Hampton who had passed them was the first over the
fence, and the other three all took it abreast.
The Major was to the right, the lord to the left and
the girl between them. The mare’s head was
perhaps the first. She rushed at the fence, made
no leap at all, and of course went headlong into the
ditch. The Major still stuck to her though two
or three voices implored him to get off. He afterwards
declared that he had not strength to lift himself out
of the saddle. The mare lay for a moment;—then
blundered out, rolled over him, jumped on to her feet,
and lunging out kicked her rider on the head as he
was rising. Then she went away and afterwards
jumped the palings into Rufford Park. That evening
she was shot.
The man when kicked had fallen back close under the
feet of Miss Trefoil’s horse. She screamed
and half-fainting, fell also;—but fell
without hurting herself. Lord Rufford of course
stopped, as did also Mr. Hampton and one of the whips,
with several others in the course of a minute or two.
The Major was senseless,—but they who understood
what they were looking at were afraid that the case
was very bad. He was picked up and put on a door
and within half an hour was on his bed in Rufford
Hall. But he did not speak for some hours and
before six o’clock that evening the doctor from
Rufford had declared that he had mounted his last
horse and ridden his last hunt!
“Oh Lord Rufford,” said Arabella, “I
shall never recover that. I heard the horse’s
feet against his head.” Lord Rufford shuddered
and put his hand round her waist to support her.
At that time they were standing on the ground.
“Don’t mind me if you can do any good
to him.” But there was nothing that Lord
Rufford could do as four men were carrying the Major
on a shutter. So he and Arabella returned together,
and when she got off her horse she was only able to
throw herself into his arms.
CHAPTER XXIII
Poor Caneback
A closer intimacy will occasionally be created by
some accident, some fortuitous circumstance, than
weeks of ordinary intercourse will produce. Walk
down Bond Street in a hailstorm of peculiar severity
and you may make a friend of the first person you meet,
whereas you would be held to have committed an affront
were you to speak to the same person in the same place
on a fine day. You shall travel smoothly to York
with a lady and she will look as though she would
call the guard at once were you so much as to suggest
that it were a fine day; but if you are lucky enough
to break a wheel before you get to Darlington, she
will have told you all her history and shared your
sherry by the time you have reached that town.
Arabella was very much shocked by the dreadful accident
she had seen. Her nerves had suffered, though
it may be doubted whether her heart had been affected
much. But she was quite conscious when she reached
her room that the poor Major’s misfortune, happening
Copyrights
The American Senator from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
