"Yes, if you don't look," she said.
She led her horse a little way out into the field, threw herself across the saddle, and scrambled up somehow. Then she set off at a gallop towards the chimneys of a farm peeping above a grove of trees a quarter of a mile away.
The Squire lay still, and looked up into the sky. Except for the aching in his neck he was now free from pain, and having tested by movement all the muscles of his body, was relieved to find that he had got off rather lightly after all. It was an awkward, and rather an absurd predicament to be in, but with the certainty of getting free very shortly, he was not overmuch disposed to grumble at it. Virginia's appearance had been providential, and she had been as concerned for him as he was for himself. The stile was an old and very solid one, and had come down on him en masse. It was doubtful whether a man could have done more with it, single-handed, than she had done, and a man might not have thought of loosening his stock and fetching water when he had fainted. He had never fainted before. It was a curious, not wholly unpleasant, sensation. He allowed his thoughts to dwell on it, idly, as he lay still, staring up at the sky, not now in great discomfort.
He became aware of something soft under his head. When he had first fallen into the ditch he had lain with his head in the mud and had had to raise it to see what he could now see comfortably. His right arm had been disengaged, and he put up his hand to feel what it was that was beneath him. He felt warm silk and the smooth hardness of Melton cloth, and then he remembered that Virginia had looked rather curious as to her attire when he had come to himself after his little fainting fit. She had taken off her jacket and propped up his head with it. At that discovery he arrived definitely at the point of liking her.
It was not long before he heard her calling to him, and then the trot of her horse across the grass. "They are coming in a moment," she cried out as she rode up to him; "two men from the farm, and they will get you free in no time."
He looked at her a little curiously, and she blushed as she met his gaze. When a woman has taken off the coat of her riding habit she has begun to undress, and whatever comes next to it is not meant for the public gaze. But she had not cared about that. If she had he would not have been lying with a pillow under his head and she looked down upon him, so to speak, in her shirt sleeves.
"Put on your coat before they come," said the Squire. "I'm all right now; and thank you."
The two farm labourers who came running up the meadow made short work of pulling the stile off him, and Virginia helped him to rise and to climb out of the ditch. He stood on the grass stiff, and rather dazed, with his left arm hanging uselessly, and she supported him for a moment, until he said, "I'm all right now. I'll walk over to the farm, and perhaps they'll lend me something to take me home in."
"The farmer has gone for the doctor," she said, "and they are going to send a pony carriage up for you. See, I've brought a rug for you to sit on till they come."
She spread it on the ground, and he sat down heavily, giving an exclamation of pain as he jarred the broken bone. Virginia knelt beside him and put the handkerchief she had already damped to his brow. But he hitched himself away from her. He did not want the men, now staring at him with bovine concern, to see him dependent on a woman. "Don't bother any more," he said. "I'm all right now."