Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/239

Rh time trying to think, but his thoughts whirled and twisted like snowflakes in a storm.

"P'r'aps I kin get on a little furder if I tries," he said to himself at length, and suiting the action to the words, lie rose from his ferny bed and staggered out of the wood. He had scarcely strength left to get over the gate, but he managed it at length, and then fell down exhausted by the roadside.

How long he lay there he never knew; but he was aroused at length by the lumbering of some kind of vehicle coming towards him along the road, and by the shrill whistling of the driver. Nearer and nearer came the vehicle, and then stopped just opposite him. Benny looked up and saw a shock-headed, overgrown lad, standing in what seemed an empty cart, staring at him with a look of wonder in his great round eyes.

Benny had reached a stage of exhaustion which made him indifferent to almost everything, so he only blinked at the boy, and then dropped his head again on the grass.

"Art a tired?" said the boy at length.

"Ay," said Benny, without opening his eyes.

"Wilt a 'ave a lift?"

"What's a lift?"

"A ride, then, if it's properer."

"Ay, I'll ride; but 'ow'm I to get in?"

" Oh, aisy 'nough," said young Giles, jumping out of the cart and lifting Benny in as if he had been an infant.