ly covered the insteps of his riding-boots.

The red glow of a lantern appeared as if by magic, and revealed a man
standing but twenty yards ahead on a gentle slope of sand. He held
the lantern in one hand, and his right arm was slipped through the
bridles of two horses that waited, side by side, and ready saddled,
their breath smoking out on the night wind.

"Dear me," Captain Salt observed, reaching a hand to Tristram, and
helping him to land; "I forgot to ask if you could ride."

"A very little, my father."

"You will find it difficult, then, to trot. Therefore we will
gallop."

"You intend me to climb upon one of these beasts?"

"That is easy enough."

"I do not deny it; but I suppose you also wish me to stay on."

"Come; we must lose no time."

"Luckily the soil of Holland, as far as I am acquainted with it, is
soft and sandy. On the other hand--"

"Well?"

"I was about to remark that they grow an immense quantity of tulips
in this country, which demand a harder soil."

"We shall pass none."

"That is fortunate. For when I reach home and they ask me,
'Well, what have you done in Holland?' it would be sad to own,
'I have done little beyond rolling on a bed of tulips.'"

With this he climbed into the saddle and thrust his feet well into
the stirrups, while his father whispered a word or two to the
boatmen, who were about to push off on their return journey.

"Are you ready, my son?" he asked, returning and mounting beside him.

"Quite."

"Forward, then!"

The two horses broke into a trot. "Ugh," exclaimed Tristram, bobbing
up and down.

"I told you we must go faster. Stick your knees tightly into the
saddle--so."

The wind and the night began to race by Tristram's ears as his horse
leapt forward. The motion became easier, but the pace was terrifying
to a desperate degree; for it seemed that he sat upon nothing, but
was being whirled through the air as from a catapult at the heels of
his father, who pounded furiously through the darkness a dozen
yards ahead. For three minutes at least he felt at every stride an
extreme uncertainty as to his chances of realighting in the saddle.
It reminded him of cup-and-ball, and he reflected with envy that the
ball in that game is always attached to the cup with a string.

At the end of ten minutes Captain Salt reined up, and Tristram's
horse, after being carried past for twenty yards by his mere impetus,
stopped of his own accord and to his ride