Barnaby Part 15

He bent over in his saddle to unlatch the hand-gate that Barnaby had ridden through before them, taking his short cut over the wooden bridge by the willows. Keeping his horse back, he held it open.

"Come out this way," he said. They went cantering up the lane.

Dim and dark was the landscape, threatening rain, and the clouds were sinking lower and lower, rubbing out the hills. A kind of expectation hung in the air. A storm gathering perhaps. They rode up and up, until the narrow green lane came to a sudden stop, and a break in the high barriers of hawthorn let them on to a ridge that hung over a wide sweep of valley. Underneath lay a fallow strip, reddish brown amidst the green waves of pasture, and a party of rooks rose cawing above the idle plough.

Susan, her heart still dancing, laid a happy hand on her horse's mane,--the willing horse that carried her so smoothly.

"You like it?" said Rackham.

There was a subtle difference between his guardians.h.i.+p and that of his cousin. She missed that queer sense of security that she had with Barnaby. Why, she knew not, but Rackham's neighbourhood troubled her.

She felt a nervous inclination to burst into hurried chatter.

"It was awfully kind of Lady Henrietta to arrange it,--and of you," she said; "though you were both afraid that I should disgrace you. Yes, you were watching;--and she too: her mind misgave her when she saw me in the saddle.--What is the matter with the horses?"

"Look!" he said, smiling broadly.

And immediately she guessed. Far on the right she distinguished a flick of scarlet.

"Oh!" she said, in an awed whisper, understanding.

"That's one of the whips riding on," he explained; "they are going to draw the spinney down there, just underneath. We're in for it, aren't we?--Shall we stay where we are, and chance Barnaby's displeasure?

I'll open the gates for you, and give you a lead. Can you jump?"

She laughed at him, carried out of herself, back in remote adventures when there had been nothing she would not dare. Her blood was up, and she felt her horse quivering beneath her. Hounds were in the spinney; she had glimpses of dappled bodies ranging among the trees; at the eastern side an interminable troop of riders were pouring into the field. There seemed no limit to their numbers as they ma.s.sed thicker and thicker on the skirts of the cover till there was but the south side clear.

"Keep still!" said Rackham in a breath, and as he whispered a living flash pa.s.sed by. It vanished across the fallow, as a whistle shrilled from below. One of the whips had seen him.

"Steady!" said Rackham. "Hounds are coming out. He broke at that bottom corner.--Now!"

Her horse bounded away with his. She was close behind him as they raced down the headland. The fence at the end was low; a thorn-crammed ditch and a rotten rail. She took it, hardly knowing, but for her horse's excitement, that she had jumped. He broke into a gallop then, and she let him go.

"Who's the lady out with Rackham?" called one man, waiting his turn at a gap. The man ahead of him squeezed through before replying.

"Don't know. She's chosen a d.a.m.n reckless pilot!"

But no man's recklessness could have beaten hers. She followed him blindly; nothing daunted her, nothing dimmed the eagerness in her soul.

This was to live indeed.

They were hard on the pack. She could hear them in front, could sometimes catch a view of them flickering on. A great noise of galloping filled the air behind, drumming hard; but she was still keeping her lucky place in the van. She and Rackham....

There was something formidable ahead. She felt her horse faltering in his stride, not afraid, but doubtful;--those that were close behind were parting right and left; some of them were falling back. Without turning her head she knew it. Recklessly she kept on. The others might blench.... She would not.

Up went her horse, and in mid-air she had time to ask herself what would happen, to guess that it was touch and go. It seemed a great while before they came down, with a jar and a stagger, galloping rather wildly on.

She was too excited still to feel tired, too ignorant of danger to know what a wild line she was taking now. Just ahead of her Rackham had disappeared with a crack of timber, and she must not be left behind.

An ominous crash pursued her as she went through a stiff barrier of thorns; a loose horse was flying past. She looked dizzily for Rackham, wondering if it was his. It tried to clear the next fence riderless, but was too unsteady, and swerving crosswise, nearly brought her down.

In the field beyond it was stopped by an oxer. Someone behind cracked his whip....

"We've beaten the lot!" called Rackham; his voice came a little hoa.r.s.e in her ear. "Half of 'em funked that bullfinch, and there's one fellow in the ditch----"

She reeled in her saddle.

"I've--no--breath left," she panted.

"Pull up. Pull up!" said Rackham, and leaned over as she managed to stop her horse. Her knees trembled and she held on a minute; she thought she was going to fall off out of sheer fatigue.

Hounds were baying on the other side of the hedge. They had got their fox. People were coming up on all sides, in haste to mingle with the few who had ridden straight. She was vaguely conscious of their interested regard; she heard a general buzz of gossip.

"There's Barnaby," said Rackham. He had dismounted, and stood by her horse's shoulder, pretending to do something with a buckle, but in reality waiting for her to recover. His arm was ready to catch her if she should slide off; his wild eyes were fixed on her.

"Don't forget it was with me, not with him, you rode your first run,"

he said. The triumph in his whisper made her afraid. She felt like a truant.

What would Barnaby think of her? Would he be very angry? Had he watched her riding, wondering who she was? She lifted her face, a little proud, but troubled. All at once her glorious adventure wore the look of an escapade.

He had ridden up, but he was not looking at her at all. The set of his mouth was hard.

"I'll take charge of my wife," he said.

How strange it sounded. Would she never get used to it? She had an immediate sense of protection, of happiness out of all reason. But what else could he call her, before the world?

His cousin grinned at him brazenly.

"If you haven't too much on your hands," he said darkly. "Oh, take over your responsibilities if you like. You needn't fight me. It was your mother's idea.... But she's tired. She mustn't stop out too long."

"It was a mad thing to do," said Barnaby curtly; "risking her life over these fences--!"

"Come, come," said Rackham, "don't paint me too black. I took the greatest care of her. Didn't I?"

"I was looking on," said Barnaby.

He had turned to Susan at last, and she saw that his face was pale.

Something in him responded to her look of rapture dashed.

"Poor little girl!" he said. "I didn't know--you cared about it--"

Then he smiled ruefully. "By Jove!" he said. "You gave me a fright.

I thought you'd get yourself killed a dozen times. And I had a bad start. I couldn't get up to you. There, don't let's look as if we were quarrelling, though under the circ.u.mstances,--do you think we should?"

She plucked up spirit to answer him in kind. "On the stage," she said, "the audiences would expect it."

"Well," he said, "we'll disappoint the audience.... You won your bet, Kilgour; it is my wife. Wasn't it wicked of her?"

She found herself trotting on at his side. Rackham had fallen back.

It was Barnaby who directed her, who rode at her right hand; and a cheery crowd hemmed her in.

At the head of the procession hounds were moving on. Occasionally the authorities called a halt while they searched a patch of trees by the wayside, or turned aside to examine a hollow tree. But these were not serious diversions. Once, indeed, there was a whimper as the pack ran scampering into a small plantation, and the huntsman went in to see what it was, his scarlet glancing in the bare brown mist of larches.