“Silence, sir,” thundered the vicar. “You are in God’s house. Leave it this instant.”
Richard clenched his fists menacingly, but the stern eyes upon him made him drop them, and he fell back, the crowd opening to let him pass, when Mrs Glaire tottered to his side.
“My son, my son,” she faltered, clinging to his hand, but he flung her off, and strode out at the little chancel door, ran hastily round to where the carriage with its four greys was in waiting, and as the wondering crowd closed round, he whispered to the nearest post-boy:—“Quick—to the station. Gallop!” The crowd parted and the boys raised a cheer; and, as if to make the mocking sounds more painful, a man ran out from the Bull with a red-hot poker, and applied it to one of the little rough cannon.
There was a deafening explosion, and a tremendous jerk, as the frightened horses tore off at full gallop along the High Street, the chariot swaying from side to side on its tall springs, while all the postboys could do was to keep their seats.
Shrieks and cries arose as the horses tore along, gathering speed at each stride, and growing more frightened at the gathering noise.
On past the various houses, past his home and the works, and Richard clung desperately to the seat. For a moment he thought of throwing himself out, but in that moment he saw himself caught by the wheel, and whirled round and beaten into a shapeless pulp, and with a cry of horror he sank back.
On still, and on, at a wild gallop; and, to his horror, Richard saw that the horses were making straight for the great chalk pit, and in imagination he saw the carriage drawn right over the precipice, to fall crushed to atoms upon the hard masses below.
“I cannot bear this,” he exclaimed; and, turning the handle, he was about to leap out when the fore wheel of the chariot came with fearful violence against the short thick milestone; there was a tremendous crash as the vehicle was turned completely over, and Richard knew no more.
A dozen stout fellows, who had run panting after the carriage, came up a few minutes later, to find one of the postboys holding the trembling horses, which, after being released from the wreck, they had succeeded in stopping, and the other was striving hard to extricate Richard from where he lay, crushed and bleeding, amidst the splinters of the broken chariot.
The sturdy foundry-men soon tore away the part of the carriage that held the injured man, and a gate being taken from its hinges, he was carried back to the town; the doctor, who had been attending Eve at the vicarage, where she had been carried, having reached his house to fetch some medicine, which he sent on with a message to Mrs Glaire, who was in ignorance of the catastrophe, to come home at once.