the
adventure. He rode into a Welsh town, and engaged a fresh horse for the
night.

"She won't sing, at all events," thought Wilfrid, to comfort himself,
before the memory that she could not, in any case, touched springs of
weakness and pitying tenderness. From an eminence to which he walked
outside the town, Penarvon was plainly visible with all its lighted
windows.

"But I will pluck her from you!" he muttered, in a spasm of jealousy; the
image of himself as an outcast against the world that held her, striking
him with great force at that moment.

"I must give up the Austrian commission, if she takes me."

And be what? For he had sold out of the English service, and was to
receive the money in a couple of days. How long would the money support
him? It would not pay half his debts! What, then, did this pursuit of
Emilia mean? To blink this question, he had to give the spur to
Hippogriff. It meant (upon Hippogriff at a brisk gallop), that he
intended to live for her, die for her, if need be, and carve out of the
world all that she would require. Everything appears possible, on
Hippogriff, when he is going; but it is a bad business to put the spur on
so willing a beast. When he does not go of his own will;--when he sees
that there are obstructions, it is best to jump off his back. And we
should abandon him then, save that having once tasted what he can do for
us, we become enamoured of the habit of going keenly, and defying
obstacles. Thus do we begin to corrupt the uses of the gallant beast (for
he is a gallant beast, though not of the first order); we spoil his
instincts and train him to hurry us to perdition.

"If my sisters could see me now!" thought Wilfrid, half-smitten with a
distant notion of a singularity in his position there, the mark for a
frosty breeze, while his eyes kept undeviating watch over Penarvon.

After a time he went back to the inn, and got among coachmen and footmen,
all battling lustily against the frost with weapons scientifically
selected at the bar. They thronged the passages, and lunged hearty
punches at one another, drank and talked, and only noticed that a
gentleman was in their midst when he moved to get a light. One complained
that he had to drive into Monmouth that night, by a road that sent him
five miles out of his way, owing to a block--a great stone that had
fallen from the hill. "You can't ask 'em to get out and walk ten steps,"
he said; "or there! I'd lead the horses and j