But when he got near he saw that it was not a hound that was caught by the wire, but Mr. Hugh! For an instant Tommy was frightened, but as soon as he saw that his friend was not hurt, but merely held fast by the clothes in a dozen places, the fun of the situation struck him, and he capered about shouting, and making comments, and asking questions, all in one breath. “Ah, Mr. Hugh, you do look so funny! If only Anne were here with her camera to take a picture! If you’ll wait long enough, I’ll go fetch her, for you’re hooked up just like when Pinkie Scott reached after lilies and fell in the pond, and they pulled her out from behind with the hay-fork. Did the horse tumble you in like that?” The truth was that Mr. Hugh had dismounted to let down some bars for the people who had gone astray, and his horse, feeling fresh, galloped off. In trying to head him off by a short cut, Mr. Hugh had met the barbed wire fence, seen a gap between the strands, dashed at it, only to be caught by a couple of slack wires when halfway through, in such a position that if he let go the only hold he had upon a half rotten post, he must fall upon a rusty coil that guarded the tumble-down stone fence below. Barbed wire at best is cruel stuff, and when it is old and rusty every scratch it gives means danger. “Stop bawling so, for pity’s sake, and see if you can help me out of this mess before the others come; try to pry the wire with a stick,” said Mr. Hugh, in so hoarse a whisper that Tommy instantly obeyed, or rather tried to, but the sticks at hand were either too small or rotten, and at every twist the poor man made the hooked wire seemed to take new hold. At this moment the snapping of twigs and the padding sound of hoofs on grass made Mr. Hugh give a painful writhe to look over his shoulder; his discomfiture was complete, for there was Miss Letty. She slipped quickly to the ground, and tethering Brown Kate to a branch, came forward, looking, as Tommy told Anne that night in the privacy of his little bed, “the colour you feel when you’ve waited too long for your breakfast.” Seeing that Mr. Hugh had not been thrown, but was merely snared, she pulled herself together and hesitated for a moment; while he, putting on an air of bravado which was very funny under the cramped circumstances, said: “Yes, here I am, and having parted with my common sense I’m taking the consequences, and you have your revenge. When all the party have had a good look at me, I suppose some one will help me out.”