The Squire fussed and fumed, and Kenilworth, his blood thoroughly up, could hardly be held, so anxious was he to go on with what he had begun. In another second he would have let him have his way, but just as he was about to do so he saw his man coming up the road, controlling as best he could the antics of his horse, which had got wind somehow of the passing of the hounds, in spite of the silence in which they were now running. The Squire beckoned him to hurry his pace and as he came up jumped off Kenilworth and on to Bay Laurel with all the activity he might have shown on that memorable run of five-and-thirty years before, and was off on to the turf in a twinkling. But not before he had seen, out of the corner of his eye, Virginia, sailing gaily along on her black mare, just behind him.
In a moment he had forgotten her; Bay Laurel was as fresh as if he had just left his stable, for the groom had brought him along steadily according to instructions, the fulfilment of which, however, had been like to have cost him his place. The Squire felt the spring and lift of the powerful frame under him, as, keeping him well in hand, and riding as if he had been five stone lighter and had not forsaken the hunting saddle for weeks past, he pounded the short, springy turf and sent it flying now and again far behind him. There was a brook to take just beyond the village, wide enough to have given him at his age occasion for thought if it had come earlier in the day, and set him casting about in his mind for the whereabouts of the nearest bridge. But he went straight at it, and Bay Laurel took it like a skimming swallow. Then came a five-barred gate—the only way from one field into another, unless valuable time was to be wasted—and the Squire had not jumped a five-barred gate since he had ridden thirteen stone. But he jumped it now, and felt a fierce joy, as he galloped across the meadow grass, at the surging up in him of his vanished youth, and all the fierce delights that such days as this had brought him in years gone by. He was as good as ever. His luck was in. There must be some check before long, and a check, however short, would bring him within sight of them.
A sudden memory born of his long past experience came to him. In a field or two he would come to a footpath which led across stiles through what had then been a peninsula of plough-land sticking out into the pastures. The old mid-Victorian fox had stuck to the grass and gone round the heavy land in a wide circle. If the Edwardian fox should take the same line, that footpath would cut off half a mile, and he made up his mind to follow it.
Ah! There it was—the path across the crest of the field, the stile, and, beyond the hedge to the left, the dark plough ribbons and the footway running down them. He jumped the stile and cantered carefully down the narrow path, well content to go slow for the advantage to be gained. Bay Laurel hopped over another stile and they were on grass again and galloping freely, still keeping to the line of the scarcely discernible field path. They topped a short rise, and the Squire just caught sight of the hounds topping another away to the right. His heart gave another bound of gratitude. He would be up with them yet. There was the next stile and he knew the line to take. He was already in front of some of those who had passed him waiting before the inn.
But his time had come. The last stile was flanked by a high thick fence, on the other side of which, although he could not see it, was a ditch wider and deeper than ordinary. There was nothing formidable about the stile itself; it was no higher than the two Bay Laurel had just hopped over in his stride, but looked rather more dilapidated. Just as the horse was rising to it, he saw that the ditch on the other side ran right along and was crossed by a plank, and although the horse saw it too and was preparing for it, he instinctively checked him, and then saw that it was too late. Bay Laurel blundered into the rotten woodwork, and the Squire pitched forward over his shoulder, and the next moment had rolled into the ditch with the stile, but fortunately not the horse, on top of him.
The ditch was newly dug and nearly dry, or he might have been drowned, for he was wedged closely in and could hardly stir. Bay Laurel had jammed the timbers down upon him, and without waiting to consider the damage he had done was now off in the wake of the hounds, which he also had seen topping the distant rise. The Squire was left alone, powerless to extricate himself, in the remote stillness of the fields.
He had heard a crack, different somehow from the crack of the timbers, as he fell, but did not at first connect it with broken bones of his own. It was not until he realised that his left arm and shoulder were lying under a beam in a very strange and uncomfortable position, and tried to move them, that he knew what had happened to him and began to feel any pain. Then he felt, suddenly, a good deal, not only in his shoulder, but in his side, upon which a corner of the stile was pressing, and thought he had broken every bone in his body.
The pain and the shock and the loneliness frightened him. Unless help came he was likely to die at the bottom of this ditch, and he had a moment of blind terror before he lifted up his voice and called for help most lustily.
There was an instant answer. Virginia, who had followed his lead across the plough, at some little distance, because she knew he would not like her riding in his pocket, came through the gap, and drew rein by his side. She was off her horse in a moment and trying her hardest to lift the heavy timbers off him. But she only succeeded in shifting their weight from one part of his body to another, and under his agonised expostulations soon desisted. She stood up, white and terror-stricken, the reins of her mare over her arm, and cried, "Oh, I must get the weight off you, and then I will go for help."
Then she tried again, and did succeed in easing him a trifle, whereupon he fainted, but soon came to again, to find her with her hat full of water sprinkling his forehead. "I'm all right now for a bit," he said. "Go and get somebody. Can you mount?"