The Chase

“ And, besides, (here also imitating Thomson,) he is led away from the comparatively tame "Chase" of England to the more dangerous and more inspiring sports of other lands, where "the huntsmen are up in Arabia," in pursuit of the wolf, where the bear is bayed amidst forests dark as itself, where the leopard is snared by its own image in a mirror, where the lion falls roaring into the prepared pit, and where the "Chase" is pursued on a large scale by assembled princes amidst the jungles of India. ”

“ The chase lay through the brake for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into a dense thicket, which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in a crowd together,—fronds flicking into our faces, ropy creepers catching us under the chin or gripping our ankles, thorny plants hooking into and tearing cloth and flesh together. ”

“ Why, you will grow so young and beautiful that you will be taken for our elder sister, and papa would be ashamed to say you are his wife, only that old gentlemen generally marry young girls nowadays. Then, fancy what a garden we shall have at The Chase—we must call it The Chase, no matter what its present name is. It wouldn’t feel natural for us to live anywhere but at a Chase. ”

“ The indifference was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Yet there was nothing you could put your hand on. You can't touch people who don't care.
Four hours after Chase came back, we lifted gravs from Earth. Chase was sitting in the control chair, and to give him credit, we lifted as smooth as a silk scarf slipping through the fingers of a pretty woman. We hypered at eight miles and swept up through the monochromes of Cth until we hit middle blue, when Chase slipped off the helmet, unfastened his webbing, and stood up.
"Take over, Mr. Marsden," he said. "Lay a course for Parth." ”

“ Mentally deciding that imagination had played with him, Chase was about to rise from his seat when he heard the sound of a footfall caused by some one descending the grand stairway.
Quite electrified, he stifled a gasp. It was a most unpleasant experience, conjuring up in his mind all sorts of strange, wild fancies. Should he make his presence known?
For the life of him he could not repress a series of cold shivers; his nerves were on the keenest edge. And as he sat there motionless the tread of feet sounded louder; yes, some one was approaching. ”

“ Warrisden knew many--as who does not?--who saw the high-road distinctly, and could not for the life of them but walk upon the low one. But to use both deliberately, as it seemed Chase had done; to dip from the high-road on to the low, and then painfully to scramble up again, and again willingly to drop, as though the air of those stern heights were too rigorous for continuous walking; to live the double life because he could not entirely live the one, and would not entirely live the other. ”

“ Chase feels the hot scent steaming up under his very nostril; feels it in every nerve, and quivers with anxiety to dash on his prey, even while perfectly restrained and steady. Shot, on the contrary, though a few minutes since he too was drawing, knows nothing of himself, perceives no indication of the game's near presence, although improved by discipline, his instinct tells him that his mate has found them. ”

“ Chase—he had fallen from his nest—and I have brought him up myself. Now that he is getting to be a big boy, he naturally likes to fly about a little. He cannot be always climbing his one little tree in the dining-room. He is so soft and downy. Look at his bright eyes." Here she opened her hand so that Chase could see her pet. ”

“ And now, when the tumult of the chase had fallen asleep, he leaned against the gnarled and mossy trunk, with his boar-spear resting listlessly against his thigh, and a quiet, meditative expression replacing on his grave, stern features the earnest and excited gaze, with which he had watched the approach of the hunt. ”

“ I spent a fortnight there once with my aunts, but that is the only time I have been there. I was brought up in a small provincial town, and know very little of the world beyond its narrow limits.”
“I hope Lady Pell intends making a long stay at the Chase,” he presently ventured to remark, “as, in that case, we shall also have the pleasure of your society, Miss Thursby. It’s precious dull here, I can tell you. My grandfather goes nowhere, and only by rare chance does a visitor find his way to the Chase. Of course one can get through the day pretty well, but the evenings are awful. ”

“ Suddenly from the lean-to came such fierce barking that more than one Vigilante made a hasty return to the safety of her saddle. Then the door opened, and, preceded by his dogs, the Emperor came out into the sunshine. He had doubtless been too absorbed to note their coming.
“Down, Nero! Down, Trajan!” they heard him say. “Is this the way you receive my guests?”
The dogs ceased barking, and stood on either side of him as he surveyed his visitors. They in turn surveyed him. They saw a tall, slight old man, still unbent. It seemed as though dignity defied time and kept him upright. ”

“ The men having appropriated every article of value that Chase possessed (fortunately they did not think his pocket-knife and the contents of his bundle worth stealing) , brought up their horses, and while one put the saddles on them, the other employed285 himself in gathering their luggage together, not even forgetting what remained of the haunch of venison, which Chase hoped they would leave behind them. ”

“ That’s no reason why we should wait till they come up. When the fight takes place, the farther we’re away from their village the better for us; as who knows but they may fish up some of their swamped canoes, and come at us with a reserve force. To the paddles, then, and pull for our lives!”
Chapter Ninety Two. The Chase.
On swept the igarité containing the crew of our adventurers; on came its kindred craft, manned by savage men, with the little canoe close following, like a tender in the wake of a huge man-of-war. They were not long in doubt as to what would be the upshot of the chase. ”

“ In another moment Virginia was up and away, leaving Mr. Hanly, who was watching her, somewhat reassured in the doorway.
This was something like riding, she told herself, as she cantered along the country road. The black horse, though nothing like her own Pedro, was still a good horse. He could even singlefoot, and did not have the asthma.
She rode miles into the country beyond St. Helen’s. The afternoon was perfect—one of those autumn afternoons when the summer lingers, loath to go; when the leaves drift slowly down, and the air is filled with an unseen chorus ”

“ He liked to rap with his stick upon the door of a farm-house, and to be admitted with a “Why! Mr. Chase!” by a smiling woman into the passage, smelling of recent soap and water on the tiles; to be ushered into the sitting-room, hideous, pretentious, and strangely meaningless, furnished always with the cottage-piano, the Turkey carpet, and the plant in a bright gilt basket-pot. The light in these rooms always struck Chase as being particularly unmerciful. ”

“ There were quantities of carriages already arrived, every sort—victorias, coaches, pony carts, charabancs, motor cars, and a few of the really odd kinds of shandrydans that one sees coming to country garden parties in England. There were also numbers of officers riding in uniform—cuirassiers, chasseurs, dragons—and they were to take part in the chase. ”

“ No riding is so desperate, it is said, no excitement so tremendous, as that of the short, fierce, reckless gallop in the chase where bird hunts bird through the boundless fields of air. Not even the tremendous burst and rally of the glorious hunts-up, with the heart-inspiring crash of the hounds, and the merry blare of the bugles, when the hart of grease has broken covert, and the pack are running him breast high. ”

“ The trail wound in and out around the mountain-side, and their sure-footed horses followed it, never daunted by fallen trees or by rocky and precipitous places. More than once every Vigilante save one held her breath as she was carried up a dangerous, almost obliterated path to heights beyond. But Virginia’s Pedro, who was far-famed as a trailer, led the way, and his rider called back reassuring words to those behind. ”

“ Her quickness had been the means of her disengaging herself as the bronco threw himself to the ground.
After giving the black a few seconds on his side, the Overland Rider brought her crop down on his rump with a vicious whack. It stung. Like a flash the pony was on his feet, with Grace's feet now planted firmly in the stirrups.
As Grace had expected, the bucking was resumed the instant the pony felt the smart of the crop. How the dust did fly then, and how those cowboy wranglers did yell!
"Who's a tenderfoot!" howled Hippy Wingate. "Just watch her smoke." ”

“ Up to that time, no Federal soldiers had appeared at Chevy Chase, but from the accounts of the raids, and foraging expeditions, the youthful mind pictured them as some deformed human creatures, possibly with "horns on their head", gathering up and taking away, without the consent of the owner, everything of value within their reach. ”

“ BROWN’S MISFORTUNE. Chase realized his situation, but he was not as badly frightened as he would have been a few months before. One soon learns to bear up bravely under almost any adverse circumstances, especially if he have an object in view. Chase had an object to accomplish, and that was to reach home and friends once more. ”

“ As often as not he does not answer when he is spoken to."
A sudden fear seized upon Warrisden. He ran out of the room and up the stairs to Chase's sitting-room. He knocked on the door; there was no answer. He turned the handle and entered. Chase had not gone to bed last night. He was still sitting in his armchair before the grate. One arm was extended along the arm of the chair, with the palm turned upwards, and in the palm lay an apple. Chase was sitting huddled up, with his head fallen forward upon his breast like a man asleep. ”

“ The some one was a lone cowboy riding a buckskin horse. He was leaning forward in his saddle and clutching the horn. His face, almost covered by the big hat he wore, was close to the black mane of the sturdy little buckskin.
From their shelter they watched him draw near with beating hearts. There was something strange about him—strange as the stillness. They could not see that he was guiding the horse, who apparently knew not only the way, but her mission as well. She came straight toward the shady thicket and stopped beneath the trees a few rods away from the two anxious spectators. ”

“ The first night out of port was a clear, moonlight one; the frigate gliding though the water, with all her batteries.
It was my Quarter Watch in the top; and there I reclined on the best possible terms with my top-mates. Whatever the other seamen might have been, these were a noble set of tars, and well worthy an introduction to the reader.
First and foremost was Jack Chase, our noble First Captain of the Top. He was a Briton, and a true-blue; tall and well-knit, with a clear open eye, a fine broad brow, and an abounding nut-brown beard. No man ever had a better heart or a bolder. ”

“ The son of a farmer—a man of substance, and of credit with his neighbors, and not less with the people of his State—young Chase drew from his boyhood the vigor of body and of mind which rural life and labors are well calculated to nourish. Several of his father's brothers were graduates of this college, and reached high positions in Church and State. An unpropitious turn of the commercial affairs of the country nipped, with its frost, the growing prosperity of his father, whose death, soon following, left him, in tender years, and as one of a numerous family, to the sole care of his mother. ”

“ But he was exalted far beyond shyness or false shame. He never noticed the excited flutter all over the room, or the extraordinary agitation of Nutley, who was saying “He’s mad! he’s mad!” while frantically trying to attract the auctioneer’s attention. Chase was oblivious to all this. He stood, feeling himself inspired by some divine breath, the room a blur before him, and a current of power, quite indomitable, surging through his veins. Infatuation. Genius. They must be like this. ”

“ The founder of the Vigilantes, perplexed by this strange behavior, did not move until the two girls had turned into the driveway of St. Helen’s. Then she jumped from the rock. She would go back across the pastures to the gate which she had entered, then turn down the road and investigate. She felt like a true Vigilante, indeed! Something was in the air! She had felt it the moment she discovered Imogene and Dorothy in secret conference. Perhaps, in the roadside bushes she would find the solution. Had the girls been Mary and Anne, Virginia would never have questioned. ”

“ This is the initial appearance of Lamar Fontain, - a young man reared in sight of Chevy Chase, whose subsequent daring exploits and brave adventure attracted the wonder and admiration of the world. The very air was filled with the martial spirit and patriotism, and the older sons, eager for the gray of battle, were soon kissing their farewell to the tear-stained faces of loved ones at Chevy Chase, and responding to the call of duty, as they saw it then, in defense of their State, - their dear old home and its many hallowed associations. ”

“ They drew near it slowly, and as they passed, now again gathering speed, Virginia’s quick eyes saw that it was a dead steer, and that on its shoulder was branded a horseshoe with a “C” in the center.
“My!” she cried excitedly, half to herself and half to her companion in the gray coat. “That’s a Cunningham steer, strayed from the range. Even one steer will make old Mr. Cunningham cross for a week. He’ll say there’s rustlers around Elk Creek.” She laughed. ”