balancing on two
wheels; and still we went faster and faster than ever. The trees and
hedges wheeled by us; the gravel road streamed away behind us. I began
to get giddy and to lose my strength. I could hardly hope to hold my
aunt in much longer, and now she began to struggle frightfully, for we
were nearing the gravel-pit turn! Ahead of us was a comfortable fat
farmer, jogging drowsily to market in his gig. I can see his broad,
well-to-do back now. What would I have given to be seated, I had
almost said _enthroned_, by his side? What a smash if we had touched
him! I pulled frantically at the off-rein, and we just cleared his
wheel. He said something; I could not make out what. I was nearly
exhausted, and shut my eyes, resigning myself to my fate, but still
clinging to my aunt. I think that if ever that austere woman was near
fainting it was on this occasion. I just caught a glimpse of her
white, stony face and fixed eyes; her terror even gave me a certain
confidence. A figure in front of us commenced gesticulating and
shouting and waving its hat. The ponies slackened their pace, and my
courage began to revive.

"Sit still," I exclaimed to my aunt as I indulged them with a good
strong "give-and-take" pull.

The gravel-pit corner was close at hand, but the figure had seized the
refractory little steeds by their heads, and though I shook all over,
and felt really frightened now the danger was past, I knew that we
were safe, and that we owed our safety to a tall, ragged cripple with
a crutch and a bandage over one eye.

My aunt jumped out in a twinkling, and the instant she touched _terra
firma_ put her hand to her side, and began to sob and gasp and pant,
as ladies will previous to an attack of what the doctors call
"hysteria." She leant upon the cripple's shoulder, and I observed a
strange, roguish sparkle in his unbandaged eye. Moreover, I remarked
that his hands were white and clean, and his figure, if he hadn't been
such a cripple, would have been tall and active.

"What shall I do?" gasped my aunt. "I won't get in; nothing shall
induce me to get in again. Kate, give this good man half a crown. What
a providential escape! He ought to have a sovereign. Perhaps ten
shillings will be enough. How am I to get back? I'll walk all the way
rather than get in."

"But, aunt," I suggested, "at any rate I must get to the station. Aunt
Deborah is sure to think something has happened, and she ought not to
be frightened till