She roused herself with a low shuddering sigh, but Cyril did not allow her to bear the strain unaided. There was scarcely a man in Europe who could talk more brilliantly than he could when he chose, and this afternoon he threw himself into the breach as though his whole aim in life was to enthral his hearers by his conversation. The anxious look faded gradually from the Queen’s eyes, the colour came back to her face, and before she had time to think she was engaged in an animated war of words. Cyril was instructing her in English ways, in case of their meeting any travelled official who knew England, and she, in self-defence, was displaying the knowledge of them which she already possessed, and which, if extensive, was certainly also peculiar, being derived largely from the didactic novels of half a century ago, which she had read in German translations. Thanks in some degree to a prejudice against England on the part of her mother, and also to her own past dislike of Cyril, she had no acquaintance whatever with modern English literature, and despised what she knew of English customs, so that there was ample material for conversation and also for controversy. They talked almost unceasingly for hours, interrupted only by occasional changes of horses, and by the more frequent interpellations of the little King, who listened eagerly for the illustrative anecdotes, but rejected mere information with scorn, and could only be kept in a good temper by being allowed to walk up the hills with Paschics and race down them behind the carriage. This healthy exercise tired him out at last, and he fell asleep, leaning against his mother, while the Queen and Cyril continued their discourse in lowered tones. Both were so deeply interested that it was only an irrepressible yawn from Fräulein von Staubach, for which she apologised with extreme contrition, which aroused them at last to the fact that it was already growing dusk.
“It must be nearly six o’clock,” said Cyril. “Ask the driver whether we have much farther to go, Carlo.”
“He says that we have passed the last hill, sir,” responded Paschics, after conferring with his companion upon the box, “and that there is only now a level stretch of good road between us and our stopping-place.”
“Ask him whether he can’t get a little more speed out of his horses, then. Mrs Weston is beginning to feel very tired.”
The driver whipped up the horses in obedience to the suggestion, and the carriage was going on its way at a respectable pace, when there was a sudden ominous crack. The horses swerved half across the road, and the carriage lurched violently and then seemed to settle down in front, throwing its occupants into a heap. Cyril heard the driver invoke a malediction upon a certain defective axle-tree, and was conscious that Paschics threw himself from the box, and rushed to the heads of the startled horses; but his own duty left him no time to do anything until he had extricated his frightened companions from the medley of luggage and rugs which had overwhelmed them, and set them in safety at the side of the road. Both the ladies were very much shaken, and the little King was crying lustily; but as soon as Cyril had ascertained that none of them had received any actual injury he returned to the carriage, which Paschics was examining with the aid of one of the lamps, while the driver held the horses. A very cursory examination was sufficient to convince all the three that the axle-tree, which had been spliced, braced, and strengthened many times already, was quite beyond remedy with the means at their disposal, which amounted solely to the ropes doing duty as harness, and the straps upon the baggage.
“I suppose it is out of the question to hope to find a wheelwright anywhere about,” said Cyril; “but we ought to be able to get hold of a blacksmith or carpenter who could patch this up sufficiently for us to reach the town. Ask the driver whether there is any village about here, Carlo.”
Paschics interrogated the driver, and returned to Cyril. “He says that there is no village nearer than the town, sir; but there is a large farmhouse about half a mile away across the fields. We could reach it by a cart-track which turns off from the road about a dozen yards farther on, and they would be able to give us accommodation for the night, besides helping to mend the carriage.”
“Does he think it impossible to reach the town to-night?”
Paschics translated the question, and the surly answer, “The carriage will take so long to mend, sir, that it would be impossible unless we went on travelling until after midnight, and that he will not do. He is afraid of evil spirits.”
“Then I suppose we must make the best of a bad job,” said Cyril. “Anything like our persistent ill-luck on this journey I never saw. Well, we must drag the carriage to the side of the road, and mount the ladies on the horses. You can lead one and I the other, and he shall go in front with the lamp and show us the way to the farm.”