The hounds were just settling to the scent, when I happened to turn my head, and saw Livingstone coming down at the rails.  He had got a bad start, and saw that, by taking them straight in his line, he would gain greatly on the pack, which was turning toward him.

As the Axeine tore down the hill at furious speed, pulling double, it was evident that neither he nor his rider had the remotest idea of refusing.

It was the last fence that either of them ever charged.  As the chestnut rose to the leap, his hind legs slipped; he chested the rail, which would not break, and turned quite over, crushing Guy beneath him.

I had seen the latter fall a hundred times without feeling the presentiment that seemed to tighten round my heart as I galloped up to the spot.  Many others must have felt the same, for they let the hounds go away without another glance, and some were before me there.

The Axeine lay stone dead, with his neck broken, the huge carcass pressing on the legs of his rider.  Guy was quite senseless; his face of a dull, ghastly white; there was a deep cut on his forehead; but we all felt we did not see the worst.  With great trouble we drew him from under the dead horse.  Still we could discover no broken bones or further external injury.  We dashed water over him.  In a few minutes he opened his eyes, and seemed to recognize every one directly, for he looked up into the frightened face of the first whip, who was supporting him, and said,

“You always told me I went too fast at timber, Jack.”

I was sure, then, he was desperately injured, his voice was so weak and changed.

“Where are you hurt, Guy?” some one asked.  I could not speak myself.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down in a strange, bewildered way.  “My head and arm pain me; but I feel nothing below the waist.”

His lower limbs were not much twisted or distorted, but they bore a horribly inert, dead appearance.  There was not even a muscular quiver in them.

I saw the Squire of Brainswick turn his head away with a shudder and a groan (he loved Guy as his own son), and I heard him mutter, “The spine!”

It was so, and Livingstone soon knew it himself.  He sighed once, drearily; but not a man there could have commanded his voice as he did when he said,

“You must carry me home, heavy as I am.  My walking days are ended.”

We made the best litter we could of poles and branches; and I remember, as we bore him past the carcass of the Axeine, he made us stop for an instant, and dropping his hand on the stiff, distorted neck, stroked it softly,

“Good-by, old horse,” he said.  “It was no fault of yours.  How well you always carried me!” He never spoke again till we reached Kerton Manor.

Isabel Forrester was fortunately out, but Lady Catharine met us on the hall steps.  She did not shriek or faint when she saw the horror, which had haunted her for years, fulfilled there to the uttermost.  She knelt by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often.  We had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone in his room.