"Bravo!" said Jack; "here comes Simpson;" and come he did, for his perfect hunter was not made of the stuff to be left behind if he could help it, and seeing his three companions careering away down the opposite field, he, to use a nautical expression, "took charge," and, before his rider knew what had happened, had landed him safely on the other side of the obstacle.
"Down the lane," said Jack to Mildred as they popped over the fence that led out of the meadow; "it's straight for Boltby big wood. Here you are, Jim," as the Huntsman came up to where the hounds had checked for a moment in the lane; "they made it good as far as this. Hark for'ard! Minstrel has it;" and away they went a cracker, turning sharp to the right into some rolling grass-fields.
By this time Mr. Simpson was beginning to pluck up his courage, and in company with those who had not been so favoured at the start was going fairly well. Ten minutes more brought them to the stiles that had been the subject of discussion at dinner the previous evening, and nasty-looking objects they were. The first was not so bad, but the second was a regular teaser—hog-backed, with a yawning ditch, spanned by a footboard on the far side.
"Steady, Milly," said Tom, as Birdcatcher rushed at No. 1.
"By gad, she'll be down if she goes at that pace," shouted Jack in an agony, his horse, a young 'un, having refused.
At this crisis Mr. Simpson appeared on the scene, the rest of the field preferring the safer course down the lane. Tom managed the hog-back successfully, and was too much occupied with the hounds, now racing a field ahead, to think of Mildred, who had evidently got as much as she could manage in the thoroughly-roused Birdcatcher.
Jack's feelings can be better imagined than described as he saw Milly rush at the stile and Birdcatcher turn a complete somersault, sending his mistress flying, happily, some yards away from where he fell.
"Come up, you brute," he yelled, driving his spurs home and fairly lifting the astonished young 'un over both fences. Scarcely had he landed over the hog-back than he was off his horse and kneeling by Milly in a paroxysm of grief.
"My darling child, are you hurt? My God, she's dead!" he cried, as he tried to lift her.