If one must be locomotive, when alone with the ladye of our love (not a desirable necessity, some will say), I doubt if we can be better than on horseback. A low pony-carriage, with a very steady animal in the shafts, has its advantages; but I never yet saw the man who could accommodate himself and his limbs to one of these vehicles without looking absurdly out of his place; his bulk seems to increase by some extraordinary process as soon as he has taken his seat, till ten stone loom as large as fourteen would do under ordinary circumstances. The incongruity cannot always escape one's fair companion, and, if her sense of the ridiculous is once moved, our romance is ruined for the day: perhaps the best plan, on turning into a conveniently secluded road (always supposing that "moving on" is obligatory), would be, to get out and walk by her side, leaving the dame or demoiselle unrestricted scope for the expansion of her feelings and—her drapery. On the whole, I think one is most at ease en chevauchant. But then both steeds must be of a pleasant and sociable disposition—not pulling and tearing at the reins, till they work themselves and their riders into a white heat, whenever a level length of greensward tempts one irresistibly to a stretching gallop; nor starting perversely aside at the very moment when, in the earnestness of discourse, your hand rests unconsciously (?) on your companion's pommel; but doing their five miles an hour steadily, with the long, even, springy gait that so few half-breeds ever attain to,—alive, in fact, to the delicacy of the position and to their own responsibilities as sensible beasts of burden. Maimouna was a model in this respect: she could be fiery enough at times, and dangerous if her temper was roused; but she comported herself that afternoon with a courtesy and consideration for others worthy of the royal race from which she sprang—
Who could trace her lineage higher
Than the Bourbon can aspire,
Than the Ghibelline or Guelf,
Or O'Brien's blood itself.
It was pretty to see her, champing the bit and tossing her small proud head playfully, or curving her full, rounded neck to court the caress of Helen's gauntlet; with something more than instinct looking all the while out of her great bright stag's-eyes, as if she understood everything that was going on and approved it thoroughly: indeed, she seemed not indisposed to get up a little mild flirtation on her own account, for ever and anon she would rub her soft cheek against the Erl-King's puissant shoulder, and withdraw it suddenly as he turned his head with a coy, mutine grace, till even that stately steed unbent somewhat of his dignity, and condescended, after a superb and sultanesque fashion, to respond to her cajoleries.
Altogether they made, as I have said, a very attractive picture, suggestive of the gay days when knights and paladins rode in the sweet summer-weather through the forest-tracks of Lyonnesse and Brittany, each with his fair paramour at his side, ready and willing to do battle for her beauty to the death. Wyverne's proportions were far too slight and slender to have filled the mighty harness of Gareth or Geraint; but Helen might well have sat for Iseult in her girlhood before the breath of sin passed over the smooth brow—before the lovely proud face was trained to dissemble—before King Mark's unwilling bride drank the fatal philtre and subtler poison yet from her convoy's eyes, as they sailed together over the Irish Sea.
Yes—no doubt
It was merry in good greenwood,
When mavis and merle were singing;
when silvered bridles and silvery laughs rang out with a low, fitful music: when the dark dells, whenever a sunbeam shot through, grew light with shimmer of gold and jewels, or with sheen of minever and brocade; when ever and anon a bugle sounded—discreetly distant—not to recall the lost or the laggards, but just to remind them that they were supposed to be hunting the deer. Pity that almost all these romances ended so drearily! We might learn a lesson, if we would; but we "hear and do not fear." The modern knight's riding suit is russet or grey—perhaps, at the richest, of sable velvet; a scarlet neck-ribbon or the plumes of a tropical bird are the most gorgeous elements in his companion's amazonian apparel; but I fear the tone of their dress is about the only thing which is really sobered and subdued. People will go on lingering till they lose their party, and looking till they lose their hearts, and whispering till they lose their heads, to the end of time; though all these years have not abated one iota of the retribution allotted those who "love not wisely but too well;" though many miserable men, since Tristram, have dwined away under a wound that would never heal, tended by a wife that they could never like, thirsting for the caress of "white hands beyond the sea," and for a whisper that they heard—never, or only in the death-pang; though many sinners, since Launcelot, have grovelled in vain remorse on the gravestone of their last love or their first and firmest friend.
Certainly, none of these considerations could trouble the cousins' pleasant ride; for every word that passed between them was perfectly innocent and authorized; they had, so to speak, been "blessed by the priest" before they started. When Helen came down (rather late) to dinner, her face was so changed and radiant with happiness that it made "my lady's" for the rest of the evening unusually pensive and grave. Some such ideas shot across her as were in the cruel step-mother's mind, when she stopped those who bore out the seeming corpse to its burial, saying—
Drap the het lead on her breast,
And drap it on her chin;
For mickle will a maiden do,
To her true love to win.