'What's wrong?' cried Dick. 'Did the car hit you?'
''Twor comin' a main sight too fast,' cried the old man, 'an' just as it passed, the noise o' it med Jimmy start round an' swerve a bit, an' suthin' stickin' out caught him on the shoulder an' knocked him into the ditch as if he'd been hit wi' a cannon-ball.'
'And they never stopped or asked what was the matter?' cried Dick.
'Not they,' said the old man; 'on they went as fast as iver.'
'What cads!' cried Dick. 'Did you see the number, Chippy?'
'No,' replied the Raven. 'Too much dust.'
'There were four men in it,' went on the old man, 'an' they looked back at me, but they niver pulled up.'
The scouts were loud in their anger against the inconsiderate motorists, and they were perfectly right. The truth was that the men had fled in fear. A chauffeur had taken his master's car without permission to give some of his fellow servants a run, and they dreaded detection, which would get them into trouble at home. However, the car had gone, and its number was not known, and within half a mile there was a meeting of cross roads where the motorists could turn aside without passing through the village. The comrades gave their attention to the matter immediately in hand, and helped the old man to unharness the struggling donkey and draw the little cart back.
The poor beast did not attempt to rise when it was freed. There was a cut on the shoulder where it had been struck, but the wound was not bleeding much, and the old man did not think the hurt was so bad as it proved to be.
'S'pose we tried to get Jimmy on his legs,' he proposed, and the two scouts sprang to help him. They were trying to raise the poor brute when a gamekeeper with his gun under his arm came through a gate near at hand.