Part 24

Had anyone seen her, of course even the run of the season would have been given up to render her assistance, but her only companions in this particular field had the lead of her, and the side walls hid her from other people's view, besides which Kate Lowry was one who had long since established her right to look after herself in the hunting-field.

For a minute or two the slim girl's figure lay prone and motionless on the damp turf, while her horse stood by, hanging his wise old head regretfully over the ruin he had made. Then the girl raised herself on her elbow, pushed the fair hair out of her eyes, and sitting up, looked into the old horse's wistful face with a half smile.

"You old fool, Joe!" she said; "you ought to have known better at your time of life."

Rising to her feet, she leaned her head for a moment on her saddle, pressing her hand to her side as if in pain, and then backing her horse so that he stood close alongside the wall, she climbed slowly and with difficulty back into the saddle.

"I wonder how long we lay under that wall, Joe?" soliloquized Kate, as she walked him through a gap in the next wall; "and I wonder, too, where the hounds are, and if I must give it up and let that Preece girl beat me?"

Listening intently, she sat for a moment by the roadside, the old horse's ears pricked keenly forward. At last she thought she heard hounds running, it seemed, to her right. Without a moment's hesitation she turned Joe round, and, sobered by his fall, that mud-besmeared veteran popped over the wall as cleverly as a cat, only to be reined up short as he lit, for there, streaming over another wall, were the whole pack, going as keenly and as fiercely now as in the first three fields. With them were only two horsemen, the master and the man in mufti.

As the three joined forces, George noticed for the first time his cousin's white face and muddy garments.

"Why, Kate, where have you been? Not hurt, I hope?" and though the words were curt and simple, the expression in his face was less careless than it might have been.

"No, thanks; more mud than bruises, I think. Where is Miss Preece?"

"Rolled off in the only piece of plough in the county, and seems to have taken root there," laughed the ungallant M.F.H.

"No damage done, I hope?" said Kate.

"Hurt? No. Her clever chestnut put his feet into a furrow and stumbled, la belle Polly rolled off, and though we put her up again, she seemed to have had enough, especially as she believed that you had given up the chase some time since."

"Oh, indeed," laughed Kate, a little grimly. "You see hers was her first fall; it makes a difference."

And now the conversation dropped. Each of those three riders had his or her hands full for the time. The fox in front of them was, indeed, a straight-necked one. Save for the one turn which had given Kate a second chance, he had gone straight as the crow flies since the find. Save for a check of a short five minutes, the hounds had run almost as if they were coursing him, and it was already a full half-hour since the find, and the spire of Kempford church was now visible on the right. At the back of Kempford village was a well-known drain, in which more than one stout fox had found safety. For this reynard seemed to be making, and to judge of the frequency with which each of the three horses rattled their walls as they skimmed over them, his pursuers were hardly likely to get there even if he was.

But between the Kempford drain and him there ran the deep and broad stream of the Cheln, unfordable, and rarely, if ever, crossed (save by a bridge) in the annals of fox-hunting. As the three neared the river, they were (thanks to a lucky turn) in the same field with the hounds.

"By Jove, there he is," cried the "dealer," breaking silence for the first time, and there, sure enough, dragging his gallant but draggled person up the bank opposite was poor "pug," in full view of the pack. No otter hounds ever took water more savagely than did old Monitor and his comrades, almost whining with impatience to close with their gallant foe.

"Kate, for God's sake, don't try it," cried Vernon.

It was too late; the old horse had already been driven in, and the first woman who ever swam a horse across the Cheln was already battling with the stream, her lips hard set, her grey-blue eyes full of fire, and her whole face recalling vividly for the moment, in spite of its natural softness, the stern outlines of those ancestors whose war-worn profiles adorned the long galleries of the Hall.

It was a difficult swim, but old Joe's limbs were borne up bravely by the brave heart within, and it was not till long after the dripping habit had been dried that it occurred to Kate that, like Lord Cardigan, she had forgotten that she could not swim.

The M.F.H. and his cousin were now the only two left with the hounds, and in front of them rose, perhaps, the worst fence in the Gonaway country, a stiff stone wall, the stones all firmly morticed, and on the top a row of rough-edged slabs set on end like the teeth of a saw. Under the take-off side ran a deep, little stream, nowhere less than six feet wide, and even at that the banks were undermined and unsafe.

The cousins were alongside in the field which this mantrap bounded. Every atom of colour had left her cheeks now, and her lips were white with pain. Had George's whole heart and mind not been in the chase, he must have seen, and insisted on her returning home. As it was, he only said, "They've killed him, Kate; I must have it and save a bit of the best fox I ever hunted." And if hounds' tongues could be believed, they had indeed at last pulled the gallant old fox down, though the rugged piece of masonry before alluded to hid the pack from view.

"Is there no other way, George?"

"No, don't you follow me; go back by the lane and I'll bring you the brush if I can save it."

So saying, the master turned his horse and set himself at the place where the wall looked lowest. Kate had been bred in a hunting country, but truth to tell, her heart hung on that leap.

"One thrust to his hat and two to the sides of his brown," and then he shot to the front, seat steady and hands well down. Right bravely the horse rose at the leap, but the bank broke as he rose, his knees caught the coping stone with a jarring thud, and man and horse lay stunned on the other side.

To the wild cry of "George, George!" no answer came back, and then it was for the first time that poor Kate knew how irretrievably her heart had been lost to her dashing cousin.

To gallop to the gate was useless, though she essayed it. The gate was six barred and locked, moreover, the wall and its guarding stream still ran on beyond the gate. Kate had lost her head and her heart, but not her pluck.

"Just one more try, Joe," she whispered, and with a rush that seemed born of the last energies of a gallant heart the brave old horse faced and cleared the coping stone. Many fresh horses might have cleared that wall; but they talk of that leap still in Gonaway. Nearly five feet of hard stone and a biggish brook in front was no small feat, they say, for a tired horse, even with bonny Kate Lowry on his back.