Part 13

In vain Kate tried to get a pull at her horse. On the left Vernon and Polly had got over with a scramble. One man was down, and a second felt that the roan was worth another fifty at least for the way he kicked himself clear of the dirt.

With a rush which would have landed him well on the other side of twenty feet of water, the brown went at the highest place he could find in the wall. Kate knew what must come, but hardened her heart and faced it. As the old horse tried to rise, he stuck in the heavy bog. There was a crash; for a moment everything spun round, and Kate was down with a stunning fall.

Had anyone seen her, of course even the run of the season would have been given up to render her assistance, but her only companions in this particular field had the lead of her, and the side walls hid her from other people's view, besides which Kate Lowry was one who had long since established her right to look after herself in the hunting-field.

For a minute or two the slim girl's figure lay prone and motionless on the damp turf, while her horse stood by, hanging his wise old head regretfully over the ruin he had made. Then the girl raised herself on her elbow, pushed the fair hair out of her eyes, and sitting up, looked into the old horse's wistful face with a half smile.

"You old fool, Joe!" she said; "you ought to have known better at your time of life."

Rising to her feet, she leaned her head for a moment on her saddle, pressing her hand to her side as if in pain, and then backing her horse so that he stood close alongside the wall, she climbed slowly and with difficulty back into the saddle.

"I wonder how long we lay under that wall, Joe?" soliloquized Kate, as she walked him through a gap in the next wall; "and I wonder, too, where the hounds are, and if I must give it up and let that Preece girl beat me?"

Listening intently, she sat for a moment by the roadside, the old horse's ears pricked keenly forward. At last she thought she heard hounds running, it seemed, to her right. Without a moment's hesitation she turned Joe round, and, sobered by his fall, that mud-besmeared veteran popped over the wall as cleverly as a cat, only to be reined up short as he lit, for there, streaming over another wall, were the whole pack, going as keenly and as fiercely now as in the first three fields. With them were only two horsemen, the master and the man in mufti.

As the three joined forces, George noticed for the first time his cousin's white face and muddy garments.

"Why, Kate, where have you been? Not hurt, I hope?" and though the words were curt and simple, the expression in his face was less careless than it might have been.

"No, thanks; more mud than bruises, I think. Where is Miss Preece?"

"Rolled off in the only piece of plough in the county, and seems to have taken root there," laughed the ungallant M.F.H.

"No damage done, I hope?" said Kate.

"Hurt? No. Her clever chestnut put his feet into a furrow and stumbled, _la belle_ Polly rolled off, and though we put her up again, she seemed to have had enough, especially as she believed that you had given up the chase some time since."

"Oh, indeed," laughed Kate, a little grimly. "You see hers was her _first_ fall; it makes a difference."

And now the conversation dropped. Each of those three riders had his or her hands full for the time. The fox in front of them was, indeed, a straight-necked one. Save for the one turn which had given Kate a second chance, he had gone straight as the crow flies since the find. Save for a check of a short five minutes, the hounds had run almost as if they were coursing him, and it was already a full half-hour since the find, and the spire of Kempford church was now visible on the right. At the back of Kempford village was a well-known drain, in which more than one stout fox had found safety. For this reynard seemed to be making, and to judge of the frequency with which each of the three horses rattled their walls as they skimmed over them, his pursuers were hardly likely to get there even if he was.

But between the Kempford drain and him there ran the deep and broad stream of the Cheln, unfordable, and rarely, if ever, crossed (save by a bridge) in the annals of fox-hunting. As the three neared the river, they were (thanks to a lucky turn) in the same field with the hounds.

"By Jove, there he is," cried the "dealer," breaking silence for the first time, and there, sure enough, dragging his gallant but draggled person up the bank opposite was poor "pug," in full view of the pack. No otter hounds ever took water more savagely than did old Monitor and his comrades, almost whining with impatience to close with their gallant foe.

"Kate, for God's sake, don't try it," cried Vernon.

It was too late; the old horse had already been driven in, and the first woman who ever swam a horse across the Cheln was already battling with the stream, her lips hard set, her grey-blue eyes full of fire, and her whole face recalling vividly for the moment, in spite of its natural softness, the stern outlines of those ancestors whose war-worn profiles adorned the long galleries of the Hall.

It was a difficult swim, but old Joe's limbs were borne up bravely by the brave heart within, and it was not till long after the dripping habit had been dried that it occurred to Kate that, like Lord Cardigan, she had forgotten that she could not swim.

The M.F.H. and his cousin were now the only two left with the hounds, and in front of them rose, perhaps, the worst fence in the Gonaway country, a stiff stone wall, the stones all firmly morticed, and on the top a row of rough-edged slabs set on end like the teeth of a saw. Under the take-off side ran a deep, little stream, nowhere less than six feet wide, and even at that the banks were undermined and unsafe.

The cousins were alongside in the field which this mantrap bounded. Every atom of colour had left her cheeks now, and her lips were white with pain. Had George's whole heart and mind not been in the chase, he must have seen, and insisted on her returning home. As it was, he only said, "They've killed him, Kate; I must have it and save a bit of the best fox I ever hunted." And if hounds' tongues could be believed, they had indeed at last pulled the gallant old fox down, though the rugged piece of masonry before alluded to hid the pack from view.

"Is there no other way, George?"

"No, don't you follow me; go back by the lane and I'll bring you the brush if I can save it."

So saying, the master turned his horse and set himself at the place where the wall looked lowest. Kate had been bred in a hunting country, but truth to tell, her heart hung on that leap.

"One thrust to his hat and two to the sides of his brown," and then he shot to the front, seat steady and hands well down. Right bravely the horse rose at the leap, but the bank broke as he rose, his knees caught the coping stone with a jarring thud, and man and horse lay stunned on the other side.

To the wild cry of "George, George!" no answer came back, and then it was for the first time that poor Kate knew how irretrievably her heart had been lost to her dashing cousin.

To gallop to the gate was useless, though she essayed it. The gate was six barred and locked, moreover, the wall and its guarding stream still ran on beyond the gate. Kate had lost her head and her heart, but not her pluck.

"Just one more try, Joe," she whispered, and with a rush that seemed born of the last energies of a gallant heart the brave old horse faced and cleared the coping stone. Many fresh horses might have cleared that wall; but they talk of that leap still in Gonaway. Nearly five feet of hard stone and a biggish brook in front was no small feat, they say, for a tired horse, even with bonny Kate Lowry on his back.

Under the wall lay the grey, stone dead, and under him George Vernon, his white face looking up at the sky now darkly bright with the frost of a November evening.

How Kate got her cousin from under his horse and watched the colour creep back to his bronzed cheek, no one knows, for she kept these things in her own sweet heart, but it was late in the evening that a party sent out to search met an old woman leading along a donkey cart, on which lay poor Vernon, his leg and collar bone broken, while beside him sat a lady, her face white with pain, which her colour alone betrayed, and after them came a yokel leading old Joe, and followed by the best pack in Ireland.

The day had one more event in store for the villagers of Kempford. Arrived at the inn, Kate Lowry did what no Lowry had ever been known to do before--she fainted. On recovering, she shame-facedly exclaimed, "I think I must have broken something when I fell at the beginning of the run, and it has hurt me rather ever since."

She had broken something. No more nor less than three ribs; but if she had refused a humble prayer made to her three weeks later she would have broken something more important--"the heart" of the M.F.H. for Gonaway, who to this day may be heard to declare "that there is no pluck like a woman's, and I ought to know, for I married the pluckiest girl in old Ireland."

SOME CURIOUS HORSES

BY CAPTAIN R. BIRD THOMPSON

I fancy that I must have possessed as curious a lot of horses as has fallen to the lot of most men--occasioned partly by the fact that friends who, whenever they had a particularly queer-tempered or vicious brute, were in the habit of either presenting it to me as a gift, or offering it for a mere song; partly through my having bought several with peculiar reputations; and, lastly, I think that it must have been predestined that I was to be the owner of these sort of animals. My first pony, which my father bought for me when I was six years old, was purchased from a gentleman who parted with it because it always ran away with his children and kicked them off. The pony, however, never did this with me, although playing the same trick with almost everyone else. One thing, I petted it very much, and it really was fond of me.

It was a wonderful pony. What its age was I do not know, but it was in my possession for twenty-two years, and was said to be an old one when my father bought it. Its death at last was brought on by eating a quantity of half-ripe apples. Having been turned out into an orchard, a sudden gale in the night knocked down a great many of them, and the old fellow ate such a lot that they brought on an attack in his stomach, which killed him in a few hours.

I had one very queer-tempered horse given to me. A friend, a great hunting man, wrote and asked me to come up and lunch with him and talk over some intended "meets." I accepted the invitation, and went up to his house. After lunch he proposed a stroll over his stables. As we were going over them we came to a horse in a stall quite away from the rest of the stud. My friend asked me if I did not know it. I, however, did not recognise the horse, as it had a longish coat on, and he then told me that it was one that a Mr Goldsmidt had given 500 guineas for about a year previously, and, finding it too much for him, had presented it to my friend. "Now," said he, "I will give it to you, and if you will not have the animal I shall send it to the kennel to-morrow." I, as may be imagined, was greatly surprised, as the horse was considered to be one of the best hunters in England. Its legs seemed quite fresh and generally all right, so far as I could see. Thinking that I could send it to the kennel as well as he could, if it turned out useless, I accepted the gift with thanks.

Just as we were leaving the stables, my friend dropped back, and I overheard him say to a groom, "Take that horse down to Captain T----'s stables _at once_." Well, thought I, there is some screw loose--and a pretty big one I fancy.

On reaching home, late in the afternoon, my groom met me and said, "The new horse has come, sir; but he seems a pretty queer one." I went round to the stables at once, and there I found the horse looking very wild, his eyes almost standing out of his head, and he himself as far back out of his stall as his halter-rein would allow, though not hanging on it. I went up and began to talk to him, and at length he seemed quieter, and his eye did not look so wild; at last he let me hold his head-stall. I then patted and coaxed him as much as possible, and gradually got him up into his stall. Just as I had succeeded in this, the groom came with the evening feed. Directly the horse saw him, he began to make a roaring noise, more like a bull than anything else. Fortunately I had hold of his head-stall, or I think he would have damaged the man. On loosening his head, thinking he would feed quietly, he snapped at the corn just as a terrier does at a rat, catching up a mouthful and then dropping it. I at last managed to slide slowly out of his stall, and left him for the night.

The next day I sent for some men to clip him. They did their work very well, but I subsequently heard that they declared they would never touch him again; they would as soon clip a Bengal tiger.

Soon after this I had him out for a ride and discovered another of his amiable peculiarities. Whenever he met or passed a conveyance of any sort, he kicked out at it most furiously; I suppose that some time or other he had been struck when passing something. It was a most dangerous trick, and took a very long time and great patience to overcome. However, at last I cured him.

Another peculiarity that he had was his great objection to my mounting him when in uniform. He did not mind it in the least when I was once in the saddle, and took not the slightest notice of my sword rattling against his ribs; but he could not bear the act of mounting. I used to have him blindfolded at first, but afterwards, by always petting him, giving him sugar, &c., he lost his dislike to being mounted.

One morning, sometime after I had had him, my groom sent in word that the new horse had kicked his stall all to pieces, and, on going into the stable, I found he had done it and no mistake. There was scarcely a piece of the strong oak partitions bigger than one's hand; they were literally smashed. What made him do it I cannot imagine; he never tried it again. Strangely enough, after all this violent kicking, the only place where he had marked himself was a little bit not bigger than a florin on his near fetlock, where he had knocked off the hair.

One trick he had of which I never cured him. This was when out hunting. When taking the first fence, on landing he invariably kicked up as high as he could. Often and often when he seemed particularly quiet I thought, "Well, old fellow, you surely won't kick to-day": but, as certainly as the fence came, so surely did he kick--but never except at the first fence.

As a hunter he was perfection, and never, with one exception, refused a fence with me. On that occasion I felt that I was not certain about taking it. I was late at the meet, and the hounds had slipped off down-wind, so my only chance of getting the run was by a lucky nick in. I was riding to a point that I thought they would make to, and had just jumped over into a lane and was riding at the fence on the opposite side, when I caught sight of a man in pink riding down the lane. I turned my head quickly to look at him, and the horse feeling the slight motion I suppose, and thinking that I was going to join the man swerved round, but, on my turning his head to the fence again, he took it at once. This was the only time he ever swerved at or refused a fence.

I lost him in a very curious way. I was out hunting one day when the going was very deep and bad, and we were galloping through a piece of plough. At the top of the field was a cut quickset hedge and a gate. I rode at the latter, thinking that the ground would be sounder there, and the jump would not take so much out of my horse. When I got to the gate, he rose at it, and then made a tremendous effort to draw his hind-legs out of the deep mud. Not meeting the resistance he expected, his hind-legs flew up so that he landed on the other side almost in a perpendicular position, his tail brushing my hat, and for a moment I really thought he would fall over on me. However he came down apparently all right and cantered a few yards into the next field, when he made a most extraordinary flounder and stopped. I jumped off at once, and found him sitting up, just as you often see a dog, with his fore-legs straight out and his hind ones at right angles to his body. In a minute or so he rolled over on his side. I tried to get him up, but he did not move. A veterinary surgeon who was out, seeing that something was wrong, came up, and, on examining him, declared that his back was broken. And so it proved to be: the violent jerk of his hind-legs had done it. Of course I had to have him shot at once. I was very sorry to lose him, as he was such a perfect hunter.

Another of my horses I bought from the farmer who bred him; he was a black, nearly thoroughbred, and a very fine-looking animal. I had often seen his owner riding him to market and other places, nearly always at a hand-gallop, and the horse never appeared heated or even blown. I had also seen him in the hunting field. After purchasing him, I tried him over some fences that had been made for the purpose in one of my fields, and he jumped fairly for a young one, so I took him out with the hounds when they met in an easy country. The first thing I put him at was a small gate; but this he would not have, so I set him at a low, dry stone wall, which he cleared well. So he did also the next two or three fences; but on coming to another he did not make the slightest effort to jump--simply ran at it, and blundered through it somehow. The next fence, in spite of my shaking him up and letting him have the spurs pretty smartly, he did in the same way, then cleared one fairly; but on my putting him at a bar-way he never rose at all, but went full tilt at it and smashed it to bits. I was a good deal disgusted at these performances, but tried him another day, a friend saying I did not rouse him sufficiently. Anyhow, this next time I did so, but it had no effect. He scrambled his fences in just the same way, never, however, coming down. After this I lent him to my friend (who thought I did not ride him with sufficient resolution) for a day's hunting by way of a trial; and the horse signalised himself so that I determined to part with him. He had gone on in his usual way until we came to a brook about twelve feet wide, but deep. I jumped it all right, and looked back to see how my friend fared. The brute of a horse did not attempt to clear it, but actually galloped into it, turning a complete somersault, so that he actually scrambled out on the same bank he came from. Fortunately my friend got his feet out of the stirrups, feeling that the animal would not clear it, and was flung on the opposite bank, merely getting his legs wet. After this I sent the brute to Tattersall's, and got a very good price for him on account of his make and shape; in fact, you could not see a finer-looking hunter nor ride a greater impostor.

Another curious animal I had I bought quite accidentally.

It was at Newmarket during a July Meeting, and one morning I strolled up to the paddocks where the sales were going on, expecting to see there a friend I wished to meet. On walking up to the ring, a very fine horse was being led slowly round; it was evidently quite quiet, went round the ring like any old sheep; but scarcely any bids and those very low ones, were being made for it. Catching the auctioneer's eye, I gave a bid, and, not seeing my friend, walked off. Just as I had got to the gate one of the auctioneer's clerks ran after me and asked where they should take my horse to. I denied having bought one; but the man persisted, so I went back and found the horse had actually been knocked down to me, the auctioneer telling me it was really cheap for dogs'-meat at the price I had given. The horse was sent down to my trainer's, and, meeting him later on in the day on the course, he said, "Well, sir, so you bought Vulcan?" I told him how it occurred, at which he was much amused, and, on my asking him some questions, told me he was a splendid horse--wonderfully bred and looking all over like galloping, but that he never would try. He had no pride, he said, and would lob along in the ruck as happily as possible. He had been in lots of stakes, but no one could do anything with him; he would make a waiting race with a mule they said.

It was a most curious case. The horse seemed to have every requisite of make, shape, and action, and yet could not be induced to try to race. It appeared to make no difference whether the rest of the things were in front of him or if they came up and passed him; he kept on about the same pace, and would not try to race. If punishment was attempted, the horse showed such evident symptoms of temper that it was not safe to continue it.

At last he was used by the trainer as a hack, and, in his absence, taken out by the head lad, when out to superintend the gallops.

I had almost forgotten his existence, when one day I received a letter from my trainer asking me to come down to Newmarket the next day by a mid-day train, when I should find a hack waiting for me at the station, and that he would be at the New Stand, on the race-course side, to meet me, as he wished me to see a trial.

I of course went down and met my trainer at the Stand. After a little conversation, we cantered off to the place where the trial was to come off, and stationed ourselves at the spot fixed for the winning-post. He then gave a signal, and shortly I saw four horses galloping towards us and keeping pretty fairly together until perhaps about two lengths off, when one of them came away from the others, leaving them almost as if they were standing still. "Well," I said, "of course I don't know what the weights are, but that is as hollow a thing as I ever saw. What horse is that?" I asked. To my intense surprise, he said, "Vulcan." "How in the world did you get him to gallop?" said I. "That's rather a curious story," replied the man. "We found it out quite by accident. I was away last week for a day or two looking at some very promising yearlings in Dorsetshire, and Jackson (the head lad) took out the string, riding Vulcan as hack. They were exercising on the Bury side, and a boy who was going rook-tending passed by. Boy-like, when he saw the horses cantering, he blew his horn--to try to give them a start, I suppose. None of them minded it except Vulcan, and he clapped his legs under him and bolted off with Jackson as hard as he could go. When I came back next day he told me about it, but did not seem to think anything of it. However, it struck me differently, so I went and found the boy and told him to come to me the next day with his horn--which he did. I took the string out, and told the boy to blow as we passed him. He did so, and Vulcan again bolted clear away, past all the other horses. So I felt sure I had found out how to make him go, and to-day if you noticed (which I had not) a boy blew a horn as they passed him and the horse again came away, though the others did their best, and he was giving them from 2 lb. to 4 lb."

"You certainly have found out how to make him gallop," I said; "but I don't see how you are always to have a trumpeter about after him." "I think it can be managed," he replied. "I want you to enter him for the Handicap Steeple Stakes at the next meeting. He will only have a feather to carry, and at the time of the race, if you could be with the boy about the T.Y.C. winning-post, and, as the horses come by, tell him to blow, it won't be noticed in the least."