This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 Excerpt: ...had swerved from the direct course, and was now making a sweep to the right, evidently in search of the vale and of a friendly copse. Noel had a general idea that the valley lay on the right, but he had no knowledge of the locality; he guided his course therefore partly by the hounds, and partly by the motion of the scarlet jacket on his left. It seemed to him that scarlet jacket was making a long detour to the left, and in the wild desire to forge to the front--to be alone, the first--Noel gave way to his own impression, and wheeling a little to the right, sought to cut off a corner by galloping through a field of beans. His weary horse urged its way heavily through the beans, snorting and plunging along, necked with foam and with a drooping head. Noel, looking over his left shoulder to watch scarlet jacket, was not so much on the look-out as he should have been; so that it came on him like a horrible and frightful apparition, --a snort and a sudden rearing of his horse as the animal tried to stop itself, and rose up almost upright upon its hind The fore feet, where were they? Reaching right over a precipice In that moment of intense sensation Noel saw the distant vale, the trees and woods, the pasture-fields, the dim horizon, towns and villages and church-towers, blue smoke from the hamlets, windmills revolving--a panorama of landscapes. It rushed up to meet him, he knew not how; the air rushed by his ears--he felt as if he was taking a tremendous leap. Then there was a jar, a shock, a sharp pain, and unconsciousness. And all this had occupied barely a second. The chalk cliff fell twenty feet sheer from the edge of the field, and he had galloped right over it. Then at the bottom of the cliff there was a ledge, along which a narrow road wound; below this a..