Again she dashed up another ascent, and now was on a long level road—there! one of the toll-bars, but standing wide open. Through dashed the horse and rider. Out rushed a woman—threw her arms aloft over her head, and stood, as the two gentlemen rushed past, like a picture of ghastly and petrified terror. On, away! away! the next toll-bar, but this time the gate shut. George was all horror, expecting, in chill desperation, a terrible tragedy. On went the mare, without stop or stay, dashed against the gate, which flew aside, and on they went, more frightfully than ever. “God send,” said George in his soul, “that no waggon may be coming this way—the furious beast would dash right upon it, and——”
But now the race was nearly at an end. Four miles were they distant when the mare started off, and now they were flying down the sandy road under the cliff towards Woodburn Grange. As their horses made little noise in the deep sand of the road, George and Mr. Degge spurred on, and saw, as they turned the bend of the road, the mare dash right up to the gates of the stable-yard, and stop in an instant. George expected to see Letty pitched right over the yard gates, which were not higher than the horse’s shoulder. She was thrown only on its neck, and there lay a moment as if stunned. By the time George rode up, she had recovered herself, and had sprung to the ground, where she stood, pale, still, and as in a dream. George sprung from his horse, and catching her in his arms, said, “Thank God that all is well.”
Letty made no answer, but broke into loud hysterical laughter, and then fainted. Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn and the servants had all rushed out as they saw the mare coming at mad speed, covered with foam and dust, and Letty riding as if she had no fear, for she was silent, and made no gesture of alarm. It was the courage of desperation; one moment’s loss of self-control, and her destruction would have been instant. Such had been the speed of that wild ride, that it had occupied but a few minutes. George carried Letty in amid frantic exclamations from the women that she was dead, was killed. But he told them she was not hurt, and bade them be quiet. He laid her on the sofa, and amid the bustle and the terror around her, there she lay as in a trance, pale, fair, and beautiful as a spirit.
In awhile she revived, and said, smilingly, that by God’s blessing, she was quite well, but as she attempted to rise, she exclaimed, “Oh! my head! my head! how dizzy! all is swimming—going round!” and she lay down again. This dizziness returned at any attempt to lift her head. Mr. Degge had already ridden off for Dr. Leroy, and soon came gallopping back with him. He had brought such remedies as suggested themselves to him, and proceeded to bathe her temples and forehead with ether, which Letty found delightfully cool. He gave her some anodyne or other, and requested her to lie as quiet and as tranquilly in mind as possible. He said that the violent strain on the nervous system, and excitement of the brain, would show their effects for some time; and so it proved. The dizziness continued still on any motion, and during the night she awoke repeatedly in great alarm, and with piercing cries, dreaming she was again riding that fearful race, though during it she had shown nothing but the most calm courage. For some weeks she continued to feel the effects of the great terror and effort through which she had gone. In all the rushing fury of the flight, she said she had only prayed for a clear course, and that the horse might keep its footing.
The praises of her courageous bearing, and the indignation of every one at the dastardly fellow who had occasioned the frightful occurrence, were pretty equal. Mr. Degge, who had ridden to the place immediately after and traced out the man, said he was a keeper of Mr. Sheepshanks, and that he had no doubt the thing was purposely done; though the fellow said he was only trying to start a rabbit, that had gone into the hedge there. It was not long, however, before a Hillmartin labourer, who had met the fellow in a public-house, heard him say, that he thought it had been Mrs. Degge, and he had rather it had been. As for that Miss Woodburn, however, he was glad she came to no harm, for there was no woman in that county or the next that could stick in a saddle like her. Mr. Degge and every member of the Woodburn, and of hundreds of other families except Letty herself, longed to be able to fix the charge of purposed mischief on him, but it could not be done.
By the time that Letty was all right again, George had, by repeated trials with a curb bridle and martingale, ascertained that the mare was perfectly manageable. It was clear that so long as she was prevented getting the full stretch of her neck and head, she would make no attempt at running away with her rider. George rode her daily, and tried her in all ways, and pronounced her safe as a rocking-horse, or a rocking-chair. Letty ere long mounted her again, though amid much nervous terror of all the women at the Grange, and found her most obedient to the hand, and became much attached to her. The incidents of this chapter had, however, shown that the feeling of antagonism in the Rockville party to our friends of Hillmartin, Woodburn, and one or two other houses, had intensified itself to a dangerous degree.
CHAPTER III.
AN ADVENT AND AN EXIT.
The visit of Elizabeth Drury at Woodburn Grange was a short time of mutual endearment—one in which true souls and genial natures recognise and draw near to each other. It would be difficult to say which of the family came to love her most, or which of them she came to love most; yet, if there was a deeper, more sympathetic feeling, it was betwixt their guest and George and Ann. George Woodburn looked on Elizabeth Drury as the perfect ideal of womanhood. Her graceful and cheerful form, her bright and enjoying nature, her clear intelligence and sunny spirits, were his increasing admiration. Betwixt Ann and Miss Drury close and confidential conversations revealed the kinship of their tastes, and their deep aspirations after the same intellectual and sacred objects. They made discoveries of thought and feeling which created in them a sisterhood. But scarcely less did Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn and Letty affectionately estimate their guest, or she them—the warm-heartedness of Mrs. Woodburn, the sterling character of Mr. Woodburn, the joyous impulsiveness of Letty.
Miss Drury pressed the two young ladies to pay her a visit of some weeks in Yorkshire; and as soon as the corn-harvest was got in they took their flight thither. Their reception was as glowingly kind as it was possible to be. Elizabeth Drury and her father met them at the next town, and drove them to Garnside Farm, their home, in one of the beautiful dales for which that part of Yorkshire is famous. The house was old but spacious, handsomely furnished, and surrounded by a large garden. A great extent of barns and out-buildings near it, presented almost the aspect of a village. A wide prospect along a broad valley, through which ran a rapid and clear stream, and, over the valley, of dark woods bounded by long azure hills or fells, was a constant charm for the eye from the windows. Mr. Trant Drury was a tall, gentlemanly, rather sparely-built man of middle age, always clad in a blue lapelled coat with gilt buttons, a pale yellow kerseymere striped waistcoat, cord small-clothes, and handsome top-boots. He was energetic and somewhat impetuous in his manner, whilst Mrs. Drury, a tall, slight woman, had something timid and over-gentle in hers. Miss Drury was the same natural and loveable person as they had seen her on her visit. She seemed to form a free and unconstrained medium betwixt father and mother, where otherwise the mother might have sunk into a mere automaton, obeying with a certain dread the dominant temperament of her husband.