“I can leap too,” rejoined Walter. “Richards taught me the days when you were ill in bed.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” returned Lewis, who, while his pupil was speaking, had been endeavouring, unsuccessfully, to open a gate, “for they have fastened this gate with a padlock, and we must find our way over the hedge.”
“Oh! but I can’t——” began Walter.
“Yes you can,” interposed Lewis, “when I have cleared the road for you, and shown you how to do it. Sit still and watch me.” So saying, he selected a place where the hedge was thin and the ditch and bank practicable, and putting his horse into an easy canter, rode at it. Being particularly anxious that nothing should go wrong, and that Walter should be convinced of the feasibility of the attempt, Lewis was not best pleased when his horse, instead of rising to the leap, refused it, and replied to a tolerably sharp application of the spur by plunging violently and turning short round. His rider, however, sat as firmly as if he were part of the animal, and cantering round two sides of the field, got him well in hand and again rode him at the hedge, working his mouth with the bit and giving him the spur. This discipline produced the desired effect; for instead of refusing the leap this time, the horse sprang forward with a bound which would have cleared an obstacle of twice the size, and alighted on the other side several feet beyond the ditch. Lewis rode on a few yards, and then turning, leaped back into the field and rejoined his pupil. “Now, Walter, you must do as I have done. Canter up to that gap, give the pony his head, touch him on the flank as he approaches the hedge, sit firmly and press in your knees, and you’ll go over as nicely as possible.”
But poor Walter’s courage failed him; the conflict between Lewis and his horse had destroyed his confidence, and he was afraid to make the attempt. His tutor read it in his blanched cheek and quailing glance, and being as kind and judicious as he was firm, forbore to press the point, and dismounting, led the pony through the gap, and assisted Walter to scramble over on foot; then remounting his steed, he tested his obedience by once more leaping him over; and having thus achieved the adventure of the locked gate, tutor and pupil cantered off across the common. But this little episode had caused some loss of time, and when Lewis reached the lane leading to the village, near which Colonel Norton’s house was situated, he learned from a man who was mending the road that a phaeton, answering the description of General Grant’s equipage, had passed a few minutes before.
“My friend Richards’ fears were needlessly excited then, it seems, and the old gentleman is a better whip than he gave him credit for being,” thought Lewis. “Come, Walter,” he added aloud, “we will go back by the road. Don’t trot just yet; the horses are warm, we must allow them to get a little cool.”
After proceeding about half a mile along the lane, which was only just wide enough to allow vehicles to pass each other, they overtook an elderly woman in a red cloak most picturesquely perched between two panniers on a donkey’s back. Such an arrangement being a novelty to Walter, he was proceeding to inquire of what use the panniers were, when Lewis’s quick sense of hearing caught a sound which caused him to rein in his horse and, enjoining silence, pause to listen. His ears had not deceived him. Owing to the frosty weather the road was particularly hard, the ruts also had been lately mended with coarse gravel, and as he listened the sound of horses’ feet galloping, and the rattle of a carriage proceeding at unusual speed, became distinctly audible in the lane behind them. The vehicle was evidently rapidly approaching. The lane being in this part extremely narrow, Lewis’s first thought was for Walter’s safety. Seizing the pony’s rein, he set spurs to his horse, and they cantered on a short distance till they reached a gateway leading into a field. The gate was fortunately open, and desiring Walter to ride into the field and wait till he joined him, he turned his horse’s head and began, to retrace his steps. As soon as he had passed an old oak-tree which stood at a corner of the road and prevented any one from seeing beyond it, he perceived the cause of the sounds which had reached him, and which he had already but too correctly divined.
At about a hundred yards from the spot where he was stationed appeared a phaeton drawn by a pair of magnificent iron-grey horses, which Lewis had no difficulty in recognising. From the furious pace at which they were advancing, it was evident that their driver had lost all control over them; while about half-way between Lewis and the equipage in question were the donkey and panniers, with the old woman in the red cloak before alluded to. The gentleman driving the phaeton shouted to her to get out of the way, and Lewis made signs as to which side of the road she had better take; but she appeared either paralysed with fear or unable to guide her donkey; and ere she was able to comply with, or probably to comprehend these directions, the infuriated horses had overtaken her, and dashing against her, flung her, donkey, panniers and all, to the ground with a shock like that of a battering-ram. At the same instant Lewis, availing himself of the temporary check, rode forward, and springing from his saddle, seized the heads of the phaeton horses, and with much difficulty, and no inconsiderable personal risk, succeeded in stopping them.