"Peter!" he called, "Peter! Peter! Peter!" He tried to imitate the note and voice Peter's master had used on the day of the picnic. "Peter, good boy, come here." The horse's ears twitched. He had heard him, and his pace slackened. He was really a friendly, tame creature, but a specially violent clap of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning which had shot across his eyes, had, for the moment, given him such a shock that he had lost his usually sober senses, and flown panic-stricken from the neighbourhood of such horrors. He was not accustomed either to a side-saddle, nor to so gentle a hand upon his mouth.
Already, though, his fears were vanishing, and he was longing for the sound of a human voice and the grip of a hand on his bridle.
"Peter! Peter!" Mr. Carlyle called again. Peter turned swiftly in answer to the call, caught his hoof in the dangling bridle, and fell heavily on the soft, wet turf.
This gave the Vicar his chance. Peter was soon on his feet again, but his bridle was gripped firmly enough now.
"Peter, you ought to be ashamed of yourself." Peter was. He stood beside his captor shamed, shaken, genuinely distressed. "I wish you could show me where you dropped your rider, Peter." Peter only flapped his ears, and threw up his head.
Mr. Carlyle got on his back, in order to get a wider view. "I suppose he has come from his home; perhaps I had better go in that direction."
Peter seemed to agree with this decision, and, with apparently recovered spirits, walked on willingly. The Vicar's spirits, though, did not recover so lightly. His eyes swept the moor anxiously, but in vain, and his fears increased, for a rider who had been not much hurt would surely appear soon, coming in search of her horse. If she did not appear it might forebode the very worst of disasters. For more than half an hour they searched, but vainly, then suddenly, far ahead of him, almost out of the ground it seemed, a small white fluttering something appeared, and he quickened Peter's pace to a gallop.
It was Irene who had been Peter's rider, Irene who, recovering from the shock and blow of the fall, had struggled up, and waved her handkerchief in the desperate hope of attracting someone.
She was scratched, bruised and bleeding, and wet to the skin; but her concern was all for Peter, and her one feeling was joy at seeing him alive and sound. "Oh, I am so glad!" she cried in a rapture of relief. "Oh, I am so glad—I could never have gone home and faced grandfather if anything had happened to Peter." Then suddenly she broke down and burst into tears. "Oh, I am so thankful," she sobbed. "I have been nearly crazy with fear!"
"But, my poor child, what about yourself? Peter is all right, but you are hurt—your face is bleeding, you—you——" He could not tell her what a pitiable little object she was. One of her eyes was swelled, and fast discolouring; on her forehead a great lump stood out, scratches decorated her cheek, from which the blood still oozed.