Receiving the necessary impetus from above, Bertie and Lilla slithered down at a terrific pace, and shot over the jutting ridge—a good twenty feet drop. As they touched the ground, the toboggin ploughed up the snow, recovered without upsetting, and tore on, jumping down the lesser falls the same way, and continuing a considerable distance along the level at the bottom before its impetus was exhausted.
Bertie, blind, breathless, and half-choked with snow, heard a voice behind, jerking in quick grasps—
"Did you e-ver feel such a de-light-ful—sensation in your life before?"
"Never," said he with a profound air of conviction, shaking off the snow like a Newfoundland dog. "I wonder if I could have steered as well!"
"If you are going to try, you may take some young woman who is tired of her life," said Lilla.
"I'll take myself down, anyhow," said Du Meresq, rather nettled; and, having dragged her toboggin up the hill, ran off to get another; but, in passing Cecil, found a moment to say—
"Don't let that young lunatic delude you down the jump. It is unfit for any girl but such a glutton as Lilla."
"I haven't the slightest wish to try," said she, laughing. "Lilla's a witch. Just look at her now."
Miss Tremaine, standing poised on her toboggin, was in the act of gliding down the hill. A light pole held in one hand served as a rudder, the other retained the cord reins.
"It is like a fairy in a pantomime let down from above," ejaculated Du Meresq. "That is uncommonly tall toboggining!"