“It’s time to go, boys,” said Mr. Burton, with a sigh.
The words snapped the invisible thread that had held the children in exquisite captivity, and they were boys again in an instant, though not without a wistful glance at the Eden they were leaving.
“Now, Uncle Harry,” said Budge, “there’ always one thing that’s got to be done before a picnic an’ a ride is just right, an’ that is for me to drive the horses.”
“An’ me to hold de whip,” said Toddie.
“Oh, I think you’ve done your whole duty to-day—both of you,” said Mr. Burton, instinctively grasping his lines more tightly.
“But we don’t,” said Budge, “an’ we know. Goin’ up the mountain papa always lets us do it an’ he says the horses always know the minute we take ’em in hand.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Well, here’s a hill; take hold!”
Budge seized the reins, and Toddie took the whip from its socket. The noble animals at once sustained their master’s statement, for they began to prance in a manner utterly unbecoming quiet family horses. Mrs. Burton clutched her husband’s arm, and Mr. Burton prudently laid his own hand upon the loop of the reins.
The crest of the hill was reached, Mr. Burton took the reins from the hand of his nephew, but Toddie made one final clutch at departing authority by giving the off horse a spirited cut. Tom Lawrence would never own a horse that needed a touch of the whip, though that emblem of authority always adorned his carriage. When, therefore, this unfamiliar attention greeted them the horse who was struck became gloriously indignant, and his companion sympathized with him and the heels of both animals shot high in the air and then, at a pace which nothing could arrest, the horses dashed down the rocky, rugged road. The top of a boulder, whose side had been cleanly washed, lay in the path of the carriage, and Mr. Burton gave the opposite rein a hasty twist about his hand as he tried to draw to the side of the road. But what was a boulder, that equine indignation should regard it? The stone was directly in front and in line of the wheels. Mrs. Burton prepared for final dissolution by clasping her husband tightly with one arm, while with the other she clutched at the reins. The boys started the negro hymn, “Oh, De Rocky Road to Zion,” the wheels struck the boulder, four people described curves in air and ceased only when their further progress was arrested by some bushes at the roadside. The carriage righted itself and was hurried home by the horses, while a party of pedestrians, two of whom were very merry and two utterly reticent, completed their journey on foot, pausing only to bathe scratched faces at a brookside. And when, an hour later, two little boys had been prepared for bed, and their temporary guardians were alternately laughing and complaining over the incidents of the day, a voice was heard at the head of the stairs, saying:
