Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

"What!" exclaimed La Vireville, startled out of his sangfroid. "By God, it's true!" For he had heard the jingle of bits at the end of the street. It could be nothing else but the cavalry detachment from Carhoët out to hunt for him.

He uttered a very pretty and comprehensive curse, and turned his horse's head in the opposite direction. "Come on, we must ride for it! Come on, I say!" Grain d'Orge's mount—a grey—sprang forward, and Mme. Rozel screamed again. A shout answered her from a point nearer than the oncoming hussars—from another little group of horses, imperfectly seen, on the left, whose riders were mounting in haste.

"Madame, you have lost us all!" said La Vireville furiously. "Ride like the devil, Grain d'Orge; straight on—straight on, I tell you! I'm going back; they will come after me!" He tugged at his bewildered steed, brought it slithering to its haunches, swung round yet again, and set off in the direction of the hussars at the end of the street.

As he had hoped, the mounting men on their left, confused, hesitated a moment, then decided to follow him and not the doubly-burdened grey. In front was the stationary, or almost stationary, cavalry, as yet only one vague bunch on the road. But, much as La Vireville would have liked to try it, he could scarcely venture to ride past or through them. He checked his horse, hoping that what he took to be a hedge on his left hand was really a hedge, and put the animal at it, somewhat expecting to land in a garden or an orchard. But, apparently, he was in a field, and a large one at that. On the grass he urged his excited horse into a frantic gallop, his blood racing not unpleasantly. Shouts told him that other horsemen had also cleared the hedge and were after him. "I wonder what I shall ride into in this cursed darkness?" he thought. And he thought also, "I did not expect she would be a woman to scream. . . ." Something black rose before him—the usual Breton field hedge, a six-foot bank with forest trees atop, impossible to negotiate on horseback. Should he then abandon his mount? He had but a second in which to make up his mind, for his pursuers, better horsed, were inevitably gaining on him. No, he would go on, and, trusting to find the échalier—the low, ladder-like gate of those parts—he cantered for a moment alongside the bank.

Here, judging by the cessation of the dark mound and its crown of trees, was what he sought. He put his horse at the gap. As he rose, a spattering fire rang out; a bullet sang past his cheek, there was a most unpleasant sensation of a jerking fall, and he found himself among a great deal of wet grass, with his injured foot excruciatingly pinned beneath the weight of his struggling horse. La Vireville instinctively stuffed the back of his hand into his mouth to prevent himself from screaming out, saw all the stars of the dark heaven swoop down on him, and incontinently fainted.

CHAPTER XIX
La Porte du Manoir

(1)

A cold and grey light was in the sky when La Vireville came back to consciousness, and, for the moment greatly puzzled, raised his head and looked about him. There was no fallen horse, no sign of hussars, nothing left of the night's doings but a sick feeling in the mouth, a bruised shoulder, and a foot that ached ten thousand times worse than he had ever thought a foot could ache. But, as he struggled to one elbow, he saw another relic—he tricolour sash about his body. He surveyed it without much approbation. Was it that symbol which had saved him? No; it had been too dark when he came down; they could not have seen it. Had they thought him killed, then, and ridden off and left him? Hardly, because if they knew whom they were hunting, which was probable, they would have been anxious for the reward, since he was equally marketable alive or dead—did he not carry that guarantee on his person? And where was his wounded horse? He came at last to the conclusion that his steed must have picked itself up and galloped on, and that the hussars had pursued it, not seeing that it was riderless, or that their quarry was lying at their mercy by the échalier. They must almost have ridden over him as he lay senseless. All of which was very miraculous, and seemed to denote a special care on the part of Providence that was encouraging. "If only the brute had chosen my other foot to roll on!" thought the victim. "But of course he would not!"

However, long as the grass was, and early as the hour, it was unbecoming to lie there like a lame sheep and wait to be picked up. A coppice ran along the side of this second field, and towards this, on his hands and knees, the ends of the tricolour sash dragging in the wet grass, La Vireville made his way. And in the coppice, having drunk some brandy, cut off his slashed boot and applied the same restorative to his swollen foot, he very stoically lay down under an oak, thinking to sleep. That solace, however, he could not compass; his foot hurt too much. Moreover, he had a fairly knotty problem to solve—how best to remove himself from his present environment to a safer. And he saw no way, short of crawling or hopping. For even if he were physically capable of working his way towards Carhoët he could only safely do it under cover of darkness, and for darkness, near as he was to Porhoët, he could not afford to wait. "I was really better in my cupboard," he reflected. Certainly his knight-errantry, if it had proved of any avail for the lady—which was more than doubtful—had left its author in no happy plight.

And at last it was borne in upon La Vireville that, daylight or no daylight, he must somehow set a greater distance between himself and the now enlightened village of Porhoët. With luck, the copse where he lay might turn out to be a spur of the wood of Roscanvel, which he knew, from a previous study of the map, to be somewhere thereabouts. In that case, by going a little farther he might find shelter till the evening, even if he had to climb a tree to attain it. He sighed, sat up, and tried to draw the remains of his boot over his foot—an attempt that proved out of the question. So he tied up the injured member as best he could, cut himself a stout stick out of the coppice, and, just as the first rays of the sun began to strike through the trees, set his face towards the thickness of the wood.