A few weeks passed, and Leslie Pierpoint had prevailed on the blushing Clara to name the day when she would redeem her pledge given in the verandah, and become wholly and irrevocably his own. It was now at hand, and Leslie counted the hours which envious Time thrust between him and his anticipated bliss. Leslie loved the chosen bride of his bosom with the most impassioned ardor. His whole heart was involved in his affection, and he had so given himself up to his passion that any revulsion promised to make him miserable. The beautiful Clara Clayton, on her part, was deeply enamored of Leslie, but it was rather with his handsome person than with his mind; for of his fortune she thought little, being equally wealthy. She was a gay, haughty, spoiled beauty, with not half heart enough to measure Leslie’s broad love, nor half mind enough to penetrate the superior powers of his intellect. But if they married, they were both likely to be happy so long as one retained her loveliness and the bewitching smile and flashing dark eyes that had captured Leslie, and the other the elegant form, air and gait which had first inspired Clara with an interest in him.
The week preceding his wedding day Leslie was commissioned a Major of Militia, and the following day he turned out for review with the battalion to which his regiment was attached. He had purchased a high spirited horse for this occasion, and had but twice mounted him previous to his appearance on parade; and though the animal evinced an indomitable spirit, and had once proven nearly unmanageable, yet these traits were regarded by the youthful officer rather as recommendations for the military service for which he destined him than as serious objections. He was, moreover, a finished horseman and well knew he could so control the fiery animal’s impatient action as to render it subservient to a more masterly display of his own horsemanship.
On the day of parade, therefore, Leslie Pierpoint made his appearance on the field, the best mounted officer in the battalion. His steed, as he pranced along, seemed to beat the air rather than the earth, so lightly he moved over the ground, so daintily he bent his slight yielding fetlocks to his rider’s weight.
“Ah, Major, a beautiful creature you have there,” said General ——, whose aide-de-camp Leslie was that day; “you outshine us all. What an eye! Will he stand fire?”
“I have not tried him, General. But a horse of his blood has no fear in him. He can never be taken by surprise.”
“Do not trust him! See!” and the General suddenly flashed his sword before his eyes.
The animal moved not from the statue-like attitude in which Leslie had reined him up beside the General.
“Very well. He may do; but I advise you, Major Leslie, to be upon your guard during the day, I don’t much like the beast’s eye. It looks devilish.”
“I have no fears, General; let him do his worst,” answered Leslie laughing, and in a moment afterwards he galloped along the line to execute an order.
During the parade the beautiful steed behaved admirably, and elicited, by the grace and swiftness of his movements, the universal admiration of every eye. At length the firing by platoon commenced. At the first discharge, he leaped bodily into the air with his rider and lit upon the ground twenty feet distant; and Leslie’s superior horsemanship only saved him from being thrown to the earth. He now sat more firmly and watched him with hand and eye. But the successive discharges of musketry, even by companies, had no further effect upon the animal, save that there was a wider dilation of the pupil of the eye and a quick erect movement of his delicately shaped ears. This favorable change not only put Leslie off his guard but made him so self confident that he resolved to ride up to a park of artillery about to be discharged, gaily betting with General ——, as he triumphantly rode past this officer, that he would not flinch even at that.