“The horses brought the sledge to Duck Flats last night just as it was getting dark. The driver was lying under the robes unconscious, and he has not come to his senses properly yet, though he managed to tell me last night how badly you wanted the goods,” said Bertha. “So I have left Mrs. Ellis with only the children to look after her while I drove the sledge over. But I want to go back at top speed, for I am most dreadfully anxious about them.”
“I should just think that you would be,” said Dan, while the red-haired youth ran to assist Bertha in mounting on to Pucker. “It was downright good of you to come, Miss Doyne; but what will you do about the driver? You’ve got enough on your hands without having a sick man to look after.”
“Indeed I have, and I was wondering whether someone from here would drive a sledge over presently and bring him back. I would keep him if I could, for he looks shockingly ill; but what could I do with a sick man at Duck Flats, now that Mr. Ellis is away?” Bertha paused in her mounting and looked wistfully at Dan, as if mutely pleading to be spared this extra burden.
And she did not ask in vain. “We’ll be over for him in a few hours, Miss Doyne, and we’ll bring him back with us, even if he pegs out on the journey,” said Dan cheerfully.
With a nod of thanks, Bertha gave Pucker a slap on the side, just to show the old horse that she was in a hurry and that he had better be in a hurry too, and then away they went at a pelting gallop across the snow, and were very soon a vanishing speck in the distance.
She was in a wild heat of worry—a scorching anxiety on account of Grace was upon her—and she was questioning whether she had done right in leaving home to drive the sledge to Pentland Broads, even though the people there were in actual want of food. Home duties should come first, and she had a feeling that she would never be able to forgive herself if anything bad had happened in her absence.
She had reached the place almost where the trail from Rownton joined the one from Pentland Broads, when she saw a sledge with two men in it coming rapidly from the direction of Rownton, and as one of them waved his arm to her to stop, she drew rein, and waited in fuming impatience until they should overhaul her. Then she saw that they were police, and suddenly her heart gave a great throb of fear, and her thoughts flew to Tom. Something bad had happened, she told herself, and the police were coming to break the news to her. So she sat rigid, like a figure carved in stone, with all the fuming impatience dropped away from her, whilst the horses with the police sledge came nearer and nearer.
“Have you seen a man with a sledge piled high with packages that look like provisions, the sledge drawn by two powerful brown horses?” asked the man who was driving, while the man at his side lifted his helmet in respectful salutation to Bertha. “The sledge must have passed somewhere in this direction either last night or this morning, we think.”
“A sledge came to our house at Duck Flats last evening. It was drawn by two powerful brown horses, but the driver was lying unconscious in the sledge,” answered Bertha, telling the same story which she had told to Dan Semple a short time before, and explaining to the police how she herself had left her helpless household to drive the sledge to Pentland Broads because of the food famine there.
“And the man, where is he?” asked the policeman, whom, from his appearance, she judged to be an inspector.