In the late afternoon of the fourth day the coach was making a rather slow progress along the Ilminster Road. Zacchary had discovered, or imagined, as Marion asserted, a slight lameness in the inside leader. Nothing would induce him to hurry his pace, and Marion had been obliged to bow to his will.
To Simone's unbounded relief, Marion's attack of depression had worn itself out. The consciousness that in a few more days, granted no ill fortune, she would cross the boundary into Cornwall, lent an added buoyancy to her reacting mood.
The sound of the broad Dorset speech, which had induced a home-coming sensation in Marion, had greatly diverted Simone. Marion, giving her a lesson in west country dialect, did not notice the narrow lane, deep ditched at one side, into which they had passed, and was unaware of any danger until, with a sickening heave, the coach slanted down into the hollow, and rested there.
'Bide where you be, Mistress,' came Zacchary's call. 'Us'll shift un all right!'
For a few seconds the men struggled at the horses' heads, the Cornishman's cries to the struggling greys running into a high falsetto and an affectionate reviling that made even Marion smile.
''Tis nothing,' she said to Simone, as the two balanced themselves against the list of the coach floor. 'We toppled into a ditch coming down, and were soon on the road again. Zacchary must have been careless for once. There! 'Twas a splendid pull. Ah--stay! What was that?'
The coach, almost balanced, had fallen back slanting-wise, and with the movement had come the sound of a snap, and a struggling of horses' feet. The voices of the men ceased.
'Something has happened,' said Marion, 'and I can't open this villainous door! Reuben!' she called.
The footman was already climbing on to the coach step, which appeared to be poised in mid-air, and in a moment the two girls were lifted to the ground.
Zacchary was bending over a broken trace.
'Oh!' said Marion in a relieved tone, 'I thought the pole had gone.'
Zacchary's mouth twisted under his beard. 'My lady would sing a different song by and by, when she saw the time it would take to mend the break.'
'You have all your tools, have you not?' asked Marion.
Zacchary straightened himself. 'There bean't nawt in yonder box at all, Mistress. A wor that struck at the sudden hurry of coming away a' clean forgot.'