Now the front of the house at Royston Chase stands but a little back from the road, behind great gates of wrought iron, hung upon mighty pillars of carved stone. These stood wide as I galloped up, but the way was barred by two soldiers, of mien immovable as the brazen gates of Gaza. By their black cloaks of fur I knew them to be of that Swedish Regiment of Horse in which Captain Royston held His Highness's commission. They were, however, dismounted for sentry duty--an office for which I could but think them ill chosen when I perceived that not one word of the English language did they understand, and would neither let me pass through the archway into the inner court of the house, nor, when I had come to the purpose of moving further down the road and leaping both hedge and ditch into the orchard, would they let me depart. For one of them did lay a great hand on Charley's bridle, saying something to his fellow in a manner easy of comprehension, though the words were to me without meaning. And I truly believe that I was in that moment very near to discovery of my sex. For answer to his jest I struck the fellow across the face with my loose gauntlet, at the same time with great quickness using both spur and rein, so that Roan Charley in a single movement reared himself almost upright and swerved aside. This, coming right upon the blow he had received, caused the trooper to loose my rein; which before the other could seize we were away at the best pace we could make. Now, some three hundred yards down the road seemed the lowest part of the bank and hedge enclosing the little field that here divides the beautiful orchard of Royston Chase from the highroad. But even at this point, I thought, the leap was hard for a horse that had already done so much; wherefore I had determined to pass on to that little cross lane that leads from the road to the gate at the lower end of the orchard. But even as I was so resolving I heard behind me the cries and hoofs of mounted pursuers, and in front, coming from the very lane I had purposed using, a patrol of three men of this same Swedish regiment. And so jump we must, or altogether fail, it seemed, in that for which we had ridden so far and so fast. Charley, too, seemed to understand, and for a few strides we both steadied ourselves, taking deep breaths of air and watching the hedge for a thin spot. And I have always thought 't was Charley that found it--a spot where the growth of bramble on the bank's top was so scarce as to let the narrow edge of the earth mound be clearly seen. But whether the will were mine or his, the doing of the matter was Charley's alone, and very well, for a tired horse, was it done. Knowing he could not with sureness clear both ditch and bank in a single spring, and feeling that his mistress did leave the manner of this last and most difficult passage of his hard run wholly to his clever legs and wiser head, my little horse, as if he had been twice