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He does not forsake his covert, nor yet rise to his feet.
His domain is shared by the wild steeds of the savannah, given to nocturnal straying. He only uprears his head; and, with antlers o'ertopping the tall grass, listens for a repetition of the sound.
Again is the hoofstroke heard, but with altered intonation.
There is a ring of metal--the clinking of steel against stone.
The sound, significant to the ear of the stag, causes a quick change in his air and attitude.
Springing clear of his couch, and bounding a score of yards across the prairie, he pauses to look back upon the disturber of his dreams.
In the clear moonlight of a southern sky, he recognises the most ruthless of his enemies--man.
One is approaching upon horseback.
Yielding to instinctive dread, he is about to resume his flight: when something in the appearance of the horseman--some unnatural seeming-- holds him transfixed to the spot.
With haunches in quivering contact with the sward, and frontlet faced to the rear, he continues to gaze--his large brown eyes straining upon the intruder in a mingled expression of fear and bewilderment.
What has challenged the stag to such protracted scrutiny?
The horse is perfect in all its parts--a splendid steed, saddled, bridled, and otherwise completely caparisoned.
In it there appears nothing amiss--nothing to produce either wonder or alarm.
But the man-- the rider? Ah! About him there is something to cause both--something weird--something wanting!
By heavens! it is the head!
Even the unreasoning animal can perceive this; and, after gazing a moment with wildered eyes--wondering what abnormal monster thus mocks its cervine intelligence--terror-stricken it continues its retreat; nor again pauses, till it has plunged through the waters of the Leona, and placed the current of the stream between itself and the ghastly intruder.
Heedless of the affrighted deer--either of its presence, or precipitate flight--the Headless Horseman rides on.
He, too, is going in the direction of the river.
Unlike the stag, he does not seem pressed for time; but advances in a slow, tranquil pace: so silent as to seem ceremonious.
Apparently absorbed in solemn thought, he gives free rein to his steed: permitting the animal, at intervals, to snatch a mouthful of the herbage growing by the way...
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About the author
Thomas Mayne Reid (April 4, 1818 – October 22, 1883), was a Scots-Irish American novelist. "Captain" Reid wrote many adventure novels akin to those written by Frederick Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a great admirer of Lord Byron. These novels contain action that takes place primarily in untamed settings: the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica.
Biography Reid was born in Ballyroney, a small hamlet near Katesbridge, County Down, in the north of Ireland, the son of Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid Sr., who was a senior clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His father wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister, so in September 1834 he enrolled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Although he stayed for four years, he could not motivate himself enough to complete his studies and receive a degree. He headed back home to Ballyroney to teach school.
In December 1839 he boarded the Dumfriesshire bound for New Orleans, Louisiana, arriving in January 1840. Shortly afterward he found a job as a clerk for corn factor, or trader in the corn market. He stayed in New Orleans for six months. It is said that he left his position for refusing to whip slaves. (Reid later used Louisiana as the setting of one of his best-selling books, an anti-slavery novel entitled The Quadroon.)
From New Orleans, Reid traveled to Tennessee. On a plantation near Nashville, he tutored the children of Dr. Peyton Robertson, who some Reid biographers have confused with the Doctor's father, General James Randolph Robertson. (Some twenty years later, Reid would make mid-Tennessee the setting for his novel The Wild Huntress.) Following Dr. Robertson's death, Reid founded a short-lived private school in Nashville. In 1841 he found work as a clerk for a provision dealer in either Natchez, Mississippi or Natchitoches, Louisiana (the latter place seems more likely). Although Reid later claimed to have made several trips to the West during this period of his life (on which he purportedly based some of his novels), the evidence for such journeys is sketchy and confusing at best.
