‘It is not very high,’ she said. ‘We are going so charmingly that I could not bear to be stopped. Emigrant here’—and she fondly patted the dark brown neck of the adamantine animal she rode—‘is good for anything in a moderate way.’
‘It is scarcely four feet,’ said Wilfred, ‘but don’t go at it if you are not quite sure. We can go round.’
‘I’m not going round, I can promise you,’ said the girl, with a clear light glowing in her steadfast eyes. ‘Oh, here it is. Two-railed fences are not much. Besides, we are leading, and must show a good example.’
Whereupon Emigrant’s head was turned towards the nearest panel. The well-bred horses quickened their speed slightly; Emigrant shook his arched neck as both cleared the rail with little more trouble than a sheep-hurdle. As they alighted on the sound greensward, Miss Fane was sitting perfectly square with her hands down, just a little backward in her seat, but without the slightest sign of haste or discomposure.
‘Well done,’ said Wilfred. ‘Prettily jumped. Emigrant has been at it before.’
‘He has been at most things,’ said Miss Fane, looking fondly at her experienced palfrey. ‘He had all kinds of work before I managed to make private property of him; but nobody rides him but me now, and I think I shall manage to keep his old legs right for years to come.’
The next advancing pairs were not quite so secure of their horses’ abilities, and a slight uncertainty took place. It was all very well for Miss Fane to say the fence was not much; but rails are rails. When they happen to be new and unyielding, though scarcely four feet in height, a mistake causes a severe fall. There is no scrambling through an Australian fence, as a rule. It must be jumped clean or let alone.
Fergus, the unapproachable, was in good sooth no great performer over anything stiff. Peerless as a hackney in all other respects, he was not up to much across country; nor had he been required hitherto, in the houndless state of the land, to do aught in that line. Nevertheless, Rosamond, fired by the example of Miss Fane, and inspirited by the apparent ease with which Emigrant negotiated the obstacle, would have doubtless run the risk, trusting to Fergus’s gentlemanlike feeling to see her safe. But all risk of danger was obviated by Bob Clarke’s promptitude.
That chivalrous youth, knowing all about Red King, as indeed he did about every horse in the land, was aware that he was a difficult horse to ride at timber. ‘Handsome as paint,’ was the general verdict, but he needed two pairs of hands in company.
On this occasion the fact of there being other ambitious animals in front, and the ‘great club of the unsuccessful’ in his rear, had roused his temper.