That tickled me pleasantly, as you may think, and I was the more disposed to take charge of this poor creature thus left to starve of the perishing winds of heaven. It rains not clemency from December skies in this brisk isle of England. So says I, in a cheering voice,—
"I'll warrant you shall toast your toes and warm your stomach with victuals within the better part of an hour. Faith, pin your hopes on me, mistress, and you shall not be disappointed. Tis not the first time Dick Ryder has comforted and succoured the fair. There's Dick's luck, madam."
She smiled in a weak way, but began to take some confidence, as I could see from the new note in her voice.
"Is it far, sir, to shelter?" she asked, and I told her there was an inn some two miles distant, at which she plucked up her heart once more, not knowing (bless her folly) that two miles on that wild moor, and with that drift of snow, was no matter for spoon-fed babes. But as chance had it, she made the discovery pretty quickly, and that through no fault or neglect of mine. For I put her upon Calypso—as gentle a mare, when needs be, as ever was straddled; and, sure enough, she was straddled now. For my lady could keep no seat otherwise, and so says I to her, if she would play the man for the nonce we should maybe be the sooner out of our troubles. 'Twas then for the first time that I saw there was good blood and spirit to her; for instead of crying out in protest that she could not, or she would not, or that she dared not, says she,—
"Oh, think you so?" and over she cocks her foot with the best grace in the world, and a charming genuflexion to boot. "I fear I trouble you greatly," says she.
But, Lord, with such an one (duchess or doxy, dame or dirty-face) I would have gone to the farthest verge of trouble and made no odds of it. 'Tis spirit that ever has appealed to me.
Well, we were no sooner astir, Calypso pegging slowly along with me at her mouthpiece, than there comes over us a flurry of snow, driving full and hard in our faces, the which blinded me for the time. But when I recovered the mare was gone from the road and had took a step into a hollow. She staggered, and plump goes the lady over her head into the drift. I hauled her forth, breathless as she was, and all she cried out when the wind was in her again was,—
"I fear I did not hold to her properly. I fear I am a bungler."
"Bless your heart, no," says I. "It would have took a king's regiment to have sat that fall. You do mighty well," said I, "and I'd wring his nose that said no to that;" with which I assisted her once more into the saddle.
What with the drift and the darkness, and the squalls of snow, it was an hour and more before we reached the inn which lay on the road to Bollingham. Arrived here I rapped out the landlord, who was surprised to see me returned—"not but what you are wise," says he. But when he saw the lady and heard my tale he was, being a decent kindly fellow, all of a bustle. Madam was all a-wet from her sojourn in the snow, to say nothing of her tumble, and so she was set afore a great fire in the ingle to dry herself, which she did with sincere appreciation, the while the host prepared supper. She sat there, her hands extended, drawing in deep breaths of comfort from the grateful blaze, and I watched her. Twas the first I had seen of her face, which was of a delicate beauty, pink from the whipping wind, and crowned with disordered hair. I judged she was of a quality deemed proper in courts, and she was young withal. Presently says she, looking round at me with bright soft eyes,—