A long, lanky lad, far worse winded than her fat bays, skulking along behind the honeysuckle hedge-rows, as if in hiding from somebody. As they approached each other—she in her roomy carriage, he on his bruised and aching feet—she saw that he was almost spent; that he carried a girl on his back; and that the desperation of fear was on both their young faces. Then looking forward along her side of the hedge, down the road that stretched so smooth and even, she saw two men on horseback. They were riding swiftly, and now and then one would rise in his stirrups and peer over the hedge, as if to keep in sight the struggling children, then settle back again into that easy lope that was certain of speedy victory.
Mrs. Cecil's nerves tingled with a new—an old—sensation. In the days of her girlhood she had followed the hounds over many a well-contested field. Behold here again was a fox-hunt—with two human children for foxes! Whatever they might have done, how deserved re-capture, she didn't pause to inquire. All her old sporting blood rose in her, but—on the side of the foxes!
"Drive, drive, Ephraim, drive! Kill the horses—save those children!"
Ephraim had once been young, too, and he caught his lady's spirit with a readiness that delighted her. In a moment the carriage was abreast the fleeing children on that further side the hedge, and Mrs. Cecil's voice was excitedly calling:
"Come through! Come through the hedge! We'll befriend you!"
It had been a weary, weary race. Although her foot had been so carefully bandaged by Daniel St. John, it was not fit to be used and Dorothy's suffering could not be told in words. Jim had done his best. He had comforted, encouraged, carried her; at times, incessantly, but with a now fast-dying hope that they could succeed in evading these pursuers, so relentlessly intent upon their capture.
"It's the money, Dorothy, they want. They mustn't get it. That's your folkses'—do try—you must keep on! I'll—they shan't—Oh, pshaw!"
Wheels again! again added to that thump, thump, thump of steel-shod hoofs along the hard road! and the youth felt that the race was over—himself beaten.
Then he peered through a break in the honeysuckle and saw a wonderful old lady with snow-white hair and a beautiful face, standing up in a finer vehicle than he had known could be constructed, and eagerly beckoning him to: "Come! Come!"
He stood still, panting for breath, and Dorothy lifted her face which she had hidden on his shoulder and—what was that the child was calling?