Portia - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (top 100 books of all time checklist txt) 📗

indeed, hunting has lost its charm for her, and the meets have become a source of confusion and discomfort. Her zest for the chase has sustained a severe check, so great that her favorite hounds have solicited the usual biscuit from her hands in vain.

And all this is because the one thing dear to the soul of the gloomy Stephen is the pursuit of the wily fox, and that therefore on the field of battle it becomes inevitable that she must meet her whilom lover face to face.

Looking round fearfully now, she sees him at a little distance, seated on an irreproachable mount. His brows are knitted moodily, his very attitude is repellant. He responds to the pleasant salutations showered upon him from all quarters by a laconic "How d'ye do," or a still more freezing nod. Even Sir Christopher's hearty "Good-morning, lad," has no effect up on him.

"Something rotten in the state of Denmark, _there_," says the master, Sir Guy Chetwoode, turning to Dorian Branscombe. "Surely, eh? Rather a safe thing for that pretty girl of Blount's to have given him the go-by, eh?"

"Wouldn't have him at any price if _I_ were a girl," says Branscombe. "I don't like his eyes. Murderous sort of beggar."

"Faith, I don't know," says Geoffrey Rodney, who is riding by them, and who is popularly supposed always to employ this expletive, because his wife is Irish. "I rather like the fellow myself; so does Mona. It's rough on him, you know, all the world knowing he has been jilted."

"I heard it was _he_ gave _her_ up," says Teddy Luttrel, who has been fighting so hard with a refractory collar up to this that he has not been able to edge in a word.

"Oh, I daresay!" says Branscombe, so ironically, that every one concludes it will be useless to say anything further.

And now the business of the day is begun. Every one has settled him or herself into the saddle and is preparing to make a day of it.

Two hours later many are in a position to acknowledge sadly that the day they have made has not been exactly up to the mark. The various positions of these many are, for the most part, more remarkable than elegant. Some are reclining gracefully in a ditch; some are riding dolefully homeward with much more forehead than they started with in the morning; some, and these are the saddest of all, are standing forlorn in the middle of an empty meadow, gazing helplessly at the flying tail of the animal they bestrode only a short five minutes ago.

The field is growing decidedly thin. Lady Chetwoode, well to the front, is holding her own bravely. Sir Guy is out of sight, having just disappeared over the brow of the small hill opposite. Dicky Browne, who rides like a bird, is going at a rattling pace straight over anything and everything that comes in his way, with the most delightful impartiality, believing, as he has never yet come a very violent cropper, that the gods are on his side.

Roger and Dulce got a little way from the others, and are now riding side by side across a rather hilly field. Right before them rises a wall, small enough in itself, but in parts dangerous, because of the heavy fall the other side, hidden from the eye by some brambles growing on the top of the stone-work.

Lower down, this wall proves itself even more treacherous, hiding even more effectually the drop into the adjoining field, which is here too deep for any horse, however good, to take with safety. It is a spot well known by all the sportsmen in the neighborhood as one to be avoided, ever since Gort, the farmer, some years before, had jumped it for the sake of an idle bet, and had been carried home from it a dead man, leaving his good brown mare with a broken back behind him.

It would seem, however, that either ignorance or recklessness is carrying one of the riders to-day towards this fatal spot. He is now bearing down upon it with the evident intention of clearing the traitorous wall and so gaining upon the hounds, who are streaming up the hill beyond, unaware that almost certain destruction awaits him at the point towards which he is riding so carelessly.

Dulce, turning her head accidentally in his direction, is the first to see him.

"Oh, see there!" she cries, in a frightened tone, to Roger, pointing to the lower part of the field. "Who is that going to take Gort's Fall?"

Roger, following her glance, pulls up short, and stares fixedly at the man below, now drawing terribly near to the condemned spot. And, as he looks, his face changes, the blood forsakes it, and a horrified expression creeps into his eyes.

"By Jove! it is Stephen," he says at last, in an indescribable tone; and then, knowing he cannot reach him in time to prevent the coming catastrophe, he stands up in his stirrups and shouts to the unconscious Stephen, with all the strength of his fresh, young lungs, to turn back before it is too late.

But all in vain; Stephen either does not or cannot hear. He has by this time reached the wall; his horse, the gallant animal, responds to his touch. He rises--there is a crash, a dull thud, and then all is still.

Involuntarily Dulce has covered her eyes with her hand, and by a supreme effort has suppressed the cry that has risen from her heart. A sickening sensation of weakness is overpowering her. When at length she gains courage to open her eyes again she finds Roger has forsaken her, and is riding like one possessed across the open field, and--there beyond, where the sun is glinting in small patches upon the dry grass, she sees, too, a motionless mass of scarlet cloth, and a dark head lying--oh! so strangely quiet.

Roger having safely cleared the unlucky wall higher up, has flung himself from his saddle, and is now on his knees beside Gower, and has lifted his head upon his arm.

"Stephen, Stephen!" he cries, brokenly. But Stephen is beyond hearing. He is quite insensible, and deaf to the voice that in the old days used to have a special charm for him. Laying him gently down again, Roger rises to his feet, and looks wildly round. Dulce has arrived by this time and, having sprung to her feet, has let her horse, too, go to the winds.

"He is not dead?" she asks at first, in a ghastly whisper, with pale and trembling lips.

"I don't know, I'm not sure," says Roger, distractedly. "Oh, if somebody would _only_ come!"

Not a soul is in sight. By this time every one has disappeared over the hill, and not a human being is to be seen far or near.

"Have you no brandy?" asks Dulce, who is rubbing the hands of the senseless man, trying to restore animation by this means.

"Yes, yes, I had forgotten," says Roger, and then he kneels down once again, and takes Stephen into his arms, and raising his head on his knee, tries to force a few drops of the brandy between his pallid lips.

At this supreme moment all is forgotten--all the old heartaches, the cruel taunts, the angry words. Once again he is his earliest friend; the boy, the youth, the man, he had loved, until a woman had come between them. Everything rushes back upon him, as he stoops over Gower, and gazes, with passionate fear and grief, upon his marble face.

After all, there had been more good points than bad about Stephen, more good, indeed, than about most fellows. How fond he had been of him in the old days; how angry he would have been with any one who had dared then to accuse him of acting shabbily, or-- Well, well, no use in raking up old grievances, now, and no doubt there was great temptation; and besides, too, uncivil things had been said to him, and he (Roger) had certainly not been up to the mark himself in many ways.

Memories of school and college life crowd upon Roger now, as he gazes with ever-increasing fear upon the rigid features below him; little scenes, insignificant in themselves, but enriched by honest sentiment, and tenderly connected With the dawn of manhood, when the fastidious Gower had been attracted and fascinated by the bolder and more reckless qualities of Dare, recur to him now with a clearness that, under the present miserable circumstances, is almost painful.

He tries to shake off those tormenting recollections; to bury his happy college life out of sight, only to find his mind once more busy on a fresh field.

Again he is at school, with Stephen near him, and all the glory of an Eton fight before him. What glorious old days they were! so full of life and vigor! and now, it is with exceeding pathos he calls to mind one memorable day on which he had banged Stephen most triumphantly about the head with a Latin grammar--Stephen's grammar, be it understood, which had always seemed to add an additional zest to the affair; and then the free fight afterwards, in which he, Roger, had been again victorious; and Stephen had not taken it badly either; had resented neither the Latin banging nor the victory later on. No, he was certainly not ill-tempered _then_, dear old chap. Even before the blood had been wiped from their injured noses on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion Stephen had shaken hands with him, and they had sworn publicly a life-long friendship.

And here is the end of it! His sworn friend is lying stark and motionless in his embrace, with a deathly pallor on his face that is awfully like death, and with a heart, if it still beats, filled with angry thoughts of him, as he bends, scarcely less bloodless than himself, above him.

Will _no_ one _ever_ come?

Roger glares despairingly at Dulce, who is still trying to get some brandy down the wounded man's throat, and even as she does so Stephen's eyes unclose, and a heavy sobbing sigh escapes him.

Strangely enough, as the two bend over him, and his gaze wanders from one face to the other, it rests finally, with a great sense of content, not on Dulce's face but Roger's. Instinctively he turns in his hour of need from the woman who had wronged him to the man whom _he_ had wronged in the first instance, and who--though he had suffered many things at his hands of late--brings to him now a breath from that earlier and happier life, where love--which has proved so bitter--was unknown.

"Stephen! Dear old fellow, you are not _much_ hurt, are you?" asks Roger, tenderly. "Where is the pain? Where does it hurt you most?"

"Here!" says Stephen, faintly, trying to lift one of his arms to point to his left side; but, with a groan, the arm falls helpless, and then they know, with sickening feeling of horror, that it is broken. Stephen loses consciousness again for a moment.

"It is broken!" says Roger. "And I am afraid there must be some internal injury besides. What on earth is to be done, Dulce?" in a frantic tone; "we shall have him here all night unless we do something. Will you stay with him while I run and try to find somebody?"

But Stephen's senses having returned to him by this time, he overhears and understands the last sentence.

"No, don't leave me," he entreats, earnestly, though speaking with great difficulty. "Roger, are