Eustace thrust her back.

“No! better bear it, I deserve it—­devils!  I deserve it!  On board, or we shall all be lost—­William Cary is close behind me!”

And at that news the boat was thrust into the sea, faster than ever it went before, and only in time; for it was but just round the rocks, and out of sight, when the rattle of Cary’s horsehoofs was heard above.

“That rascal of Mr. Leigh’s will catch it now, the Popish villain!” said Lucy Passmore, aloud.  “You lie still there, dear life, and settle your sperrits; you’m so safe as ever was rabbit to burrow.  I’ll see what happens, if I die for it!” And so saying, she squeezed herself up through a cleft to a higher ledge, from whence she could see what passed in the valley.

“There mun is! in the meadow, trying to catch the horses!  There comes Mr. Cary!  Goodness, Father, how a rid’th! he’s over wall already!  Ron, Jack! ron then!  A’ll get to the river!  No, a wain’t!  Goodness, Father!  There’s Mr. Cary cotched mun!  A’s down, a’s down!”

“Is he dead?” asked Rose, shuddering.

“Iss, fegs, dead as nits! and Mr. Cary off his horse, standing overthwart mun!  No, a bain’t!  A’s up now.  Suspose he was hit wi’ the flat.  Whatever is Mr. Cary tu?  Telling wi’ mun, a bit.  Oh dear, dear, dear!”

“Has he killed him?” cried poor Rose.

“No, fegs, no! kecking mun, kecking mun, so hard as ever was futeball!  Goodness, Father, who did ever?  If a haven’t kecked mun right into river, and got on mun’s horse and rod away!”

And so saying, down she came again.

“And now then, my dear life, us be better to goo hoom and get you sommat warm.  You’m mortal cold, I rackon, by now.  I was cruel fear’d for ye:  but I kept mun off clever, didn’t I, now?”

“I wish—­I wish I had not seen Mr. Leigh’s face!”

“Iss, dreadful, weren’t it, poor young soul; a sad night for his poor mother!”

“Lucy, I can’t get his face out of my mind.  I’m sure he overlooked me.”

“Oh then! who ever heard the like o’ that?  When young gentlemen do overlook young ladies, tain’t thikketheor aways, I knoo.  Never you think on it.”

“But I can’t help thinking of it,” said Rose.  “Stop.  Shall we go home yet?  Where’s that servant?”

“Never mind, he wain’t see us, here under the hill.  I’d much sooner to know where my old man was.  I’ve a sort of a forecasting in my inwards, like, as I always has when aught’s gwain to happen, as though I shuldn’t zee mun again, like, I have, miss.  Well—­he was a bedient old soul, after all, he was.  Goodness, Father! and all this while us have forgot the very thing us come about!  Who did you see?”

“Only that face!” said Rose, shuddering.

“Not in the glass, maid?  Say then, not in the glass?”

“Would to heaven it had been!  Lucy, what if he were the man I was fated to—­”

“He?  Why, he’s a praste, a Popish praste, that can’t marry if he would, poor wratch.”