New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-12-03

hanging from one hand and his whip
grasped in the other. With a fierce
snort, the horse made for him instantly,
and his white teeth flashed as he snapped;
but again a heavy blow from the loaded
whip caused him to swerve, and even
at the instant of the swerve, measuring
the distance with steady eyes, and bend
ing his supple body for the spring, Nigel
bounded into the air and fell with his
legs astride the broad back of the yellow
horse. For a minute, with neither
saddle nor stirrups to help him, and the
beast ramping and rearing like mad
thing beneath him, he was hard pressed
to hold his own. His legs were like two
bands of steel welded on to the swelling
arches of the great horses ribs, and his
left hand was buried deep in the tawny
name.
Never had the dull round of the lives
of the gentle brethren of Waverley been
broken by so fiery a scene. Springing to
right and swooping to left, now with its
tangled wicked head betwixt its fore
feet, and now paving eight feet high in
the air, with scarlet, furious nostrils and
maddened eyes, the yellow horse was
thing Of terror and of beauty. But the
1.-the figure on his back, bending like a
reed in the wind ito every movement,
firm below, plant above, with calm
face, and eyes which danced
and cleaned with the JOY of contest,
still held its masterful place for all that
the fiery heart and the iron muscles of the
great beast could do.
Once a long drone of dismay rose from
the monks, as rearing higher and higher
vet last mad effort sent the creature
topping over backward upon its rider.
But, swift and cool, he had writhed from
under it ere it fell, spurned it with his
foot as it rolled upon the earth, and then
Selling its name as it rose swung himself
lightly on TO its back once more. Even
the grim sacrist could not but join the
cheer, as Pommers, amazed to find the
rider still upon his back, plunged and cur
veted down the field
But the wild horse only swelled into
a greater fury. In the sullen gloom OF
its untamed heart there rose the furious
resolve to dash the life from this clinging
rider. even if it meant destruction to
y
it looked round for death. On three
sides the five-virgate field was bounded
by a high wall broken only at one spot
by a heavy four-foot wooden gate. But
on the fourth side was a low gray build
ing. one of the oranges of the Abbey,
presenting a long flank unbroken by door
or window The horse stretched itself
into a gallop, and headed straight for
that craggy thirty-foot wall He would
break in red ruin at the base of it If he
could but dash forever the life of this
man, who claimed mastery over that
which had never found its master yet.
The great launches gathered under it,
the eager hoofs drummed the grass, as
faster and still more fast the frantic
horse bore himself and his rider toward
the wall. Would Nigel spring off? To
do so would be to bend his will to that
of the beast beneath him There was a
better way than that. Cool, quick and
decided, the man swiftly passed both
whip and bride into the left hand which
still held the name. Then with the right
he slipped his short mantle from his
shoulders, and living forward along the
strenuous, ripping back he |
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