When I came to, I was lying on a box bed in a cottage, with Peter and the lady who had held the yellow gate kneeling by my side.
"I think you are mad to put any one on that horse!" I heard her say indignantly. "You know how often it has changed hands; and you yourself can hardly ride it."
Havoc had tried to scramble down the bank, which luckily for me had not been immediately under the fence, but it could not be done, so we took a somersault into the brook, most alarming for the people in the ford to see. However, as the water was deep where I landed, I was not hurt, but had fainted from fear and exhaustion.
Peter's misery was profound; ice-white and in an agony of fear, he was warming my feet with both his hands while I watched him quietly. I was taken home in a brougham by my kind friend, who turned out to be Mrs. Bunbury, a sister of John Watson, the Master of the Meath hounds, and the daughter of old Mr. Watson, the Master of the Carlow and the finest rider to hounds in England.
This was how Peter and I first came really to know each other; and after that it was only a question of time when our friendship developed into a serious love-affair. I stayed with Mrs. Bunbury in the Grafton country that winter for several weeks and was mounted by every one.
As Peter was a kind of hero in the hunting field and had never been known to mount a woman, I was the object of much jealousy. The first scene in my life occurred at Brackley, where he and a friend of his, called Hatfield Harter, shared a hunting box together.
There was a lady of charm and beauty in the vicinity who went by the name of Mrs. Bo. They said she had gone well to hounds in her youth, but I had never observed her jump a twig. She often joined us when Peter and I were changing horses and once or twice had ridden home with us. Peter did not appear to like her much, but I was too busy to notice this one way or the other. One day I said to him I thought he was rather snubby to her and added:
"After all, she must have been a very pretty woman when she was young and I don't think it's nice of you to show such irritation when she joins us."
PETER: "Do you call her old?"
MARGOT: "Well, oldish I should say. She must be over thirty, isn't she?"