He saw nothing: he thought of Virginia: he
remembered how he had been in love with Parson Broadbent's daughter at
Jamestown, and how quickly that business had ended. He longed vaguely to
be at home again. A plague on all these cold-hearted English relations!
Did they not all mean to trick him? Were they not all scheming against
him? Had not that confounded Will cheated him about the horse?

At this very juncture, Maria gave a scream so loud and shrill that
Madame Bernstein woke, that the coachman pulled his horses up, and the
footman beside him sprang down from his box in a panic.

"Let me out! let me out!" screamed Maria. "Let me go to him! let me go
to him!"

"What is it?" asked the Baroness.

It was that Will's horse had come down on his knees and nose, had sent
his rider over his head, and Mr. Harry, who ought to have known better,
was lying on his own face quite motionless.

Gumbo, who had been dallying with the maids of the second carriage,
clattered up, and mingled his howls with Lady Maria's lamentations.
Madame Bernstein descended from her landau, and came slowly up,
trembling a good deal.

"He is dead--he is dead!" sobbed Maria.

"Don't be a goose, Maria!" her aunt said. "Ring at that gate, some one!"

Will's horse had gathered himself up and stood perfectly quiet after his
feat: but his late rider gave not the slightest sign of life.

CHAPTER XXI. Samaritans

Lest any tender-hearted reader should be in alarm for Mr. Harry
Warrington's safety, and fancy that his broken-kneed horse had carried
him altogether out of this life and history, let us set her mind easy at
the beginning of this chapter by assuring her that nothing very serious
has happened. How can we afford to kill off our heroes, when they are
scarcely out of their teens, and we have not reached the age of manhood
of the story? We are in mourning already for one of our Virginians, who
has come to grief in America; surely we cannot kill off the other in
England? No, no. Heroes are not despatched with such hurry and violence
unless there is a cogent reason for making away with them. Were a
gentleman to perish every time a horse came down with him, not only the
hero, but the author of this chronicle would have gone under ground,
whereas the former is but sprawling outside it, and will be brought to
life again as soon as he has been carried into the house where Madame de
Bernstein's servants have rung the bell.

And to convince you