“Is that some one throwing at me?” cried Uncle James angrily.
“No, uncle,” said Tom, as he leaned upon the handle at the back of the chair; “I expect they’re meant for me—I’m sure of it now,” he added, for there was a slight rap upon his elbow, making him wince as he turned sharply.
“The scoundrel! Whoever it is I’ll have a policeman to him.”
“Yes; there: it is Pete Warboys,” cried Tom excitedly. “I saw him dodge out from behind one of the trees to throw. Oh, I say, did that hit you, uncle?”
“No, boy, only brushed the cushion. The dog! The scoundrel! He—Stop, don’t go and leave me here.”
Tom did not, for, acting on the impulse of the moment, as he saw Pete run out to hurl another stone, he wrenched himself round, unconsciously giving the chair a start, and ran off into the wood in chase of the insolent young poacher, who turned and fled.
No: Tom Blount did not leave his uncle there, for the chair began to run gently on upon its light wire wheels, then faster and faster, down the long hill slope, always gathering speed, till at last it was in full career, with the invalid sitting bolt upright, thoroughly unnerved, and trying with trembling hands to guide its front wheel so as to keep it in the centre of the road. Farther back the land had been soft, and to Tom’s cost as motive power; but more on the hill slope the soft sand had been washed away by many rains, and left the road hard, so that the three-wheeled chair ran with increasing speed, jolting, bounding, and at times seeming as if it must turn over. There, straight before the rider, was the spot below where the road forked, the main going on to the ford, that to the left, deep in sand, diving down into the large sand-pit, which had been dug at from time beyond the oldest traditions of the village. A kind of ridge had here been kept up, to form the roadway right down into the bottom—a cruel place for horses dragging cartloads of the heavy material—and from this ridge on either side there was a stiff slope down to where the level of the huge pit spread, quite a couple of hundred feet below the roadway straight onward to the ford.
And moment by moment Uncle James Brandon sped onward toward the fork, holding the cross handle of the bath-chair with both hands, and steering it first in one direction then in the other, as he hesitated as to which would be the safer. If he went to the right, there, crossing the road at right angles, was the little river, which might be shallow but looked deep; and at any rate meant, if not drowning, wetting. If he went to the left from where he raced on, it looked as if he would have to plunge down at headlong speed into what seemed to be an awful chasm.
But the time for consideration was very short, though thoughts fly like flashes. One way or the other, and he must decide instantly, for there was just before him the point where the road divided—a hundred yards away—fifty yards—twenty yards, and the wind rushing by his ears as the bath-chair bounded on.
Which was it to be?