"An' I took her in, an' gave her a piece of plaster, but she were dead set on following the young gentleman."
After going up the lane and going through another field, Annie said she could go no further.
"'Tis getting dark, and they'll most like be home by this time. Come back, Miss Jill. Master Jack ought to be ashamed of himself leading us this chase!"
So they turned back, but when they came in they found that Miss Webb had ordered the gardeners and grooms all out, for they had not returned.
Jill's bed-time came. It grew quite dark, and then at last voices were heard in the hall and Miss Webb rushed out. It was Bumps in the arms of a big farmer.
"I found her in a ditch," he said; "my mare shied as I were-a-drivin' home, and I seed somethin' white by the roadside, and then I seed it were a child. She have hurt her foot, poor little 'un. She must have failed a-tryin' to get over a fence above!"
"Is she dead?" cried Jill, pressing forward, for Bumps hung a limp and apparently lifeless bundle over the farmer's arm.
"Bless 'ee, no! Her be faint an' exhausted, but put her to bed an' she'll be all right in the mornin'. Leastwise if her foot be not injured!"
So poor Bumps was put to bed, and her little swollen foot bathed and bandaged, and after a good deal of petting and feeding, she was able to look up and speak.
"It wath my short legs," she said sadly, and somehow or other this old excuse of hers, which was always brought forward when she had failed to do what the others did, brought the tears as well as a smile to Miss Webb's face. Not a word of blame or reproach was uttered. But when she had dropped into a sound sleep, Miss Webb left her, and her thoughts were now centred on the missing Jack.