Diana the Huntress Read Online Free

took her first stone wall like a bird.
    ‘Yee-up!’ yelled the delighted vicar, waving his shovel hat. Behind him, on a great roan, came the little figure of the squire.
    Diana drew alongside, completely absorbed in the chase. They reached the higher moorland which rose gently above Hopeworth and they could catch glimpses of the fox racing along while hounds swooped up and over the slopes like gulls. The chase led the hunt far afield that day as they raced by Harham, Badger Bank, Buckstead Park, over Berham moors, past Banting to Windham, circling round to the far side of Hopeminster. And still the old fox ran like the wind.
    And then as black clouds built up to the west, as the light began to fail fast, the old fox simply disappeared. Hounds circled, baffled. It seemed impossible. It was not as if the fox had disappeared in brush and woodland. It had vanished in the middle of an open heath.
    Diana realized she was absolutely exhausted. A drop of sleet whipped against her cheek. The wind gave a great roar. The Reverend Charles Armitage cursed and ranted and raved so much that the squire feared he would do himself an injury.
    ‘Such language!’ exclaimed the little squire. ‘Our young friend over there will be shocked at such an exhibition.’
    ‘Ah, our young friend !’ hissed the vicar. Diana gave him one horrified look and galloped away as fast as hernow tired and exhausted horse could carry her. More than anyone else did Diana know that her father was not quite sane on the hunting field.
    The vicar glared after the flying figure of his daughter.
    The squire edged his large horse close to that of the vicar. ‘Tell me, Charles,’ he said mildly. ‘How long have you been allowing poor Diana to masquerade as a man?’
     
    Diana rode off into the increasing force of the storm. At last she stopped and turned around. There was no sign of her father. There was no sign of anything. Sleet, great blinding sheets of it, roared across the heaving blackness of the countryside.
    Somehow, Diana knew the squire’s sharp gaze had penetrated her disguise. For all his gentle ways, Squire Radford could influence her father as no other person could. Her hunting days were over.
    She edged her horse slowly forward into the storm, not knowing where she was. Familiar landscapes were blotted out. It was imperative she should find warmth and shelter for her mare, Blarney. Her own comfort could wait.
    And then, through the driving sleet, she thought she saw a flicker of light and headed in that direction. 

TWO
    It was like some fairy light. At one moment it looked near and the next it seemed to have danced a mile away. Diana had dismounted and was leading her horse when she all but collided with a pair of tall iron gates.
    Sending up a prayer of thanks for her scarlet coat, that badge of the huntsman which easily enabled him to demand shelter for the night, Diana called out, ‘Gate, ho! Gate, I say!’ But only the wind howling in the branches above her head came as an answer. She tried the massive handle only to find that the gates were securely locked. She led her tired horse along the shelter of a high wall, looking for a way to get in. She had gone about a mile when she came to a part of the old mossy wall that had been broken. Taking the reins firmly in her hands she coaxed and patted Blarney, urging the mare over the pile of strewn boulders andinto the dark blackness of a wooded estate. Praying that some roving gamekeeper would not take her for a poacher and shoot her, Diana stumbled through the woods until she arrived at a smooth stretch of long driveway.
    There again was the light, clearly seen now at the end of the drive.
    Soon she was able to pick out the bulk of a great house, a more solid black against the blackness of the night.
    It was only when she was raising her hand to the knocker that she felt a qualm of unease. Her appearance as a man had never really been put to the test. Certainly several of the farmers had hunted