Miles felt the white body tremble under him, as in terror. With a snort and a swoop, the mare plunged uncontrollably along the brow of the hill, head down, switching herself double from side to side, as a fish fights in a net. Losing his seat, Miles caught it again by blind miracle, just as she spun dizzily and reared in lightning estrapades. Hereditary instinct, the spirit of the cavalry captain, his father, served him well. Sick with fear—not of a broken neck, but of humiliation before that girl—he clung as in a desperate dream. He felt the back hump like a dromedary’s, the close-bunched hoofs pound the earth with quick, disintegrating jars. Some one shouted. He ducked. A hawthorn bough furiously swept his back. The bole of an elm flashed past, and he was conscious of powdered bark smeared on a smarting leg. Then they fought it out, raging mare and raging rider, till with a balk that nearly shot him over her neck, Jubilee stopped dead, and, trembling as when she began, seemed gradually to sink beneath him. He kicked out of stirrups, swung over, fell with a crushing pain in one ankle, and, through an interminable leisure in which he tasted sour sorrel, rolled clear from the flourishing hoofs.
Roaring blasphemy, the showman had snatched the bridle, and as the white mare rose, was beating her over the head with a cudgel.
“Stop that!” cried Miles, from the ground.
“Roll, will ye?” screamed Abram, showering blows insanely. “Roll, God nourish ye! Never learnt that trick o’ me! Roll, ye—Begin that once, an’ my theayter’s ruined! Roll, ye—”
The woman raised Miles to his feet. “Not hurt, are you? Poor boy! Much hurt?”
“No. Make him stop that!” he whimpered. A white-hot cord tied tighter round his ankle. He limped forward, but the woman seized and carried him toward the fence.
“Go home quick!” she whispered. “I know him. He’ll come at you or me next, if you vex him now. Can you walk? Quick, then, go home.—Here, Anna, see he gets back safe.”
Miles found himself in the orchard, dragging painfully, easing his weight by the gun. At each halt the girl eyed him strangely. On the slope above the house he suddenly lay down.
“Rest a minute,” he explained through clinched teeth. “I live down there—you needn’t come.” The tawny hillside swam. His foot seemed to shrink and swell, with alternating torture.
“A thorn’s in your cheek,” said the girl. “No, the other side.” He pulled the sharp point out mechanically. “Didn’t that hurt? What’s your name?”