"I don't think, I know it! But you must try! Don't forget I've got to week-end at the——" she named people who lived in the next county. "No one shall be told until I come home!"
This was when they were riding to the meet. Larry had brought over Joker, the bay horse, for her and he was himself riding a small grey four-year-old mare, on whose education as a hunter he was entering. It was one of those gorgeous mornings of late September, when everything is intense in colour and in sentiment. A light white frost was melting, in the first rays of the sun, to a silver dew, that twinkled on grass and bush and twig. Now and then a beech leaf, prematurely gold, came spinning down in the still air; from high places of heaven a tiny gabble of music, cold, and shrill, and sweet, told of the songs of the larks at those heavenly gates within which Larry's and Christian's spirits were dwelling.
"Yes!" Christian repeated, as they rode tranquilly along on the grass beside one of the long Castle Ire avenues, "it shall remain a secret as long as possible, unprofaned by the vulgar! It's like this morning; the dew's on it still. Larry, you've got to try!"
"Got to try, have I?" said Larry, beaming at her fatuously.
The horses were sidling close to one another after the manner of stable companions; Larry put his hand on the bay horse's withers and gazed into Christian's laughing eyes, while the blue of the southern Irish sky uttered its strong, splendid note of colour behind the pale rose of her face, and the ineffable freshness of the morning thrilled in him.
"If you look at me like that in general society," he declared, "I shall either give it away on the spot—or burst! Look here, here's the measured-mile gallop; I'll race you to the hall door! If I get in first, I shall tell everyone we're engaged!"
"Done!" said Christian, instantly shortening her reins; "but I back Joker!"
She touched Joker with her heel and the big horse sprang, at the hint, into a gallop. Quickly as he started, Rayleen, the grey mare (whose name, being interpreted, is Little Star), being ever concentrated for instant effort, as is the manner of small and well-bred four-year-olds, was up to his shoulder in a couple of bounds, even in the flame of her youth and enthusiasm, she drove ahead of Joker's ordered strides, and led him for awhile. Larry's laugh of triumph, that the wind tossed back to her, was not needed to rouse Christian to emulation. Any hint of a race, any touch of a contest, appealed to her as instantly as to Rayleen, and she was racing for that secret that was like a pearl. Sitting very still she touched Joker again with her heel and spoke to him. There was in her the magnetism that can fire a horse to his best, by some mystery, compound of sympathy and stimulation, that has no outward manifestation. Joker's great shoulders worked under her as he lengthened and quickened his beautiful, rhythmic stride. The wind of the pace whistled in her ears and snatched at her hair. She crammed her hat over her forehead, laughing with the joy of battle. She was level with Larry now. Now she was passing him, and the little grey strove in vain to hold her place. Gallant as she was, what could she do against a raking, trained galloper, well over sixteen hands, and nearly thoroughbred?
The smooth mile of shining grass was annihilated, wiped out in a few whirling minutes. Joker had but just fairly settled down to go when the end of the race was at hand. Had he been a shade less of a gentleman than he was, Christian, and the snaffle in which she was riding him, would hardly have stopped him, as did their joint efforts, on the gravel in front of the goal that Larry had given her.
Hunts come, and hunts go, and are forgotten. Horses, the best and dearest of them, fade, in some degree, from remembrance; where are the snows of yester year, and where the great gallops that we rode when we were young? But here and there something defies the mists of memory, and remains, bright and imperishable as a diamond. I believe that for Christian that mile of sun and wind and speed and flight, with her lover thundering at her heels, will remain ever vivid, one of the moments that are of the incalculable bounty of Chance; moments that earth can never equal, nor Heaven better.