Marie de Clairvaut raised her eyes to his face with a look full of sweet approbation; and she said, "I wish you would just ride up to him, and try to calm him. Why should he not come near us, and behave as usual?"
Charles of Montsoreau turned instantly to obey, merely saying, "Keep a tight rein on your horse, dear lady, till I come back, for he is somewhat fiery."
He had just reached his brother's side when the heron took wing; and Gaspar de Montsoreau glad of an opportunity of marking his discontent towards his brother, spurred on his horse with an angry "Pshaw!" and galloped after the falcons as fast as possible.
In an instant every bridle was let loose, every face turned towards the sky, every horse at full speed. We must except, indeed, Charles of Montsoreau, for his first thought was of Marie de Clairvaut. His mind had been greatly depressed during the morning: he had thought much of her; he had felt a vague impression that some accident would happen to her; and though he had endeavoured to laugh at himself for giving way to such a feeling, yet the feeling had remained so strongly as to make him refuse to go upon the expedition which his brother had proposed to him. He turned then his horse rapidly to the spot where he had left her; but she was no longer there.
"The lady has gone on at full speed, Count Charles," cried the voice of Gondrin, the huntsman: "That way, sir, that way, to the right. It seems as if she knew the country well, and was sure the heron would take back again to the river."
Charles of Montsoreau spurred on at full speed in the direction pointed out; but, from the woody nature of the ground, it was some time before he caught even a glance of the horse that bore the lady. That glance was intercepted immediately by fresh trees and low bushes of osiers, and all that he could see was, that there was nobody with her, and that her horse was at full speed. The country was difficult, the road dangerous from numerous breaks and cuts. To set off at such a pace and alone, seemed to him unlike the calm, sweet character of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut; and he heard, or fancied he heard, sounding as from the path before him, a cry, lost in the whoops and halloos of those who were following the flight of the birds along the stream.
The sport was forgotten in a moment: he spurred vehemently on upon the road which Marie de Clairvaut had taken, while almost all the rest of the people in the field crossed the stream by a bridge to the left, and pursued the flight of the birds across a meadow round which the river circled before it took a sharp turn to the right. All the more eagerly did the young nobleman spur forward, knowing that about a quarter of a mile in advance the path which he followed separated into two, and that he might lose sight of the fair girl altogether if he did not overtake her before she reached the point of separation.
When he arrived at it, however, she was not to be seen; but one glance at the ground showed him the deep footmarks of the jennet following the road to the right, which led far away from the point towards which the heron seemed to have directed its flight, and to a dangerous part of the river about a mile beyond. He now urged his horse on vehemently--furiously.
The road wound in and out round the lower projections of the hill, and through the thinner part of the forest that skirted its base; but though he, who was generally tender and kind to every thing that fell beneath his care, now dyed the rowels of his spurs in blood from his horse's sides, he came not up with the swift jennet which carried Mademoiselle de Clairvaut. He gradually caught the sound of its feet, indeed; and the sound became more and more distinct, showing that he gained upon it.
But this slight success in the headlong race which he was pursuing was not enough to calm the mind of the young cavalier. It was now evident that the horse, frightened by the whoop and halloo of the falconers, had run away with its fair burden; and every step that they advanced brought the horses and their riders nearer to a part of the river which was only to be passed in the hottest and driest days of summer, and then with difficulty.