CHAPTER LI — FREDDY COLEMAN FALLS INTO DIFFICULTIES
“I am he that am so love-shaked,—
I pray you, tell me your remedy.”
—As You Like It.
“I am sprighted with a fool, frighted, and angered worse.”
—Cymbeline.
OH! that tedious half-hour! I should like to know, merely as a curious matter of calculation, how many minutes there were in that half-hour—sixty-five at the very least; the hands of my watch stuck between the quarter and twenty minutes for full a quarter of an hour, and as for the old Dutch clock in the bar, that was worn out, completely good for nothing, I am certain, for I ordered my horse round to the door above ten minutes too soon by that, and I'm sure I didn't start before my time,—it would have been folly to do so, you know, because it was possible old Peter might send at any moment before the expiration of that half-hour. But at last even it came to an end—and no message had arrived; so, burning with impatience, I sprang into the saddle, and with difficulty restraining myself from dashing off at a gallop, I reined in the mare, and proceeded at a foot's pace up the lane.
After riding about a quarter of a mile, I perceived a small hand-gate just under a magnificent oak, which I at once recognised as the tree old Peter had described. Unwilling to attract the notice of the gamekeeper and his myrmidons by loitering about in the lane, I discovered a gap in a hedge on the other side the road, and, after glancing round to see that I was unobserved, I rode at it, and leaped into the opposite field, where, hidden behind a clump of alders, I could perceive all that passed in the road. But for a long time nothing did pass, save a picturesque donkey, whose fore-feet being fastened together by what are called “hobbles,"{1} advanced by a series of jumps—a mode of progression which greatly alarmed the sensitive nerves of my mare, causing her to plunge and pull in a way which gave me some trouble to hold her.
After I had succeeded in quieting her, I dismounted, and, tightening the saddle-girths, which had become loosened during her struggles, got on again; still no one came. At length, just as I was beginning to despair, I heard the
1 Query, whether so called because they oblige the wearer to
hobble ?
sound of horses' feet, and old Peter, mounted on a stout cob, rode to the wicket-gate, and heldit open, while Clara on a pretty chestnut pony cantered up, and passed through it.
Oh! how my heart beat, when, reining in her pony, she glanced round for a moment, as if in search of something, and then, with a slight gesture of disappointment, struck him lightly with her riding-whip, and bounded forward. Old Peter seemed still more puzzled, and looked up and down the road with an air of the most amusing perplexity, before he made up his mind to follow his mistress. About a hundred yards from this spot, the lane turned abruptly to the left, skirting a second side of the square field in which I had taken up my position; by crossing this field, therefore, I conceived I should cut off a great angle, and regain the road before they came up.
Setting spurs to my horse then, I rode off at speed, trusting to find some gate or gap by which I might effect my exit. In this calculation, however, I was deceived; instead of anything of the sort, my eyes were greeted by a stiff ox-fence, with a rather unpleasantly high fall of ground into the lane beyond,—a sort of place well fitted to winnow a hunting-field, and sift the gentlemen who come out merely to show their white gloves and buckskins, from the “real sort,” who “mean going,” and are resolved to see the end of the run. However, in the humour in which I then was, it would not have been easy to stop me, and holding the mare well together, I put her steadily at it. Fortunately, she was a first-rate fencer, and knew her work capitally, as she proved in the present instance, by rising to the leap, clearing the fence in beautiful style, and dropping lightly into the lane beyond, without so much as a stumble, just as Clara and her attendant turned the corner of the road and came in sight. My sudden appearance frightened Clara's pony to a degree which justified me in riding up and assisting her to reduce it to order. Having accomplished this not very difficult task, I waited for a moment, hoping she would be the first to speak, but finding she remained silent, I began, “Really, I am most unfortunate; I had no idea you were near enough for me to startle the pony,—I hope I have not alarmed you”.