Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/304

296 blind. When I saw again, Leslie was lying across the broken hedge, his head hanging down the bank, his face covered with blood; the car rested strangely on the brink of the water, crumpled as if it had sunk down to rest.

Lettie, with hands shuddering, was wiping the blood from his eyes with a piece of her underskirt. In a moment she said:

“He is not dead—let us take him home—let us take him quickly.”

I ran and took the wicket gate off its hinges, and laid him on that. His legs trailed down, but we carried him thus, she at the feet, I at the head. She made me stop and put him down. I thought the weight was too much for her, but it was not that.

“I can’t bear to see his hand hanging, knocking against the bushes and things.”

It was not many yards to the house. A maid-servant saw us, came running out, and went running back, like the frightened lapwing from the wounded cat.

We waited until the doctor came. There was a deep graze down the side of the head—serious, but not dangerous; there was a cut across the cheek-bone that would leave a scar; and the collar-bone was broken. I stayed until he had recovered consciousness. “Lettie,” he wanted Lettie, so she had to remain at Highclose all night. I went home to tell my mother.

When I went to bed I looked across at the lighted windows of Highclose, and the lights trailed mistily towards me across the water. The cedar stood dark guard against the house; bright the windows were,