CHAPTER XXIX

UNDIVIDED

The late autumn was merging into early winter, that pleasantest of all seasons for those sportsmen who exult in the stride of a good horse, and the stirring music of the hound. Even in Pall Mall true lovers of the chase felt stealing over them the annual epidemic, which winter after winter rages with unabated virulence, incurable by any known remedy. A sufferer--it would be a misnomer to call him a _patient_--from this November malady was gaping at a print-shop window, near the bottom of St. James's Street, wholly engrossed in the performances of a very bright bay horse, with a high-coloured rider, flying an impossible fence, surrounded by happy hunting-grounds, where perspective seemed unknown.

"D'ye think he'll get over, Bill?" said a familiar voice, that could only belong to Daisy Walters, who had stolen unperceived behind his friend.

"Not if the fool on his back can pull him into it," answered the other indignantly. And these comrades, linking arms, turned eastward, in the direction of their club.

"How's the Missis?" said Bill, whose boast it was that he never forgot his manners.

"Fit as a fiddle," replied the happy husband. "Had a long letter from Molly this morning. Sent her best love--no, scratched that out, and desired to be kindly remembered to _you_."

Molly, called after Lady Mary, was the eldest and, in Bill's opinion, the handsomest daughter, so he changed the subject with rather a red face.

"About to-morrow now," said Bill. "I've got Martingale to do my orderly. Are you game for a day with the stag?"

"Will a duck swim!" was the answer. "Norah is coming too. I shall mount her on Boneen; he's own brother to the little horse that beat our mare at Punchestown."

"Couldn't do better in that country," asserted his friend. "He'll carry her like a bird, if she'll wake him up a bit, and it's simply _impossible_ to get him down. By Jove, Daisy, there's St. Josephs going into the Club. How seedy he looks, and how old! Hang me, if I won't offer him a mount to-morrow. I wonder if he'll come?"

So this kind-hearted young sportsman, in whose opinion a day's hunting was the panacea for all ills, mental or bodily, followed his senior into the morning-room, and proffered his best horse, with the winning frankness of manner that his friends found it impossible to resist.

"He's good enough to carry the Commander-in-Chief," said Bill. "I've more than I can ride till I get my long leave. I should be _so_ proud if you'd have a day on him; and if he makes a mistake, I'll give him to you. There!"

St. Josephs was now on the eve of departure for the employment he had solicited. While his outfit was preparing, the time hung heavy on his hands, and he had done so many kindnesses by this young subaltern that he felt it would be only graceful and friendly to accept a favour in return, so he assented willingly, and Bill's face glowed with pleasure.

"Don't be late," said he. "Nine o'clock train from Euston. Mind you get into the drop-carriage, or they'll take you on to the Shires. I'll join you at Willesden. And if we don't have a real clinker, I'll make a vow never to go hunting again."

Then he departed on certain errands of his own connected with the pugilistic art, and the General reflected sadly how it was a quarter of a century since he used to feel as keen as that reckless light-hearted boy.

He waited on high authorities at the War-office, dined with the field-marshal, and, through a restless night, dreamed of Satanella, for the first time since her disappearance.

A foggy November morning, and a lame horse in the cab that took him to Euston Station did not serve to raise his spirits. But for Bill's anticipations of "a clinker," and the disappointment he knew it would cause that enthusiast, the General might have turned back to spend one more day in vain brooding and regret. Arrived on the platform, however he got into a large saloon-carriage, according to directions, and found himself at once in the midst of so cheerful a party that he felt it impossible to resist the fun and merriment of the hour.

St. Josephs was too well known in general society not to find acquaintances even here, though he was hardly prepared to meet representatives of so many pursuits and professions, booted and spurred for the chase, and judging by the ceaseless banter they interchanged,

"All determined to ride, each resolved to be first."

Soldiers, sailors, diplomatists, bankers, lawyers, artists, authors, men of pleasure, and men of business, holding daily papers they never looked at, were all talking across each other, and laughing incessantly, while enthroned at one end of the carriage sat the best sportsman and most popular member of the assemblage, whose opinions, like his horses, carried great weight, and were of as unflinching a nature as his riding, so that he was esteemed a sort of president in jack-boots. Opposite him was placed pretty Irish Norah, now Mrs. Walters, intensely excited by her first appearance at what she called "an English hunt," while she imparted to Daisy, in a mellower brogue than usual, very original ideas on things in general, and especially on the country through which they were now flying at the rate of forty miles an hour.

"It's like a garden where it's in tillage, and a croquet-lawn where it's in pasture," said Norah, after a gracious recognition of the General, and cordial greeting to Bill, who was bundled in at Willesden, panting, with his spurs in his hand. "Ah! now, Daisy, it's little of the whip poor Boneen will be wanting for easy leaps like them."

"Wait till you get into the vale," said Daisy; "and whatever you do let his head alone. Follow me close, and if I'm down, ride over me. It's the custom of the country."

The General smiled.

"I haven't been there for twenty years," said he; "but I can remember in my time we were not very particular. I shall follow my old friend," he added, nodding to the president, whose nether garments were of the strongest and most workmanlike materials; "when a man has no regular hunting things, he wants a leader to turn the thorns, and from all I hear, if I can only stick to mine, I shall be in a very good place."

Everybody agreed to this, scanning the speaker with approving glances, the while, St. Josephs, though wearing trousers and a common morning coat, had something in his appearance that denoted the practised horseman; and when he talked of "twenty years ago," his listeners gave him credit for those successes which in all times, are attributed to the men of the past.

"Mrs. Walters must be a little careful at the doubles," hazarded a quiet good-looking man who had not yet spoken, but whose nature it was to be exceedingly courteous, where ladies were concerned. "A wise horse that knows its rider is everything in the vale."

Norah looked into the speaker's dark eyes with a quaint smile.

"Ah, then! if the horse wasn't wiser than the rider," said she, "it's not many leaps any of us would take without a fall!" and in the laughter provoked by this incontestable assertion, a slight jerk announced that their carriage was detached from the train, and they had arrived.

Though it requires a long time to settle a lady in the saddle for hunting, even when in the regular swing of twice or thrice a week, and though Norah was about to enjoy her first gallop of the season in a new habit, on a new horse, she and Daisy had ample leisure for a sober ride to the place of meeting, arriving cool and calm, pleased with the weather, the scenery, the company, and, above all, delighted with Boneen.

They were accompanied by the General on a first-class hunter belonging to Bill, and soon overtaken by its owner, who, having lingered behind to jump a four-year-old over a tempting stile for educational purposes, had crushed a new hat, besides daubing his coat in the process.

"Down already?" said St. Josephs. "What happened to him? What did he do?"

"Rapped very hard," answered Bill; "found his friend at home, and went in without waiting to be announced;" but he patted the young pupil on its neck, and promised to teach it the trade before Christmas, nevertheless. Certainly, if practice makes perfect, no man should have possessed a stud of cleverer fencers than Soldier Bill.

And now, as she reached the summit of a grassy ascent, there broke on Norah's vision so extensive and beautiful a landscape as elicited an exclamation of amazement and delight.

Mile after mile, to the dim grey horizon, stretched a sweep of smooth wide pastures, intersected by massive hedges, not yet bare of their summer luxuriance, dotted by lofty standard trees, rich in the gaudy hues of autumn, lit up by flashes of a winding stream that gleamed here and there under the willows with which its banks were fringed. Enclosures varying from fifty to a hundred acres, gave promise of as much galloping as the heart of man, or even woman, could desire. And scanning those fences the Irish lady admitted to herself, though not to her companions, that from a distance they looked as formidable obstacles as any she had confronted in Kildare.

"It's beautiful," said Norah. "It's made on purpose for a hunt. Look, Daisy, there's the hounds! Oh, the darlings! And little Boneen, he sees them, too!"

Gathered round their huntsman, a wiry, sporting-looking man on a thorough-bred bay horse, they were moving into sight from behind a hay-stack that stood in a corner of the neighbouring field. Rich in colour, beautiful in shape, and with a family likeness pervading the lot as if they were all one litter, a fox-hunter would have grudged them for the game they were about to pursue--a noble red deer, in so far tame, that he was fed in the paddock, and brought to a condition that could tax the speed and endurance even of this famous pack. The animal had already arrived in a large van on wheels, drawn by a pair of horses, and surrounded by a levee of gaping rustics, whose eagerness and love for the sport reminded Norah of her countrymen on the other side of the Channel.

"Will they let him out here, Daisy?" said she, in accents of trembling excitement. "I wish they'd begin. What are we waiting for?"

"Your patience will not be tried much longer," said the General, lighting a cigar. "Here comes the master, at a pace as if the mare that landed him the Thousand Guineas, the Oaks, and the St. Leger, had been made a cover-hack for the occasion!"

"With the Derby-winner of the same year for second horse!" added her husband. "If you want a pilot, Norah, you couldn't do better than stick to _him_, heavy as he is!"

"I mean to follow _you_, sir," was the rejoinder. "If you don't mind, Daisy, maybe I'll be before ye."

Even while she spoke a stir throughout the whole cavalcade, and a smothered shout from the foot-people, announced that the deer had been enlarged.

With a wild leap in the air, as though rejoicing in its recovered liberty, the animal started off at speed, but in the least favourable direction it could have taken, heading towards the ascent on the side of which the horsemen and a few carriages were drawn up. Then slackened its pace to a jerking, springing trot--paused--changed its mind--lowered its head--dashed wildly down the hill to disappear through a high bull-finch, and after a few seconds came again into view, travelling swift and straight across the vale.

The General smoked quietly, but his eye brightened, and he seemed ten years younger for the sight.

"It's all right now," said he; "the sooner they lay them on the better."

Soldier Bill, drawing his girths, looked up with a beaming smile.

"They say there's a lady, a mysterious unknown, in a thick veil, who beats everybody with these hounds," he observed. "I wonder why she's not out to-day."

"I think she _is_," replied Daisy, shooting a mischievous glance at his wife. "I fancied I caught the flutter of a habit just now behind the hay-stack. I suppose she's determined to get a good start and cut Norah down!"

Ere the latter could reply, the hounds dashed across the line of the deer. Throwing the tongues in full musical notes, they spread like a fan, with noses in the air; then, stooping to the scent, converged, in one melodious crash and chorus, ere they took to running with a grim, silent determination that denoted the extremity of pace. Every man set his horse going at speed. Nearly a dozen selected their places in the first fence--a formidable bull-finch. The rest, turning rather away from the hounds, thundered wildly down to an open gate.

Amongst those who meant riding straight, it is needless to say, were Mrs. Walters and her three cavaliers. These landed in the second field almost together. Daisy, closely pursued by his wife, stealing through a weak place under a tree, the General sailing fairly over all, and Bill, unable to resist the temptation of a gap, made up with four strong rails, getting to the right side with a scramble, that wanted very little of a nasty fall.

The hounds were already a quarter of a mile ahead with nobody near them but a lady on a black hunter, who was well alongside, going, to all appearance, perfectly at her ease; while her groom, on a chestnut horse, left hopelessly behind, rode in the wake of the General, and wished he was at home.

Daisy, whose steeple-chasing experience had taught him never to lose his head, was the only one of our party who did not feel a little bewildered by the pace. Taking in everything at a glance, he observed the black hunter in front sail easily over a fence that few horses would have looked at. There was no mistaking the style and form of the animal. "Of course it is!" he muttered. "Satanella, by all that's inexplicable! We shall not catch them at _this_ pace, however!" Then, pulling his horse to let his wife come up, he shouted in her ear, "Norah, that's Miss Douglas!"

Whether she heard him or not, the only answer Mrs. Walters vouchsafed was to lean back in her saddle and give Boneen a refresher with the whip.

Unlike a fox, whose reasons are logical and well-considered, a deer will sometimes turn at right angles for no conceivable cause, pursuing the new line with as much speed and decision as the old.

In the present instance the animal, after leaping a high thorn fence with two ditches, broke short off in a lateral direction, under the very shadow of the hedge it had just cleared, and, at the pace they were going, the hounds, as a natural consequence, over-ran the scent.

Miss Douglas pulled up her horse, and did not interfere. There being, fortunately, no one to assist them, they flung themselves beautifully, swinging back to the line and taking it up again with scarcely the loss of a minute. The President, two fields off, struggling hard to get nearer, was perhaps the only man out who sufficiently appreciated their steadiness. Like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, "he blessed them unawares." Bill, I fear, did the _other_ thing, for the fence was so high he never saw them turn, and jumped well into their midst, happily without doing any damage.

This slight delay, however, had the effect of bringing Daisy, his wife, Soldier Bill, and the General into the same field with Miss Douglas. She heard the footfall of their horses, looked round, and set the black mare going faster than before. If, as indeed seemed probable, she was resolved not to be overtaken, the pack, streaming away at speed once more, served her purpose admirable. No horse alive could catch them; and Satanella herself seemed doing her best to keep on tolerable terms at that terrific pace. The majority of the field had already been hopelessly distanced. The General found even the superior animal he rode fail somewhat in the deep-holding meadows. Bill was in difficulties, although he had religiously adhered to the shortest way. Even Daisy began to wish for a pull, and only little Boneen, quite thorough-bred and as good as he was sluggish, seemed to keep galloping on, strong and full of running as at the start. For more than a mile our friends proceeded with but a slight alteration in their relative positions--Satanella, perhaps, gradually leaving her followers, and the hounds drawing away from all five. In this order two or three flying fences were negotiated, and a fair brook cleared. Daisy, looking back in some anxiety, could not but admire the form in which Norah roused and handled Boneen. That good little horse, bred and trained in Ireland, seemed to combine the activity of a cat with the sagacious instincts of a dog. Like all of his blood, he only left off being lazy when his companions began to feel tired; and Mrs. Walters, coming up with her husband, as they rose the hill from the waterside, declared, though he did not hear her, "I could lead the hunt now, Daisy, if you'd let me. Little Boneen's as pleased as Punch! He'd like to pull hard, only he's such a good boy he doesn't know how!"

Bill's horse dropped its hind legs in the brook, and fell, but was soon up again with its rider. The General got over successfully; nevertheless, his weight was beginning to tell, and the ground being now on the ascent, he found himself the last of the five people with the hounds.

At the crest of the hill frowned a black, forbidding-looking bull-finch: on this side a strong rail; on the other, if a horse ever got there, _the uncertainty_, which might or might _not_, culminate in a rattling fall. Daisy glanced anxiously to right and left, on his wife's behalf, but there was no forgiveness. They must have it, or go home! Then he watched how the famous black mare would acquit herself a hundred yards ahead of him, and felt little reassured to detect such a struggle in the air while she topped the fence, as by no means inferred a pleasant landing where she disappeared on its far side.

He wavered, he hesitated, and pulled his horse off for a stride; but Norah's impatient--"Ah, Daisy! go on now!" urged him to the attempt, and he _chanced_ it, with his heart in his mouth, for her sake, not his own.

Taking fast hold of his horse's head, he got over with a scramble, turning afterwards in the saddle to watch how it fared with his wife and little Boneen. Her subsequent account described the performance better than could any words of mine.

"When I loosed him off at it," said she, "I just touched him on the shoulder with the whip, to let him know he wasn't in Kildare. He understood well enough, the little darling! for he pricked his ears, and came back to a slow canter; but I'd like ye to have felt the bound he made when he rose to it! Such a place beyond! 'Twas as thick as a cabbage-garden--dog-roses, honeysuckles, I'm not sure there wasn't cauliflowers, and all twisted up together to conceal a deep, wide, black-looking hole, like a boreen.[6] Well, I just felt him give a sort of a little kick, while he left the entire perplexity ten feet behind him, and when he landed, as light as a fairy, Daisy, I'm sure I heard him laugh!"

Mrs. Walters, like most of her nation, abounded in enthusiasm. She could not forbear a little cry of delight at the panorama that opened before her, when she had effected the above-mentioned-feat. To the very horizon lay stretched a magnificent vale of pasture, brightened by the slanting rays of a November sun. Far ahead, fleeting across the level below, sped a dark object, she recognised for the deer; a field nearer were the hounds, running their hardest, in a string that showed they too had caught sight of their game. Half-way down the hill she was herself descending, the other lady was urging the black mare to head-long speed, very dangerous on such a steep incline. Fifty yards behind Satanella, came Daisy, and close on his heels, Norah, wild with delight, feeling a strong inclination to give Boneen his head, and go by them all. The little horse, however, watched his stable-companion narrowly, while his rider's eyes were riveted on the hounds. Suddenly she felt him shorten his stride and stop, with a jerk, that nearly shot her out of the saddle. Glancing at Daisy, for an explanation, she screamed aloud, and covered her face with her hands.

When she looked again, she was aware of her husband's horse staring wildly about with the bridle over its head; of Daisy himself on foot, and, a few yards off, the good black mare prostrate, motionless, rolled up in a confused and hideous mass with her hapless rider.

Down hill, at racing pace, Satanella had put her fore-feet through a covered drain, with the inevitable result--the surface gave way, letting her in to the shoulders, and a few yards farther on, she lay across her mistress, with her neck broken, never to stir those strong, fleet limbs again.

"Oh! Daisy, they're both killed!" whispered Norah, with a drawn, white face, while her husband, busying himself to undo the girths, and thus extricate that limp helpless figure from beneath the weight that crushed it so sorely, shouted for assistance to Soldier Bill and the General, who at that moment entered the field together.

"I trust in heaven, _not_!" he replied aloud; and, below his breath, even while his heart smote him for the thought, "It might have been worse. My darling, it might have been _you_!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: "Boreen," Irish for a deep, stone-paved lane.]