Summer at World's End Read Online Free

Princess on her broad oatmeal rump. ‘Always have.’
    ‘If a horse is turned out in a field where there are jumps,’ Carrie said, ‘have you ever seen him jump them on his own?’
    ‘Too stupid.’
    ‘Too clever.’
    ‘Well, I hope they’re cleverer than we are,’ Mr Mismo said. They had jogged twice round the edge of a large ploughed field without finding a way out. The only gate was padlocked. They could not even find the place where they came in, plunging through a thicket, Princess breaking through like a tank.
    Because Mr Mismo did not want to say he had come the wrong way, he had to find a way out. They jogged round the field again until they found the easiest place, a gap in the hedge, with a hurdle across.
    ‘Think you and that five-legged nag can lep that?’ he asked.
    Mr Mismo had given Carrie plenty of jumping advice, but she had never seen him jump. If they met a fallen log in the woods, Princess trotted over it, lifting her large feet high, as if she were trotting in the sea. If there was a proper jump across the track, Mr Mismo would say, ‘Ladies first’, and pull behind, so that Carrie wouldn’t see him ride round the jump.
    If Princess Margaret had really been the finest crosscountry horse of her day, the gap in the hedge would be nothing to her, but she and John, having put their noses to the hurdle, had now put their noses together to discuss whether it was all right for Mr Mismo.
    ‘They’re talking about us,’ Carrie said. ‘They’re talking about the way we ride.’
    ‘Oh stow it, chump.’ Mr Mismo was nervous about the jump. ‘Horses don’t talk about us.’ He never liked it when Carrie said they did, although it was often obvious, aftera ride, that John and Princess Margaret Rose were swapping notes.
    ‘Who’s going first?’
    ‘I’ll show you the way,’ said Mr Mismo gallantly. Red in the face, his hat tipped forward and his arms working like pistons, he wheeled Princess round, gave her a whack with his whip, and charged through the plough at the low hurdle, growling as if it were a dangerous enemy.
    ‘Hup!’ he grunted, a moment after Margaret Rose had already taken off. She went hup and over. Mr Mismo leaned far back in the saddle. One hand flew up off the reins as if he were calling a cab. His hat fell off. Princess landed on the edge of a blind ditch, stumbled, recovered with a heave like an elephant coming out of a mud bath, and trotted quietly off across the next field with her stirrups swinging and her reins in loops. Mr Mismo was sitting in the ditch with his grey hair on end and his crimson cheeks blown out.
    ‘Always hang on to your reins, old chump,’ he had told Carrie every time she fell off. ‘Break a leg, break your neck, whatever you want, but always hang on to your reins.’
    ‘Are you all right?’ she called across the hedge.
    ‘Go after my horse!’ he shouted in answer.
    He scrambled out of the way. Carrie gave John three strides and he jumped the hurdle, stretched himself cleverly to land clear of the ditch, and cantered after Princess without breaking stride. Carrie looked back and saw Mr Mismo sitting on the ground with his enormous boots stuck out in front of him and his whip in his hand, beating the ground in rage.

5
    When Margaret Rose heard John behind her, she broke into a canter. She put on speed as he increased his, dodging among bushes so that Carrie could not get alongside to grab the flying reins. With any luck, the mare would put her foot through them and have to stop, or fall down. She did put her great flat foot through them, clear through, and galloped on with the rein round her elbow.
    If the field had been bigger, John would have caught her, but just as he was coming up on her left, she switched to the right, plunged into a wood and was gone among the trees, cracking dead branches, crashing through the undergrowth, tearing off her stirrups. With any luck, she’d get caught up, but the luck was all with Margaret Rose. Somehow