a horse to land on the top and go off with a second spring.  Our young friend’s nag, not quite understanding the nature of the impediment, endeavoured to ‘swallow it whole’, as hard-riding men say, and came down in the further ditch.  Silverbridge came down on his head, but the horse pursued his course,—­across a heavily-ploughed field.

This was very disagreeable.  He was not in the least hurt, but it became his duty to run after his horse.  A very few furrows of that work suffice to make a man think that hunting was a ’beastly sort of thing’.  Mrs Spooner’s horse, who had shown himself to be a little less quick of foot than his own, had known all about the bank and the double ditch, and had, apparently of his own accord, turned down to the right, either seeing or hearing the hounds, and knowing that the ploughed ground was to be avoided.  But his rider changed his course.  She went straight after the riderless horse, and when Silverbridge had reduced himself to utter speechlessness by his exertions, brought him back his steed.

‘I am,—­I am, I am—­so sorry,’ he struggled to say,—­and then as she held his horse for him he struggled up into his saddle.

‘Keep down this furrow,’ said Mrs Spooner, ’and we shall be with them in the second field.  There’s nobody near them yet.’

CHAPTER 63

’I’ve Seen ’em Like That Before’

On this occasion Silverbridge stayed only a few days at Harrington, having promised Tregear to entertain him at The Baldfaced Stag.  It was here that his horses were standing, and he now intended, by limiting himself to one horse a day, to mount his friend for a couple of weeks.  It was settled at last that Tregear should ride his friend’s horse one day, hire the next, and so on.  ‘I wonder what you’ll think of Mrs Spooner?’ he said.

‘Why should I think anything of her?’

’Because I doubt whether you ever saw such a woman before.  She does nothing but hunt.’

‘Then I certainly shan’t want to see her again.’

‘And she talks as never I heard a lady talk before.’

‘Then I don’t care if I don’t see her at all.’

’But she is the most plucky and most good-natured human being I ever saw in my life.  After all, hunting is good fun.’

‘Very; if you don’t do it so often as to be sick of it.’

‘Long as I have known you I don’t think I ever saw you ride yet.’

’We used to have hunting down in Cornwall, and thought we did it pretty well.  And I have ridden in South Wales, which I can assure you isn’t an easy thing to do.  But you mustn’t expect much from me.’