When I reached the top of the bank, rather out of breath, I looked back, and saw David making piteous signs, as he moved off rapidly, for me to push along. But this was easier said than done; the brown horse would not let me come near him. Round and round he went, rearing and plunging, until I was quite exhausted. Coaxing and threatening were alike useless; every moment it was getting darker. Once I thought of letting the brute go, and swimming back to David. But when I looked at the stream, and thought of Laura, that idea was dismissed. Another tussle, in which we plowed up the sand in a circle, was equally fruitless, and I began to think he would keep me there to be drowned, for to cross the Parkgate on foot before the tide came up strong, seemed hopeless. At length, finding I could not get to touch his shoulder, I seized the opportunity, when he was close to the bank of the stream, and catching the curb sharply in both hands, backed him half way down almost into the water. Before he had quite struggled up to the top, I threw myself into the saddle, and was carried off at the rate of thirty miles an hour toward the sea. But I soon gathered up the reins, and, firm in my seat, turned my Tartar's head toward the point where I could see the white wind-mill gleaming through the twilight on the Cheshire shore. I felt that I had not a moment to spare. The sand, so firm in the morning, sounded damp under my horse's stride; the little stagnant pools filled visibly, and joining formed shallow lakes, through which we dashed in a shower of spray; and every now and then we leaped over, or plunged into deep holes. At first I tried to choose a path, but as it rapidly grew darker, I sat back in my saddle, and with my eyes fixed on the tower of the wind-mill, held my horse firmly into a hand gallop, and kept a straight line. He was a famous deep-chested, long-striding, little fellow, and bounded along as fresh as when I started. By degrees my spirits began to rise; I thought the danger past; I felt confidence in myself and horse, and shouted to him in encouraging triumph. Already I was, in imagination, landed and relating my day's adventures to Laura, when with a heavy plunge down on his head, right over went the brown stallion, and away I flew as far as the reins, fortunately fast grasped, would let me. Blinded with wet sand, startled, shaken, confused, by a sort of instinct, I scrambled to my feet almost as soon as my horse, who had fallen over a set of salmon-net stakes. Even in the instant of my fall, all the honor of my situation was mentally visible to me. In a moment I lived years. I felt that I was a dead man; I wondered if my body would be found; I thought of what my friends would say; I thought of letters in my desk I wished burned. I thought of relatives to whom my journey to Parkgate was unknown, of debts I wished paid, of parties with whom I had quarreled, and wished I had been reconciled. I wondered