he was getting nearer to Lucinda. For her, in her
heart, Lucinda was the quarry. If she could only pass Lucinda! That
there were any hounds she had altogether forgotten. She only knew
that two or three men were leading the way, of whom her cousin Frank
was one, that Lucinda Roanoke was following them closely, and that
she was gaining upon Lucinda Roanoke. She knew she was gaining a
little, because she could see now how well and squarely Lucinda sat
upon her horse. As for herself, she feared that she was rolling;--but
she need not have feared. She was so small, and lithe, and light,
that her body adapted itself naturally to the pace of her horse.
Lucinda was of a different build, and it behoved her to make for
herself a perfect seat. "We must have the wall," said Lord George,
who was again at her side for a moment. She would have "had" a castle
wall, moat included, turrets and all, if he would only have shown her
the way. The huntsman and Frank had taken the wall. The horsey man's
bit of blood, knowing his own powers to an inch, had declined,--not
roughly, with a sudden stop and a jerk, but with a swerve to the left
which the horsey man at once understood. What the brute lacked in
jumping he could make up in pace, and the horsey man was along the
wall and over a broken bank at the head of it, with the loss of not
more than a minute. Lucinda's horse, following the ill example,
balked the jump. She turned him round with a savage gleam in her eye
which Lizzie was just near enough to see, struck him rapidly over
the shoulders with her whip, and the animal flew with her into the
next field. "Oh, if I could do it like that!" thought Lizzie. But
in that very minute she was doing it, not only as well but better.
Not following Lord George, but close at his side, the little animal
changed his pace, trotted for a yard or two, hopped up as though the
wall were nothing, knocked off a top stone with his hind feet, and
dropped onto the ground so softly that Lizzie hardly believed that
she had gone over the big obstruction that had cost Lucinda such an
effort. Lucinda's horse came down on all four legs, with a grunt
and a groan, and she knew that she had bustled him. At that moment
Lucinda was very full of wrath against the horsey man with the screw
who had been in her way. "He touched it," gasped Lizzie, thinking
that her horse had disgraced himself. "He's worth his weight in
gold," said Lord George. "Come along. There's a brook with a