His unexpected appearance startled the horse, his rider nearly lost his seat, and did lose his temper.

Recovering the former, and holding the excited animal, which would have been off at full speed, he urged him towards Donal, whom he took for a tramp.

He was rising--deliberately, that he might not do more mischief, and was yet hardly on his feet, when the horse, yielding to the spur, came straight at him, its rider with his whip lifted.
Donal took off his bonnet, stepped a little aside, and stood.

His bearing and countenance calmed the horseman's rage; there was something in them to which no gentleman could fail of response.
The rider was plainly one who had more to do with affairs bucolic than with those of cities or courts, but withal a man of conscious dignity, socially afloat, and able to hold his own.
"What the devil--," he cried--for nothing is so irritating to a horseman as to come near losing his seat, except perhaps to lose it altogether, and indignation against the cause of an untoward accident is generally a mortal's first consciousness thereupon: however foolishly, he feels himself injured.

But there, having better taken in Donal's look, he checked himself.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Donal.