162 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 



upon his quarters, as he leaped diagonally ; he meant 

 to do so. 



Fairfax too knew the rules of riding, and his right, 

 and saw Jardinier's felon movement, but gave no sign, 



Mary Merton saw it too, and turned pale as death, 

 but, like a brave girl as she was, screamed not, but 

 rode onward, firm and cold as death. 



The horses still at speed, the fence ten yards dis- 

 tance — on a sudden, in a twinkling of an eye, Fairfax 

 stood bolt up in his stirrups, and by one mighty efibrt 

 pulled Thunderbolt up a length — Jardinier shot across 

 him, rose at his leap, diagonally, right before his nose, 

 but as suddenly as he had risen in his stirrups, so sud- 

 denly sank Fairfax into his seat, lifted the fresh, pow- 

 erful brown hunter into his stride again, sent the per- 

 suaders in three times to the road-heads, and, firm as 

 a 1 ock, with a rein taut as the rigging of a ship, 

 rushed him at it. With a savage yell, almost an In- 

 dian whoop, he rose him at it, and the good horse made 

 good his strong name, " Thunderbolt." 



The felon lord was taken in his own trap — full on 

 his flank as he cleared the rails, counter on, plunged 

 Thunderbolt, and, in a cloud of dust, both horses and 

 both men rolled over. 



But the girl — the glorious girl ! not a man in the 

 whole field dreamed that in any event she would have 

 cleared those bars — much less, with such a tragedy 

 before her. 



Not one of them knew a true girl's heart. 



Pale as a marble statue, and as firm and as cold, 

 both of pulse and purpose, she set Bonnibelle under a 

 hard pull at it, and with a lift that a New Market jock 

 might have envied, carried the good chesnut mare clear 

 over it, though her toes grazed the top rail. 



A simultaneous, heartfelt cheer, scul-fraught, burst 

 from the whole of that cold, unimpressive, unimpas- 

 Bioned, unadmiring, high-born field — never before was 



