Barren Honour: A Novel

by George A. Lawrence

There was a scent, such as one meets about twice in a season. The field, spread out like a fan, begins to converge again, and the front rank are riding like men possessed to make up their lost ground. All in vain—nothing without wings would catch the "flying bitches" now, as they stream over the broad pastures without check or stay, drinking in the hot trail through wide up-turned nostrils, mute as death in their savage thirst for blood. It was a trivial triumph, no doubt, hardly worthy of a highly rational being; but the hunting instinct is one of the strongest in our imperfect nature, after all; I believe that it falls to the lot of very few to enjoy such intense, simple happiness as Wyverne experienced for about eighteen minutes, as he swept on, alone, on the flank of the racing pack, rejoicing in Red Lancer's unfaltering strength. Such a tremendous burst must necessarily be brief. As Alan crashes through the rail of a great "oxer," an excited agriculturist screams: "He's close afore you." Close—the hounds know that better than you can tell them. Look how the veterans are straining to the front. Suddenly, as they stream along a thick bullfinch, old Bonnibelle wheels short round and glides through the fence like a ghost; her comrades follow as best they may; there is a snap—a crash of tongues—and a savage worry. Alan Wyverne, too, turns in his tracks; and driving Red Lancer madly through the blackthorn, clears himself from the falling horse, just in time to rush in to the rescue, and—with the aid of a friendly carter, who uses whip and voice lustily—to save from sharp wrangling teeth rather a mutilated trophy.

Now, is not that worth living for? Wyverne could answer the question very satisfactorily, as he loosens Red Lancer's girth and turns his head to the wind, pulling his small ears, and stroking his lofty crest caressingly. Nearly five minutes have passed, and the hounds are beginning to wander about in a desultory, half-satisfied way, as is their wont after a kill, before Lord Roncesvaux, and the huntsman, and three or four more celebrities, put in a discomfited appearance.

It speaks ill for our chivalry that we should have left the pony-carriage to itself all this time; but that "cracker" over the grass was too strong a temptation; we were bound to see the end of it.

Mrs. Brabazon was the first to speak, breathing quick and nervously.

"Oh, Helen, was not that magnificent? But were you ever so frightened?"

The wild look had passed out of the girl's eyes, yet they were still strangely dreamy and vague.

"It was very fearful," she said; "but I ought not to have been frightened. There is no one like him—no one half so cool and brave. I have known that for so many years!"

Maud's keen glance rested on the speaker's face for a second or two. What she read there did not seem greatly to please her.

"I think we had better be turning homewards," she said, gravely; "I feel tired already, and I am sure we shall see nothing more to-day."

From Miss Vavasour's flushing cheek, and the impatient way in which she gathered up the reins and turned her ponies, it was easy to guess that she did not wish her thoughts to be too closely scanned just then. But before they had driven three hundred yards, she was musing again. At last her lips moved involuntarily. Maud Brabazon's quick ear caught a low, piteous whisper—"I don't think he even saw me"—and then a weary, helpless sigh. In just such a sigh may have been breathed the dying despair of that unhappy Scottish maiden, who pined so long for the coming of her lover from beyond the sea, and whose worn-out heart broke when he rode in under the archway without marking the wave of her kerchief, or looking up at her window.