piece of
string that had somehow got its other end fastened to a nut underneath
the coach. As quick as thought he whipped out his handkerchief and
looped it on to the string. Then Heathcote whipped out his handkerchief
and looped it on to Dick's, and between them the two held on grimly, and
tried to fancy their troubles were at an end.

The support of a piece of stray string at the tail of a coach,
supplemented by two pocket-handkerchiefs, may be grateful, but for
practical purposes it is at best a flimsy stay, and had it not been for
occasional hills at which to breathe, our heroes might have found it out
at once.

As it was, they were carried three or four miles on their way by the
purely moral support of their holdfast until the last of the hills was
climbed, and the long steady slope which led down to Templeton opened
before the travellers and reminded the horses of corn and stable. Then
a trot began, which put the actual support of the extemporised cable to
the test.

Our heroes, worn out already, could not, try all they would, keep it
slack. Every step it became tauter and tauter, until at last you might
have played a tune upon it. They made one gallant effort to relieve the
strain, but, alas! it was no good. There was a crack of the whip ahead,
the horses, full of their coming supper, gave a bound forward, and that
moment on the lonely road, five miles from home, sprawled Heathcote,
with Dick in his lap, and two knotted pocket-handkerchiefs in the dust
at their feet. They had no breath left to shout, no energy to overtake,
so they sat there panting, watching the coach vanish into the night and
humbly wondering--what next?

"Here's a soak!" said Heathcote at last, recovering speech and slowly
untying his handkerchief from the cable in order to mop his face.

"Yes," said Dick, getting off his friend's lap and looking dismally down
the road; "our ride home didn't come off after all."

"We came off, though!" said Heathcote. But he corrected himself as he
saw Dick wearily round upon him. "I mean--I say, what must we do?"

"Stump it," said Dick. "It's about five miles."

Heathcote whistled.

"Pity we didn't cheek it into our own coach," said he. "I say, Dick,
what a row there'll be!"

"Of course there will," said Dick. "Have you only just found that out?
Come along; we'll be late."

Considering it was eight o'clock and they were yet five miles from home,
this last observation was sagacious.