Could
he have read Kate Master's feelings he would have had to own that
she was in an earthly Paradise. When the pony paused at the big
brook, brought his four legs steadily down on the brink as though
he were going to bathe, then with a bend of his back leaped to the
other side, dropping his hind legs in and instantly recovering
them, and when she saw that Larry had waited just a moment for her,
watching to see what might be her fate, she was in heaven. "Wasn't
it a big one, Larry?" she asked in her triumph. "He did go in
behind!" "Those cats of things always do it somehow," Larry replied
darting forward again and keeping the Major well in his eye. The
brook had stopped one or two, and tidings came up that Ned Botsey
had broken his horse's back. The knowledge of the brook had sent
some round by the road,--steady riding men such as Mr. Runciman and
Doctor Nupper. Captain Glomax had got into it and came up
afterwards wet through, with temper by no means improved. But the
glory of the day had been the way in which Lord Rufford's young bay
mare, who had never seen a brook before, had flown over it with the
Major on her back, taking it, as Larry afterwards described, "just
in her stride, without condescending to look at it. I was just
behind the Major, and saw her do it" Larry understood that a man
should never talk of his own place in a run, but he didn't quite
understand that neither should he talk of having been close to
another man who was supposed to have had the best of it.
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