“There is your fifty pounds,” she said, handing him a paper. “You were a fool not to turn it into a hundred when you had the chance. I’ve done with you now.”
“But where am I to go?” asked the prize-fighter, gazing around him at the winding lanes.
“To the devil!” said she. “Drive on, Johnson!”
The phaeton whirled down the road and vanished round a curve. Tom Spring was alone.
Everywhere over the countryside he heard shoutings and whistlings. It was clear that so long as she escaped the indignity of sharing his fate his employer was perfectly indifferent as to whether he got into trouble or not. Tom Spring began to feel indifferent himself. He was weary to death, his head was aching from the blows and falls which he had received, and his feelings were raw from the treatment which he had undergone. He walked slowly some few yards down the lane, but had no idea which way to turn to reach Tunbridge Wells. In the distance he heard the baying of dogs, and he guessed that they were being set upon his track. In that case he could not hope to escape them, and might just as well await them where he was. He picked out a heavy stake from the hedge, and he sat down moodily waiting, in a very dangerous temper, for what might befall him.
But it was a friend and not a foe who came first into sight. Round the corner of the lane flew a small dog-cart, with a fast-trotting chestnut cob between the shafts. In it was seated the rubicund landlord of the Royal Oak, his whip going, his face continually flying round to glance behind him.
“Jump in, Mr. Spring jump in!” he cried, as he reined up. “They’re all coming, dogs and men! Come on! Now, hud up, Ginger!” Not another word did he say until two miles of lanes had been left behind them at racing speed and they were back in safety upon the Brighton road. Then he let the reins hang loose on the pony’s back, and he slapped Tom Spring with his fat hand upon the shoulder.
“Splendid!” he cried, his great red face shining with ecstasy. “Oh, Lord! but it was beautiful!”
“What!” cried Spring. “You saw the fight?”
“Every round of it! By George! to think that I should have lived to have had such a fight all to myself! Oh, but it was grand,” he cried, in a frenzy of delight, “to see his lordship go down like a pithed ox and her ladyship clapping her hands behind the bush! I guessed there was something in the wind, and I followed you all the way. When you stopped, I tethered little Ginger in a grove, and I crept after you through the wood. It’s as well I did, for the whole parish was up!”