The wain leapt and swung and bounced along like a live thing.
"Ah, I thought so.... Pace too good.... He"s dropping his load....
Ah!--there goes another!"
A Grenadier was seen to fall with flapping tails, and another, and another; till the track of the thundering wain was strewn with men, who picked themselves up and pursued.
Only the intrepid coachman, his feet set deep, held his place, swaying to the swing of the wain.
The Parson gnawed his lip as he watched.
"What"s it all mean, Piper?"
"Don"t justly know what to make of it, sir."
"You can"t get a line on him?"
"No, sir. He"s slewed aside out o my range."
And indeed the Gentleman had swung his team to the left, as though to avoid the old man"s fire. They were lurching along at a thundering gallop. It seemed as though the horses were fleeing from the wain.
The Parson was leaning far out of the window to watch.
"Round he comes!"
As he spoke, the Gentleman flung back with all his strength, and wrenched to the right.
Round came the leader; the wheeler, slithering, jerking, almost swept off her legs, as the wain came on top of her. Then the whole came thundering across the greensward at the gable-end of the cottage.
"Ca"ant be going to ram us, sir, surely?" shouted Piper.
The old man could see nothing now, but he could hear the roar of the approaching wain.
"I believe he is!" cried the Parson.
It was the boy"s swift mind that first leapt to the Gentleman"s plan.
"No, sir!" he screamed. "Don"t you see?--He"ll bring the waggon alongside at a gallop, jam it against the wall, and then----"
And then! the Parson saw it in a flash:--axemen at work on the door beneath the wain, and stormers through the dormer-window over the top.
"By G.o.d, you"ve got it!"
It must be stopped at all costs.
But how?
The wain was coming at the cottage from the flank. A shot from the left shoulder at an impossible angle at a galloping target--was that their only hope?
The Parson glanced wildly round.
The thunder of the wain and the singing voice of the coachman was in his ears.
An old plank was lying in the loft.
"Plank Caponier!" he yelled, pounced on it, and thrust it out of the window. "Now, Kit!--You"re lightest!--There"s your musket--loaded!-- Blob, sit on this end with me!"
Kit, musket in hand, ran out on the plank.
He was standing on air.
"Steady!" hoa.r.s.ed the Parson, blue eyes gleaming through the window.
"Don"t look down! Aim at her chest! Wait till you can see the roll of her eye!"
Kit heard nothing, saw nothing, but a foam-splashed breast, a nodding head, racing knees, and reaching feet.
All the world for him was in that black and shining bosom. It grew upon him as he looked. It was no more a chest. It was a cloud, about to burst on the world. He fired into the heart of it, sure he could not miss.
Up went the filly, fighting the air.
The boy saw her belly, her thighs, and the swish of her tail between her hocks.
Down she came in roaring ruin, the old mare an avalanche of snow burying her.
"In, Kit!" screamed the Parson.
"No, sir!" yelled the boy.
In a blinding light he saw the thing to do, and flashed to do it.
"The lynch-pins!"
Down he jumped, and dirk in hand raced for the tangle of horseflesh, black and white and heaving like an angry sea.
Swift as he was, the Gentleman was swifter.
Before the boy had touched ground, he was down from his perch, slashing at the tackle with his sword. Now he leapt to the mare"s head, hurling her back into her breeching.
While Kit was yet twenty yards away, he was up again, standing on the shafts, reins in hand.
"Now, my lady!" came the high singing voice.
The brave old thing answered to it as though to a lover. She flung forward with a sob.
"I"ll take the mare and the man!" panted the Parson, racing up behind, his curls almost cracking. "You go for the lynch-pins!"
He swept past, Polly in hand.
"Forgive me, Jenny!" he cried; and thrust home.