“Don’t answer him, your honour!” whispered the Corporal.
“Probably,” replied Walter, unheeding this advice, “you know this road better than we do. It cannot however be above three or four miles hence.”
“Thank you, Sir,—it is long since I have been in these parts. I used to know the country, but they have made new roads and strange enclosures, and I now scarcely recognise any thing familiar. Curse on this brute! curse on it, I say!” repeated the horseman through his ground teeth in a tone of angry vehemence, “I never wanted to ride so quick before, and the beast has fallen as lame as a tree. This comes of trying to go faster than other folks.—Sir, are you a father?”
This abrupt question, which was uttered in a sharp, strained voice, a little startled Walter. He replied shortly in the negative, and was about to spur onward, when the horseman continued—and there was something in his voice and manner that compelled attention: “And I am in doubt whether I have a child or not.—By G—! it is a bitter gnawing state of mind.—I may reach Knaresbro’ to find my only daughter dead, Sir!—dead!”
Despite of Walter’s suspicions of the speaker, he could not but feel a thrill of sympathy at the visible distress with which these words were said.
“I hope not,” said he involuntarily.
“Thank you, Sir,” replied the Horseman, trying ineffectually to spur on his steed, which almost came down at the effort to proceed. “I have ridden thirty miles across the country at full speed, for they had no post-horses at the d—d place where I hired this brute. This was the only creature I could get for love or money; and now the devil only knows how important every moment may be.—While I speak, my child may breathe her last!—” and the man brought his clenched fist on the shoulder of his horse in mingled spite and rage.
“All sham, your honour,” whispered the Corporal.
“Sir,” cried the horseman, now raising his voice, “I need not have asked if you had been a father—if you had, you would have had compassion on me ere this,—you would have lent me your own horse.”
“The impudent rogue!” muttered the Corporal.