“Jump?” echoed another. “Guess he can; beats a circus horse all hollow!”
“I wish he’d jump again,” sighed the smallest one.
“Ah,” exclaims the punctilious penman of romances which have lofty and sonorous titles, becoming solemnity, inflated and funereal style, and blood-freezing adventures—which, alas! too often end in smoke, or at most, in a marriage that any fool could have foreseen—“Ah, how can this paltry scribbler, this ‘we,’ discourse with this shameless levity, when his hero is face to face with death!”
Instead of evading the penman’s intended question, the following significant and sapient comments are offered for his leisurely consideration:
It is sheer nonsense for a writer to work himself up into a state of mad excitement about the “imminent dangers” that continually dog the foot-steps of his persecuted heroes. So long as the hero is of the surviving kind, he will survive every “imminent danger,” no matter how thick and fast such dangers may crowd upon him. No assassin was ever hired that could kill him for any great length of time; no vessel ever foundered that could effectively swallow him up; no bullet was ever run that could be prevailed on to extinguish the spark of his life.
After making such comments, for the reader’s peace of mind we deliberately affirm that every man, woman, and child figuring in this tale, is equally imperishable. Having made this candid remark, the reader cannot impute it to us if he spend a sleepless night while perusing this tale.
But it would be wiser to drop idle declamation for the present, and return to Will and his frisky pony.
When the horse so nimbly cleared the fence, Will’s feet were torn out of the stirrup, and he was thrown violently off the animal’s back. As he lay sprawling on the ground, he looked as little like a hero as can be imagined. As may be supposed, however, when he struggled to his feet he was as sound as ever. On casting a glance around him, he found himself in a field of ripe grain, through which the riderless pony was rushing madly.
Perhaps a good romancer, regardless of reason and effect, would have made the boy “heroically” stick to his horse through thick and thin. But a more careful romancer, like a good physician, would have an eye to the boy’s system and feelings, and not suffer him to be tortured any longer.
Will carefully rubbed the dirt off his clothes with the palm of his trembling right hand, while his eyes darted fierce glances at the gaping and grinning juveniles outside of the fence, and despairing glances at his horse within the field. This nice operation consumed three minutes, and might have consumed many more; but a man who was at hand flew to the rescue.