The day will come

by M. E. Braddon

“No, I’ve hunted as often as I could. I had no other distraction during your absence.”

“How sweet of you to say that—with all the gaieties of Dorchester to allure you! Hark! they’ve found, and we shall be off in a minute. Yes, there he goes!”—pointing with her whip to the spot where the fox had flashed across the short level sward, vanishing next moment in the withered heather. “Now you’ll see what this horse can do, and you can tell me what you think of him when we meet at dinner.”

There was the usual minute or so of flutter and expectation, and then the business-like calm—an almost awful calm—every man settling down to his work, intent upon himself, steering carefully for a good place.

Harrington was a nervous rider, and if fortune helped him to get a good place he rarely kept it. To-day he was more than usually nervous, fancying that Juliet’s eye was upon him, which it wasn’t, and, indeed, could not have been, unless it had been situated in the back of her head, since she was already ever so far in front.

In time, however, he, too, contrived to settle down, and the black horse took the business into his own hands, and kept his rider fairly close to the hounds. For the first twenty minutes there was a good deal of jumping, but of a mildish order, and Harrington felt that he was distinguishing himself, inasmuch as he was able to stick to his horse, though not always to his saddle.

They lost their first fox, after a very fair run, and they waited about for nearly two hours before they started a second, which they did eventually in a scrubby copse on the skirts of a great stretch of ploughed land.

The plough took a great deal out of Mahmud, and after the plough came a series of small fields, with some stiffish fences, which had to be taken by any man who wanted to keep with the hounds. Here Juliet was in her glory, for the chestnut on which she was mounted was a fine fencer, and she knew how to handle him, or, perhaps it may be said, how to let him alone.

Mahmud had been almost as fine a fencer as the fiery young chestnut, and he was a horse of a great heart, always ready to attempt more than he could do. The livery stable people had told Harrington that if his legs were only as good as his heart he would be one of the best hunters in the county. And now, with some quavering of spirit on his own part, Harrington trusted that heart would stand instead of legs, and get him and the black over the fences somehow. Just at this crucial point in the run, Juliet was in front of him, and Major Swanwick was pressing him behind. He was near the hounds, and altogether in a place of honour, could he but keep it, and to keep it he felt was worth a struggle.

He got over or through the first fence somehow; not gloriously, but without too much loss of time; and galloped gaily towards the second, which looked a stiffer and more complicated affair. Juliet’s horse went over like a bird, and Juliet sat him like a butterfly, no more discomposed by the shock than if she had been some winged insect that had lighted on his haunches. Mahmud followed close, excited by the horse in front of him, and rose to his work gallantly; but this time it was timber and not quick-set that had to be cleared, and that stiff rail was just too much for the old hunter’s legs. He blundered, hit himself with the sharp edge of the rail, and fell heavily forward, sending his rider flying into the next field, and sinking in a struggling mass into the ditch. Major Swanwick dismounted in an instant, scrambled over the hedge, and ran to help Harrington up.

“Are you hurt?”