‘Well, I done some pretty fair jumps myself at one time an’ another in t’ ring or steeple-chasin’, but ’twas nowt to what he done, not even when a mare I was ridin’ jumped over a wall an’ fifteen feet into t’ quarry t’ other side.
‘There’s a pretty tidy place at t’ bottom o’ that field’—pointing to a low-lying, marshy expanse on the left that rose at the end to a high bank—‘that he jumped one afternoon in cold blood which five out of six wouldn’t have touched in warm, but at t’ end of his time he was reckless—almost to touch on madness, so grandfather always said. But if ye’ll bide here three minutes till I’ve seen the mare looked to properly I’ll tell ye a tale of t’ Squire—same as grandfather told it me.’
So saying Jack Skelton cantered round to the farm, where he was now employed as horse-breaker and showyard rider, while I strolled down to view the leap at the end of the field till he was free to join me. I could see The Ford opposite to me as I walked along—a square keep flanked with castellated wings rising proudly amongst its trees beyond the winding river in a circle of fir-clad hills.
‘The old Squire’s’ daughter lived there now with her husband, who had taken her name on his marriage, but they were childless, and the ancient race of Herons seemed destined to become extinct.
Arrived at the bank I saw a formidable gulf open below me, with a soft and rotten landing on the further side, some fourteen feet across, the space between oozy with marsh mud and choked drains. ‘“All hope abandon ye who enter here,”’ I quoted aloud, just as Jack Skelton came up to me.
‘Ay,’ he chuckled, ‘it would be a job for a contractor to get a horse an’ man out o’ that, an’ after that I’ll lay odds but the laundry-maid would give her notice.
‘It was a great big, seventeen hands horse he had that he jumped it with—an ugly devil to look at, light roan in colour, but up to any weight an’ absolutely fearless. All ye had to do, as grandfather used to say, was to lay t’ reins on his neck, and straight across country he’d go like a bird.
‘He hadn’t always been such a fierce one to go, hadn’t t’ Squire, and what changed his temper was what I was goin’ to tell ye.
‘There was a woman in it, d’ye see, an’ that woman his wife. When first they was married no couple in broad Yorkshire was happier, as folk thought. She was a handsome lass and clever at book-larnin’ an’ suchlike, ambitious, too, like the clever ones usually are; but at first she was all for sport an’ huntin’, same as t’owd Squire, and where he went she mostly followed him, bein’ as well mounted as himself. As for t’owd Squire, he was t’ happiest man alive in those days—used to slap grandfather on t’ back an’ cry, after a steaming run, t’ fox’s mask in his hand ready to tie on to his missus’s saddle, “By ——, Skelton, but she’s the straightest woman rider in England, whether in or out o’ t’ shires.”
‘Yet for all that his happiness was short-lived, for after a son was born to him Mistress Heron seemed to lose heart for huntin’—her narves, she said, had gone wrong with her; but grandfather always upheld that she’d grown tired of her husband. She was a clever woman, as I said, an’ ambitious; an’ ’twas reported that she’d been forced to marry wi’ t’owd Squire by her mother in Lunnon town—he bein’ as rich as “Creases”—whilst the man she really favoured hadn’t a penny beyond what his wits might bring him in. For a bit the excitement of huntin’ had been enough for her, an’ spendin’ t’ Squire’s brass, t’ big house, an’ t’ novelty; but after t’ son was born she grew dissatisfied an’ took a dislike to her life. Consequence was that she took up with a young man called Cunliffe, that lived over at The Tower—right away on that hillside over there, about two miles west of us—ye can see it against trees from Heronsford easy.