Two more fences came, laced high and stiff with the Shire thorn, and with scarce twenty feet between them, the heavy plowed land leading to them, clotted, and black, and hard, with the fresh earthy scent steaming up as the hoofs struck the clods with a dull thunder—­Pas de Charge rose to the first:  distressed too early, his hind feet caught in the thorn, and he came down, rolling clear of his rider; Montacute picked him up with true science, but the day was lost to the Heavy Cavalry man.  Forest King went in and out over both like a bird and led for the first time; the chestnut was not to be beat at fencing and ran even with him; Wild Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer—­true to her sex, she would not bear rivalry; but little Grafton, though he rode like a professional, was but a young one, and went too wildly; her spirit wanted cooler curb.

And now only Cecil loosened the King to his full will and his full speed.  Now only the beautiful Arab head was stretched like a racer’s in the run-in for the Derby, and the grand stride swept out till the hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth they skimmed over; neither whip nor spur was needed, Bertie had only to leave the gallant temper and the generous fire that were roused in their might to go their way and hold their own.  His hands were low, his head a little back, his face very calm; the eyes only had a daring, eager, resolute will lighting them; Brixworth lay before him.  He knew well what Forest King could do; but he did not know how great the chestnut Regent’s powers might be.

The water gleamed before them, brown and swollen, and deepened with the meltings of winter snows a month before; the brook that has brought so many to grief over its famous banks since cavaliers leaped it with their falcon on their wrist, or the mellow note of the horn rang over the woods in the hunting days of Stuart reigns.  They knew it well, that long line, shimmering there in the sunlight, the test that all must pass who go in for the Soldiers’ Blue Ribbon.  Forest King scented water, and went on with his ears pointed, and his greyhound stride lengthening, quickening, gathering up all its force and its impetus for the leap that was before—­then, like the rise and the swoop of a heron, he spanned the water, and, landing clear, launched forward with the lunge of a spear darted through air.  Brixworth was passed—­the Scarlet and White, a mere gleam of bright color, a mere speck in the landscape, to the breathless crowds in the stand, sped on over the brown and level grassland; two and a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty seconds.  Bay Regent was scarcely behind him; the chestnut abhorred the water, but a finer trained hunter was never sent over the Shires, and Jimmy Delmar rode like Grimshaw himself.  The giant took the leap in magnificent style, and thundered on neck and neck with the “Guards’ Crack.”  The Irish mare followed, and with miraculous gameness, landed safely; but her hind legs slipped on the bank, a moment was lost, and “Baby” Grafton scarce knew enough to recover it, though he scoured on, nothing daunted.