“Don yo’r breeches. Here’s yo’r’ clogs. Haste, man! Bilberry’s brust. Damn yo’ wakken. Ar’t deead?”
In that time of frenzied haste the language of his childhood came back to his lips.
Then as Jack, half awake, bewildered, donned his nether garments with but one idea, that Co-op Mill was on fire, Tom rushed to the stable where their one horse was housed. He threw a halter over its head; there was no time, no need for saddle. Jack had followed, thrusting his arms into his coat sleeves as he came. Tom sprang to the horse’s back. The gate still opened wide.
“Clutch mi leg, Jack, an’ stick to me an’ yell wi’ all thi might.”
Tom’s first thought had not been of Ben or his household; but gratitude, duty alike, made them his first care. He must reach Ben at any cost. The horse, urged by Tom’s prodding heels and by the sticks that beat upon its flanks, galloped down the hill. Jack could not keep pace; panting, gasping, clinging, he stumbled and fell.
“Make for Ben Garside’s,” shouted Tom, and was swallowed up in the night, the horse’s hoof beating the rain washed road with dull thuds, its heavy pants audible afar.
It was one o’clock and after when Tom made Ben’s cottage He thundered at the door, and in a marvellously short time that seemed eternity to Tom, the upper window was raised, and Ben’s capped head thrust forth.
“Th’ pub’s lower dahn, tha’ druffen fooil,” said Ben’s voice drowsily.
“Open, Ben, open for God’s sake. Th’ embankment’s burst at Bilberry.”
But ere Ben had ceased to gape out of the lattice, Hannah, in her petticoat, had run down the slender, narrow stairs, and unbolted the door.