“Hurt? I’ve strained and bruised myself all over. My right arm—my leg—I can hobble only. Where’s the trap?” “If you have no bones broken, uncle, sit down, and I will see after Diamond.” The horse was browsing unconcernedly at no great distance. Too tired to run far, too hungry to heed his wounds, he had at once applied himself to the consumption of the sweet moorland grass. Happily the cart was uninjured. It had not been upset, and no more of the harness was broken than a strap at the head. The cob allowed Kate to approach and take him by the forelock without remonstrance. He knew Kate, who had been accustomed to fondle him, and who, in the absence of friends of her own order, had made one of the brute beast. She managed to fasten up the broken strap and replaced the headstall; then she drew the horse along to where her uncle sat rubbing his leg and arm. “It’s the right arm, drat it!” said Pasco; “won’t I only give that cursed beast a leathering when I can use my arm again!” “Surely, uncle, poor Diamond was going on all right till you beat him. He is so patient that he does not deserve a beating. There is a thorn branch about which the whip has become entangled. I suppose that must have hurt him, poor fellow. He was good, too; when my foot slipped and I fell, he would not trample on me. You were beating him, uncle, and did not see where I was. Just think how good he was!—notwithstanding the thorns, yet he would not tread on me.” “Oh yes, that is all you think about, you selfish minx, your own self. Because you are uninjured, you don’t care for me who am bruised all over.” It was of no use pursuing the matter. Kate knew her uncle’s unreasonable moods, so she changed the subject and asked, “What is to be done now? shall we go on along the moor or turn back?” “It is of no use going along the moor now. We may come to some other darned accident with this vile brute. Lead him back along our tracks to the road. I don’t want to be thrown out again. This is the second time he has treated me in this manner. If I had a gun, I’d shoot him.” “Uncle, that other occasion was no fault of his. You were driving the schoolmaster, and Walter Bramber told me about it—you sent the wheel against a stone.” “Of course the blame is mine, and this time also. The horse is innocent.” “If you had not beaten poor Diamond”— “Go on with the cart, and hold your tongue.” But Pasco walked with pain. He had not taken many steps before he asked to be helped up into the trap. Kate led the horse and spoke caressingly to the brute, that was greatly fagged with the long journey without a break he had taken that evening. Usually he would be given an hour’s rest and a feed at Ashburton, before the worst and most arduous portion of the journey was taken; but on this occasion he had been urged on at his fastest pace and never allowed to slacken it, and not given any rest, not even a mouthful of water, at Ashburton. No wonder that he tripped.