next, the tipsy driver turned quite out of the
track, and drove on at the same headlong pace towards the open trench.
At the very brink the horse stopped; he tried to turn aside, but a
tremendous lash of the whip urged him on; he leaped forward and just
cleared the drain, but the weight of the sleigh dragged him backwards,
and the whole mass crashed through the snow and the thin ice under it
into the bottom of the cutting.

Some of the men who had watched Clarkson drive off from the tavern had
not yet returned to their work, and the place where the accident
happened was not so far off but that something of it could be seen. Two
or three started off, and soon arrived at the spot where the sleigh had
disappeared.

The drain, though deep, was not very wide, and if, even at the very
moment of the fall, Clarkson had been capable of exerting himself, he
might have escaped; as it was, he lay among the broken fragments of his
sleigh and shouted out imprecations upon his horse, which had been
dragged down on the top of him. But when the poor animal was freed from
the harness, and with as much care as possible removed from the body of
its master, a much harder task remained. Clarkson was frightfully
hurt--how, they could hardly tell, but it seemed as if his head and arms
were all that had escaped. The rest of his body appeared to be dead; he
had not the smallest power to move, and yet there was no outward wound,
and his voice was as strong as ever. They raised him with the greatest
gentleness and care, and bringing up the bottom of the broken sleigh,
laid his helpless limbs on it compassionately, and carried him back to
the tavern, paying no heed to the flood of curses which he constantly
poured out.

When they reached the tavern, they found the doctor already there, and,
going out of the house, they waited till he should have made his
examination and be able to tell them its result. After some time he
came, closing the door behind him and looking very grave.

"What's wrong with him, sir?" one of the men asked.

"Everything. He cannot live many hours."

There was a minute's silence, and then somebody said,

"Should not his missus be fetched?"

"Yes, poor woman, the sooner the better. Who will go?"

"I will, sir," and one of the oldest of the group started off
immediately to the mill to get the necessary permission from his master.

"Now," said the doctor, "there's another thing. Who will take my horse
and go into Caco