Her lips were parched and dry, her knees trembled, she could hold out at such exhausting speed no longer, and yet she had scarce accomplished half the distance to her goal. She knew that deep, dark ravine well, narrowing yonder in her front to some eight or nine yards from bank to bank. It would save more than a mile could she cross it at that point where the blighted fir-tree stood. Above and below it widened into a deep precipitous coombe, tangled with brushwood, through which a silver thread of running water laughed and whispered many a fathom down in its slippery bed of stones. No. It was too far to leap, and she must go round. She lost heart utterly; and the wind, rising once more in mocking gusts, seemed to flout and buffet her, driving another snow-storm in her face.
But on its wings it carried a dull, smothered beat, faint and distant, yet drawing nearer with each regular monotonous foot-fall. It was the tramp of horses, galloping at speed over the snowy surface of the moor; and Waif, eager, erect, motionless, listening with every nerve, as the red hind listens to the tufters, made out distinctly that the nearest rider was far ahead of two or three others in pursuit.
As the blinding storm passed over, that death-chase came fairly into view. Along the side of the opposite hill swept two horsemen at headlong pace, the one a quarter of a mile before the other, and increasing his distance with every stride. A third laboured hopelessly in the rear; and two more, one of whom she recognised as her affianced husband, were making for the head of the coombe, with the obvious intention of hemming in and cutting off the object of their pursuit.
Keener even than a gipsy's eye-sight, the instincts of love and hate told Waif that the first rider was John Garnet, the second Abner Gale.
"Have I found thee, oh, mine enemy!" muttered the Parson, plying Cassock with his spurs, while he scanned the ravine before them, and reflected, not without a grim humour, how impossible it seemed that any creature unprovided with wings should reach the other side. He knew that deep and yawning chasm, where the fir-tree stood, well as he knew his own stable-door; but he did not know the grey horse's dauntless courage, nor the recklessness of a man like John Garnet riding for his life!
Waif, however, could understand and rely on both. Tearing the 'kerchief from her bosom while she ran, she hurried down to the deep precipitous edge at its narrowest part, and waved for the man she loved her signal to come on.
How like him, she thought, to spare a hand, even at such a crisis, and raise his hat from his comely head ere he forced it firmly down and set his horse going for the leap.
"By George! you are a flyer!" said John Garnet, as Katerfelto, pricking his ears and shortening his stride while he increased his pace, bounded freely from bank to bank, detaching, however, with his hind feet a large portion of earth and shingle, that went rumbling and rattling down many a perpendicular fathom into the abyss. So that, even while the words were on the rider's lips, the horse stumbled and fell as he landed, rolling forward on his side and shoulder in the snow.
John Garnet, who never let go his reins, was up in an instant; whilst the horse rose almost as nimbly, with wild eye and spreading nostril, snorting in terror and defiance, scared alike by his exploit and his fall.