While these remarks passed between the two occupants of the phaeton, the horses still continued their mad career, resisting successfully all attempts to check the frightful speed at which they were hurrying on towards certain destruction. As they dashed past a clump of shrubs, which had hitherto concealed from view the danger to which they were exposed, the full peril of their situation became evident to the eyes of Lewis and his companion. With steep and broken banks, on which American shrubs, mixed with flags and bulrushes, grew in unbounded luxuriance, the lake lay stretched before them, its clear depths reflecting the leaden hue of the wintry sky, and a slight breeze from the north rippling its polished surface. Less than a quarter of a mile of smooth greensward separated them from their dangerous neighbour. An artist would have longed to seize this moment for transferring to canvas or marble the expression of Lewis’s features. As he perceived the nearness and reality of the danger that threatened him, his spirit rose with the occasion, and calm self-reliance, dauntless courage, and an energetic determination to subdue the infuriated animals before him, at whatever risk, lent a brilliancy to his flashing eye, and imparted a look of stern resolve to his finely cut mouth, which invested his unusual beauty with a character of superhuman power such as the sculptors of antiquity sought to immortalise in their statues of heroes and demigods. Selecting an open space of turf unencumbered with trees or other obstacles, Lewis once more addressed his companion, saying—
“Now be ready. I am going to endeavour to turn them to the left, in order to get their heads away from the lake and uphill; but as I shall require both hands and all my strength for the reins, I want you to stand up and touch them smartly with the whip on the off-side of the neck. If you do this at the right moment, it will help to bring them round. Do you understand me?”
Richards replied in the affirmative, and Lewis, leaning forward and shortening his grasp on the reins, worked the mouths of the horses till he got their heads well up; then assuring himself by a glance that his companion was ready, he checked their speed by a great exertion of strength; and tightening the left rein suddenly, the groom at the same moment applying the whip as he had been desired, the fiery steeds, springing from the lash and yielding to the pressure of the bit, altered their course, and going round so sharply that the phaeton was again within an ace of being overturned, dashed forward in an opposite direction.
“You did that uncommon well, to be sure, sir,” exclaimed Richards, drawing a long breath like one relieved from the pressure of a painful weight. “I thought we was over once, though; it was a precious near go.”
“A miss is as good as a mile,” returned Lewis, smiling. “Do you see,” he continued, “they are slackening their pace; the hill is beginning to tell upon them already. Hand me the whip; I shall give the gentlemen a bit of a lesson before I allow them to stop, just to convince them that running away is not such a pleasant amusement as they appear to imagine.”
So saying, he waited till the horses began sensibly to relax their speed; then holding them tightly in hand, he punished them with the whip pretty severely, and gave them a good deal more running than they liked before he permitted them to stop, the nature of the ground (a gentle ascent of perfectly smooth turf) allowing him to inflict this discipline with impunity.
After proceeding two or three miles at the same speed he perceived another cross-road running through the park. Gradually pulling up as he approached it, he got his horses into a walk, and as soon as they had once again exchanged grass for gravel he stopped them to recover wind. The groom got down, and gathering a handful of fern, wiped the foam from their mouths and the perspiration from their reeking flanks.
“You’ve given ’em a pretty tidy warming, though, sir,” he observed. “If I was you I would not keep ’em standing too long.”
“How far are we from the house, do you imagine?” inquired Lewis.
“About three mile, I should say,” returned Richards. “It will take you nigh upon half-an-hour, if you drives ’em easy.”