"Oh, yes! yes! Drive as fast as you can, Kitty!" cried Madam Flynt. Russell Gaylord had been in her Sunday school class, and she loved him.
Kitty flashed a glance back.
"Do you mean it?" she cried. "You do? Oh, you darling Thing! Sit tight, then!"
She bent forward and gave a long, low, clear whistle. It was her private signal to Pilot; it meant that there was a stretch of good road ahead and no one in sight to be shocked or frightened. The black horse whinnied a response, quivered, then sprang forward literally like an arrow from a bow. The Judge looked after him as he shot down the road at a three-minute gait. A momentary smile lightened his sad face.
"Poor Madam Flynt!" he said. "Poor Miss Croly! Come, Marshall!" and they went back into the house.
Remember that for many years Madam Flynt and her companion had been accustomed to Flanagan's horses, whose best speed never exceeded four miles an hour. Dan's steady eight had terrified them at first; though they were now used to it, and felt a certain pride in his swiftness as he trotted sturdily along, never quickening, never slackening, his comfortable stride. Fancy, then, their emotions when, as Miss Croly afterward expressed it in her fervent way, "the lightning was unchained, and they flew with the bolt of Heaven!"
It was three good miles to Dr. Pettijohn's house. Before one mile was passed, the two ladies were perfectly sure that Kitty had lost control of the horse; that he was running away! They had heard the fatal word "Pilot!" Each clutched a side of the carriage with one hand; the other clasped that of her friend.
"Clarissa," murmured Miss Croly, "we are together in death as in life."
"Don't be—oh!" Madam Flynt had meant to say "absurd," but at this moment they turned off the smooth State road into one which led directly past Dr. Pettijohn's house. This road was an ordinary country thoroughfare, which, in our State, in the month of April, is not smooth.
"Oh!" cried Madam Flynt, as they encountered the first "honeypot." (A honeypot is a spot where the frost, coming out of the ground, leaves behind it unplumbed depths of liquid mud.) Down went one wheel, up went the other.