“What would dad think of me?” continued the aforesaid driver. “He would say I was an ass. Yes, I’m sorry enough for you,” here she addressed the martyred beast, “for you can’t be driven a single mile farther; but what am I to do about Sybil! I can’t leave you here.”
Her monologue might have lasted longer, for there certainly seemed no way out of the difficulty, had not the sudden appearance of a strange man, far away round a corner of the road, given Margot a clue to the best mode of procedure.
“I’ll ask whoever this is,” she thought to herself, “to take the pony back to the rectory for me and explain, and apologize most fearfully. Then I can cut over the moors to the ‘Little House’; it can’t be more than a mile away! It’s a good thing I know the way that Stella showed me.” She sat down on a milestone to contemplate the results of her reckless driving, and to wait till the stranger should turn the next corner and come into view again.
“Coo-ee!” she shouted presently, as soon as he appeared within hailing distance, standing up and waving her hand.
“Coo-ee!” responded the stranger in an equally practised manner.
“If it doesn’t feel just exactly like being back in Australia!” laughed Margot to herself as she advanced to meet the new friend, whip in hand. “Why, it looks something like——! But it just couldn’t be——! Long Jake—why, it is you!”
“Seems like it, doesn’t it!” said a tremendously tall and broad-shouldered individual, clad in tweeds, who, with a very wide smile, came striding towards the amazed girl. “I recognized your ‘Coo-ee!’”
“But how on earth did you get here?” Margot’s eyes opened their widest; her surprise was so great that at first she did not realize how delighted she was at this most unexpected appearance.
“Well, how did you get here, yourself?” inquired Long Jake. “I made up my mind to pay a call on a young lady in a fashionable boarding-school, and instead of finding her sitting primly in the parlour at work on her sampler, as I expected, I discover her in the middle of the road doctoring a broken-kneed pony, with signs of furious driving strewn around for all to see!”
“Well, anyway,” said Margot, disregarding his last remarks, “I’m perfectly thankful you’ve come. There’s not a single sampler at our school—I expect the boys’ schools have used them all up—but there really is an adventure for you to help in, if you’ll only listen.” She proceeded animatedly to lay the facts of the case before him, and the new-comer listened with amusement in his face, that changed to interest as the tale continued.