'Where have you been?''He'll tumble off!''He's had a fall!''No, he hasn't!'''ware hounds, man alive!''He'll break his neck!'
'He has broken it, at last!' shouted the colonel, as Shiver-the-timbers rushed at the high pales, out of breath, and blind with rage. Lancelot saw and heard nothing till he was awakened from his dream by the long heave of the huge brute's shoulder, and the maddening sensation of sweeping through the air over the fence. He started, checked the curb, the horse threw up his head, fulfilled his name by driving his knees like a battering-ram against the pales—the top-bar bent like a withe, flew out into a hundred splinters, and man and horse rolled over headlong into the hard flint-road.
For one long sickening second Lancelot watched the blue sky between his own knees. Then a crash as if a shell had burst in his face—a horrible grind—a sheet of flame—and the blackness of night. Did you ever feel it, reader?
When he woke, he found himself lying in bed, with Squire Lavington sitting by him. There was real sorrow in the old man's face. 'Come to himself!' and a great joyful oath rolled out. 'The boldest rider of them all! I wouldn't have lost him for a dozen ready-made spick-and-span Colonel Bracebridges!'
'Quite right, squire!' answered a laughing voice from behind the curtain. 'Smith has a clear two thousand a-year, and I live by my wits!'
