and brilliant
purple-blue--save where it came hurling in ale-hued masses over the
rocks, or rushed in surging white foam through the stony channels.
Sometimes a swift glimmer of sunlight smote down on the swinging
current; but these flashes were brief, for the louring clouds were still
being driven over from the west, and no one could tell what the day
would bring forth.

"What will Miss Honnor do in a spate like that?" Lionel inquired of the
head keeper. "Will she go out at all?"

"Oh, ay, Miss Honnor will go out," Roderick made answer; "but she will
only be able to fish the tail-ends o' the pools--ay, and it will not be
easy to put a fly over the water, unless the wind goes down a bit."

"But do you mean she will go out on a day like this?" he demanded
again--as he looked at the wild skies and the thundering river.

"Oh, ay, if there's a chance at ahl Miss Honnor will be out," said
Roderick, and he added, with a demure smile, "even if the chentlemen
will be for staying at home."

However, Lionel had soon to consider his own attitude towards this
swollen stream, when it became necessary to ford it on the hither side
of the Bad Step. To tell the truth, when he regarded that racing
current, he did not like the look of it at all.

"I don't see how we are to get across," he said, with some hesitation.

"Maggie knaws the weh," Roderick made answer, with a bit of a laugh.

"Yes, that's all very well," said the mounted huntsman. "I dare say she
knows the way; but if she gets knocked over in the middle of the
current, what is to become of me, or of her either?"

"She'll manage it, sir," said the keeper, confidently, "never fear."

Lionel was just on the point of saying, "Well, you come yourself and
ride her across, and I'll go over the Bad Step on foot," but he did not
like to show the white feather; so, somewhat apprehensively, he turned
the old pony's head to the river-bank. And very soon he found that old
Maggie knew much better what she was about than he did; for, as soon as
she felt the weight of the water, she did not attempt to go straight
across; she deliberately turned her head down-stream, put her buttocks
against the force of the current, and thus sideways, and very
cautiously, and with many a thrilling stumble and catching up again, she
proceeded to ford this whirling Aivron. Never once did she expose
herself broadside; her hind-legs were really doing most of the fight;
and right gratefully did Lionel c