BREAK-NECK LEAP
The August sun was in mid-sky, when a troop of ladies and cavaliers
issued from the gates of Beckley Court, and winding through the
hopgardens, emerged on the cultivated slopes bordering the downs.
Foremost, on her grey cob, was Rose, having on her right her uncle
Seymour, and on her left Ferdinand Laxley. Behind came Mrs. Evremonde,
flanked by Drummond and Evan. Then followed Jenny Graine, supported by
Harry and William Harvey. In the rear came an open carriage, in which
Miss Carrington and the Countess de Saldar were borne, attended by Lady
Jocelyn and Andrew Cogglesby on horseback. The expedition had for its
object the selection of a run of ground for an amateur steeple-chase:
the idea of which had sprung from Laxley’s boasts of his horsemanship:
and Rose, quick as fire, had backed herself, and Drummond and Evan, to
beat him. The mention of the latter was quite enough for Laxley.
“If he follows me, let him take care of his neck,” said that youth.
“Why, Ferdinand, he can beat you in anything!” exclaimed Rose,
imprudently.
But the truth was, she was now more restless than ever. She was not
distant with Evan, but she had a feverish manner, and seemed to thirst
to make him show his qualities, and excel, and shine. Billiards, or
jumping, or classical acquirements, it mattered not—Evan must come
first. He had crossed the foils with Laxley, and disarmed him; for Mel
his father had seen him trained for a military career. Rose made a
noise about the encounter, and Laxley was eager for his opportunity,
which he saw in the proposed mad gallop.
Now Mr. George Uplift, who usually rode in buckskins whether he was
after the fox or fresh air, was out on this particular morning; and it
happened that, as the cavalcade wound beneath the down, Mr. George
trotted along the ridge. He was a fat-faced, rotund young squire—a
bully where he might be, and an obedient creature enough where he must
be—good-humoured when not interfered with; fond of the table, and
brimful of all the jokes of the county, the accent of which just
seasoned his speech. He had somehow plunged into a sort of
half-engagement with Miss Carrington. At his age, and to ladies of Miss
Carrington’s age, men unhappily do not plunge head-foremost, or Miss
Carrington would have had him long before. But he was at least in for
it half a leg; and a desperate maiden, on the criminal side of thirty,
may make much of that. Previous to the visit of the Countess de Saldar,
Mr. George had been in the habit of trotting over to Beckley three or
four times a week. Miss Carrington had a little money: Mr. George was
heir to his uncle. Miss Carrington was lean and blue-eyed.
Mr. George was black-eyed and obese. By everybody, except Mr. George,
the match was made: but that exception goes for little in the country,
where half the population are talked into marriage, and gossips
entirely devote themselves to continuing the species. Mr. George was
certain that he had not been fighting shy of the fair Carrington of
late, nor had he been unfaithful. He had only been in an extraordinary
state of occupation. Messages for Lady Racial had to be delivered, and
he had become her cavalier and escort suddenly. The young squire was
bewildered; but as he was only one leg in love—if the sentiment may be
thus spoken of figuratively—his vanity in his present office kept him
from remorse or uneasiness.
He rode at an easy pace within sight of the home of his treasure, and
his back turned to it. Presently there rose a cry from below. Mr.
George looked about. The party of horsemen hallooed: Mr. George
yoicked. Rose set her horse to gallop up; Seymour Jocelyn cried “fox,”
and gave the view; hearing which Mr. George shouted, and seemed
inclined to surrender; but the fun seized him, and, standing up in his
stirrups, he gathered his coat-tails in a bunch, and waggled them with
a jolly laugh, which was taken up below, and the clamp of hoofs
resounded on the turf as Mr. George led off, after once more, with a
jocose twist in his seat, showing them the brush mockingly. Away went
fox, and a mad chase began. Seymour acted as master of the hunt. Rose,
Evan, Drummond, and Mrs. Evremonde and Dorothy, skirted to the right,
all laughing, and full of excitement. Harry bellowed the direction from
above. The ladies in the carriage, with Lady Jocelyn and Andrew,
watched them till they flowed one and all over the shoulder of the
down.
“And who may the poor hunted animal be?” inquired the Countess.
“George Uplift,” said Lady Jocelyn, pulling out her watch. “I give him
twenty minutes.”
“Providence speed him!” breathed the Countess, with secret fervour.
“Oh, he hasn’t a chance,” said Lady Jocelyn. “The squire keeps wretched
beasts.”
“Is there not an attraction that will account for his hasty capture?”
said the Countess, looking tenderly at Miss Carrington, who sat a
little straighter, and the Countess, hating manifestations of
stiff-backedness, could not forbear adding: “I am at war with my
sympathies, which should be with the poor brute flying from his
persecutors.”
She was in a bitter state of trepidation, or she would have thought
twice before she touched a nerve of the enamoured lady, as she knew she
did in calling her swain a poor brute, and did again by pertinaciously
pursuing:
“Does he then shun his captivity?”
“Touching a nerve” is one of those unforgivable small offences which,
in our civilized state, produce the social vendettas and dramas that,
with savage nations, spring from the spilling of blood. Instead of an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we demand a nerve for a nerve.
“Thou hast touched me where I am tender thee, too, will I touch.”
Miss Carrington had been alarmed and hurt at the strange evasion of Mr.
George; nor could she see the fun of his mimicry of the fox and his
flight away from instead of into her neighbourhood. She had also, or
she now thought it, remarked that when Mr. George had been spoken of
casually, the Countess had not looked a natural look. Perhaps it was
her present inflamed fancy. At any rate the Countess was offensive now.
She was positively vulgar, in consequence, to the mind of Miss
Carrington, and Miss Carrington was drawn to think of a certain thing
Ferdinand Laxley had said he had heard from the mouth of this lady’s
brother when ale was in him. Alas! how one seed of a piece of folly
will lurk and sprout to confound us; though, like the cock in the
eastern tale, we peck up zealously all but that one!
The carriage rolled over the turf, attended by Andrew, and Lady
Jocelyn, and the hunt was seen; Mr. George some forty paces a-head;
Seymour gaining on him, Rose next.
“Who’s that breasting Rose?” said Lady Jocelyn, lifting her glass.
“My brother-in-law, Harrington,” returned Andrew.
“He doesn’t ride badly,” said Lady Jocelyn. “A little too military. He
must have been set up in England.”
“Oh, Evan can do anything,” said Andrew enthusiastically. “His father
was a capital horseman, and taught him fencing, riding, and every
accomplishment. You won’t find such a young fellow, my lady—”
“The brother like him at all?” asked Lady Jocelyn, still eyeing the
chase.
“Brother? He hasn’t got a brother,” said Andrew.
Lady Jocelyn continued: “I mean the present baronet.”
She was occupied with her glass, and did not observe the flush that
took hold of Andrew’s ingenuous cheeks, and his hurried glance at and
off the quiet eye of the Countess. Miss Carrington did observe it.
Mr. Andrew dashed his face under the palm of his hand, and murmured:
“Oh—yes! His brother-in-law isn’t much like him—ha! ha!”
And then the poor little man rubbed his hands, unconscious of the
indignant pity for his wretched abilities in the gaze of the Countess;
and he must have been exposed—there was a fear that the ghost of Sir
Abraham would have darkened this day, for Miss Carrington was about to
speak, when Lady Jocelyn cried: “There’s a purl! Somebody’s down.”
The Countess was unaware of the nature of a purl, but she could have
sworn it to be a piece of Providence.
“Just by old Nat Hodges’ farm, on Squire Copping’s ground,” cried
Andrew, much relieved by the particular individual’s misfortune. “Dear
me, my lady! how old Tom and I used to jump the brook there, to be
sure! and when you were no bigger than little Miss Loring—do you
remember old Tom? We’re all fools one time in our lives!”
“Who can it be?” said Lady Jocelyn, spying at the discomfited horseman.
“I’m afraid it’s poor Ferdinand.”
They drove on to an eminence from which the plain was entirely laid
open.
“I hope my brother will enjoy his ride this day,” sighed the Countess.
“It will be his limit of enjoyment for a lengthened period!”
She perceived that Mr. George’s capture was inevitable, and her heart
sank; for she was sure he would recognize her, and at the moment she
misdoubted her powers. She dreamed of flight.
“You’re not going to leave us?” said Lady Jocelyn. “My dear Countess,
what will the future member do without you? We have your promise to
stay till the election is over.”
“Thanks for your extreme kind courtesy, Lady Jocelyn,” murmured the
Countess: “but my husband—the Count.”
“The favour is yours,” returned her ladyship. “And if the Count cannot
come, you at least are at liberty?”
“You are most kind,” said the Countess.
“Andrew and his wife I should not dare to separate for more than a
week,” said Lady Jocelyn. “He is the great British husband. The
proprietor! ‘My wife’ is his unanswerable excuse.”
“Yes,” Andrew replied cheerily. “I don’t like division between man and
wife, I must say.”
The Countess dared no longer instance the Count, her husband. She was
heard to murmur that citizen feelings were not hers:
“You suggested Fallowfield to Melville, did you not?” asked Lady
Jocelyn.
“It was the merest suggestion,” said the Countess, smiling.
“Then you must really stay to see us through it,” said her ladyship.
“Where are they now? They must be making straight for break-neck fence.
They’ll have him there. George hasn’t pluck for that.”
“Hasn’t what?”
It was the Countess who requested to know the name of this other piece
of Providence Mr. George Uplift was deficient in.
“Pluck—go,” said her ladyship hastily, and telling the coachman to
drive to a certain spot, trotted on with Andrew, saying to him: “I’m
afraid we are thought vulgar by the Countess.”
Andrew considered it best to reassure her gravely.
“The young man, her brother, is well-bred,” said Lady Jocelyn, and
Andrew was very ready to praise Evan.
Lady Jocelyn, herself in slimmer days a spirited horsewoman, had
correctly estimated Mr. George’s pluck. He was captured by Harry and
Evan close on the leap, in the act of shaking his head at it; and many
who inspected the leap would have deemed it a sign that wisdom weighted
the head that would shake long at it; for it consisted of a post and
rails, with a double ditch.
Seymour Jocelyn, Mrs. Evremonde, Drummond, Jenny Graine, and William
Harvey, rode with Mr. George in quest of the carriage, and the captive
was duly delivered over.
“But where’s the brush?” said Lady Jocelyn, laughing, and introducing
him to the Countess, who dropped her head, and with it her veil.
“Oh! they leave that on for my next run,” said Mr. George, bowing
civilly.
“You are going to run again?”
Miss Carrington severely asked this question; and Mr. George protested.
“Secure him, Louisa,” said Lady Jocelyn. “See here: what’s the matter
with poor Dorothy?”
Dorothy came slowly trotting up to them along the green lane, and thus
expressed her grief, between sobs:
“Isn’t it a shame? Rose is such a tyrant. They’re going to ride a race
and a jump down in the field, and it’s break-neck leap, and Rose won’t
allow me to stop and see it, though she knows I’m just as fond of Evan
as she is; and if he’s killed I declare it will be her fault; and it’s
all for her stupid, dirty old pocket handkerchief!”
“Break-neck fence!” said Lady Jocelyn; “that’s rather mad.”
“Do let’s go and see it, darling Aunty Joey,” pleaded the little maid.
Lady Jocelyn rode on, saying to herself: “That girl has a great deal of
devil in her.” The lady’s thoughts were of Rose.
“Black Lymport’d take the leap,” said Mr. George, following her with
the rest of the troop. “Who’s that fellow on him?”
“His name’s Harrington,” quoth Drummond.
“Oh, Harrington!” Mr. George responded; but immediately
laughed—“Harrington? ’Gad, if he takes the leap it’ll be odd—another of
the name. That’s where old Mel had his spill.”
“Who?” Drummond inquired.
“Old Mel Harrington—the Lymport wonder. Old Marquis Mel,” said Mr.
George. “Haven’t ye heard of him?”
“What! the gorgeous tailor!” exclaimed Lady Jocelyn. “How I regret
never meeting that magnificent snob! that efflorescence of sublime
imposture! I’ve seen the Regent; but one’s life doesn’t seem complete
without having seen his twin-brother. You must give us warning when you
have him down at Croftlands again, Mr. George.”
“’Gad, he’ll have to come a long distance—poor old Mel!” said Mr.
George; and was going on, when Seymour Jocelyn stroked his moustache to
cry, “Look! Rosey’s starting ’em, by Jove!”
The leap, which did not appear formidable from where they stood, was
four fields distant from the point where Rose, with a handkerchief in
her hand, was at that moment giving the signal to Laxley and Evan.
Miss Carrington and the Countess begged Lady Jocelyn to order a shout
to be raised to arrest them, but her ladyship marked her good sense by
saying: “Let them go, now they’re about it”; for she saw that to make a
fuss now matters had proceeded so far, was to be uncivil to the
inevitable.
The start was given, and off they flew. Harry Jocelyn, behind them, was
evidently caught by the demon, and clapped spurs to his horse to have
his fling as well, for the fun of the thing; but Rose, farther down the
field, rode from her post straight across him, to the imminent peril of
a mutual overset; and the party on the height could see Harry fuming,
and Rose coolly looking him down, and letting him understand what her
will was; and her mother, and Drummond, and Seymour who beheld this,
had a common sentiment of admiration for the gallant girl. But away
went the rivals. Black Lymport was the favourite, though none of the
men thought he would be put at the fence. The excitement became
contagious. The Countess threw up her veil. Lady Jocelyn, and Seymour,
and Drummond, galloped down the lane, and Mr. George was for
accompanying them, till the line of Miss Carrington’s back gave him her
unmistakeable opinion of such a course of conduct, and he had to dally
and fret by her side. Andrew’s arm was tightly grasped by the Countess.
The rivals were crossing the second field, Laxley a little a-head.
“He’s holding in the black mare—that fellow!” said Mr. George. “’Gad,
it looks like going at the fence. Fancy Harrington!”
They were now in the fourth field, a smooth shorn meadow. Laxley was
two clear lengths in advance, but seemed riding, as Mr. George
remarked, more for pace than to take the jump. The ladies kept plying
random queries and suggestions: the Countess wishing to know whether
they could not be stopped by a countryman before they encountered any
danger. In the midst of their chatter, Mr. George rose in his stirrups,
crying:
“Bravo, the black mare!”
“Has he done it?” said Andrew, wiping his poll.
“He? No, the mare!” shouted Mr. George, and bolted off, no longer to be
restrained.
The Countess, doubly relieved, threw herself back in the carriage, and
Andrew drew a breath, saying: “Evan has beat him—I saw that! The
other’s horse swerved right round.”
“I fear,” said Mrs. Evremonde, “Mr. Harrington has had a fall. Don’t be
alarmed—it may not be much.”
“A fall!” exclaimed the Countess, equally divided between alarms of
sisterly affection and a keen sense of the romance of the thing.
Miss Carrington ordered the carriage to be driven round. They had not
gone far when they were met by Harry Jocelyn riding in hot haste, and
he bellowed to the coachman to drive as hard as he could, and stop
opposite Brook’s farm.
The scene on the other side of the fence would have been a sweet one to
the central figure in it had his eyes then been open. Surrounded by
Lady Jocelyn, Drummond, Seymour, and the rest, Evan’s dust-stained body
was stretched along the road, and his head was lying in the lap of
Rose, who, pale, heedless of anything spoken by those around her, and
with her lips set and her eyes turning wildly from one to the other,
held a gory handkerchief to his temple with one hand, and with the
other felt for the motion of his heart.
But heroes don’t die, you know.