ntry, his bridle hanging from one hand and his whip grasped in the
other. With a fierce snort, the horse made for him instantly, and his
white teeth flashed as he snapped; but again a heavy blow from the
loaded whip caused him to swerve, and even at the instant of the swerve,
measuring the distance with steady eyes, and bending his supple body for
the spring, Nigel bounded into the air and fell with his legs astride
the broad back of the yellow horse. For a minute, with neither saddle
nor stirrups to help him, and the beast ramping and rearing like a mad
thing beneath him, he was hard pressed to hold his own. His legs were
like two bands of steel welded on to the swelling arches of the great
horse's ribs, and his left hand was buried deep in the tawny mane.

Never had the dull round of the lives of the gentle brethren of Waverley
been broken by so fiery a scene. Springing to right and swooping to
left, now with its tangled wicked head betwixt its forefeet, and now
pawing eight feet high in the air, with scarlet, furious nostrils and
maddened eyes, the yellow horse was a thing of terror and of beauty. But
the lithe figure on his back, bending like a reed in the wind to every
movement, firm below, pliant above, with calm inexorable face, and
eyes which danced and gleamed with the joy of contest, still held its
masterful place for all that the fiery heart and the iron muscles of the
great beast could do.

Once a long drone of dismay rose from the monks, as rearing higher and
higher yet a last mad effort sent the creature toppling over backward
upon its rider. But, swift and cool, he had writhed from under it ere
it fell, spurned it with his foot as it rolled upon the earth, and then
seizing its mane as it rose swung himself lightly on to its back once
more. Even the grim sacrist could not but join the cheer, as Pommers,
amazed to find the rider still upon his back, plunged and curveted down
the field.

But the wild horse only swelled into a greater fury. In the sullen gloom
of its untamed heart there rose the furious resolve to dash the life
from this clinging rider, even if it meant destruction to beast and man.
With red, blazing eyes it looked round for death. On three sides the
five-virgate field was bounded by a high wall, broken only at one spot
by a heavy four-foot wooden gate. But on the fourth side was a low
gray building, one of the granges of the Abbey, presenting a long flank
unbroken by door or window. The ho