The morning was cold and bleak, but the children rode merrily on. It was the first time they had been trusted alone on such an expedition, and Phœbe at once proposed that they should play that Roger was a wandering knight, and she one of the fair, distressed damsels who were always met by knights when on their travels.
“I would,” said Roger, “if you could find another knight to whom I could give battle, but it is rather tame to be pacing along here with you behind me, and no danger ahead.”
“I wish then,” said Phœbe, “that mother had not wanted cousin Forbes’ horse, for, perhaps, he would have lent it to us, and then, with such a horse, we could have been a knight and a lady out hawking, and I would have given you a race.”
“That would have been a rarely good plan,” said Roger, looking up the level road, “and I do not like to lose it. Ho, lady,” he cried, looking behind him, “thy father is in pursuit!” And clapping both feet to the sides of the horse, he put him to his speed.
“Oh, Roger! oh, sir Knight!” exclaimed Phœbe, “my hood—if I could but tie it!”
“I cannot wait for hoods,” said the knight, in a stern voice; “when we reach my castle thou shalt have twenty-two, and a crown beside.”
The lady would not have doubted this for the world, but she nevertheless loosened one hand, clinging desperately to her protector with the other, and pulled off the hood, held it, and clutched her knight who, with cries of “on Selim, on!” urged poor old Dobbin to his best.
There was, indeed, a clatter of horses’ hoofs behind, and with it a loud cry, Phœbe turned her head.
“Oh, sir Knight!” she cried with very short breath; “my father is near at hand! Hasten, oh, hasten!”
And sure enough, some one was! He was short and stout, and looked much more like a butcher’s boy than a gentle lady’s father; and he was certainly in pursuit, and he called again and again, but the only effect was to make the flying knight more vigorously kick the sides of his horse, and more vehemently push on. But as fortune would have it the father’s horse was the swiftest, and in spite of the knight’s best efforts he was down along-side.