All the long swift while, without power of thought,
I clung to her crest and shoulders, and dug my nails
into her creases, and my toes into her flank-part,
and was proud of holding on so long, though sure of
being beaten. Then in her fury at feeling me
still, she rushed at another device for it, and leaped
the wide water-trough sideways across, to and fro,
till no breath was left in me. The hazel-boughs
took me too hard in the face, and the tall dog-briers
got hold of me, and the ache of my back was like crimping
a fish; till I longed to give up, thoroughly beaten,
and lie there and die in the cresses. But there
came a shrill whistle from up the home-hill, where
the people had hurried to watch us; and the mare stopped
as if with a bullet, then set off for home with the
speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently.
I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent,
and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting
over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning.
I sat up again, but my strength was all spent, and
no time left to recover it, and though she rose at
our gate like a bird, I tumbled off into the mixen.
[Illustration: 085.jpg Tailpiece]
CHAPTER XI
TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER
[Illustration: 086.jpg Illustrated Capital]
“Well done, lad,” Mr. Faggus said good
naturedly; for all were now gathered round me, as
I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and miry,
and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having
fallen upon my head, which is of uncommon substance);
nevertheless John Fry was laughing, so that I longed
to clout his ears for him; “Not at all bad work,
my boy; we may teach you to ride by-and-by, I see;
I thought not to see you stick on so long—”
“I should have stuck on much longer, sir, if
her sides had not been wet. She was so slippery—”
“Boy, thou art right. She hath given many
the slip. Ha, ha! Vex not, Jack, that I
laugh at thee. She is like a sweetheart to me,
and better, than any of them be. It would have
gone to my heart if thou hadst conquered. None
but I can ride my Winnie mare.”
“Foul shame to thee then, Tom Faggus,”
cried mother, coming up suddenly, and speaking so
that all were amazed, having never seen her wrathful;
“to put my boy, my boy, across her, as if his
life were no more than thine! The only son of
his father, an honest man, and a quiet man, not a
roystering drunken robber! A man would have taken
thy mad horse and thee, and flung them both into horse-pond—ay,
and what’s more, I’ll have it done now,
if a hair of his head is injured. Oh, my boy,
my boy! What could I do without thee? Put
up the other arm, Johnny.” All the time
mother was scolding so, she was feeling me, and wiping
me; while Faggus tried to look greatly ashamed, having
sense of the ways of women.
