while John and I were engaging them.  I heard the bullets tell upon the coach, and I heard the girls screaming lustily.  I feared they had been wounded, but you may be sure I had no leisure to learn the truth.  Three against two was terrible odds in the dark, where brute force and luck go for more than skill.  We fought desperately for a while, but in the end we succeeded in beating off the highwaymen.  When we had finished with the knaves who had attacked us, we quickly overtook our party.  We were calling Dawson to stop when we saw the coach, careening with the slant of the hill, topple over, and fall to the bottom of a little precipice five or six feet in height.  We at once dismounted and jumped down the declivity to the coach, which lay on its side, almost covered by drifted snow.  The pole had broken in the fall, and the horses were standing on the road.  We first saw Dawson.  He was swearing like a Dutchman, and when we had dragged him from his snowy grave, we opened the coach door, lifted out the ladies, and seated them upon the uppermost side of the coach.  They were only slightly bruised, but what they lacked in bruises they made up in fright.  In respect to the latter it were needless for me to attempt a description.

We can laugh about it now and speak lightly concerning the adventure, and, as a matter of truth, the humor of the situation appealed to me even then.  But imagine yourself in the predicament, and you will save me the trouble of setting forth its real terrors.

The snow was up to our belts, and we did not at first know how we were to extricate the ladies.  John and Dawson, however, climbed to the road, and I carried Dorothy and Madge to the little precipice where the two men at the top lifted them from my arms.  The coach was broken, and when I climbed to the road, John, Dawson, and myself held a council of war against the storm.  Dawson said we were three good miles from Rowsley, and that he knew of no house nearer than the village at which we could find shelter.  We could not stand in the road and freeze, so I got the blankets and robes from the coach and made riding pads for Dorothy and Madge.  These we strapped upon the broad backs of the coach horses, and then assisted the ladies to mount.  I walked by the side of Madge, and John performed the same agreeable duty for Dorothy.  Dawson went ahead of us, riding my horse and leading John’s; and thus we travelled to Rowsley, half dead and nearly frozen, over the longest three miles in the kingdom.

John left us before entering the village, and took the road to Rutland, intending to stop for the night at a cottage two miles distant, upon his father’s estates.  I was to follow Sir John when the ladies were safely lodged at The Peacock.

It was agreed between us that nothing should be said concerning the presence of any man save Dawson and myself in our party.