"Was that an accident?" I asked an old man who was lighting his pipe. The venerable individual paused, looked at the pipe, looked at the pieces of the cart, and looked at me. Then he rubbed the right side of his head with the palm of his right hand.
"Well, yes, it was," he admitted, in an accent I cannot reproduce; but added, in a tone that suggested that mishaps of a similar character occurred on the average every five minutes; "but that accident happened near an hour ago."
This intelligence rather damped my ardour, and I immediately got off the cart and insisted upon leading the brute down the next hill. The animal protested, and shook its head. Remembering its possible tooth-ache, I treated it with increased courtesy, telling it to "Gee-up" and "be a good horse." I am sorry to say that the creature did not seem inclined to acknowledge my kindness.
Having come to a level piece of road, I once more mounted into the Lowther Arcade dog-cart, and urged on my partially wild career. I had passed a four-winged post at cross roads, and had followed the sign pointing to "Babbleton." I had got safely up to a farm-house, having restrained en route an inclination on the part of my horse to commit suicide by jumping over the parapet of a bridge into a small mountain torrent.
"Is this the way to East Babbleton?" I asked a rather cheery, rosy-cheeked dame, who had been watching our manœuvres with a kindly smile, not entirely exempt from good-natured apprehension.
"No, this is not the road, Master," she returned, in the same unapproachable dialect. "You ought to have borne to the left when you came to the cross-roads."
Seeing that I had to go back, I seized each of the reins and called upon my beast of a horse to make an effort. The noble animal answered bravely to the call, and managed to turn round on a space of turf about the size of a waggon wheel. It was really a very clever performance, and had it been seen by Mr. Ritchie, I fancy would have secured for us a lucrative engagement for a "side show" at the Royal Westminster Aquarium.
"Well, that was a shave surely," said the dame of the cheery countenance; "when I saw your off wheel go up in the air and hang over the ditch I thought it would be all up with ye."
Accepting the compliment with dignified geniality, I asked our fair critic if she could bait our horse.
"Well, I can give him a handful of hay," said the lady; "but I would not take him out of the shafts for worlds. If I untied him I could not put him together again."