“Not so fast, young chum!” exclaimed the man. “You promised me a couple of nobblers, and engaged me to call a porter. I’m not going to let you off so easily! Down with the tin, or come and stand the treat!”
The Gilpins were rather more inclined to laugh at the man than to be angry; certainly they had no intention of paying him. Perhaps their looks expressed this. He was becoming more and more blustering, when a cry from several people was heard; and looking up the street, an open carriage with a pair of horses was seen dashing down towards the water at a furious rate. There was no coachman on the box, but that there was some one in the carriage James discovered by seeing a shawl fluttering from the side, and by hearing a piercing shriek, uttered apparently as if then, for the first time, the lady had discovered the imminence of her danger. In a few seconds the carriage would have been dragged over the quay and into water many fathoms deep.
“Stop the horses! Fifty—a hundred—five hundred pounds to whoever will do it!” shouted a man’s voice from within.
Right and left the people were flying out of the way of the infuriated steeds. There was not manhood enough left apparently in the idle, dissipated-looking loiterers who were standing near. Two or three took their hands out of their pockets and ran forward, but quickly returned as the horses came galloping by them. The young Gilpins heard the gentleman’s offer.
“We don’t want that!” cried James. “Come on, Arthur!”
They sprang towards the carriage, one on each side; and then turning, ran in the direction it was going, grasping the head-stalls of the animals as they passed, but allowing themselves to be carried on some way, their weight however telling instantly on the galloping steeds.
Sam Green had remained standing by the luggage, having made up his mind that the suspicious-looking stranger would decamp with it, if left unguarded. When, however, he saw that the horses, in spite of his young friends’ efforts, would drag the carriage over, unless stopped, he started up, with his hands outstretched before him, uttering with stentorian voice a true English “Woh! woho!” and then, with an arm from which an ox would dislike to receive a blow, he seized the heads of the horses, already trying to stop themselves, and forced them back from the edge stones of the quay, which they had almost reached. Undoubtedly the horses had been broken in by a trainer from the old country: Sam Green’s “Woh! woho!” acted like magic; and the pacified though trembling animals allowed themselves to be turned round, with their heads away from the water. While the elder Gilpin and Sam held them, Arthur ran to open the door, that the lady and gentleman might alight. The one was of middle age, the other very young—father and daughter, Arthur surmised.
“My brave lads, you have nobly won the reward I promised,” said the gentleman, as he lifted out his daughter, who, pale and agitated, still, by the expression of her countenance, showed the gratitude she felt.
“I am sure that my brother and I require no reward for doing our duty,” answered Arthur, blushing as he spoke. “Besides, without the aid of that other lad, our fellow-passenger, we should probably have failed.”
“What! I took you for labouring youths, I beg your pardon,” said the gentleman, giving a glance of surprise at him.