All the long swift while, without power of thought, I clung to her crest and shoulders, and was proud of holding on so long, though sure of being beaten. Then in her fury at feeling me still, she rushed at another device for it, and leaped the wide water-trough sideways across, to and fro, till no breath was left in me. The hazel boughs took me too hard in the face, and the tall dog-briers got hold of me, and the ache of my back was like crimping a fish, till I longed to give it up, thoroughly beaten, and lie there and die in the cresses.
But there came a shrill whistle from up the home hill, where the people had hurried to watch us, and the mare stopped as if with a bullet, then set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent, and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning.
I sat up again, but my strength was all spent, and no time left to recover it; and though she rose at our gate like a bird, I tumbled off into the soft mud.
"Well done, lad," Mr. Faggus said, good-naturedly; for all were now gathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and miry, and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallen upon my head, which is of uncommon substance); "not at all bad work, my boy; we may teach you to ride by and by, I see; I thought not to see you stick on so long—"
"I should have stuck on much longer, sir, if her sides had not been wet. She was so slippery—"
"Boy, thou art right. She hath given many the slip. Ha! ha! Vex not, Jack, that I laugh at thee. She is like a sweetheart to me, and better than any of them be. It would have gone to my heart if thou hadst conquered. None but I can ride my Winnie mare."
"Foul shame to thee, then, Tom Faggus," cried mother, coming up suddenly, and speaking so that all were amazed, having never seen her wrathful, "to put my boy, my boy, across her, as if his life were no more than thine! A man would have taken thy mad horse and thee, and flung them both into a horse pond—ay, and what's more, I'll have it done now, if a hair of his head is injured. Oh, my boy, my boy! Put up the other arm, Johnny." All the time mother was scolding so, she was feeling me and wiping me; while Faggus tried to look greatly ashamed, having sense of the ways of women.
"Only look at his jacket, mother!" cried Annie; "and a shilling's worth gone from his smallclothes!"
"What care I for his clothes, thou goose? Take that, and heed thine own a bit." And mother gave Annie a slap which sent her swinging up against Mr. Faggus, and he caught her, and kissed and protected her; and she looked at him very nicely, with great tears in her soft blue eyes.
"Oh, fie upon thee, fie upon thee," cried mother (being yet more vexed with him, because she had beaten Annie); "after all we have done for thee, and saved thy worthless neck—and to try to kill my son for me! Never more shall horse of thine enter stable here, since these be thy returns to me. Small thanks to you, John Fry, I say; much you care for your master's son!"