His eyes looked solemnly out from under his gray eyebrows as now and then a whistling teamster drove by, throwing a whole cloud of hot, suffocating dust over him. Sometimes a pedler, or some stroller with a monkey on his shoulder and an organ on his back, would nod to him as he passed; but the pedler did not think of exhibiting his wares, nor the organman of grinding out a tune, or of setting his monkey to playing tricks, for the like of old Johnny. The sun was growing large toward the setting, and nothing had turned up, when all at once there was a wild whirl of wheels, and a crying and shouting and holding up of hands by all the men and boys along the road. A horse was running away. On he came, galloping furiously, while the old heavy-topped buggy to which he was attached rattled and creaked and swayed from side to side frightfully,--frightfully, because it was in imminent danger of being crushed all to pieces; and sitting still and solemnly upright, swaying with the buggy, and in imminent danger of being crushed to pieces too, was a child,--a beautiful little girl, with a cloud of yellow curls rippling down her bare shoulders. Her white dress fluttered in the wind, and her hat was swimming on the pond half a mile in the rear; but still she sat, sober and quiet as though she had been on her mother's knees, and not so much as puckering her pretty lip for all the tumult and fright. A dozen men were in the road, some with rails in their arms, with which they no doubt intended to intercept the mad creature; but the best intentions fail sometimes, and the men with rails in their arms threw them down, and got themselves out of the way, as soon as the danger came near them. John Chidlaw went into the road among the rest, but without a rail in his arms. He did not, however, get himself out of the way,--not he. He threw himself with might and main upon the neck of the frightened beast, and there he held, and was dragged along,--half the time, as it seemed, under his very feet. "That's you, Johnny!" "Go it!" "Good for you!" were the cheers and calls of encouragement that followed him. The horse was valuable, and he was in danger of breaking his neck; and what matter about John Chidlaw! He had no friends! He required not to be thus stimulated, if they had but known it: he had been stimulated sufficiently already, by the tossing hair and fair face of the little girl, to peril his life, and he was not the man to look back when he had his hand to the plough. The blood besmeared his face, and streamed down his neck, and wet his shirt-bosom and sleeves, and still the voices cried, "Hold on, Johnny!" They thought he was being battered to death, though the blood was from the mouth of the horse, for the entire weight of the man was being dragged by the bit.