Stunned by the violence of the shock, Harry was aware vaguely, and as
in a dream, that the horse had risen, and that some person was soothing
and caressing it; from this state of semi-unconsciousness he was aroused
by the voice of Dick, the groom, exclaiming, “If you b’aint too much
hurt, Mr. Coverdale, you may do it yet, sir, if so be as you can
sit your horse; for Black Eagle has refused the gap, and Tirrett’s a
bullying him to get him over now.”
Thus appealed to, Harry rose with difficulty (uttering an exclamation
of pain as he did so), and gazed confusedly round him. Uninjured by
its fall, Don Pasquale was standing by him, held by Dick; while,
considerably to the left, Tirrett, having ridden back a few paces, was
forcing Black Eagle, by a severe application of both whip and spur, to
attempt the leap over the gap, which he had just refused.
“Here, quick!” exclaimed Coverdale eagerly, “hold the stirrup--that
will do--don’t touch my arm--I’ll disappoint that scoundrel yet!” and,
gathering up the reins with his right hand, he put spurs to his horse,
and galloped off. After a struggle, Tirrett succeeded in forcing Black
Eagle across the gap, and, by dint of spurring and shaking, got him into
a sort of shambling canter on the farther side of it; but it was of no
avail, for, as Don Pasquale passed the winning-post, Black Eagle
was still several lengths behind: Coverdale’s desperate leap had
accomplished the purpose for which it had been attempted, and Lord
Alfred Courtland’s horse remained winner of the steeple-chase.
As he rode in triumphant, an eager crowd of Don Pasquale’s backers
surrounded him with loud congratulations. “Splendidly done! I never saw
such riding in my life!” “That leap with a tired horse was the pluckiest
thing ever attempted--there’s not another man on the course would have
faced it!”
“The business of the brook was the cleverest dodge of all--I saw it
through a race-glass, and I never expected you could have kept on him.”
“Didn’t the horse fall on you? are you hurt, Mr. Coverdale?” Such were
some of the numerous remarks and exclamations which rang in Harry’s
ears, as, faint and giddy, it was as much as he could do to retain his
seat without falling from the saddle.
“Harry; my dear, kind friend, how can I ever thank you sufficiently?”
exclaimed Lord Alfred Courtland, forcing his way through the crowd.
“Find the groom,” was the hurried reply, “for I can’t keep on the horse
much longer.”
As he spoke, Dick, with a face crimson with heat and triumph, made his
appearance, and took charge of Don Pasquale, while Harry, with a painful
effort, swung himself to the ground, where he staggered and appeared
scarcely able to stand.
“You are faint!” exclaimed Lord Alfred, hastily; “here, lean upon me,
and let us get out of this crowd.”
“Take care of my arm,” murmured Harry, compressing his lips as though to
restrain an expression of suffering.
“Your arm! why, good heaven! what is the matter with it?”
“It is only broken,” returned Harry, quietly; “the horse fell upon it
with his full weight at the last leap; but I was able to hold him with
one hand, so it did not signify.”
“And you mounted again, and won the race, with your arm broken!”
exclaimed Lord Alfred. “Why, it’s the most gallant, noble--but you are
suffering dreadfully! Oh, what am I to do for you? why did I ever let
you ride that vicious, dangerous brute!”
“There, don’t make a fuss,” returned Coverdale; “let us get out of this
crowd; find me a glass of wine, for I’ve a sort of faintness comes over
me every now and then, and when I’ve drank that I shall do well enough
until we can get a surgeon to set my arm; don’t worry about it--when I
put the horse at that wall I fully expected to break my neck.”
Five minutes’ rest, and a couple of glasses of old Sherry, restored
Coverdale sufficiently to enable him to announce his readiness to
proceed, though he refused to leave the ground until the Honourable
Billy Whipcord had undertaken to see that the winner was defrauded of
none of his rights; and then, and not till then, did Harry accept Lord
Alfred’s offer to accompany him to town in a Hansom’s cab, which a
gentleman who had engaged it for the day obligingly gave up the moment
he learned for what purpose it was required.
The conversation of the two friends during the drive to London afforded
a curious illustration of character. Lord Alfred grieved and
shocked beyond measure at the accident which had occurred to his old
schoolfellow in his service, was engaged the whole time in pouring forth
unavailing lamentations and self-accusings; while Coverdale, although
suffering the most excruciating anguish from every motion of the cab,
was so touched by the evidence of feeling shown by his companion, that
he not only repressed all outward signs of pain, but used his best
endeavours to comfort and console Lord Alfred. On their way to Lord
Alfred’s lodgings, where he insisted Coverdale should take up his abode
until he should be well enough to travel, they called at the house of
a surgeon celebrated for his skill in cases of fracture, and were
fortunate enough to find him at home. On learning the nature of the
accident, he provided himself with the necessary apparatus, reached
the lodgings as soon as his patient, and, within an hour of the time
at which the injury was inflicted, Coverdale’s arm was set, and the
fracture pronounced to be not a very serious one.
“And now for my poor Alice,” was Harry’s first exclamation, when,
with strict injunctions to go to bed and keep his arm quiet,
Mr. B------ had departed; “how am I to act about her? If I write her
word I’ve met with an accident, she’ll be frightened out of her wits;
and yet if I don’t, she may hear of it some other way (those confounded
newspapers are sure to get hold of the affair), and fancy I am killed,
or some such notion; I’d better write--give me the tools, there’s a good
fellow.”
“But, really you ought not to exert yourself to do it, remember----”
began Lord Alfred, deprecatingly.
“I remember, sir, that my wife is alone, and anxious about me already,
and that if I can spare her any shock or alarm, I will do so as long
as I can hold a pen,” was Coverdale’s positive and somewhat snappish
answer; for which he must be held excused, as severe bodily pain does
not tend to improve the temper.
Lord Alfred, seeing it was useless to contend the point, gave him pen,
ink, and paper; and, unfit as he was for such exertion, Coverdale wrote
Alice a full account of his day’s adventures, only concealing the nature
and extent of his accident. The letter was most kind and judicious, and
well calculated to soothe and console her to whom it was addressed,
and no doubt would have succeeded in so doing, but for the following
untoward events.
Alice, left to herself, had grown desperately frightened as to the
possible upshot of her husband’s rash expedition to London; and, as the
reader is already aware, had dispatched after him Lord Alfred’s letter,
and her own reasons for so doing, fairly written upon two sheets of
scented note-paper. But, although she rightly considered this the best
thing she could do, yet it by no means afforded her lasting comfort, and
she remained restless and unhappy until, on the evening of the day on
which the steeple-chase occurred, she worked herself up to such a pitch
of nervous anxiety, that she was becoming quite ill, when the idea
struck her that perhaps Harry, having received her letter, might set
off at once, and arrive by a train which got in about seven, p.m. On the
chance of this she dispatched, to meet the aforesaid train, a groom
and a dog-cart. Now, as the reader knows, it was impossible Harry could
arrive by that train, because at the time it started, he--having written
to Alice--had just been undressed by Lord Alfred Courtland’s valet, and
gone to bed, which, no one can doubt, was by far the best place for him.
But though he did not come by that train, a young farmer did, who was
one of Harry’s tenants, and who, as ill luck would have it, had been
at the steeple-chase, witnessed Coverdale leap and fall, and heard
afterwards an exaggerated account of the injuries he had received. Thus,
when the groom inquired if he had seen his master get into the train,
he favoured that equine servitor with a graphic history of the morning’s
proceedings, illustrated and embellished by the narrator’s imaginative
powers; which recital producing much grief and consternation in the mind
of the faithful fellow, who was much attached to his master, induced him
to drive home as fast as the trotting mare could step, to destroy his
mistress’s peace of mind, by imparting to her these disastrous tidings.
Having great and, as the sequel proved, unfounded reliance on his own
tact and eloquence, he, on his arrival, would by no means allow Wilkins
to be his mouthpiece; on the contrary, nothing would serve him but to be
shown into his mistress’s presence, and, as he termed it, “break it
to her easy-like” himself--which judicious intention he carried out
thus:--“If you please, Mrs. Coverdale, ma’am, I’m sorry to say somethin’
dreadful’s been and happened, which I thought p’raps you might like to
’ear; so, not to frighten you, I made bold to come and break it to you
myself!” Poor Alice! all the blood seemed to rush to her heart, while
a choking sensation in her throat totally deprived her of the power of
speech. After a moment, she contrived to gasp out interrogatively, “A
railroad accident? your master----”
Answering her idea rather than her words, the man replied, “If you
please, ma’am, it wasn’t on the railway as poor master met with his
accident!”
“Then he has met with--” began Alice, and the idea at that moment
flashing across her mind that he had encountered D’Almayne, and been
wounded, perhaps killed, in a duel, she shrieked out, “Oh! I see it all;
he is dead or dying, and I have been his murderess!” and sank back in a
fainting fit.
The groom, frightened at the effect of his tidings, summoned the female
servants, and Alice was carried to her room, undressed, and placed in
bed, before she had by any means recovered from her swoon; and even
when, after one or two relapses, she did regain her consciousness, her
burning hand, flushed cheeks, and unnaturally brilliant eyes, together
with an incoherence of expression and an excitability of manner
occasionally verging on delirium, so alarmed the stately housekeeper,
that she, on her own responsibility, sent off for that eminent medical
practitioner, Gouger; the result of his visit was, that Harry, bruised
and sore from head to foot, having lain awake half the night from the
pain of his broken arm, was aroused from an uneasy slumber, into
which, towards morning, he had fallen, by the following telegraphic
message:--“H. Coverdale, Esq., from Scalpel Gouger, M.D.--Was called
in to Mrs. C. last night, at nine, P.M..--symptoms acute, febrile,
threatening the brain! state critical--if Mr. C. can travel without
danger, let him come _at once!_”
In less than half an hour, Harry Coverdale was up, dressed, and in the
first railway train which left London. As he had lain sleepless through
the weary hours of the night, he had thought the pain of his broken limb
all but unbearable; during his journey home he never even felt it, so
deep and absorbing was his mental agony.