"Down, Juno!--I beg your pardon a million times; get down, you bitch! How shall I ever apologize? Confound you, get down," said an agitated voice above me; and looking up I espied the red-haired stranger of the railway, dressed in a most conspicuous shooting-costume, white hat and all, whose dogs had been the means of bringing me thus suddenly to the earth, and on whom I was now dependent for succour and support till I should be able to reach home.
In such an emergency my new friend was not half so confused and shy as I should have expected. He seemed to summon all his energies to consider what was best to be done; and as my foot pained me considerably when I tried to walk (particularly down hill), he made no more ado, but lifted me carefully in his arms, and proceeded incontinently to carry me off in the direction of Dangerfield Hall, where he seemed intuitively to know I was at present residing.
It was, to say the least of it, an unusual situation. A man I had never seen but once before in my life--and here was I lying in his arms (precious weight he must have found me!) and looking up in his face like a child in its nurse's, and the usages of society making it incumbent on us both to attempt a sort of indifferent conversation about the weather and the country and the beauty of the scenery, which the juxtaposition of our respective faces rendered ludicrous in the extreme.
"A tempting day for a walk, Miss--ah--ah" (he didn't know my name--how should he?--and was now beginning to get very red, partly from the return of his constitutional shyness and partly from the severity of his exertions). "I hope your foot does not pain you quite so much; be good enough to lean a little more this way." Poor man, how his arms must have ached! Whilst I replied somewhat in this fashion, "Thank you, I'm better; I shall soon be able to walk, I think; this is indeed a lovely country. Don't you find me very heavy?" "I think I could carry you a good many miles," he said quietly; and then seemed so shocked at such an avowal that he hardly opened his lips again, and put me down the very first time I asked him, and offered me his arm with an accession of confusion that made me feel quite awkward myself. Truth to tell, my ankle was not sprained, only _twisted_; and when the immediate pain wore off I was pretty sound again, and managed, with the assistance of my new acquaintance's arm, to make a very good walk of it. So we plodded on quite sociably towards the Hall, and my friend took leave of me at the farm with a polite bow and a sort of hesitating manner that most shy men possess, and which would lead one to infer they have always got something more to say that never is said. I knew I should be well scolded if I avowed my accident to any of the family; besides, I did not quite fancy facing all the inquiries as to how I got home, and Cousin Amelia's sneers about errant damsels and wandering knights; so I stole quietly up to my room, bathed my foot in eau-de-Cologne, and remained _perdue_ till dinner-time, in despite of repeated messages from my aunts and the arrival of Cousin John.