Emma Orczy

Lord Tony's Wife Emma Orczy

Silence. Loneliness. Desolation. And the darkness of late afternoon in November, when the fog from the Bristol Channel has laid its pall upon moor and valley and hill: the last grey glimmer of a wintry sunset has faded in the west: earth and sky are wrapped in the gloomy veils of oncoming night. Some little way ahead a tiny light flickers feebly."Surely we cannot be far now.""A little more patience, Mounzeer. Twenty minutes and we be there.""Twenty minutes, mordieu. And I have ridden since the morning. And you tell me it was not far.""Not far, Mounzeer. But we be not 'orzemen either of us. We doan't travel very fast.""How can I ride fast on this heavy beast? And in this satané mud. My horse is up to his knees in it. And I am wet-ah! wet to my skin in this sacré fog of yours."The other made no reply. Indeed he seemed little inclined for conversation: his whole attention appeared to be riveted on the business of keeping in his saddle, and holding his horse's head turned in the direction in which he wished it to go: he was riding a yard or two ahead of his companion, and it did not need any assurance on his part that he was no horseman: he sat very loosely in his saddle, his broad shoulders bent, his head thrust forward, his knees turned out, his hands clinging alternately to the reins and to the pommel with that ludicrous inconsequent gesture peculiar to those who are wholly unaccustomed to horse exercise.