CHAPTER IX.
MUTUAL ADMIRATION.
That Henry and Joan were left lying for so many hours among the graves of Ramborough Abbey is not greatly to be wondered at, since, before he had ridden half a mile, Master Willie Hood’s peculiar method of horsemanship resulted in frightening the cob so much that, for the first time in its peaceful career, it took the bit between its teeth and bolted. For a mile or more it galloped on at right angles to the path, while Willie clung to its mane, screaming “Wo!” at the top of his voice, and the seabirds’ eggs with which his pockets were filled, now smashed into a filthy mass, trickled in yellow streams down the steed’s panting sides.
At length the end came. Arriving at a fence, the cob stopped suddenly, and Willie pitched over its head into a bramble bush. By the time that he had extricated himself—unharmed, but very much frightened, and bleeding from a dozen scratches—the horse was standing five hundred yards away, snorting and staring round in an excited manner. Willie, who was a determined youth, set to work to catch it.
Into the details of the pursuit we need not enter: suffice it to say that the sun had set before he succeeded in his enterprise. Mount it again he could not, for the saddle had twisted and one stirrup was lost; nor would he have done so if he could. Therefore he determined to walk into Bradmouth, whither, after many halts and adventures, he arrived about ten o’clock, leading the unwilling animal by the rein.
Now Willie, although exceedingly weary, and somewhat shaken, was a boy of his word; so, still leading the horse, he proceeded straight to the residence of Dr. Childs, and rang the bell.
“I want the doctor, please, miss,” he said to the servant girl who answered it.
“My gracious! you look as if you did,” remarked that young lady, surveying his bleeding countenance.
“’Tain’t for myself, Silly!” he replied. “You ask the doctor to step out, for I don’t trust this here horse to you or anybody: he’s run away once, and I don’t want no more of that there game.”
The girl complied, laughing; and presently Dr. Childs, a middle-aged man with a quiet manner, appeared, and asked what was the matter.
“Please, sir, there’s a gentleman fallen off Ramborough Tower and broken his leg; and Joan Haste she’s with him, and she’s all bloody too—though I don’t know what she’s broken. I was to ask you to go and fetch him with a shutter, and to take things along to tie him up with.”