Part 9 (1/2)
The ponies were pulling hard, and had got their mouths so thoroughly set against my aunt's iron hand, that she might as well have been driving with a pair of halters for any power she had over them, when a rush of colts in an adjoining paddock on one side of the lane, and a covey of partridges ”whirring up” out of a turnip-field on the other, started them both at the same moment. My aunt gave a slight scream, clutched at her reins with a jerk; down went the ponies' heads, and we were off, as hard as ever they could lay legs to the ground, along a deep-rutted narrow lane, with innumerable twistings and turnings in front of us, for a certainty, and the off-chance of a wagon and bell team blocking up the whole pa.s.sage before we could emerge upon the high road.
”Lay hold, Kate!” vociferated my aunt, pulling for her very life, with the veins on her bare wrists swelling up like whipcord. ”Gracious goodness! can't you stop 'em? There's a gravel-pit not half a mile farther on! I'll jump out! I'll jump out!”
My aunt began kicking her feet clear of the sundry wraps and shawls, and the leather ap.r.o.n that kept our knees warm, though I must do her the justice to say that she still tugged hard at the reins. I saw such an expedient would be certain death, and I wound one arm round her waist, and held her forcibly down in her seat, while with the other I endeavoured to a.s.sist her in the hopeless task of stopping the runaway ponies. Everything was against us: the ground was slightly on the decline; the thaw had not yet reached the sheltered road we were travelling, and the wheels rung against its frozen surface as they spun round with a velocity that seemed to add to the excitement of our flying steeds. Ever and anon we bounded and b.u.mped over some rut or inequality that was deeper than usual. Twice we were within an inch of the ditch; once, for an awful hundred yards, we were balancing on two wheels; and still we went faster and faster than ever. The trees and hedges wheeled by us; the gravel road streamed away behind us. I began to get giddy and to lose my strength. I could hardly hope to hold my aunt in much longer, and now she began to struggle frightfully, for we were nearing the gravel-pit turn! Ahead of us was a comfortable fat farmer, jogging drowsily to market in his gig. I can see his broad, well-to-do back now. What would I have given to be seated, I had almost said _enthroned_, by his side? What a smash if we had touched him! I pulled frantically at the off-rein, and we just cleared his wheel. He said something; I could not make out what. I was nearly exhausted, and shut my eyes, resigning myself to my fate, but still clinging to my aunt. I think that if ever that austere woman was near fainting it was on this occasion. I just caught a glimpse of her white, stony face and fixed eyes; her terror even gave me a certain confidence. A figure in front of us commenced gesticulating and shouting and waving its hat. The ponies slackened their pace, and my courage began to revive.
”Sit still,” I exclaimed to my aunt as I indulged them with a good strong ”give-and-take” pull.
The gravel-pit corner was close at hand, but the figure had seized the refractory little steeds by their heads, and though I shook all over, and felt really frightened now the danger was past, I knew that we were safe, and that we owed our safety to a tall, ragged cripple with a crutch and a bandage over one eye.
My aunt jumped out in a twinkling, and the instant she touched _terra firma_ put her hand to her side, and began to sob and gasp and pant, as ladies will previous to an attack of what the doctors call ”hysteria.” She leant upon the cripple's shoulder, and I observed a strange, roguish sparkle in his unbandaged eye. Moreover, I remarked that his hands were white and clean, and his figure, if he hadn't been such a cripple, would have been tall and active.
”What shall I do?” gasped my aunt. ”I won't get in; nothing shall induce me to get in again. Kate, give this good man half a crown. What a providential escape! He ought to have a sovereign. Perhaps ten s.h.i.+llings will be enough. How am I to get back? I'll walk all the way rather than get in.”
”But, aunt,” I suggested, ”at any rate I must get to the station. Aunt Deborah is sure to think something has happened, and she ought not to be frightened till she gets stronger. How far is it to the station? I think I should not mind driving the ponies on.”
In the meantime the fat farmer whom we had pa.s.sed so rapidly had arrived at the scene of action, his anxiety not having induced him in the slightest degree to increase the jog-trot pace at which all his ideas seemed to travel. He knew Lady Horsingham quite well, and now sat in his gig with his hat off, wiping his fat face, and expatiating on the narrow escape her ladys.h.i.+p had made, but without offering the slightest suggestion or a.s.sistance whatever.
At this juncture the cripple showed himself a man of energy.
”Your ladys.h.i.+p had best go home with this gentleman,” said he, indicating the fat farmer, ”if the young lady is not afraid to go on.
I can take care of her as far as the railway, if it's not too great a liberty, and bring the ponies back to the Hall afterwards, my lady?”
with an interrogative s.n.a.t.c.h at his ragged hat.
It seemed the best thing to be done under the circ.u.mstances. My aunt, after much demurring and another incipient attack of the hysterics, consented to entrust herself to the fat farmer's guidance, not, however, until she was a.s.sured that his horse was both blind and broken-winded. I put Mouse's bridle down on the lower bar instead of the cheek, on which he had previously been driven. My aunt climbed into the gig; I mounted the pony-carriage, the cripple took his seat deferentially by my side, and away we went on our respective journeys; certainly in a mode which we had little antic.i.p.ated when we left the front door at Dangerfield Hall.
My preserver sat half in and half out of the carriage, leaning his white, well-shaped hand upon the splashboard. The bandaged side of his face was towards me. The ponies went quietly enough; they had enjoyed their gallop, and were, I think, a little blown. I had leisure to take a good survey of my companion. When we had thus travelled for a quarter of a mile in silence he turned his face towards me. We looked at each other for about half a minute, and then both burst out laughing.
”You didn't know me, Miss Coventry! not the least in the world,”
exclaimed the cripple, pulling the bandage off his face, and showing another eye quite as handsome as the one that had previously been uncovered.
”How could you do so, Captain Lovell?” was all I could reply.
”Conceive if my aunt had found you out, or even if any one should recognize you now. What would people think of _me_? But how did you know we were going to London to-day, and how could you tell the ponies would run away?”
”Never mind how I knew your movements, Miss Coventry,” was the reply.
”Kate! may I call you Kate? it's such a soft, sweet name,” he added, now sitting altogether _inside_ the carriage, which certainly was a small one for two people. ”You don't know how I've watched for you, and waited and prowled about, during the last few days. You don't know how anxious I've been only for one word--even one look. I've spent hours out on the Down just to see the flutter of your white dress as you went through the shrubbery--even at that distance it was something to gaze at you and know you were there. Last night I crossed the ice under your window.”
”You did indeed!” I replied with a laugh; ”and what a ducking you must have got!”
Frank laughed too, and resumed. ”I was sadly afraid that your aunt might have found out you were holding a parley with the enemy outside the walls. I knew you were to go to London to-day. I thought very likely you might be annoyed, and put under surveillance on my account, and I was resolved to see you, if only for one moment; so I borrowed these ragged garments of a professional beggar, who I believe is a great deal better off in reality than myself, and I determined to watch for your carriage and trust to chance for a word, or even a glance of recognition. She has befriended me more than I could expect.
At first, when I saw 'Aunt Deborah' alone in the chariot, it flashed across me that perhaps you were to stay _en penitence_ at Dangerfield.
But I knew Lady Horsingham had a pony-carriage. I also knew--or what would be the use of servants?--that it was ordered this morning; so I stumped gaily along the road, thinking that at all events I might have an opportunity of saying three words to you at the station whilst the servants were putting the luggage on, and the dear aunts, who I presume cherish a mutual hatred, were wis.h.i.+ng each other a tender farewell. But that such a chance as this runaway should befriend me was more than I ever dared to hope for, and that I should be sitting next _you_, Kate (and _so close_, I'm sure he might have added), in Lady Horsingham's pony-phaeton is a piece of good luck that in my wildest moments I never so much as dreamt of. We scarcely ever meet now. There--you needn't drive so fast; the up-train don't go by till the half-hour, and every minute is precious, at least to _me_. We are kept sadly apart, Kate. If you can bear it, I can't. I should like to be near you always--always to watch over you and wors.h.i.+p you. Confound that pony! he's off again.”
Sure enough, Tiny was indulging in more vagaries, as if he meditated a second fit of rebellion; and what with holding him and humouring Mouse, and keeping my head down so as to hide my face from Frank, for I didn't want him to see how I was blus.h.i.+ng, I am sure I had enough to do.
”Kate, you must really have pity on me,” pursued Frank. ”You don't know how miserable I am sometimes (I wonder what he wanted me to say?), or how happy you have it in your power to make me. Here we are at that cursed station, and my dream is over. I must be the cripple and the beggar once more--a beggar I am indeed, Kate, without your affection. When shall we meet again, and where?”
”In London,” was all I could answer.