ay, considering it
useless to press the point; "I'm afraid you'll regret it some day,
though I hope not."

"I hope not, indeed," replied the vicar warmly. "Teddy isn't a bad boy.
He has never told me a falsehood in his life, and always confesses to
any fault he has committed."

"That doesn't keep him out of mischief though," said the doctor grimly
as he went off, atoning to himself for having found fault with Teddy by
giving him a drive out to the squire's, and allowing him to take his
horse and gig back by himself, an indulgence that lifted Teddy into the
seventh heaven of delight.

However, as events turned out, the very means by which the doctor
thought to clear the reproach from his own soul of having advised the
vicar about Teddy, indirectly led to his advice being followed.

On alighting at the squire's and handing him the reins, he told Teddy to
be very particular in driving slowly, the horse being a high-spirited
one, and apt to take the bit in his teeth if given his head or touched
with the whip; so, as long as he was in sight Teddy obeyed these
injunctions, coaxing the bay along as quietly as if he were assisting at
a funeral procession.

Directly he got beyond range of observation from the house, though, he
made amends for his preliminary caution, shaking the reins free, and
giving the horse a smart cut under the loins that made it spring forward
like a goat, almost jumping out of the traces; and then, away it tore
along the road towards the village at the rate of twenty miles an hour,
the gig bounding from rut to rut as if it were a kangaroo, and shaking
Teddy's bones together like castanets.

Once the animal had got its head, the boy found it useless to try and
stop him; while, as for guidance, the horse no more cared about his
pulling at the bit than if he were a fly, plunging onward in its wild
career, and whisking the gig from side to side, so that Teddy was fully
employed in holding on without attempting to pull the reins at all.

For a mile or two the roadway was pretty clear, but on nearing Endleigh
it became narrower; and here, just in front, Teddy could see a loaded
farm wagon coming along.

To have passed it safely either he or the wagoner would have had to pull
up on one side; but with him now it was impossible to do this, while the
driver of the other vehicle was half asleep, and nodding from amidst the
pile of straw with which the wagon was loaded, letting the team jingle
along at a s