He drew up his horse as he saw the two gentlemen, and spoke to them kindly, telling them of the new fine entrance-gates he proposed to make from the Palace grounds to Bushey Park.
He looked more animated and cheerful than he had done for a long while. He was mounted on a splendid young sorrel horse, that he managed with all his old skill.
"A new fellow," he remarked. "The grooms warned me he was spirited, but I could scarcely be afraid of a horse—eh?" He faintly smiled and patted the great creature's glossy neck with his thin, white, ungloved hand.
My Lord Buckhurst looked at the frail figure of the King and the great power of the animal, and indeed wondered that he could manage him. He secretly agreed with the grooms that William was perhaps relying too much on his exquisite horsemanship in mounting such an untried brute.
"I hope," said William, "that I shall find my Lord Albemarle when I return."
He touched up the horse and galloped away out of sight down the long avenue, the grooms after him.
Lord Buckhurst and Mr. Prior lingered a little in the pleasant dim sun and shade, talking over this great prospect opening out over Europe, and the part the nations of the world would play in the coming struggle—which could not fail to establish for ever the Protestant faith and the liberty of peoples.
Presently the sun clouded over, and they were for returning to the Palace, when the distant sound of hoofs on the grass caused them to look round, thinking this might be the King returning.
What they saw was a riderless horse—a monstrous sorrel horse—galloping across the glade, with the stirrups flying loose.
"The King—his horse!" exclaimed Mr. Prior breathlessly. Lord Buckhurst said nothing; he turned and ran swiftly towards where the animal had come from. Cumbered as he was with sword, full extravagant vesture, and a wide-bottomed peruke, youth brought him easily over the ground, and in a few minutes he came to the spot he made for—a little clearing beyond the great trees of the avenue, with Mr. Prior breathless at his heels.