and a fall.

"It all comes of that waistrel Mister Burn-the-wind," he said, meaning
to indicate the blacksmith by this contemptuous allusion to that
gentleman's profession.

Constable Jonathan could not forbear a laugh at the name, and at the
idea it suggested.

"Ay, but if he'd burned the wind this time instead of blowing it," he
said, "we might have raised it between us. Come, let me raise you into
this saddle instead. Hegh, hegh, though," he continued, as the horse
lurched from him with every gust, "no need to raise the wind up here.
Easy--there--you're right now, I think. You'll need to ride on one
stirrup."

It was perhaps natural that the constabulary view of the disaster
should be limited to the purely legal aspect of the loss of a
prisoner; but the subject of the constable's reproaches was not so far
dominated by official ardor as to be insensible to the terrible
accident of the flight of the horse with the corpse. Mr. Garth had
brought his own horse to a stand at some twenty paces from the spot
where Ralph Ray had thrown his companions from their saddles, and in
the combat ensuing he had not experienced any unconquerable impulse to
participate on the side of what stood to him for united revenge and
profit, if not for justice also. When, in the result, the mare fled
over the fells, he sat as one petrified until Robbie Anderson, who had
earlier recovered from his own feeling of stupefaction, and in the
first moment of returning consciousness had recognized the blacksmith
and guessed the sequel of the rencontre, brought him up to a very
lively sense of the situation by bringing him down to his full length
on the ground with the timely administration of a well-planted blow.
Mr. Garth was probably too much taken by surprise to repay the
obligation in kind, but he rapped out a volley of vigorous oaths that
fell about his adversary as fast as a hen could peck. Then he
remounted his horse, and, with such show of valorous reluctance as
could still be assumed after so unequivocal an overthrow, he made the
best of haste away.

He was not yet, however, entirely rewarded for his share in the day's
proceedings. He had almost reached Wythburn on his return home when he
had the singular ill-fortune to encounter Liza. That young damsel was
huddled, rather than seated, on the back of a horse, the property of
one of the mourners whom Rotha had succeeded in hailing to their
rescue. With Rhoda walking by her side, she was no