Chapter Twenty Two.
Fire! Fire! Fire!
The days slipped pleasantly by, and the boys had nearly lost all traces of their unpleasant encounter. They had been fishing again at the mill, and had a long talk with Dusty Bob, who had promised to make them some namesakes, namely “bobs” for eel-catching in the dam, and they were to be ready on the Wednesday evening following. This was Tuesday, and after a hot day, during which they had been having fine sport in the field—where the men were getting in a lateish crop of hay-making hay huts, and then when the abode was tenanted, knocking it down upon the unfortunate inhabitant, who by this means was half smothered, which Harry said constituted the best part of the fun—a kind of fun that Fred could not see, for the view he took of the matter was like that of the pelted frogs in the fable, and after being covered up with a mass of hay, and having had Harry and Philip sitting on the top of that, he had crawled out at last very hot, stuffy, bitty, and uncomfortable, and could not be persuaded to enter the hay hut again.
The boys had worked hard in the field; turning the hay, making it into cocks, tossing them out, and then helping to load the waggon, and taking the high-piled load to the stack-yard—the part the boys managed in taking the load being that of riding on the top amidst the sweet-scented new hay, and having to lie flat down as the mass passed beneath the tall gateway and under the granary into the yard. On the way back, Harry rode the leading horse, making stirrups of the traces, while his legs stuck out at a very obtuse angle one from the other, in consequence of the round back of the fat cart-horse.
Harry was the most venturesome of the three boys in all things, and yet, in spite of his daring, he met with fewer mishaps than the others; however, on this particular day, he did have the pleasure of being run away with, for, after taking a load to the stack, the front horse was always unhooked from the traces, and allowed to follow the waggon behind. Now upon this occasion, after re-entering the field, Ball, the big horse, must have been tickled by a fly, or else have had the idea that, now a gentleman was on his back, instead of being a cart-horse he was a hunter. However, let the horse’s idea have been what it might, he whisked his tail, kicked up his heels, tossed his head, and snorted; and then went off in a regular elephant gallop down the field, with all the men shouting “Stop him—stop him,” but nobody trying to do so in the least. As for Harry, he stuck his knees into the horse as well as he could, and dragged at the rein, but he might just as well have pulled at a post for all the impression he made. He felt rather frightened, but he stuck tightly to his great steed, steadying himself by taking fast hold of the horse’s great collar with one hand, all the while dragging with the other at the rein.
Away went the great brute full gallop, scattering the hay in all directions, and charging right down at the hedge at the bottom of the field.
“He’ll stop there,” shouted the men in pursuit, to one another.
But not a bit of it, for the horse took the hedge in a flying leap, and then went galloping on through the corn-field on the other side, and then he came to a stand-still right in the middle of the waving grain, and began to nibble off the green sweet ears.