I was working with a new and more bird-like aeroplane with wing
curvatures studied from Lilienthal, Pilcher and Phillips, that I
thought would give a different rhythm for the pitching oscillations than
anything I'd had before. I was soaring my long course from the framework
on the old barrow by my sheds down to Tinker's Corner. It is a clear
stretch of downland, except for two or three thickets of box and thorn
to the right of my course; one transverse trough, in which there is bush
and a small rabbit warren, comes in from the east. I had started,
and was very intent on the peculiar long swoop with which any new
arrangement flew. Then, without any sort of notice, right ahead of me
appeared Beatrice, riding towards Tinker's Corner to waylay and talk to
me. She looked round over her shoulder, saw me coming, touched her
horse to a gallop, and then the brute bolted right into the path of my
machine.
There was a queer moment of doubt whether we shouldn't all smash
together. I had to make up my mind very quickly whether I would pitch-up
and drop backward at once and take my chance of falling undamaged--a
poor chance it would have been--in order to avoid any risk to her, or
whether I would lift against the wind and soar right over her.
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