'I hired him with half a pound of bird's eye to punt me up stream. He behaved unfair; he went off and left me.' 'And I had to bring you back—and mighty cross you were. Was that because Beamish had left you?' 'I had cause to be cross when Beamish took the bird's eye and did not half do the job. Now cling hard; Jewel is moving forward, and we must hold to our seats to save being tumbled about and broken to bits.' Mark was on one side of the van, Zita on the other. He put out his hand to the curtains at one lurch, and roused Zita to remonstrance. 'The curtains are for ornament, and are not to be touched. They are of velvet plush. I don't want to have your great hand marking them. Lay hold of a rail. No! not a gold tassel; you would pull that down, and maybe bring away the whole concern. Oh!' This exclamation was provoked by the off wheel sinking into a rut, the depth of which seemed unfathomable. The movement of the van was like that of the mail steamer that runs from Dover to Calais, in a chopping sea. At one bound Zita was propelled forward, and, had she not clung to the ribs of the vehicle, would have been shot head foremost against the opposite side of the van, with the result of either perforating that side or of flattening her skull against it. Then, at the recoil lurch, Mark was projected in the opposite direction, and was nearly cast into Zita's lap. 'I say, Zita, the exertion is prodigious!' exclaimed the lad. 'I think I should prefer to walk.' 'But the honour is so great,' gasped Zita. 'It is not every day you can ride in such a conveyance as this, and have velvet curtains flapping, and gold tassels bobbing about your head.' 'I'll try to think of it in that light.' 'Besides,' pursued Zita, 'a shake up is as good as medicine to the insides. It puts them on their good behaviour. They are so tremenjous afraid of having it again.' 'But surely progress in this affair is not always like this.' 'Of course not. It is only in the Fens there are droves. It was bad at times where a highway had been new stoned. Then father and I clung to the perishables.' 'How do you mean?' 'We took them in our arms, or held them. If we were bruised, it did not matter; we mend up according to nature; but pots and pans don't. We always lost something, though. There was that tea-kettle that troubled father's last hours—it got a hole in it going over a bit of new road.' This conversation took place in fits and starts, between the joltings of the van. Presently Jewel thought he had sufficiently exerted himself; he heaved a long sigh, looked back over his shoulder, and stood still. 'There, now,' said Runham, pulling a large red, white-spotted kerchief from his pocket and mopping his brow, 'Jewel is breathing, and so may we. This is agonies.' 'I call it pleasure,' said Zita. 'It must be, because it isn't business.' 'What did the horse mean by looking back at us, as he did just now when he sighed?'