'Anyway you'll see it all right as soon as you come to it, and you go straight till then.'
'Yes, yes,' said Rosamond, anxious to see him off. 'Take care of the money, Bob, and the first time we go to see your grandmother I shall expect to hear from you that it's all right. Now, run off as fast as you can and I will too.'
He started at a good pace, and as Miss Mouse trotted in the opposite direction, from time to time she looked over her shoulder, till the ever-lessening black speck that she knew to be Bob had altogether melted into the gloom. Bob's eyes were keener than hers; as he ran, he too kept glancing backwards to watch the little figure of the child towards whom his wild but true heart was bursting with gratitude. He distinguished her for some distance, and when he lost sight of her it seemed to be rather suddenly, and for a moment or two, hurried though he was, he stood still with a slight misgiving.
'I saw her half a minute ago,' he thought. 'She must have set to running very fast. I hope nothing's wrong. She can't have fallen and hurt herself,' and at the mere idea he had to put force on himself not to rush back again to see. 'Oh no, it can't be that—why, if she'd hurt herself, she'd have called out and I'd have heard her. It's got so still—and oh, my, it's cold. I shouldn't wonder if it started snowing before morning.'
And off set Bob again, with a lighter heart than if he had yielded to his impulse and run back, setting his 'missus's' scolding at defiance, to see that no misadventure had happened to his generous little lady.
AND—WERE THOSE SNOW-FLAKES AGAIN?
Alas! this was what had happened—in the gloom, fast turning into night, even out here on the open ground it was impossible to see clearly where one was going. It was even more dangerous in a sense than if it had been quite dark, for then Miss Mouse would have stepped more cautiously. But as all was open before her she ran fearlessly, forgetting that here and there across the white sandy path the low-growing little plants which mingled with the heather and bracken sent a trail across to the other side, in which nothing was easier than to catch one's foot. Once or twice she nearly did so, but no harm coming of it, she paid no attention to the momentary trip up, and ran on again fearlessly, even faster than before. So that when a worse catch came—a long, sturdy branch sprawling right across, which clutched at the dainty little foot, refusing to let it go—she fell, poor darling, with a good deal of violence, twisting her ankle as she did so in a way which hurt her terribly. At first she thought she had broken her leg, but the pain went off a little after she had lain still for a few minutes, and she began to take heart again and managed to get up. It was really not a bad sprain—scarcely a sprain at all—but she was tired and cold and a little frightened, for it was now so dark, and the fall had jarred her all over; her head felt giddy and confused.
What happened was not, I think, to be wondered at—poor Miss Mouse took a wrong path, and instead of keeping straight on in the line Bob had started her, she turned, without knowing it, almost directly sideways. For two of the little paths crossed each other, as ill-luck would have it, close to where she had fallen.