Chapter 1 No.1

At sight of where the chase was leading, most of the riders reined in their panting horses and sat watching those in front with anxious faces.

The Old Roman Road-so called, though with possibly somewhat doubtful claim to antiquity so remote-had an evil reputation. At best of times it was dangerous. More than one of them had sacrificed a horse to it at some time or other. Some had come near to sacrificing more.

After several hours in the field, wound up by a fast five-and-twenty minutes' run which had led round Endsley Wood and the coppices almost to Wynn Hall, and then back through Dursel Bottom, and up Whin Hill, it was too much to ask of any horse. Besides, it meant the end of the run in any case, for that old fox, if he failed to shake them off elsewhere, always made for the Roman Road and always managed it there.

The hedge on this side was as thick and matted a quickset as ever grew. The sunk road had no doubt originally been a covered way from the old fort up above. It was indeed more of a trench than a road, with a sheer descent from the quickset of ten good feet, a width of about as much, and a grass slope on the other side at a somewhat lower level.

The leap was therefore by no means impossible if your horse could rise to the hedge and cover the distance and the extra bit for a footing.

But what was the good? The bottom of the old road was always a muddy dribble from the fields above, and up and down it went several flocks of sheep whenever they changed pasture. And the wily old fox knew the effect of these things on scent as well as any hound or huntsman. So, when it was his day, and he had had enough of them, he made for the Old Roman Road, and then went home with a curl in his lip and a laugh in his eye.

But there were riders among them to whom a ride was nothing without a risk in it, and the Roman Road a standing test and temptation. It was two such that the rest who had got that length stood watching, some with tightened faces, none without anxiety. For a leap that is good sport when one's horse is fresh may mean disaster at the end of the run. Even old Job, the huntsman, and young Job, his son, who acted as whipper-in, watched with pinched faces and panted oaths between their teeth. Pasley Carew, the Master, lifted his foam-flecked black to the hedge, and the dull crash of his fall came up to them, horribly clear on the still autumn air.

Wulfrey Dale, the Doctor, on his big bay, cleared hedge and road with feet to spare, flung himself off as soon as he could pull up, and ran back to help.

It was as bad as it could be. Carew lay in the road, smothered in mud and obviously damaged. His horse had just rolled off him, and the Doctor saw at a glance that one of its forelegs was broken. It was kicking out wildly with its heels, flailing clods out of the steep bank and floundering in vain attempts to rise.

Carew, on one elbow, was cursing it with every oath he could lay tongue to, and with the pointed bone handle of his crop in the other hand was hammering the poor brute's head to pulp.

"Stop it, Carew!" shouted Wulfrey, sickened at the sight, as he jumped down the bank. "Damn it, man, it wasn't her fault!"

"-- her! She's broken my back."

"You shouldn't have tried it. I told you you were too heavy for her. Stop it, I say!" and he wrenched the crop, all dripping with hair and blood, out of the other's hand, and with difficulty bit off the hot words that surged in his throat. For the man was broken and hardly responsible.

It was a hard age and given to forceful language. But never in any age are there lacking some to whom brutality to the dumb beast appeals as keenly as ill-treatment of their fellows.

Wulfrey Dale was of these, and a great lover of horses besides, and Carew's maltreatment of his broken beast cut him to the quick.

With another quick look at the useless leg, and a bitter word which he could not keep in, at the horror of the mauled head, he drew from his pocket a long knife, which had seen service on many a field, opened it, pressed down the blinded tumbling head with one hand, and with the other deftly inserted the blade at the base of the skull behind the ears and drove it home with all his force, severing the spinal cord.

"Poor old girl!" he said, as, with a quick sigh of relief, the great black body lay still.

Then he turned to Carew and knelt down to examine into his injuries.

"No need," said the broken man. "Curse it all! Get a gate. My back's gone. I've no legs,"-and the others, having found their roundabout ways, came flocking up, while the dogs still nosed eagerly up and down the road but got no satisfaction.

Young Job plied his whip and his tongue and carried them away. His father looked at Carew, then at the Doctor, who nodded, and the old man turned and hurried away to get what long experience of such matters told him was needed.

"Take a pull at this, Carew," said the Doctor, handing him a flask. And as he drank deeply, as though to deaden the pain or the thought of it, Dale beckoned to one of the group which stood a little aloof lest the broken man should take their anxiety for morbid curiosity.

"Barclay, will you ride on and break it to Mrs. Carew?"

"Is it bad?"

"Yes, his back's broken."

"Good God!" and he stumbled off to his horse, and with a word to the rest, mounted and rode away.

Old Job came back in a minute or two with a hurdle he had rooted up from the sheep-fold, and they lifted the Master on to it and carried him slowly and heavily home.

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Maid of the Mist

Contents

Chapter 1 No.1

Other books by John Oxenham

White Fire

Pearl of Pearl Island

A Maid of the Silver Sea