"I know the purple vestment;
I know the crest of flame;
So ever _rides_ Mamilius,
Prince of the Latian name."
The next was a perfect hunting morning; a light breeze, steady from the
southwest, and not too much sun; the very day when a scent, in and out
of cover, would be a certainty, if there were any calculation on this
contingency. Let us do our sisters justice--there is _one_ thing in
nature more uncertain and capricious than the whims of womankind.
The hounds had come up with their usual train of officials, and of those
steady-going sportsmen who love the pack better than their own children,
and can call each individual in it by his name. Godfrey Parndon was
doing the civil to the "great men in Israel," his heaviest subscribers;
pinks were gleaming in every direction through the clumps and belts of
plantation, as the men came up at a hard gallop on their cover-hacks, or
opened the pipes of their hunters by a stretch over the turf of the
park.
On the hall steps stood Flora Bellasys--Penthesilea in a wide-awake and
plume; a dozen men were round her, striving emulously for a word or a
smile, and she held her own gallantly with them all. She was waiting
patiently till Guy had lighted an obstinate cigar, and was ready to
mount her. He understood putting her up better than any one else, she
said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one
wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the
arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a problem hardly to be
solved.
If there was any truth in the old Courland superstition that the display
of a lady's ankle to the hunters before they started brought them luck,
we ought to have had the run of the season that day.
He rode by her side, too, as near as the plunges of the chestnut would
allow, till we reached the gorse that we were to draw; once there, the
stronger passion prevailed. Aphroditè hid her face, and the great
goddess Artemis claimed her own. As the first hound whimpered, he drew
off toward a corner, where a big fence would give a chance of shaking
off the crowd, and I do not think he turned his head till the fox went
away.
The last thing I remember there was the anxious look in two beautiful
hazel eyes as they gazed after the Axeine, charging his second fence
with the rush of an express train.
The _fétiche_ did not fail us; we had a wonderful run, of which only
five men saw the end. I confess, the second brook stopped me and many
others. Forrester got over with a fall; but they were preparing to break
up the fox, when he came up first of the second flight.
Guy came home in great spirits; he had been admirably carried. He and
the first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence,
while the hounds were rolling over their fox, a hundred yards farther,
in the open.
After dinner he amused himself with teasing his cousin. At last he
asked her if she would lend him Bella Donna to hack to cover, as his own
favorite was rather lame.
Miss Raymond's indignation was superb; for, be it known, she was prouder
of the said animal than of any thing else in the world.
She (the mare, not the lady) was a bright bay, with black points, quite
thorough-bred, and as handsome as a picture. Livingstone had bought her
out of a training-stable, and had given her to his cousin, after having
broken her into a perfect light-weight hunter.
One of the few extravagances in which Mr. Raymond indulged his daughter
was allowing her to take Bella Donna wherever she went.
"Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon!" replied Guy to her indignant
refusal. "How you do believe in that mare! I wonder you don't put her
into some of the great Spring Handicaps! You would get her in light, and
might win enough to keep you in gloves for half a century."
"Well, I don't know," Forester's slow, languid voice suggested; "I think
she's faster, for three miles, than any thing in your stable. I should
like to run the best you have for £50, weight for inches."
"I am not surprised at your supporting Bella's opinion," said Guy, with
a shade of sarcasm in his voice, "but I did not expect you would back
it. Come, I'll make this match, if you like; you shall ride
catch-weight, which will be about 11 st. 7 lb., and I'll ride the Axeine
at 14 st. 7 lb.: I must take a 7 lb. saddle to do that. They are both in
hard condition, so it can come off in ten days; and I'll give the
farmers a cup to run for at the same time. Is it a match?"
"Certainly, if Miss Raymond will trust me with Bella Donna."
Isabel's eyes sparkled--so brilliantly! as she answered, "I should like
it, of all things."
"Now, Puss," Guy went on, "you ought to have something on it. There is a
certain set of turquoises and pearls that I meant to give you whenever
you had been good for three weeks consecutively; it is no use waiting
for such a miracle, so I'll bet you these against that sapphire and
diamond ring you have taken to wearing lately."
His cousin looked distressed and confused. "Any thing else, Guy," she
said. "I can not risk that; it was a present from--from Mrs. Molyneux."
"I don't think," Charley suggested, very quietly, "Mrs.--Molyneux, was
it not?--could object to your investing her present on such a certainty.
I really believe we shall bring it off; and if not--" He checked himself
with a smile.
"Oh, if you think so," answered Isabel, blushing more than ever, "I will
venture my ring. But you _must_ win; I don't know what I should do if I
lost it." So it was settled.
"You seem confident," I remarked to Livingstone, later in the evening. I
remember the peculiar expression of his face, though I did not then
understand it, as he answered gravely,
"Bella ought to be; for--she has laid long odds."
There was great excitement in the neighborhood when the match, and the
farmers' race to follow, became known. Half the county was assembled on
the appointed morning, an off-day with the Pytchley. Godfrey Parndon was
judge, and had picked the ground--a figure of 8, with 17 fences, large
but fair for the most part; the horses were to traverse it twice,
missing the brook (16 feet of clear water) the second time.
I wish they were not getting so rare, those purely country meetings,
where three wagons with an awning make the grant stand; where there are
no ring-men to force the betting and deafen you with their blatant
proffers--"to lay agin any thing in the race;" where the bold yeomen, in
full confidence that their favorite will not be "roped," back their
opinions manfully for crowns.
Livingstone's great local renown, and the reputation of the Axeine for
strength and speed (though no one knew how fast he _could_ go), made the
betting 5 to 4 on him; but takers were not wanting, calculating on the
horse's truly Satanic temper. Miss Bellasys, who, with her mother, had
arrived at Kerton the night before, laid half a point more--_not_ in
gloves--on the heavy-weight.
The bell for saddling rang, and the horses came out. The mare stripped
beautifully, as fine as a star--no wonder her mistress was proud of her;
and I think she had, to the full, as many admirers as the Axeine.
The latter was a dark chestnut with a white fetlock, standing full 16
hands (while the mare scarcely topped 15), well ribbed up, with a good
sloping shoulder, immense flat hocks, and sinewy thighs; his crest and
forehand were like a stallion's; and, when you looked at his quarters,
it was easy to believe what the Revesby stablemen said, "They could
shoot a man into the next county."
He was "orkarder than usual that morning," the groom remarked; perhaps
he did not fancy the crowd without the hounds, for he kept lashing out
perpetually, with vicious backward glances from his red eyes.
Then the riders showed: Livingstone in his own colors, purple and
scarlet cap, workmanlike and weather-stained; Forrester in the fresh
glories of light blue with white sleeves, his cap quartered with the
same.
Charley lingered a minute by Miss Raymond's side, taking her last
instructions, I suppose. She looked very nervous and pale, her jockey
pleasantly languid as ever.
The instant the chestnut was mounted he reared, and indulged in two or
three "buck-jumps" that would have made a weaker man tremble for his
back-bone, and then kicked furiously; but Guy seemed to take it all as a
matter of course, sitting square and erect; all he did was to drive the
sharp rowels in repeatedly, bringing a dark blood-spot out with each
stroke. It was not by love certainly that he ruled the Axeine. Then came
the preliminary gallops, the mare going easily on her bit, gliding over
the ground smoothly and springily; the horse shaking his head, and every
now and then tearing madly at the reins, without being able to gain a
hair's breadth on the iron hands that never moved from his withers.
"They're off!" Guy taking the lead; well over the first two fences, fair
hunting ones; the third is a teaser--an ugly black bulfinch, with a
ditch on the landing side, and a drop into a plowed field. The
chestnut's devil is thoroughly roused by this time. When within sixty
yards of the fence, he puts on a rush that even his rider's mighty
muscles can not check: his impetus would send him through a castle wall;
but he hardly rises at the leap, taking it, too, where there is a
network of growers--a crash that might be heard in the grand stand--and
horse and man are rolling in the field beyond.
Flora Bellasys strikes her foot angrily with her riding-whip, and turns
very pale.
Ten lengths behind, the mare comes up, well in hand, and slips through
the bulfinch without a mistake--hardly with an effort--just at the only
place where you can see daylight through the blackthorn.
What is Guy doing? Even in that thundering fall he has never let the
reins go. Horse and rider struggle up together. A dozen arms are ready
to lift him into the saddle, and a cheery voice says in his ear, "Hold
up, squire; keep him a going, and you'll catch the captain yet!" He
hardly hears the words though, for his head is whirling, and he feels
strangely sick and faint; but before he has gone a hundred yards his
face has settled into its habitual resolute calmness, only there is a
thin thread of blood creeping from under his cap, and his brow is bent
and lowering.
A fall, which would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only
steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep
ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say,
"The race is not over yet."
They are over the brook without a scramble. Forrester still leads,
riding patiently and well. He knows better than to force the running,
even with the difference in weight, for the going is too heavy quite to
suit his mare.
As Livingstone passed the spot where Miss Raymond was stationed, he
turned half round in his saddle, and looked curiously in her face. She
did not even know he was near. All her soul was in her eyes, that were
gazing after Forrester with an anxiety so disproportioned to the
occasion that her cousin fairly started.
"Poor child," he said to himself, all his angry feelings changing, "she
seems to have set her heart so upon winning, it would be sad if she were
disappointed. No one has much on it; shall I try 'Captain Armstrong' for
once? It would make her very happy. Bar accidents, I must win. They do
not know that the chestnut has not extended himself yet."
We lose sight of the horses for a little. When we see them a gain, the
mare has decidedly gained ground; and, to our astonishment, the Axeine
swerves, and refuses at rather an easy fence.
Miss Bellasys' cheek flushes this time. She goes off at a sharp canter
through a gate that takes her into a field where the horses must pass
her close; several of her attendants follow. Charley comes up, looking
rather more excited and happy than usual. He has made the pace better
for the last half mile, and still seems going at his ease. More than a
distance behind is the chestnut, evidently on bad terms with his jockey;
he is in a white lather of foam, and changes his leg twice as he
approaches. Guy has his face turned slightly aside as he nears the spot
where Miss Bellasys waits for him, in the midst of her body-guard. For
the first time since the race began, her voice was heard, cutting the
air with its clear mocking tones, like the edge of a Damascus sabre,
"The chestnut wins--hard held!"
Guy's kindly impulses vanished instantly before the sarcasm latent in
those last two words. He could sacrifice his own victory and the hopes
of his backers, but he would not give a chance to Flora's merciless
tongue. We saw him change his hold on the reins, and, with a shake and a
fierce thrust of the spurs, he set the Axeine fairly going.
Every man on the ground, including his late owner [who hated himself
bitterly at that moment for parting with him], was taken by surprise by
the extraordinary speed the horse displayed. He raced up to Bella Donna
just before the last fence, at which she hangs ever so little, while he
takes it in his swing, covering good nine yards from hoof to hoof.
Nothing but hurdles now between them and home. The down-hill run-in
favors his vast stride. A thousand voices echo Flora's words, "The
chestnut wins!" Charley made his effort exactly at the right time, and
the brave little mare answered gallantly; but it was not to be. He shook
his head, and never touched her with whip or spur again.
The race was over. No one disputed the judge's fiat: "The Axeine by six
lengths."
Up to the skies went the hats and the shouts of the sturdy yeomen, who
"know'd he couldn't be beat," exulting in the success of their
favorite. Round winner and loser crowded their friends, congratulating
the one, condoling with the other, praising both for their riding. At
that moment I do not think any one except myself remarked Isabel
Raymond, who sat somewhat apart, her tears falling fast under her veil
as she looked upon her lost ring.
Just then Forrester rode up. "Woe to the vanquished!" he said. "All is
lost but honor. Will you say something kind to me after my defeat, Miss
Raymond? You will find your pet not punished in the least, and without a
scratch on her."
Without answering, she held out her hand. As he bent over it, and
whispered, what I could not hear, I saw her eyes sparkle, and a happy
consciousness flush her cheeks, till they glowed like a sky at sunset
when a storm is passing away in the west. Then I knew that he had won a
richer prize than ever was set on a race since the first Great
Metropolitan was run for at Olympia.
Livingstone had washed away the traces of his fall (his wound was only a
cut under the hair, above the temple), and was going to get the horses
in line to start them for the farmers' cup. As he passed Miss Bellasys
he checked his horse for an instant, and said, very coldly,
"You are satisfied, I trust?"
"All's well that ends well," answered Flora; "but I began to tremble for
my bets. I thought you were waiting too long."
Guy did not wish to pursue the subject apparently, for he rode on
without reply. Flora made no attempt to detain him. She had studied the
signs of the times in his countenance long enough to be weather-wise,
and to know that the better part of valor was advisable when the
quicksilver had sunk to Stormy.
The cup was a great success. Eleven started, and three made a most
artistic finish--scarcely a length between first and third. The farmers
of the present day ride very differently from their ancestors of fifty
years ago, whose highest ambition was to pound along after the slow,
sure "currant-jelly dogs."
Go down into the Vale of Belvoir; watch one of the duke's tenants
handing a five-year old over the Smite, and say if the modern
agriculturists might not boast with Tydides,
_"hêmeis dê paterôn meg' ameinones euchometh' einai."_
They are getting so erudite, too, that I dare say they would quote it in
the original.
When all was over, and they were returning to Kerton, Guy ranged up to
his cousin's side. He looked rather embarrassed and penitent--an
expression which sat upon his stern, resolute face very strangely. But
Isabel was radiant with happiness, and did not even sigh as she held out
the forfeited ring. He put it back with a decided gesture of his hand,
and, leaning over her, whispered something in her ear. I don't know how
they arranged it; but Miss Raymond wore the turquoises at the next
county ball--the ring, to her dying day.