Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

/> Lionel Dale's eyes were fixed on the face of his cousin as the country squire made this announcement. To his surprise, he saw that face blanch to a death-like whiteness.

"To-morrow!" murmured Sir Reginald, with a sigh.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIII.


"ANSWER ME, IF THIS BE DONE?"

All through the night the drizzling rain fell fast, and on the morning of the 26th, when the gentlemen at the manor-house rectory went to their windows to look out upon the weather, they were gratified by finding that southerly wind and cloudy sky so dear to the heart of a huntsman.

At half-past eight o'clock the whole party assembled in the dining- room, where breakfast was prepared.

Many gentlemen living in the neighbourhood had been invited to breakfast at the rectory; and the great quadrangle of the stables was crowded by grooms and horses, gigs and phaetons, while the clamour of many voices rang out upon the still air.

Every one seemed to be thoroughly happy--except Reginald Eversleigh. He was amongst the noisiest of the talkers, the loudest of the laughers; but the rector, who watched him closely, perceived that his face was pale, his eyes heavy as the eyes of one who had passed a sleepless night, and that his laughter was loud without mirth, his talk boisterous, without real cheerfulness of spirit.

"There is mischief of some kind in that man's heart," Lionel said to himself. "Can there be any truth in the gipsy's warning after all?"

But in the next moment he was ready to fancy himself the weak dupe of his own imagination.

"I dare say my cousin's manner is but what it always is," he thought; "the weary manner of a man who has wasted his youth, and sacrificed all the brilliant chances of his life, and who, even in the hour of pleasure and excitement, is oppressed by a melancholy which he strives in vain to shake off."

The gathering at the breakfast-table was a brilliant one.

Lydia Graham was a superb horsewoman; and in no costume did she look more attractive than in her exquisitely fitting habit of dark blue cloth. The early hour of the meet justified her breakfasting in riding- costume; and gladly availing herself of this excuse, she made her appearance in her habit, carrying her pretty little riding-hat and dainty whip in her hand.

Her cheeks were flushed with a rich bloom--the warm flush of excitement and the consciousness of success. Lionel's attention on the previous evening had seemed to her unmistakeable; and again this morning she saw admiration, if not a warmer feeling, in his gaze.

"And so you really mean to follow the hounds, Miss Graham?" said Mrs. Mordaunt, with something like a shudder.

She had a great horror of fast young ladies, and a lurking aversion to Miss Graham, whose dashing manner and more brilliant charms quite eclipsed the quiet graces of the lady's two daughters. Mrs. Mordaunt was by no means a match-making mother; but she would have been far from sorry to see Lionel Dale devoted to one of her girls.

"Do I mean to follow the hounds?" cried Lydia. "Certainly I do, Mrs. Mordaunt. Do not the Misses Mordaunt ride?"

"Never to hounds," answered the matron. "They ride with, their father constantly, and when they are in London they ride in the park; but Mr. Mordaunt would not allow his daughters to appear in the hunting-field."

Lydia's face flushed crimson with anger; but her anger changed to delight when Lionel Dale came to the rescue.

"It is only such accomplished horsewomen as Miss Graham who can ride to hounds with safety," he said. "Your daughters ride very well, Mrs. Mordaunt; but they are not Diana Vernons."

"I never particularly admired the character of Diana Vernon," Mrs. Mordaunt answered, coldly.

Lydia Graham was by no means displeased by the lady's discourtesy. She accepted it as a tribute to her success. The mother could not bear to see so rich a prize as the rector of Hallgrove won by any other than her own daughter.

Douglas Dale was full of his brother's new horse, "Niagara," which had been paraded before the windows. The gentlemen of the party had all examined the animal, and pronounced him a beauty.

"Did you try him last week, Lionel, as I requested you to do?" asked Douglas, when the merits of the horse had been duly discussed.

"I did; and I found him as fine a temper as any horse I ever rode. I rode him twice--he is a magnificent animal."

"And safe, eh, Lio?" asked Douglas, anxiously. "Spavin assured me the horse was to be relied on, and Spavin is a very respectable fellow; but it's rather a critical matter to choose a hunter for a brother, and I shall be glad when to-day's work is over."

"Have no fear, Douglas," answered the rector. "I am generally considered a bold rider, but I would not mount a horse I couldn't thoroughly depend upon; for I am of opinion that a man has no right to tempt Providence."

As he said this, he happened by chance to look towards Reginald Eversleigh. The eyes of the cousins met; and Lionel saw that those of the baronet had a restless, uneasy look, which was utterly unlike their usual expression.

"There is some meaning in that old woman's dark hints of wrong and treachery," he thought; "there must be. That was no common look which I saw just now in my cousin's eyes."

The horses were brought round to the principal door; a barouche had been ordered for Mrs. Mordaunt and the two young ladies, who had no objection to exhibit their prettiest winter bonnets at the general meeting-place.

The snow had melted, except here and there, where it still lay in great patches; and on the distant hills, which still wore their pure white shroud.

The roads and lanes were fetlock-deep in mud, and the horses went splashing through pools of water, which spurted up into the faces of the riders.

There was only one lady besides Lydia Graham who intended to accompany the huntsmen, and this lady was the dashing young wife of a cavalry officer, who was spending a month's leave of absence with his relatives at Hallgrove.

The hunting-party rode out of the rectory gates in twos and threes. All had passed out into the high road before the rector himself, who was mounted on his new hunter.

To his extreme surprise he found a difficulty in managing the animal. He reared, and jibbed, and shied from side to side upon the broad carriage-drive, splashing the melted snow and wet gravel upon the rector's dark hunting-coat.

"So ho, 'Niagara,'" said Lionel, patting the animal's arched neck; "gently, boy, gently."

His voice, and the caressing touch of his hand seemed to have some little effect, for the horse consented to trot quietly into the road, after the rest of the party, and Lionel quickly overtook his friends. He rode shoulder by shoulder with Squire Mordaunt, an acknowledged judge of horseflesh, who watched the rector's hunter with a curious gaze for some minutes.

"I'll tell you what it is, Dale," he said, "I don't believe that horse of yours is a good-tempered animal."

"You do not?"

"No, there's a dangerous look in his eye that I don't at all like. See how he puts his ears back every now and then; and his nostrils have an ugly nervous quiver. I wish you'd let your man bring you another horse, Dale. We're likely to be crossing some stiffish timber to-day; and, upon my word, I'm rather suspicious of that brute you're riding."

"My dear squire, I have tested the horse to the uttermost," answered Lionel. "I can positively assure you there is not the slightest ground for apprehension. The animal is a present from my brother, and Douglas would be annoyed if I rode any other horse."

"He would be more annoyed if you came to any harm by a horse of his choosing," answered the squire. "However I'll say no more. If you know the animal, that's enough. I know you to be both a good rider and a good judge of a horse."

"Thank you heartily for your advice, notwithstanding, squire," replied Lionel, cheerily; "and now I think I'll ride on and join the ladies."

He broke into a canter, and presently was riding by the side of Miss Graham, who did not fail to praise the beauty of "Niagara" in a manner calculated to win the heart of Niagara's rider.

In the exhilarating excitement of the start, Lionel Dale had forgotten alike the gipsy's warning and those vague doubts of his cousin Reginald which had been engendered by that warning. He was entirely absorbed by the pleasure of the hour, happy to see his friends gathered around him, and excited by the prospect of a day's sport.

The meeting-place was crowded with horsemen and carriages, country squires and their sons, gentlemen-farmers on sleek hunters, and humbler tenant-farmers on their stiff cobs, butchers and innkeepers, all eager for the chase. All was life, gaiety excitement, noise; the hounds, giving forth occasional howls and snappish yelpings, expressive of an impatience that was almost beyond endurance; the huntsman cracking his whip, and reproving his charges in language more forcible than polite; the spirited horses pawing the ground; the gentlemen exchanging the compliments of the season with the ladies who had come up to see the hounds throw off.

At last the important moment arrived, the horn sounded, the hounds broke away with a rush, and the business of the day had begun.

Again the rector's horse was seized with sudden obstinacy, and again the rector found it as much as he could do to manage him. An inferior horseman would have been thrown in that sharp and short struggle between horse and rider; but Lionel's firm hand triumphed over the animal's temper for the time at least; and presently he was hurrying onward at a stretching gallop, which speedily carried him beyond the ruck of riders.

As he skimmed like a bird over the low flat meadows, Lionel began to think that the horse was an acquisition, in spite of the sudden freaks of temper which had made him so difficult to manage at starting.

A horseman who had not joined the hunt, who had dexterously kept the others in sight, sheltering himself from observation under the fringe of the wood which crowned a small hill in the neighbourhood of the meet, was watching all the evolutions of Lionel Dale's horse closely through a small field-glass, and soon, perceived that the animal was beyond the rider's skill to manage. The stretching gallop which had reassured Mr. Dale soon carried the rector beyond the watcher's ken, and then, as the hunt was out of sight too, he turned his horse from the shelter he had so carefully selected, and rode straight across country in an opposite direction.

In little more than half an hour after the horseman who had watched Lionel Dale so closely left the post of observation, a short man, mounted on a stout pony, which had evidently been urged along at unusual speed, came along the road, which wound around the hill already mentioned. This individual wore a heavy, country-made coat, and leather leggings, and had a handkerchief tied