“Mercy on me!” cried she, in a tone of great annoyance, “if I haven’t dropped my whip! And it’ll need all the lashing I can give her to get the mare across, with the river running as swift as it does to-night.”
She had reined in the animal, and was peering round in the road with anxious eyes.
“Did you mind, sir, when I had it last? Nay, nay, for sure you don’t. You’d have spoken if you’d seen it drop. Would you hold the reins a moment, sir, while I go back up the hill in search of it?”
“Nay, I’ll do that,” replied Tregenna readily. “I’ll take the lantern.”
He had unfastened the great clumsy thing from the side of the vehicle while he spoke, and had already begun his search. He had almost reached the crest of the hill before he found the whip, lying in a pool of mud under the hedge by the side of the road.
“Hey!” cried he, as he picked it up and cracked it in the air. “I’ve found it!”
As he turned, with the lantern in one hand, and the whip in the other, and looked down the hill towards the cart, he was astonished to see, by the light of the moon which had grown stronger since they started, the lad who had been at the back of the cart leap up to the seat beside Ann, with a long stick, cut from the hedge, in his hand.
The next moment, with a speed which, compared with her former jog-trot, was like that of an arrow from a bow, the mare was galloping towards the river, lashed unsparingly by her driver.
Pursuit was hopeless. Almost before Tregenna had time to recognize that he had been tricked, the cart, swaying, splashing, dashing through little eddies of foam, was in the middle of the stream.
He ran a few paces, stumbling in the ruts of the road, and muttering uncomplimentary things of the high-spirited lady and all her sex. But, long before he reached his side of the river the cart had gained the other, and was galloping along the road at a pace which put all thoughts of overtaking it to flight.