At Loves Cost | Page 6

note of a bell and echoed in sweet shrillness down the hill and along the valley. The collie stopped as if shot, and the fox-terrier looked round, prepared to go back to the rider. It looked for a moment as if the rider were going down the other side of the hill again; then suddenly, as if he detected something wrong in the valley below, he turned the horse and came down the hill-side at a pace which made Stafford, hard and fearless rider as he was, open his eyes.
It seemed to him impossible that the horse could avoid a false step or a slip, and such a false step he knew would send steed and rider hurtling down to something that could be very little short of instant death. He forgot all about the big trout in the pool, and stood with his fly drifting aimlessly in the water, watching with something like breathless interest this, the most daring piece of horsemanship he had ever witnessed; and he had ridden side by side with the best steeplechaser of the day, and had watched a crack Hungarian cavalry corps at its manoeuvres; which last is about the top notch of the horse-riding business.
But the big horse did not falter for a moment; down it came at a hard gallop, and Stafford's admiration was swallowed up in amazement when he saw that the rider was a young girl, that she was riding with about half an ounce on the reins, and that, apparently, she was as much at ease and unconscious of danger as if she were trotting on a tame hack in Rotten Row.
As she came nearer, admiration romped in ahead of amazement, for the girl was a young one--she looked like the average school-girl--and had one of the most beautiful faces Stafford had ever seen. She was dark, but the cheek that was swept by the long lashes was colourless with that exquisite and healthy pallor which one sees in the women of Northern Spain. Her hair was black but soft and silky, and the wind blew it in soft tendrils, now across her brow and now in dazzling strands about the soft felt hat which sat in graceful negligence upon the small and stately head. She wore a habit stained by use and weather, and so short that it was little better than a skirt, and left her almost as absolute a freedom as that enjoyed by the opposite sex. Her hands were covered by well-worn gauntlets, and she held a stout and workman-like crop with a long huntsman's thong.
A poet would instantly have thought that it was a vision of the Spirit of the Mountains; Stafford only thought it was the most lovely piece of girlhood he had ever looked at. She did not see him for a moment, all her attention being engrossed by the sheep which were now wandering up the valley; then suddenly, as if she felt his presence rather than saw it, her dark eyes flashed round upon him and she pulled up the big horse on its haunches with a suddenness which ought to have sent her from the saddle like a stone from a catapult; but she sat back as firm as a rock and gazed at him steadily, with a calmness which fascinated Stafford and kept him staring back at her as if he were the veriest plough-boy.
And to put it frankly, it was something like fascination. She had come upon him so suddenly, her feat of horsemanship had been so audacious, her beauty was so marvellous that Stafford, perhaps for the first time in his life, found himself unable to utter a word in the presence of one of the opposite sex. It was only for a moment or two, of course, that he lost his presence of mind; then he pulled himself together and raised his cap. She gave him the very slightest of bows. It was the faintest indication only of response to his salute; her eyes rested on his face with a strange, ungirlish calm, then wandered to the last trout which lay on the bank.
Stafford felt that something had to be said, but for the life of him, for the first time in his experience, he couldn't hit upon the thing to say. "Good-afternoon" seemed to him too banal, commonplace; and he could think of nothing else for a moment. However, it came at last.
"Will you be so good as to tell me if I am far from Carysford?" he asked.
"Four miles and three-quarters by the road, three miles over the hill," she replied, slowly, as calmly as she had looked at him, and in a voice low and sweet, and with a ring, a tone, in it which in some indefinable way harmonised with