“You could drop off if you liked.  Are you, sorry you came?”

“No,” said Kit.  “I came because I wanted, and now I’m here I’ll stop.”

“I really think you mean to be nice,” Grace rejoined with amusement and Kit understood; she saw he did not mean to admit that she had suggested the adventure, but this was not important.  It was something of an adventure for a girl like Miss Osborn, although her having embarked on it gave him a delightful feeling of partnership in a harmless folly.

“I hope there’s nothing in the way,” he said.  “We’re going very fast and Hindbeck farm can’t be far off.  I ought to have looked before we jumped.”

“It is too late now,” Grace answered with an excited laugh.  “I imagine you’re not as cautious as you think; but we won’t talk.  It’s hard to hold on and I haven’t much breath.”

Kit moved nearer and, seizing the edge of the frame, put his arm round her waist.  She did not seem to resent this, and for a time they sped down hill with their feet plowing through the snow.  Kit did not care how long the swift rush lasted, but by and by he began to get anxious.  The sledge had gone a long way since they jumped on, and the hillside was steep to the bottom, where it met the Hindbeck pastures.  While he wondered whether Grace would slide far and get shaken if he made her let go, the sledge tilted up.  It stopped with a violent shock, he heard stones fall, and was thrown off amidst a shower of peat.  When he got up Grace was sitting in the snow some distance off and he ran towards her.  She had lost her small fur cap and her hair was loose, but to his relief she laughed.

“Oh,” she said, “it really was ridiculous!  But the plan will work.  The peat will run down!”

“That is so,” Kit agreed, with a breathless chuckle.  “I think it would have run into the Hindbeck kitchen but for the wall.”

“Then it was a wall that stopped us.  It felt like a rock.”

“Come and see,” said Kit, holding out his hand to help her up.

“I think,” she said, “I’d rather you looked for my hat.”

He went off and it was two or three minutes before he found the hat among the scattered peat.  When he came back it was nearly dark, but Grace’s hair was no longer untidy, and the snow that had smeared her clothes had gone.  She walked with him to where the sledge rested on a pile of stones, and looking through the gap, they saw a woman with a lantern cross a narrow pasture between them and a house.

“What’s t’ matter?” the woman shouted and turned round.  “Janet, gan on and see what’s brokken t’ wa’.”

Another figure came out of the gloom and Grace looked at Kit.

“I don’t know who Janet is, but I do know Mrs. Creighton.  She talks,” she said.  “If you’ll stop and explain matters, I’ll go down the lonning.  It was a glorious adventure!  Good-night!”

She stole away round the corner of the wall and Kit, who understood that he was, so to speak, to cover her retreat, waited until the two women came up.  The one who carried the lantern was fat and homely; the other was slender and looked like Janet Bell.