Down hill, at racing pace, Satanella had put her fore-feet through a covered drain, with the inevitable result—the surface gave way, letting her in to the shoulders, and a few yards farther on, she lay across her mistress, with her neck broken, never to stir those strong, fleet limbs again.
"Oh! Daisy, they're both killed!" whispered Norah, with a drawn, white face, while her husband, busying himself to undo the girths, and thus extricate that limp helpless figure from beneath the weight that crushed it so sorely, shouted for assistance to Soldier Bill and the General, who at that moment entered the field together.
"I trust in heaven, not!" he replied aloud; and, below his breath, even while his heart smote him for the thought, "It might have been worse. My darling, it might have been you!"
FOOTNOTES:
[6] "Boreen," Irish for a deep, stone-paved lane.
THE BITTER END
It was indeed a sad sight for those joyous riders, exulting but a moment before, in all the triumph and excitement of their gallop. Saddest and most pitiable for the General, thus to find and recognise the woman he had loved and lost. While they took her gently out from under the dead mare's carcase, she groaned feebly, and they said, "Thank God!" for at least there seemed left a faint spark of life. Assistance, too, was near at hand. As Norah observed, "'Twasn't like Kildare, where ye wouldn't have seen a shealing or may be so much as a potato-garden for miles! But every farm here was kept like a domain, and they'd built a dwelling-house almost in every field!" Within a short distance stood the comfortable mansion, surrounded by its well-stocked fold-yards, of a substantial yeoman; and Bill, with two falls, was there in two minutes! A few of the second flight also, persevering resolutely on the line the hounds had gone, straggled up and did good service. What became of the Field, and where the deer was taken, none of these had opportunity to ascertain. All their energies, all their sympathies, were engrossed by that helpless, motionless form, that beautiful rigid face, so wan and white, beneath its folds of glossy raven hair.