THE RIDE
I wish I were as I have been,
Hunting the hart in forest green.
With bended bow and bloodhound free,
For that’s the life is meet for me. —Scott.
Gather the rose-buds while you may,
Old Time is still a-flying. —Herrick.
If Major Gordon had thought Kate charming, in her simple morning dress,
he considered her transcendently beautiful on horseback. The easy,
graceful seat; the light bridle hand; the erect figure; and the
animation which the pastime kindled in eye and cheek, rendered her
doubly lovely to his mind. She seemed to fulfill every requirement for
that beau-ideal which he had long sighed after as unattainable, and
which should unite in one person a Rosalind, an Imogen, and a Portia.
The day was sultry, so, after proceeding a short distance, Kate said—
“I think I can find a cooler road, if you will permit me to be the
guide. There used to be an old one, somewhere near here, which had
become quite deserted before I went to Europe; it was grass-grown in
many places, and must now present an unbroken sward, which will be a
relief to the horses after toiling through these hot sands. For half a
mile or more, the way leads through a cedar-swamp, where what we call a
corduroy road had been laid down. We shall find it deliciously cool.
Here is the very place.”
So saying, she turned her horse into an opening between the trees,
where, in spite of the obliterated wheel-tracks, it was apparent a road
had once run. Tall pines rose on either hand, stretching far away in a
vista that seemed interminable, like pillars in a gothic colonnade. The
air was full of the sweet aroma they shed. Their fallen tassels, faded
to a rich brown color, carpeted the road.
“What a bit of ground for a canter,” said the Major, who was eager
to test Kate’s horsemanship. “Shall we give our steeds a brush?”
“Willingly,” said Kate; and away they went.
It was a beautiful sight to see the two spirited animals cantering side
by side, so that a blanket would have covered both. Arab was full of
play, and turned continually to snap at his companion, which Kate
laughingly permitted him to do occasionally, while at other times she
wheeled him off with a dexterous turn of her wrist, which elicited the
open admiration of Major Gordon.
Very soon, the natural emulation between the two mettled steeds began to
tell on their pace, which gradually increased from a canter to a gallop.
They went snorting along now, their necks arching at the strain upon the
bit; their hoofs crackling the pine splinters that strewed the road; the
foam flecking their glossy coats as they tossed their heads; and now
one, and then another, momentarily succeeding in passing his antagonist,
only however to be passed in turn.
“They are determined to try each other’s mettle,” said Kate,
laughingly. “It’s as much as I can do to keep Arab in. Suppose we
let them out and have a race in earnest.”
“Agreed,” said the Major, entering into the spirit of the thing as
fully as his fair companion.
“You see yonder thunder-riven pine,” said Kate, pointing with her
riding-whip. “It is probably half a mile off. The best one gets there
first. Are you ready?”
“Ready,” answered the Major.
“Go,” cried Kate, giving her horse his head.
Away they went, like twin arrows from a bow: the riders laughing in the
very abandon of fun; the horses, with outstretched necks, straining
every nerve. The Major’s steed, though a superior one, was somewhat
too heavily built, and this quickly began to affect his speed. Arab, on
the contrary, was in his element. With his neck extended almost in a
straight line, his nostrils expanded, and his fine eyes a-blaze, he soon
sprang far ahead of his adversary. Kate, as she left the Major’s side,
merrily looked over her shoulder, waving her hand in triumph. In a few
moments she drew in at the blasted pine, walking Arab slowly until Major
Gordon came up.
“Your horse runs like a deer,” said that gentleman. “Yet, from his
looks, I should think a child might ride him, when he’s at full speed;
he doesn’t seem to move his body at all; it is only his limbs; but
they are drawn up as beautifully as a greyhound’s.”
“He’s a darling,” said Kate, enthusiastically, leaning over and
patting his neck; at which Arab looked around gratified. “I wouldn’t
exchange him for half of England.”
Major Gordon smiled a little at this enthusiasm, though he could not but
think that it became Kate charmingly.
“Poor Selim,” said the Major, patting his horse in turn, “you did
not win, and it’s not often you’re beaten. But never mind, old
fellow, you can carry your master in battle, if need be, as gallantly as
the best.”
“To confess the truth,” answered Kate, “I had no idea Selim could
run so well. He’s a noble fellow,” she continued, leaning over and
patting him also. “Ha! you like it, do you, my brave Selim? But I
declare if Arab isn’t jealous. See, he is ready to bite both you and
your horse, Major. I must draw him off,” she added, laughingly, as she
turned his head, striking him at the same time with her heel, so that he
sprang to one side. “Fie, fie, Arab!” and she patted him anew,
“you should be ashamed of yourself, sir. You are first in the heart of
your mistress, and might allow her at least to be civil to others.”
By this time they had reached the edge of the cedar-swamp, which Kate
had described. The road was much decayed, so that it would have been
necessary to walk the horses, even if there had been no race. Kate was
in high spirits, and rattled on gayly. To the Major, unaccustomed for
several years to female society, except at rare intervals, her
conversation was perfectly bewitching; and indeed it would not have been
without its spell even to the most ennuied _habitue_ of the choicest
circles; for it exhibited that rare union of refinement and wit,
intellect and sentiment, which, when combined in woman, renders her so
irresistible.
“Ah! here we are at the spring,” she said, at last, drawing up Arab
at the side of the road, where a pool of dark, amber-colored water,
limpid as flint glass, lay slumbering under the mossy roots of an
enormous red cedar. Slowly the rich, aromatic water welled out from the
impenetrable recesses of the swamp, into this natural basin, ebbing away
from it, at the other side, as imperceptibly, and flowing off over
silver-white sand, till it lost itself beneath the rude bridge crossing
the road. Gigantic trees, laden with dark foliage, fairly met overhead,
obscuring the sunshine, and filling the air around with spicy odors. To
add to the fairy-like charm of the spot, the atmosphere was as cool as
that of a cave.
“This is delicious,” said the Major, lifting his hat from his heated
brow. “It is Greenland at our very doors. The water looks so tempting
that I must have a drink,” he continued, dismounting. “Will you
permit me, Miss Aylesford, to be your cup-bearer?”
“I haven’t the heart to refuse,” said Kate, fanning herself, with
her broad-leafed hat, “for the water is the best in the whole region.
Besides, to be frank, I’m half dead with thirst. But will your horse
stand?” “Like a lamb, generally, but as he is also thirsty, and
might drink, I’ll fasten him thus,” and with these words the Major
threw the bridle over the limb of a tree.
“Yonder you’ll find a leaf large enough for an impromptu cup,”
said Kate, observing that he was looking about as if for one. “I used
to come here frequently, before I went abroad, and always knew where to
find materials for a woodland goblet.” And she directed him with a
wave of her hat, still fanning herself.
The Major was not long in profiting by the hint, and skillfully
arranging the leaf, filled it with water, and bore it to his lovely
companion in triumph.
“Handsomely done,” said Kate. “Yon must once have been the
wood-nymphs’ Ganymede, if the doctrine of transmigration of souls be
true. Ah!” she continued, with a sigh, “what a world of poetry went
out with the Greeks, who peopled every object in the landscape with
life, so that a wood, or a tree, was an actual dryad or hamadryad. How I
drank in those pages of Tasso, when I was still quite a child, where the
Christian knight hews down the tree, which, a beautiful nymph, bleeds at
every stroke. I cried over the poor lady, imprisoned in the cruel bark,
as if my heart would break.”
“It’s the most alluring feature of the old Pantheism, that beautiful
fiction of tutelary spirits of the woods and streams,” said Major
Gordon, as he took the emptied cup; and filling it, in the spirit of the
thought he poured the water out again, saying, “A pious Greek would
have propitiated, in this way, the deities of the place by a
libation.”
“They don’t seem to be in an especially good humor now, at any
rate,” said Kate, who happened to glance up at the sky at that moment.
“As well as I can see, through the leaves over-head, a thunder storm
is coming up. We have been so long in the cool forest aisle, that we
have noticed neither the increasing darkness, nor the fall in the
temperature. The day has been sultry enough for a tempest, and, if we
don’t make haste, we may get drenched through.
Major Gordon was in the saddle before she had ceased speaking. Cantering
a short space ahead, where the verdant vault parted partially above, he
confirmed Kate’s opinion. In a moment she was at his side.
“Hadn’t we better return?” he said, surprised to see her following
him.
“We should be too late to escape the storm,” she replied. “Mr.
Herman’s farm is the nearest place of shelter I remember; it is only a
mile off; but we can reach it before the rain comes on, if we lose no
time. Follow me.”
As she spoke, she gave Arab his head again, and dashed forwards. She did
not, however, permit him to distance Selim, as he might easily have
done; but held him back sufficiently to allow Major Gordon to keep at
her side.
In a couple of minutes the riders emerged from the swamp, on a
comparatively clear space, where the forest had just been cut away: and
here the grandeur of the approaching storm broke upon them in all its
terrific majesty. Colossal clouds, as black as ink, were rolling up from
the west, piling one on top of the other, and making the lately azure
heaven as dark as the day of doom. The trees moaned ominously. All at
once a dead calm fell upon everything. Nature seemed panting for breath.
Then, suddenly, a hurricane arose, which rushed through the woods,
stripping off the leaves, and tore along the now sandy road, driving
before it huge columns of lurid dust.
Kate wheeled her horse, at this crisis, into a by-road at full speed,
merely looking around at Major Gordon as a signal for him to follow.
A few strides carried them within the shelter of the forest again. A few
more, and they emerged on a small clearing. Major Gordon had only time
to observe that it contained about fifty or sixty acres, and boasted a
thriving apple-orchard, when they dashed up to a comfortable looking,
though primitive dwelling, constructed of hewn logs, a story and a half
high.
The house stood a few rods back from the road, and was approached by a
lane guarded by a gate. This entrance was now closed, and Major Gordon
was about to press forward, in order to open it, when Kate, rushing her
horse at it, and skillfully lifting him, gallantly cleared it. The Major
had just time to raise Selim for the leap, when Kate reached the door of
the house, throwing Arab back nearly on his haunches, as she reined him
suddenly in.
A patriarchal old man was standing in the open entrance, with two lads
at his side. As Kate sprang nimbly to the ground, he advanced, and,
seizing her hand, drew her in, for the big drops were now beginning to
descend, heavy as miniature bullets.
At the same time he said, as Major Gordon alighted,
“Lads, take the horses, quick, and put them in the barn. Be lively
now, or the saddles will get wet. But walk in, walk in, Miss Katie; and
welcome to the old man’s hearth again; it’s been many a year since
you were here.”
With these words he fairly pushed her in, signing for Major Gordon to
follow.