astonish me. I will lay any bet you like—you shall name the wager—any thing you please."
"Really, this is a little too bad!" soliloquized the horrified Mrs. Primrose. "Miss Euston, I entreat of you—I beg—that we may have no more racing. It is very dangerous, besides being——"
"What is it besides being dangerous, Mrs. Primrose?"
"Very indecorous."
"I am very sorry, for I have set my heart on a race with Mr. Stubb."
"Mr. Morton," said the distressed lady, aside to that young gentleman, "you are a prudent and sober-minded person; pray use your influence."
She was interrupted by a most uncanonical ejaculation from the author of her embarrassments, which, though couched in a foreign language, petrified her into silence. A sharp gust of wind had blown away Fanny's veil, and she was on the point of dashing off in pursuit of it.
"Stop!" cried Morton, "you'll break your neck. Let me get it for you."
The veil sailed away before the wind, and Morton spurred in pursuit, delighted to display his horsemanship before ladies, though it had no other merit than a tenacious seat and a kind of recklessness, the result of an excitable temperament. The ground was rough and broken, and studded with rocks and savin bushes, and as he galloped at a breakneck speed down the side of the hill, in a vain attempt to catch the veil flying, even Fanny held her breath. He secured his prize, as it caught against a bush, and returned to the road.
"Now, Miss Euston," said Mrs. Primrose, looking folios at the offender, "I trust we shall be allowed to go on in peace."
There was an interval of repose. Stubb regained his peace of mind. Miss Primrose, with whom he fancied himself in love, smiled upon him, and his self-conceit, before shaken in its stronghold, was returning in full force, when Fanny, who nourished a peculiar spite against this harmless blockhead, and whom that afternoon a very Satan of mischief seemed to possess, again rode to his side, and renewed her solicitations for a race.
"Miss Euston," said Mrs. Primrose, "I am certain you would do nothing so unladylike as to force Mr. Stubb to race against his will. Consider the example you would set to Georgiana Gosling, who always imitates what she sees you do."
The words were mild and motherly; but the countenance of the outraged matron had an uncompromising look of reprehension, which exasperated Fanny's wayward humor beyond measure. She began, it is true, a lively conversation on general topics with the intelligent Stubb, but, meantime, by alternately checking and exciting her horse, and urging him to play a variety of antics, she contrived to infect her companion's steed with the like contagion. He pranced, plunged, and chafed, till his rider was brought to the verge of despair.
The road had become quite narrow, running through a thick forest, frequented chiefly by woodcutters in the winter, and hunters of the picturesque in summer. Fanny's imitator, the adventurous Miss Gosling, a little girl of fourteen, had ridden a few rods in advance of the rest, when suddenly they saw her returning, astonished and disconsolate.
"We can't go any farther; there's a great tree fallen across the road."
A severe thundergust of the night before had overthrown a hemlock, the trunk of which, partly sustained by the roots and branches, formed a barrier about four feet from the ground. It was impossible to pass through the woods on either side, as they were very dense, and choked with a tangled growth of laurel bushes.
"How very annoying!" said Miss Primrose.
"What shall we do?" inquired Miss Gosling.
"Why, jump over it, to be sure," said Fanny. "Mr. Stubb and I will show you the way."
"You are surely not in earnest!" cried Mrs. Primrose.
"Of course I am. I have taken higher leaps at the riding school, twenty times."
"You had better not," said Morton, who had alighted by the roadside to draw his saddle girth.
"It is too dangerous to be thought of for a single moment," added Mrs. Primrose.
"Our horses," pursued the indiscreet Stubb, "are not used to leaping, and some of the ladies would certainly be hurt."
"The fool!" thought Morton. "He has done it now."
Fanny threw a laughing, caustic glance at her victim.
"Mine will leap, I know; and you are not a lady. Come, Mr. Stubb."
"Miss Euston," interposed the excited Mrs. Primrose, "this must not be. I am here in your mother's place, and she will hold me responsible for your safety. I forbid you to go, Miss Euston."
Fanny looked for a moment in her face. Morton caught the expression. It was one of unqualified, though not ill-natured, defiance.
"Come," cried Fanny again, and ran her horse towards the tree. She leaped gallantly, and cleared the barrier; but it was evident that she had lost control of the spirited animal, who galloped at a furious rate down the road.
Morton was still on foot, busied with his saddle girth.
"The crazy child!" exclaimed Mrs. Primrose; "her horse is running away. Go after her—pray!—Mr. Stubb—somebody."
"O, quick! quick!—do," cried little Miss Gosling, who idolized Fanny, and was in an agony of fright for her.
Thus exhorted, the desperate Stubb cried, "Get up," and galloped for the tree; but his horse balked, and, leaping aside, tumbled him into the mud. The ladies screamed. Morton would have laughed, if he had not been too anxious for Fanny.
"Get out of the way, Stubb," he cried, mounting with all despatch.
Miss Primrose's admirer gathered himself up, regained his hat, which had taken refuge in a puddle, and looked with horror at a ghastly white rent across his knee. Morton spurred his hack against the barrier, which the beast cleared with difficulty, striking his hind hoofs as he went over. After riding a short distance, he discovered Fanny, and saw, to his great relief, that she was regaining control over her horse. Half a mile farther on, the road divided. The larger branch led to the right, Morton did not know whither; the smaller turned to the left, and after circling through the woods for two or three miles, issued upon the high road. Fanny, who was ignorant of the way, took the right hand branch. In a few minutes after, she had brought her horse to a trot, and Morton rode up to her side.
"You are wiser than I am, if you know where we are going."
"I thought you knew the way. You were to have been our guide."
"We are on the wrong road. You should have turned to the left."
"But have you no idea where this will lead us?"
"Into a cedar swamp, for what I know. Had we not better turn back?"
"O, don't speak of turning back. I am in no mood for turning back. Let us keep on. I am sure this will bring us out somewhere."
"As you please," said Morton, knowing himself to be in the position of an angler, whose only chance of managing his salmon is to give it line.
"Where are all the rest?"
"Holding
