Judith and the grey mare, following close on Bill Kirby's heels, got over neatly, and were away after him over the top of the hill before Christian's turn came. The ancient and skilled Harry addressed himself to the task with elderly caution, feeling his way with suspicion, creeping across with slow-poised feet, and was so delicate over the effort, that Larry's cob, following too close on him, was checked at a critical moment. He struggled, slipped, recovered, found himself still hindered by Harry, and, with a final stagger, lost footing altogether, and rolled over.
Cottingham, subsequently recounting the incident, declared that _he_ thought, he did, that the young genel'm was done for; but "that little Miss Christeen--she's a nummer she is!--she off'n 'er 'oss before I fair sees what's 'appened, and she ketches the young chap by the 'ed, and pulls 'im clear! Her did indeed! A lill' gurl like what she is too! Her's wuth more than ten big men!"
What a singular encomium, "a nummer" might mean, was a fact known only to Cottingham, but it was incontrovertibly Christian's eel-like swiftness of action that had saved Larry from a worse accident. Small and slender though she was, she was wiry, and she had the gift of being able instantly to concentrate every force of mind and body upon a desired point--a rare gift and a precious one.
But when she and Larry, dripping and hatless, were hauled into safety by other helpers, less swift but more powerful, it was found that Larry had not come out of the Feorish unscathed. His left hand was hanging, helpless, with a broken wrist.
The hunt swept on after the manner of hunts, full of sympathy, having, as to one man, contributed a silver cigarette case, with which another, a resourceful medical student, had improvised a splint, but feeling, not without relief, that they could do nothing more; feeling also, with depression, that the Lord only knew where the devils had run to by this time, but that that couldn't be helped; with which philosophic reflection and many valedictory shouts of commiseration, the last of them had vanished over the hill.
The unfortunate Charles restored to guardianship, now found himself with Miss Judith, lost; Miss Christian soaked to the skin, eight miles or more from her home; Master Larry ditto, in much pain, no nearer to his, and unable to mount his horse, which latter would have to be led over a succession of fences to the nearest road; (and no matter with what distinction an elderly coachman can drive a pair of horses on a road, it is very far from being the same thing to get a pair of horses across a country). It was, therefore, a very gloomy party that set face for the nearest highway. The intricacies of procedure at each jump need not here be dealt with, but it may be said that a more thankful man than Charles, when he again felt the good macadam under his feet, is not often met with. He would at that moment have said that he could not have felt an intenser gratitude than suffused him as he saw his convoy safe off the hills; but there he would have over-stated the case, since, scarcely five minutes after the road had been reached, an even more supreme thankfulness was his. Coming rapidly towards him, he beheld Dr. Mangan's outside car, and upon it was the large person of Dr. Mangan himself.