"Ay, that's right! Pull up in time, my lovely ones, ere you get amongst the rascally mole-hills; and then you'll not only ride the safer, but afford us at the same time a chance of obtaining a view of your pretty faces," thought friend Frank; whilst similar thoughts, although perhaps arranged in more elegant terms, were passing through the mind of his companion. But if the curiosity of the two pedestrians was great, their admiration proved far greater when the objects which excited those feelings, on a nearer approach, proved to be two as lovely young women as the most fastidious admirer of beauty could wish to gaze upon. One of them, indeed, displayed such matchless charms to the youthful poet's eyes, as at the very first glance to form to his excited fancy the beau-ideal of perfect loveliness.
"What an angel!" he mentally exclaimed; "upon such a form I could continue to gaze enraptured for"——
How long he never said, for ere he had time to give utterance to the thought, he stumbled over one of the surrounding mole-hills, and staggering forward several paces with extended arms, he ultimately fell prostrate on the ground, close by the side of the innocent yet moving cause of his misadventure, and with such force, as to bury the whole of his countenance in the soft heavings of a similar hillock to the one he had so inadvertently tripped over.
Luckily for him, the place his physiognomy alighted upon was of so soft and yielding a nature, that though he stamped a perfect model of his features in the clay, the features themselves were unimpaired, otherwise than by the earthy colouring communicated to them by so pressing a contact, which perfectly satisfied the fair equestrians (who had the kindness to pull up and express their hopes that he was not seriously hurt) that the actual damage sustained was of a very superficial nature.
"And I suppose you intend to say that this is all for the best?" observed Vernon in rather a rueful tone, as, the ladies having ridden on, he was attempting to rub off the dirt from his face with his pocket handkerchief—the first wipe of which was sufficient to show him how much the effects of his tumble had changed the natural hue of his complexion.
"To be sure I do," answered Frank "and any man less unreasonable than yourself would say so too."
"What! say it was all for the best for him, like an awkward booby, to fall sprawling in the dirt, thereby making himself a laughing-stock to that beautiful, angelic creature? Oh! only look, my dear Frank, only look—see her—see both of them! Why, as I live, they are almost ready to fall off the very backs of their horses from the laughter my blundering awkwardness has excited. Oh, it's really dreadful—I must turn my head another way. I can bear the sight of it no longer!"
"But only think how much worse it would have been if your phiz, instead of the soft earth, had encountered one of the hard spar-stones that are so plentifully strewed about here?"
"And supposing it had—wouldn't it have been better, at the cost of little pain and suffering, to have excited the compassion, instead of the laughter of that heavenly creature?"
"But hardly at the sacrifice of your nose, I should say," rejoined Frank, "which, from the deep impression it has made in the clay, must have been smashed flat as a pancake had it battled out the matter with the stones."