“That’s one of the Carmodys, Miss,” said old Kearney, galloping near her.  “Don’t mind him!  It’s as good for you to go on now.  That’s the house below—­”

“Come on, Christian!” shouted Larry; “he’ll do no harm!”

The thought crossed Christian’s mind that it might be better to disregard these counsels, and to stop and speak to the assailant, but Nancy had views of her own, and such arguments as a snaffle could offer were quite unavailing.  “I might as well go on,” thought Christian, “we shall be off his land in a minute.”

A very high bank, crowned with furze and thorn bushes, divided them from the next field; there was but one gap in it, near the farm-house, and this was filled with a complicated erection of stones and sods, built high, with light boughs of trees laid upon them; not a nice place, but the only practicable one.  Bill Kirby and his whipper-in jumped it; some of the farmers drew back, but Larry’s bay horse charged it unhesitatingly, and soared over it with the whole-souled gallantry of a well-bred horse.  Nancy, pulling hard, followed him.  Christian heard Larry shout, and, looking round, saw him turn in his saddle and strike with his crop at something unseen.  At the last instant, as the mare was making her spring, a second man appeared on the farther side of the jump, yelling, and brandishing a wide-bladed hay-knife.  To stop was impossible; Christian could only utter a sharp cry of warning, as Nancy, baulked by the suddenness of the attack, but unable to stop herself, went up almost straight into the air, and came down on the boughs, with her hindlegs on one side of them and her forelegs on the other.  Then she fell forward on to her knees, and rolled on to her off shoulder, her hind legs still entangled in the boughs.  Christian fell with her, and as the mare’s shoulder came to the ground, her rider was thrown a little beyond her on the off side.  The man, having saved himself by a leap to one side, had instantly taken to his heels.

Christian was on her feet before even Larry, quick as he was in stopping his horse and flinging himself from his back, could reach her.

“Are you hurt?” The question, so fraught with fear, and breathless with remembered disasters, was answered almost before it was uttered.

“Not a scrap!  Absolutely all right; but I don’t know about Nancy—­”

One of the mare’s hind feet was wedged in the fork of a bough; she struggled fiercely, and in a second or two she had freed both her hind legs from the tangle of twigs, and lay prone at the foot of the barricade.

“She’s all right!  He didn’t touch her,” said Larry, catching her by the bridle.  “Come, mare!”

Nancy made an effort, attempting to get on to her feet, and rolled over again on to her side.

“Oh, get the mare up, one of you!” shouted Larry, wild with the rage that had gathered force from the terror by which it had first been strangled.  “I want to go after that damned coward—­”