“You shall,” was the concise reply, as, directing the ostler to stand by the horses’ heads, Coverdale, ere the fellow was aware of his intention, or could take measures to prevent him, sprang lightly up, forced the reins from his uncertain grasp, twisted him suddenly round, then placing his hands under his arms lifted him by sheer strength, and dropped him to the ground. Having performed this feat with the neatness and celerity of some harlequinade trick, he glanced round to see that the fellow had fallen clear of the wheels, and taking the reins, drove off.
While this little affair had been proceeding, the sky had become overcast, and a few large drops of rain came pattering heavily to the ground; alarmed by these symptoms, the brougham party no sooner perceived the phaeton approaching, than they scrambled into their vehicle and started. As their road lay in a direction opposite to that by which Coverdale was advancing, they were nearly out of sight by the time he reached the spot where Alice and Mr. Crane awaited him. Jumping down with the reins in his hand, he was explaining to the owner of the phaeton the plight in which he had found his servant, when a faint flash of lightning glanced across the sky, followed after an interval by a clap of distant thunder, at which the horses, which were young and spirited, began to prick up their ears, and evince such unmistakable signs of alarm, that their master, fearing they were about to dash off, ran to lay hold of their heads. Misfortune often brings about strange associations. If any one had that morning told Alice Hazlehurst that before the day should be over she would have appealed for protection to, and confided in, “Arthur’s cross, disagreeable friend,” she would have utterly disbelieved the statement—and yet so it was to be. The moment Mr. Crane left her side, she turned to Harry exclaiming—
“Oh, Mr. Coverdale, I am so frightened! He will never be able to manage those horses: he could scarcely hold them in this morning, and the groom was forced to get down to them twice—he does not know how to drive one bit!”
Poor little Alice! she was trembling from head to foot, and looked so pretty and interesting in her alarm, that Harry felt peculiar, he didn’t exactly know how, about it.
“I’ll speak to Mr. Crane, and persuade him to let me drive you home,” he replied eagerly. (He would have knocked him down without the smallest hesitation, if Alice had in the slightest degree preferred it.) “I’ve been accustomed to horses all my life, and have not a doubt of being able to manage these, even if the thunder should startle them; so please don’t look so frightened.”
And as Harry said this with his very brightest, kindest smile,
Alice wondered she had never before noticed how handsome he was, and began to think he could not be so very cross after all.
When Harry urged his request, Mr. Crane was considerably embarrassed as to the nature of his reply. In his secret soul he was delighted to be relieved from the danger and responsibility of driving Alice and himself home through a thunder-storm; but, on the other hand, he could not disguise the fact, that by allowing himself to be so relieved, he should detract from the heroic style of character he wished Alice to impute to him. Had it been D’Almayne instead of Coverdale who sought to become his substitute, he would probably, at the hazard of breaking his own neck and that of his lady-love, have refused to permit him; but he had observed, as indeed he must have been blind if he had not done, Harry’s marked avoidance of the young lady, and trusting to these his mysogynistic principles he, with many excuses and much circumlocution, agreed to Harry’s proposal that he should ride his horse, and allow him to drive the phaeton.
“Ahem!—if the storm should come on violently,” observed the cotton-spinner, as a second growl of thunder became audible, “I shall wait till it has subsided; so don’t let them expect me till they see me: getting wet always gives me cold.”
“All right, sir,” returned Harry, as he wrapped Alice carefully up in his own Macintosh; “take care of yourself by all means—good people are scarce. We shall see nothing more of friend Crane to-night,” he continued, as he drove off; “the old gentleman is very decidedly alarmed—that is, I suppose I ought not to call him an old gentleman,” he stammered, suddenly recollecting with whom he was conversing.