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.

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CHAPTER XI

TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER

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"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."