Wallace and Emily at once rushed to the front door, under the belief that some sudden accident had befallen the lady; but at that moment there was a loud crash, followed by other voices screaming; and in the street, almost in front of the door, a painful and threatening spectacle presented itself.
As afterwards appeared, when the various parties became sufficiently collected to ascertain what had really happened—a carriage had been coming along the street from the left, driven rapidly, but with the pair of fine horses under good command. Just before it reached the house of Judge Owen, one of those troublesome boys who ought all to be sent to Blackwell's Island from the twenty-fifth of June until the tenth of July, had thrown a lighted "snake," or "chaser," under the belly of the near horse as he passed. The animals had already become sufficiently frightened by the fire-crackers thrown under them and the pistols exploding at their ears; and at this crowning atrocity they became altogether unmanageable. Spite of the exertions of the practised driver, they shied violently to the left, breaking into a run at the same moment, and the next instant one side of the carriage was whirled upon the curb, so that the hind axle and wheel caught in the lamp-post, happily not tearing apart or overturning the vehicle, but bringing-up with such a shock that the driver was hurled from his seat and thrown to the pavement between the maddened horses.
This state of affairs had drawn the scream from Aunt Martha, and at the instant when Wallace reached the door the people in the carriage were screaming but incapable of getting out, the horses were plunging to such a degree that they must have broken loose in a moment, after making a wreck of the carriage and trampling to death the poor fellow who lay senseless under their feet. At the same time it seemed worth a dozen lives to plunge into that storm of lashing hoofs and do anything to rescue driver and riders from their peril.
"Help! help! oh, save them!—save the poor man—somebody!" cried both the women on the piazza, at a breath; and "Help! help!" rung in a woman's voice from the inside of the carriage. Fifteen or twenty persons had already rushed up, but no one seemed disposed to risk his own life to save others. The Colonel yet stood on one of the steps of the piazza, apparently spell-bound.
"Colonel Bancker, you wanted to try courage with me a little while ago: take hold of those horses, if you dare!" cried Frank Wallace, rushing to the edge of the stoop. The Colonel neither spoke nor stirred. "Coward!" they heard the young man cry, and the next instant—how, none of them knew—he had rushed in upon the horses' heads, spite of their lashing hoofs, had one or both by the bridles, and in an instant more both horses were flung prostrate and helpless. The imminent danger over, some of the bystanders rushed in to assist, the horses were more firmly secured, and the poor driver was dragged out, bloody and half insensible, but not seriously injured. One ready and daring hand had prevented the certain loss of one life, and the probable loss of more. Fire-crackers, pistols and other abominations had vanished from the street as if by magic; the noise over, the horses came again under command; they were raised, and horses, harness and carriage all found comparatively uninjured; the disabled driver was taken to a neighboring drug-store; one of the bystanders volunteered to drive the carriage to its destination, and took his seat on the box; the owner droned out his thanks from the inside of the carriage, in a fat, wheezy voice, mingled with the sobs of a woman in partial hysterics; and the equipage rolled away almost as suddenly as it had come—perhaps not five minutes having been consumed in the whole affair.
Short as was the time occupied, the Colonel had disappeared. When the trouble was over he was no longer standing on the piazza. Frank Wallace had apparently been once beaten down, and had some soiled spots on his Melton, and a few bruises, but he had received no injury of any consequence. For what violent and even dangerous exertion he had undergone, he was unquestionably more than repaid when Aunt Martha caught him by one hand and said fervently, "God bless you!" and when Emily Owen took the other hand with a warmer and fonder pressure than she had ever given it before, and said—so low that probably not even Aunt Martha heard her: "Good—brave—generous Frank!—I won't scold you again in a twelvemonth!"
All that Frank Wallace replied to both these generous outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the direction supposed to have been taken by the Colonel, and the words:
"Bah! I told you that man was a coward and wouldn't fight! If he had not pluck enough to risk the feet of those two horses, what would he do in the face of a charge of rebel cavalry!"