My own impatience to survey my present had now brought me into the conclave, and before many minutes were over I had him saddled, and was cantering around the lawn with a spirit and energy I had not felt for months long. Some small fences lay before me, and over these he carried me with all the ease and freedom of a trained hunter. My courage mounted with the excitement, and I looked eagerly around for some more bold and dashing leap. “You may take him over the avenue gate,” said the English groom, divining with a jockey’s readiness what I looked for; “he’ll do it, never fear him.” Strange as my equipment was, with an undress jacket flying loosely open, and a bare head, away I went. The gate which the groom spoke of was a strongly-barred one of oak timber, nearly five feet high,--its difficulty as a leap only consisted in the winding approach, and the fact that it opened upon a hard road beyond it. In a second or two a kind of half fear came across me. My long illness had unnerved me, and my limbs felt weak and yielding; but as I pressed into the canter, that secret sympathy between the horse and his rider shot suddenly through me, I pressed my spurs to his flanks, and dashed him at it. Unaccustomed to such treatment, the noble animal bounded madly forward. With two tremendous plunges he sprang wildly in the air, and shaking his long mane with passion, stretched out at the gallop. [Illustration: CHARLEY TRYING A CHARGER.] My own blood boiled now as tempestuously as his; and with a shout of reckless triumph, I rose him at the gate. Just at the instant two figures appeared before it,--the copse had concealed their approach hitherto,--but they stood now as if transfixed. The wild attitude of the horse, the not less wild cry of his rider, had deprived them for a time of all energy; and overcome by the sudden danger, they seemed rooted to the ground. What I said, spoke, begged, or imprecated, Heaven knows--not I. But they stirred not! One moment more and they must lie trampled beneath my horse’s hoofs,--he was already on his haunches for the bound,--when, wheeling half aside, I faced him at the wall. It was at least a foot higher and of solid stone masonry, and as I did so I felt that I was perilling my life to save theirs. One vigorous dash of the spur I gave him, as I lifted him to the leap. He bounded beneath it quick as lightning; still, with a spring like a rocket, he rose into the air, cleared the wall, and stood trembling and frightened on the road outside. “Safe, by Jupiter! and splendidly done, too,” cried a voice near me, that I immediately recognized as Sir George Dashwood’s. “Lucy, my love, look up,--Lucy, my dear, there’s no danger now. She has fainted! O’Malley, fetch some water,--fast. Poor fellow, your own nerves seem shaken. Why, you’ve let your horse go! Come here, for Heaven’s sake! Support her for an instant. I’ll fetch some water.”