A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE 



impetuous beast, dashed forward, knocking down the 

 syce. 



Pulling at the reins, the lady now discovered to her 

 horror that both ends had been detached from the bit, and 

 as she pulled at them, came into her hands. Meanwhile 

 the pony, finding its head free, broke from, a canter into a 

 gallop, and finally bolted, with the two helpless women in 

 the trap. Desperate as was their position, the knowledge 

 that no one could help them made it worse. The pony, 

 maddened by the rumbling of the trap behind him, galloped 

 on at racing speed, till coming to the railway at a level 

 crossing, about half a mile down the road, he attempted 

 to jump the gates. 



My relative, being very light, was pitched over the gate, 

 and lay stunned close to the line, with a handkerchief she 

 was holding still in her outstretched hand, which seemed to 

 be actually on the line. Her friend, who was of a less sylph- 

 like build in fact, of such solid proportions that not even the 

 jar of the collision with the gate had succeeded in dis- 

 lodging her found herself still seated in the trap. 



But before she had time to wonder how this feat had 

 been accomplished, her attention was attracted to a sound 

 in the distance, which, growing louder every moment, soon 

 revealed itself as the rumble of a train, which a moment 

 later was seen rapidly approaching the spot where her friend 

 lay senseless ! 



A second or two of agonizing suspense, and the engine 

 with its long line of massive waggons had swept past the 

 prostrate figure, and right over the fluttering handkerchief 

 it held. Providentially, the hand itself was not as it had 

 appeared to be actually on the line ; yet so perilously near 

 to it that as the train approached it had seemed to the 

 anxious watcher as though nothing short of a miracle could 

 avert the terrible calamity impending. 



But the passing train was hardly out of sight when, 

 to her inexpressible relief, her friend, recovering from her 

 swoon, stood up, apparently unhurt and unconscious of 

 the danger she had been in, and it was not till some moments 

 later, when she was looking for her lost handkerchief, that 

 she learnt all that had happened after the pony's attempt 

 to jump the gates. 



P 209 



