“She doesn’t look like it,” said Jack; “but if she set her mind to that or to anything else, she would do it.”
“Oh,” said Bob, “it’s all nonsense. I sha’n’t marry out there. I shouldn’t like a colonial girl; but I shall come home in a few years’ time, and look about me. Nettie will be married before then, I hope, in a proper way. I hope you’ll all be very careful about her acquaintances.”
“Well, we’ll try,” said Jack, smiling. “She will have Virginia to go about with.”
“Yes, I like Virginia. She’ll do Alvar good,” said Bob, condescendingly. “And I like Gipsy too, Jack; she’s very jolly.”
“Thank you,” said Jack, “she is.”
“I suppose you’ll be a master in a school somewhere when I get back, and Cherry will be a parson. Well, he’ll make a very good one.”
“Yes,” said Jack, shortly. He did not like discussions as to Cherry’s future; it hung, in his eyes, by too slender a thread.
“Good heavens!” cried Bob, suddenly, “look there!”
Sir John Hubbard had left his carriage, and his young horses, which had been already excited by the numbers and the noise; frightened by some sudden chance movement among the crowd, no one could tell what—the bark of a dog, the sudden crossing of an old woman with a tray of ginger-beer—shied so violently that the coachman, who was holding the reins loosely, was thrown off the box, the horses dashed forward down the hillside, towards an abrupt descent and break in the ground, at the bottom of which ran a little stony brook.
Jack and Bob were far behind, and even as they spurred forward they felt it would be all in vain; while Nettie, springing on to the front seat, tried to climb up and reach the reins; but they swung far beyond her reach. She looked on and saw all the danger, saw the rough descent ahead, heard the cries of horror on all sides, saw too, one of the yeomanry officers gallop at headlong speed towards them, dash in between them and the bank, and seize the reins. A violent jolt and jerk, as the horses were thrown back on their haunches, and she recognised Alvar, as he was flung off his own horse and down the bank by the shock and the struggle, as other hands forced the carriage back from its deadly peril, and Jack, dashing up, his face white as marble, dismounted and caught the trembling Gipsy in his arms.