'Bless my soul!' exclaimed Mr. Flamank. 'One cannot be too thankful for mercies. Actually John Herring made me—me run after this cut-throat murderer—and yet I remain unhurt; whereas John Herring, who takes up the chase, is killed. A really startling interposition of Providence.'
'He be not dead,' said Joyce, fiercely; 'I shan't let 'n die, I shan't.'
Then the waggon, moved on.
'Where be West Wyke to?' asked the driver.
'I'll tell'y where to stop,' answered Joyce. 'Go right on till I shout Wo!'
She allowed him to proceed past the turning over the turf leading to West Wyke, and then she suddenly gave the signal to halt.
'The road over the moor be too bad to travel wi' wheels,' said Joyce. 'You bide here, and I will fetch vaither, and he'll carry the maister home, along of I.'
Joyce was not long gone before she returned with old Cobbledick, carrying a hurdle. With the carter's help, Herring was lifted on to it; and then Joyce and her father departed over the moor, without another word to the man, conveying Herring between them.
'They be rum folk in these parts,' said Jim White, the waggoner, 'not to offer a fellow a glass of cyder, and the hosses all of a lather with the journey.'
CHAPTER XXXII