The choice of the cabman had not been happy.  He tried to go towards Backsworth, and when bidden to go to Wil’sbro’, growled out an imprecation, and dashed off at a pace that was evident agony to the poor patient; but when Rosamond stretched out at the window to remonstrate, she was answered with rude abuse that he could not be hindered all day by whims.  She perceived that he was so much in liquor that their connection had better be as brief as possible; and the name on the door showed that he came from beyond the circle of influence of the name of Charnock Poynsett.  She longed to assume the reins, if not to lay the whip about his ears; but all she could do was to try to lessen the force of the jolts by holding up the girl, as the horse was savagely beaten, and the carriage so swayed from side to side that she began to think it would be well if there were not three cases for the Infirmary instead of one.  To talk to the girl or learn her wishes was not possible, among the moans and cries caused by the motion; and it was no small relief to be safely at the Infirmary door, though there was no release till after a fierce altercation with the driver, who first denied, and then laughed to scorn the ample fare he had received, so that had any policeman been at hand, the porter and house surgeon would have given him in charge, but they could only take his number and let him drive off in a fury.

Poor Fanny was carried away fainting to the accident ward, and Rosamond found it would be so long before she would be visible again, that it would be wiser to go home and send in her relations, but there was not a fly or cab left in Wil’sbro’, and there was nothing for it but to walk.

She found herself a good deal shaken, and walked fast because thus her limbs did not tremble so much, while the glaring September afternoon made her miss the parasol she had left in the carriage, and find little comfort in the shadeless erection on her head.  It was much further than she had walked for a long time past, and she had begun to think she had parted with a good deal of her strength before the Compton woods grew more defined, or the church tower came any nearer.

Though the lane to the Reynolds’ colony was not full in her way, she was glad to sit down in the shade to speak to old Betty, who did not comport herself according to either extreme common to parents in literature.

“So Fanny, she be in the ’firmary, be her?  I’m sure as ’twas very good of the young Squire and you, my lady; and I’m sorry her’s bin and give you so much trouble.”

Everybody was harvesting but the old woman, who had the inevitable bad leg.  All men and beasts were either in the fields or at the races, and Rosamond, uncertain whether her patient was not in a dying state, rejoiced in her recent acquisition of a pony carriage, and speeding home with renewed energy, roused her ‘parson’s man’ from tea in his cottage, and ordered him off to take Betty Reynolds to see her daughter without loss of time.