The Burning Spear | Page 7

him
through the further window. Taking this for an augury Of success, Mr.
Lavender removed his hat, and putting his head through the window,
thus addressed the ten boys:
"I thank you. The occasion is one which I shall ever remember. The
Government has charged me with the great task of rousing our country
in days which demand of each of us the utmost exertions. I am proud to
feel that I have here, on the very threshold of my task, an audience of
bright young spirits, each one of whom in this democratic country has
in him perhaps the makings of a General or even of a Prime Minister.
Let it be your earnest endeavour, boys----"
At this moment a piece of indiarubber rebounded from Mr. Lavender's
forehead, and he recoiled into the body of the car.
"Are you right, sir?" said Joe, looking in; and without waiting for reply

he started the engine. The car moved out amid a volley of stones, balls,
cheers, and other missiles from the fifteen boys who pursued it with
frenzy. Swaying slightly from side to side, with billowing bag, it
gathered speed, and, turning a corner, took road for the country. Mr.
Lavender, somewhat dazed, for the indiarubber had been hard, sat
gazing through the little back window at the great city he was leaving.
His lips moved, expressing unconsciously the sentiments of
innumerable Lord Mayors: "Greatest City in the world, Queen of
Commerce, whose full heart I can still hear beating behind me, in
mingled pride and regret I leave you. With the most sacred gratitude I
lay down my office. I go to other work, whose---- Joe!"
"Sir?"
"Do you see that?"
"I see your 'ead, that's all, sir."
"We seem to be followed by a little column of dust, which keeps ever
at the same distance in the middle of the road. Do you think it can be an
augury."
"No; I should think it's a dog."
"In that case, hold hard!" said Mr. Lavender, who had a weakness for
dog's. Joe slackened the car's pace, and leaned his head round the
comer. The column of dust approached rapidly.
"It is a dog," said Mr. Lavender, "it's Blink."
The female sheep-dog, almost flat with the ground from speed,
emerged from the dust, wild with hair and anxiety, white on the cheeks
and chest and top of the head, and grey in the body and the very little
tail, and passed them like a streak of lightning.
"Get on!" cried Mr. Lavender, excited; "follow her she's trying to catch
us up!"
Joe urged on the car, which responded gallantly, swaying from side to
side, while the gas-bag bellied and shook; but the faster it went the
faster the sheep-dog flew in front of it.
"This is dreadful!" said Mr. Lavender in anguish, leaning far out.
"Blink! Blink!"
His cries were drowned in the roar of the car.
"Damn the brute!" muttered Joe at this rate she'll be over the edge in
'alf a mo'. Wherever does she think we are?"
"Blink! Blink!" wailed Mr. Lavender. "Get on, Joe, get on! She's

gaining on us!"
"Well I never see anything like this," said Joe, "chasin' wot's chasing
you! Hi! Hi!"
Urged on by their shouts and the noise of the pursuing car, the poor dog
redoubled her efforts to rejoin her master, and Mr. Lavender, Joe, and
the car, which had begun to emit the most lamentable creaks and
odours, redoubled theirs.
"I shall bust her up," said Joe.
"I care not!" cried Mr. Lavender. "I must recover the dog."
They flashed through the outskirts of the Garden City. "Stop her, stop
her!" called Mr. Lavender to such of the astonished inhabitants as they
had already left behind. "This is a nightmare, Joe!"
"'It's a blinkin' day-dream," returned Joe, forcing the car to an expiring
spurt.
"If she gets to that 'ill before we ketch 'er, we're done; the old geyser
can't 'alf crawl up 'ills."
"We're gaining," shrieked Mr. Lavender; "I can see her tongue."
As though it heard his voice, the car leaped forward and stopped with a
sudden and most formidable jerk; the door burst open, and Mr.
Lavender fell out upon his sheep-dog.
Fortunately they were in the only bed of nettles in that part of the world,
and its softness and that of Blink assuaged the severity of his fall, yet it
was some minutes before he regained the full measure of his faculties.
He came to himself sitting on a milestone, with his dog on her hind legs
between his knees, licking his face clean, and panting down his throat.
"Joe," he said; "where are you"?
The voice of Joe replied from underneath the car: "Here sir. She's
popped."
"Do you mean that our journey is arrested?"