"Presence of mind, you croaker, presence of mind!" cried Jonas, with a harsh loud laugh. "Was he struck, do you think!"
They both turned to look at him. Jonas muttered something to himself, when he saw him sitting up beneath the hedge, looking vacantly round.
"What's the matter?" asked Montague. "Is anybody hurt?"
"Ecod!" said Jonas, "it don't seem so. There are no bones broke, after all."
They raised him, and he tried to walk. He was a good deal shaken, and trembled very much. But with the exception of a few cuts and bruises, this was all the damage he had sustained.
"Cuts and bruises, eh?" said Jonas. "We 've all got them. Only cuts and bruises, eh?"
"I wouldn't have given sixpence for the gentleman's head in half a dozen seconds more, for all he's only cut and bruised," observed the post-boy. "If ever you 're in an accident of this sort again, Sir; which I hope you won't be; never you pull at the bridle of a horse that's down, when there's a man's head in the way. That can't be done twice without there being a dead man in the case; it would have ended in that, this time, as sure as ever you were born, if I hadn't come up just when I did."
Jonas replied by advising him with a curse to hold his tongue, and to go somewhere, whither he was not very likely to go of his own accord. But Montague, who had listened eagerly, to every word, himself diverted the subject, by exclaiming: "Where's the boy!"
"Ecod, I forgot that monkey," said Jonas. "What's become of him!" A very brief search settled that question. The unfortunate Mr. Bailey had been thrown sheer over the hedge or the five barred gate; and was lying in the neighbouring field, to all appearance dead.
"When I said to-night, that I wished I had never started on this journey," cried his master, "I knew it was an ill-fated one. Look at this boy!"
"Is that all?" growled Jonas. "If you call that a sign of it—"
"Why, what should I call a sign of it?" asked Montague, hurriedly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," said Jonas, stooping down over the body, "that I never heard you were his father, or had any particular reason to care much about him. Halloa. Hold up here!"
But the boy was past holding up, or being held up, or giving any other sign of life, than a faint and fitful beating of the heart. After some discussion, the driver mounted the horse which had been least injured, and took the lad in his arms, as well as he could; while Montague and Jonas leading the other horse, and carrying a trunk between them, walked by his side towards Salisbury.
"You'd get there in a few minutes, and be able to send assistance to meet us, if you went forward, post-boy," said Jonas. "Trot on!"
"No, no," cried Montague, hastily; "we'll keep together."
"Why, what a chicken you are! You are not afraid of being robbed; are you!" said Jonas.
