Follow My Leader | Page 5

up, you beast! Swish! See if we don't make her step out. Let her go!"
With some misgivings, Joe obeyed, and next moment the waggonette swayed majestically out of the yard very much like a small steam-tug going out of harbour in half a cap of wind.
"Rum, the way she pitches," said Dick presently; "she didn't do it when we came."
"Looks to me as if the horse wasn't quite sober," suggested Coote.
"Perhaps, if you pulled both reins at the same time, instead of one at a time," put in Heathcote, "she wouldn't wobble so much."
"You duffer; she'd stop dead, if I did that."
"Suppose you don't pull either," said Heathcote.
Richardson pooh-poohed the notion, but acted on it all the same, with highly satisfactorily results. The trap glided along smoothly, and all anxiety as to the management of the mare appeared to be at an end.
"I left word for Tom," said Richardson, "if he stepped out, he'd catch us up. Ha, ha! Won't he be wild?"
"Wonder if he'll get us in a row with Ashford?" said Heathcote.
"Not he. What's the harm? Just a little horse-play, that's all."
Heathcote and Coote became grave.
"Look here," said the former, "we let you off last time, but you'll catch it now. Collar him that side, Coote, and have him over."
"Don't be an idiot, Heathcote," cried the Jehu, as he found himself suddenly seized on either hand. "Let go, while I'm driving. Do you hear, Coote; let go, or there'll be a smash!"
But as "letting go" was an accomplishment not taught at Mountjoy House, Richardson had to adopt stronger measures than mere persuasion in order to clear himself of his embarrassments.
Dropping the reins and flinging his arms vehemently back, he managed to dislodge his assailants, though not without dislodging himself at the same time, and a long and somewhat painful creditors' meeting down in the waggonette was the consequence.
The mare, whose patience had been gradually evaporating during this strange journey, conscious of the riot behind her, and feeling the reins dropping loosely over her tail, took the whole matter very much to heart, and showed her disapproval of the whole proceedings by taking to her heels and bolting straight away.
The business meeting inside stood forthwith adjourned. With scared faces, the boys struggled to their feet, and, holding on to the rail of the box-seat, peered over to ascertain the cause of this alarming diversion.
"It's a bolt!" said Richardson, the only one of the three who retained wits enough to think or speak. "Hang on, you fellows; I'll try and get the reins. Help me up!"
As well as the swaying of the vehicle would allow it, they helped him hoist himself up on to the box. But for a long time all his efforts to catch the reins were in vain, and once or twice it seemed as if nothing could save him from being pitched off his perch on to the road. Luckily the mare kept a straight course, and at length, by a tremendous stretch, well supported from the rear by his faithful comrades, the boy succeeded in reaching the reins and pulling them up over the mare's tail.
"Hang on now!" said he; "we're all right if I can only guide her."
CHAPTER TWO.
HOW OUR HEROES FALL OUT AND YET REMAIN FRIENDS.
Mountjoy House had a narrow escape that afternoon of losing three of its most promising pupils.
The boys themselves by no means realised the peril of their situation. Indeed, after the first alarm, and finding that, by clinging tightly to the rail of the box-seat, they could support themselves on their feet on the floor of the swinging vehicle, Heathcote and Coote began almost to enjoy it, and were rather sorry one or two of the Templeton boys were not at hand to see how Mountjoy did things.
Richardson, however, with the reins in his hands, but utterly powerless to check the headlong career of the mare, or to do anything but guide her, took a more serious view of the situation, and heartily wished the drive was at an end.
It was a flat road all the way to Mountjoy--no steep hill to breathe the runaway, and no ploughed field to curb her ardour. It was a narrow road, too, so narrow that, for two vehicles to pass one another, it was necessary for one of the two to draw up carefully at the very verge. And as the verge in the present case meant the edge of rather a steep embankment, the prospect was not altogether a cheering one for an inexperienced boy, who, if he knew very little about driving, knew quite well that everything depended on his own nerve and coolness.
And Richardson not only had a head, but knew how to keep it. With a rein tightly clutched in each hand, with his feet firmly pressed against