Running upstairs to see if Frog Farm was safe, she was relieved to find it smoking imperturbably, though up to its bedrooms in water, and a glimpse of Caleb at the casement serenely lowering a bucket into the flood was still more reassuring. But she was thunderstruck when her grandfather gleefully pointed out that the bridge to Long Bradmarsh had broken down, almost as in her dream, and she half looked round for the coronation coach. Doubtless, she felt, surveying the broken bankside arch, which lay in uncouth masses impeding the current and sending it swirling through the still-standing central arch, the breach hard by in the dyke had helped to sap the bridge, and she was glad to see this breach being already repaired by her friends, Bidlake and Ravens, with a gang of labourers, for they were clearly heaven-sent minions for the expedition to Frog Farm.
But if she sang on as she cleared the breakfast things, her grandfather was in still higher feather. Not only had the morning brought to him as to Jinny a keener realization of the collapse of their mushroom rival, but he had discovered floating near the bridge a black horse which he persisted was the second horse, and though Jinny maintained it was the same horse, the old man had more faith in heaven. So occupied was he in gloating over this distant horse swirling against the ruined brickwork, with its stiffened leg pointing skywards, that he had not seen Methusalem harnessing under his nose, and it was not till Nip started his hysteric prelude to departure that Mr. Quarles was aroused to Jinny’s proceedings.
“Ye can’t goo out in the flood,” he called down in alarm.
“It’s Tuesday,” she called up. The blood was dancing gaily in her veins. The frosty morning air was fresh and invigorating. She was young and unconquered. The long anxiety was over. Methusalem had survived the coach, even as he had survived the murderous wiles of Elijah! She put her horn to her lips and blew a challenge to the world.
“But there bain’t no bridge,” cried her grandfather.
“Daniel Quarles hasn’t been downed by a coach,” she said, “and he isn’t going to be downed by a flood.”
“No, by God, he ain’t!” cried the old Carrier delightedly. “Oi’ll goo round miles by the next bridge sooner than miss my day. And they false customers’ll ha’ to come to me on their hands and knees ere Oi takes ’em back. Goo to the coach, ye warmints, Oi’m done wi’ ye! And Oi wish ye joy of your fine black hosses all a-jinglin’ and a-tinklin’. He, he, he! Make muddles, do Oi? Oi never made no muddle like that, stablin’ my hosses with the frogs. Do ye give a squint at that carcase, Jinny, as ye pass by and ye’ll see it ain’t the one but the tother.”
“And do ye don’t squint into that spy-glass no more,” she called up in merry earnest. “Do, ye’ll get a glass eye.”
He laughed. “No fear. Have they writ ye yet about Sidrach’s stone?”
Annoyed with herself at having called up that memory, she feigned deafness. “You’ll find partridge for your dinner,” she called out, and flicking playfully at Methusalem she burst forth joyously: “There is Hey——”