“Well,” the other went on, “they were beating a cover for roe, and the gillie suggested a particular pass, as the most likely to get a shot at what he called a ‘tod.’ It was some time before Tom realized the full horror of the proposition: when he did, he shut his eyes like a bull that is going to charge, and literally fell upon the duinhe-wassel, bellowing savagely. He had no more idea of using his hands than a fractious baby; but it is rather a serious thing when sixteen stone of solid flesh becomes possessed by a devil. Robin Oig was overborne by the onset, and did not forget the effects of it that season.”
Tresilyan laughed applaudingly, as he always did when he could understand more than half a story.
“I suppose it’s pretty good fun hunting them out there?” he said, going off at score, as usual, on the fresh theme.
“Not bad,” Keene replied; “sharp going while it lasts, and a little knack wanted to stick them scientifically. Some say it’s more exciting than fox-hunting, but that’s childish; I never heard a man assert it whose liver was not on the wane. It’s more dangerous, certainly. A header into the Smite or the Whissendine is nothing to a fall backward into a nullah, with a beaten horse on the top of you.”
Molyneux woke up from a reverie. The familiar word stirred his blood like a trumpet, and it flashed up brightly in his pale cheek as he spoke. “Ah! we have had a brushing gallop or two in the gay old times, before we got married, and invalided, and all that sort of thing. Dick, I should like to tell you how I got my first spear.”
“Of course you would,” the major said, resignedly; “it’s my fault for starting the subject. Get over it quickly then, please.” He did not stop him, though, as he would have done on another occasion—pour cause.
“I had been entered some time at boar,” Harry began, “before I had any luck at all. Ride as hard as I would at the start, the old hands would creep up at the finish, just in time to get ‘first blood.’ I gave long prices for my Arabs, too, and didn’t spare them. I own I got discouraged, and thought the whole thing a robbery, a delusion, and a snare. One day, however, we had a good deal of deep, marshy ground at first, and a quick gallop afterward, which served my light weight well. I had it all to myself when he came to bay; so I went in, full of confidence, and gave point, as I thought, well behind the shoulder-blade. I did not calculate on the pace we were going, and I was just three inches too forward. My horse was as young and hot as I was, and though he had no idea of flinching, didn’t know how to take care of himself. The instant the brute felt the steel he wheeled short round, and cut The Emperor’s forelegs clean from under him. We all came down in a heap; my spear flew yards away; and there I was on my face, clear of my horse, with my right wrist badly sprained. Would you have fancied the position? I didn’t. The devil was too blown to begin offensive operations at once, for we had burst him along pretty sharply, but he stood right over me, champing and rasping his tusks, and getting his wind for a good vicious rip. I felt his boiling foam dropping upon me as I lay quite still. I thought that was the best thing to do. All at once hoofs came up at a hard gallop; something swept above me with a rush; there was a short, smothered sound like a tap on a padded door, and then the beast stretched himself slowly out across my legs, and shivered, and died. That man opposite to you had leapt his horse over us both, and, while he was in the 19 air, speared the boar through the spinal marrow. If he had been struck any where else he might still have torn me badly before the life was out of him. Neatly done, wasn’t it?”
Harry drank off the remains of his sherry and seltzer rather excitedly, and then sighed. He was thinking how often, in other days, when health and nerves were to the fore, he had drained a stronger and deeper draught to “Snaffle, spur, and spear!”
“A mere stage trick,” Keene remarked; “effective, but not in the least dangerous, with a horse under you as steady as poor old Mahmoud. May his rest be glorious! Gilbert killed a tiger that had got loose in the same way, which was something to talk about, for even clean-bred Arabs don’t like facing tigers. You made rather better time than usual over that story to-night, Hal; it’s practice, I suppose.”
Tresilyan’s eyes fastened on the speaker, full of a heavy, pertinacious admiration. You might have told him of the noblest action of generosity or self-denial that ever constituted the stock in trade of a moral hero, and he would have listened patiently, but without one responsive emotion. Bodily prowess and daring he could appreciate. Keene’s physical prestige was just the thing to captivate his limited imagination; besides which the ground was prepared for the seed-time. He had some soldier friends, and dining with these at the “Swashing Buckler,” he had heard some of those club chronicles in which the Cool Captain’s name figured prominently.