As for Mrs. Guernsea, she was telling us something about the evening that the English primate took dinner at her house on Madison Avenue, and she did not notice Minerva’s cries.
James had been familiar with horses from his boyhood, and he would have brought the pair under his control before long, but John was a man of action, and when he saw the horses start on a mad run, and also saw a boy (Bert, in fact,) riding horseback, he yelled to him: “Lend me that horse, boy. My team is being stolen.”
Bert, having just passed the run-a-way, jumped quickly from his mount and John took his place and turning the horse, dashed after James.
The run-a-ways, hearing the clatter of hoofs behind them, ran the harder and Minerva’s screams steadily increased in pitch and volume.
At the first turn James guided the horses to the left and calculated that before the two miles were made they would be winded, for their gait was tremendous.
As John made the turn, crying “Stop thief” at the top of his lungs, he passed the minister who had just passed us and who was going back to our house—for as it turned out, he wished to see me.
He heard the hue and cry, and bidding his wife get out of the carriage and wait for him, he whipped up and started in pursuit.
And Bert, deprived of his horse, but unwilling to be deprived of so much excitement cut across lots, that he might see the race on its last quarter. This much I afterward learned from him.
Through it all James never lost command of the horses, nor Minerva of her voice. Her view halloo echoed over woodland and vale, and came to me from different points of the compass, and I began to feel that something serious was the matter, and now and again I had visions of bills for the repair of a carriage.
When they reached the last quarter I could distinctly hear the “Stop thiefs!” of two voices, and so did Ethel, but both Mrs. Guernsea and her daughter were of those people who can attend to but one thing at a time, and they were busily engaged in talking, the mother to me and the daughter to Ethel.