‘Yes, sir, if you plase, sir, Miss Askam is nearly drowned; leastways, her horse had a very bad tumble in th’ ford. A woman told us you was on afore, and I made bold to call upon you.’
Michael made no answer, but rode back to the ford, as fast as the darkness and the rough road would allow him. His keen eyes, well accustomed to search the country by this doubtful light, discerned the form of a woman on horseback; he saw that she drooped and wavered, and he heard the half-inarticulate cry she gave. He sprang from his horse just in time to catch her as she slipped from her saddle, and in so doing he discovered that her riding habit was dripping, and heavy as lead with the icy water with which it was filled. He wasted no time in wondering how she had got there, but placed her on a large rough boulder, behind which was the trunk of a great old thorn-tree, affording some support to her back, and he felt with one hand in his pocket for his flask, while he held her up with the other.
But before he had got the flask, she had recovered from the momentary powerlessness—it was not a faint—which had overtaken her. She opened her eyes just as William, in a hoarse and terrified whisper, inquired—
‘Is she drowned, sir?’
The youth was standing in a drooping attitude between his mistress’s horse and his own, holding a rein of each, and shivering with fear in every limb. It was on him that Eleanor’s eyes fell as she opened them, and she gave a little convulsive laugh.
‘How queer he looks!’ she said, raising herself, and then stopping, as she saw Michael.
‘There, I thought you were not so very far gone,’ observed the latter with composure, raising himself from his knee and standing over her. ‘It was the cold, and the shock. Not very nice in the middle of the beck, I should fancy, was it?’
‘Oh, horrid!’ said Eleanor, shivering. ‘It is Dr. Langstroth, isn’t it?’
‘It is Dr. Langstroth—yes,’ was the dry reply. ‘You had better drink off this,’ he added, pouring out some of the brandy. ‘Then, if you can get on your horse and ride on at once, you may feel no bad effects.’ He proffered a prosaic flask, in a business-like manner.
Eleanor swallowed the portion presented to her with docility, and stood up.