ed like light, when I thought to crush her, and
ground my left knee against it. "Dear me!" I cried, for my breeches were
broken, and short words went the furthest--"if you kill me, you shall
die with me." Then she took the courtyard gate at a leap, knocking my
words between my teeth, and then right over a quick-set hedge, as if the
sky were a breath to her; and away for the water meadows, while I lay on
her neck like a child, and wished I had never been born.

Straight away, all in the front of the wind, and scattering clouds
around her, all I knew of the speed we made was the frightful flash of
her shoulders, and her mane like trees in a tempest. I felt the earth
under us rushing away, and the air left far behind us, and my breath
came and went, and I prayed to God, and was sorry to be so late of it.

All the long swift while, without power of thought, I clung to her crest
and shoulders, and was proud of holding on so long, though sure of being
beaten. Then in her fury at feeling me still, she rushed at another
device for it, and leaped the wide water-trough sideways across, to and
fro, till no breath was left in me. The hazel boughs took me too hard in
the face, and the tall dog-briers got hold of me, and the ache of my
back was like crimping a fish, till I longed to give it up, thoroughly
beaten, and lie there and die in the cresses.

But there came a shrill whistle from up the home hill, where the people
had hurried to watch us, and the mare stopped as if with a bullet, then
set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and
silently. I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent, and
graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but
swift as the summer lightning.

I sat up again, but my strength was all spent, and no time left to
recover it; and though she rose at our gate like a bird, I tumbled off
into the soft mud.

"Well done, lad," Mr. Faggus said, good-naturedly; for all were now
gathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and
miry, and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallen upon
my head, which is of uncommon substance); "not at all bad work, my boy;
we may teach you to ride by and by, I see; I thought not to see you
stick on so long--"

"I should have stuck on much longer, sir, if her sides had not been wet.
She was so slippery--"

"Boy, thou art right. She hath given many the slip. Ha! ha! Vex not,
Jack, that