He discerned in an instant that unless the course of the animal could be checked it would overtake them before the bridge could be reached. The women fled, but Frank remained. He was in the habit of carrying a heavy walking-stick, the end of which he had hollowed out in his schooldays and had filled up with lead. Just as the ox came upon him, it laid its head to the ground, and Frank, springing aside, dealt it a tremendous, two-handed blow on the forehead with his knobbed weapon. The creature was dazed, it stopped and staggered, and in another instant Frank was across the bridge in safety. There was a little hysterical sobbing, but it was soon over. ‘Oh, Mr Palmer,’ said Mrs Hopgood, ‘what presence of mind and what courage! We should have been killed without you.’ ‘The feat is not original, Mrs Hopgood. I saw it done by a tough little farmer last summer on a bull that was really mad. There was no ditch for him though, poor fellow, and he had to jump a hedge.’ ‘You did not find it difficult,’ said Madge, ‘to settle your problem when it came to you in the shape of a wild ox.’ ‘Because there was nothing to settle,’ said Frank, laughing; ‘there was only one thing to be done.’ ‘So you believed, or rather, so you saw,’ said Clara. ‘I should have seen half-a-dozen things at once—that is to say, nothing.’ ‘And I,’ said Madge, ‘should have settled it the wrong way: I am sure I should, even if I had been a man. I should have bolted.’ Frank stayed to tea, and the evening was musical. He left about ten, but just as the door had shut he remembered he had forgotten his stick. He gave a gentle rap and Madge appeared. She gave him his stick. ‘Good-bye again. Thanks for my life.’