“She’ll come back invisible, Phin,” called Hiram, swirling his whip above his head to uncoil the lash.
“You’re not going after that girl in any such outlandish fashion,” roared the Squire, running from the door-stoop.
“Don’t bother us,” shouted Hiram, and he cracked the lash over the heads of the rearing leaders. “We’ve got less than four hours to make twenty-five miles and there ain’t time for conversation. You for your job, me for mine.”
The Squire was obliged to leap back out of the way of the plunging horses. But he ran after the van as it roared down into the road, yelling appeal and protest.
“We’ll fix it,” Hiram shrieked over his shoulder as the horses began to gallop.
The Squire stopped in the middle of the road, shaking his fists after the turn-out as it went around the bend at the alders in a cloud of dust.
“Fix it, you damnable fool!” he gasped in his impotent rage. “You’ll fix it forever. Of all the infernal idiots in the way of a brother that a man ever had! Roaring through Square Harbour with a circus cart and four horses! Oh! Oh!”
In his fury—the Look fury of which he was so ashamed—he kicked a stone out of the soil, picked it up and cast it after the distant van, which was now far out of sight.
“A secret errand,” he muttered, blushing at his juvenile act. “It will be a wonder if he doesn’t get out hand-bills.”
Avery’s voice behind him made him turn quickly.