She stopped him most graciously.
"On the contrary, I have to thank you, indirectly, for one of the
pleasantest evenings I ever spent. I never was in danger before, and
it is delightful. I was a little frightened at first, but it soon wore
off, and I feel I should shortly revel in it; only I must have a brave
man near just to look at, then I gather courage from his eye; do I not
now, Mr. Dodd?"
"Indeed you do," said David, simply enough.
Lucy Fountain's appearance and manner bore out her words. Talboys was
white; even David and Jack showed some signs of a night of watching
and anxiety; but the young lady's cheek was red and fresh, her eye
bright, and she shone with an inspired and sprightly ardor that was
never seen, or never observed in her before. They had found the way to
put her blood up, after all--the blood of the Funteyns. Such are
thoroughbreds: they rise with the occasion; snobs descend as the
situation rises. See that straight-necked, small-nosed mare stepping
delicately on the turnpike: why, it is Languor in person, picking its
way among eggs. Now the hounds cry and the horn rings. Put her at
timber, stream, and plowed field in pleasing rotation, and see her
now: up ears; open nostril; nerves steel; heart immovable; eye of
fire; foot of wind. And ho! there! What stuck in that last arable,
dead stiff as the Rosinantes in Trafalgar Square, all but one limb,
which goes like a water-wagtail's? Why, by Jove! if it isn't the hero
of the turnpike road: the gallant, impatient, foaming, champing,
space-devouring, curveting cocktail.
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