CHAPTER XV

AUNT MIRANDA AND NED HAVE A LITTLE ALTERCATION

It all began with Beauty Buttons. Ordinarily Beauty was a well-behaved dog, but even a well-behaved dog has been known, to resent discourtesies, and Beauty had a grievance. In the first place, he knew his rights and privileges, and meant to have them respected One of these was to lie upon the couch-rug in the guest-room if he chose to do so. With Aunt Miranda’s advent that privilege was withheld for the time being, but of this, of course, Beauty was ignorant, and when he felt disposed to take a little siesta in the cool, inviting guest-room, thither he made his way, and was peacefully dreaming of luscious bones when Aunt Miranda pounced upon him, and, with one sweep of her strong right arm, sent him sprawling upon the floor, there to blink at her with sleep-stupefied eyes until another swoop sent him scurrying out of the room to rush to the Birds’ Nest, there, no doubt, to confide his wrongs to Ned Toodles’ sympathetic ears, and receive assurance that they would be avenged at the earliest possible moment. The moment arrived that very afternoon.

“Emilie Lombard, how am I to get to the village to register this letter?” demanded Aunt Miranda shortly after luncheon.

“John will take it for you, Aunt Miranda, if it is very important,” answered Mrs. Lombard.

“No he won’t, either! Catch me trusting an important letter to that Irishman! He would not know the difference between a registered letter and one to be sent special delivery; I shall take it myself. But how am I to get there, I’d like to know?”

“John will drive you up in time for the outgoing mail if you wish to have him.”

“Drive me with what? Not those demons, I can tell you. I would not go with those horses if I never went.”

“Oh, you really need not feel any alarm. They are perfectly safe. I will accompany you if it will make you feel any easier.”

“And like enough both of us will be killed. No. I shall go in the pony-carriage. If that snip of a horse cuts up I shall get out and put him in the carriage and _drag him_ home,” asserted Aunt Miranda, in happy innocence of that small beast’s capabilities when he was not treated with proper respect. Moreover, did he not have a wrong to avenge for a fellow-pet?

“Very well, Denise will drive you to the post-office with pleasure,” was Mrs. Lombard’s gentle reply.

“She won’t drive me with pleasure or anything else, for I mean to drive _myself_!” was the startling statement, made with a series of positive wags of Aunt Miranda’s head.

“Oh--” began Denise, who, with Pokey, had been a silent listener to the foregoing conversation, and who could no longer keep quiet, for well she knew what might be expected from Ned if Aunt Miranda undertook to drive him to the village.

“Now, Miss, you need make no remarks, nor advance any opinions. I drove long before you, or your mother, were born, and I have an idea that I can drive yet. At any rate, I mean to try, and it won’t do a mite of good for you to try to stop me. I’m _going_!”

Denise gave one imploring look at her mother, who answered it with another which meant, “We will not say another word.”

The order was given, and twenty minutes later Aunt Miranda took her seat in the little phaeton, her tall, spare figure towering up from it like a liberty-pole, and her face set in determination to drive that atom of an animal or die in the attempt.

“Now you stand right there at his head until I get comfortably settled, you man. I don’t want to be jerked all to pieces before I get my clothes settled right, and that beast seems to have been imbibing some of those horses’ ideas,” she said, as Ned cocked one wicked eye back toward her as she stepped into the carriage. “And you come and tuck this linen robe in so that it won’t drag a mile on the ground,” she continued, beckoning to Denise, who stood at the foot of the steps, undecided whether to offer her services or keep discreetly in the background. She came obediently forward at the bidding, Pokey hastening to the other side of the phaeton to do her share. “Stand aside. Keep out of the way. One person can do this easy enough,” was the ungracious speech which greeted Pokey’s overture.

“Now hand me those reins. There! I’d like to see him cut up now!” she said, as she gave the reins a twist about her hands, and held them as though she were holding an elephant. “Now stand out of my way, all of you. Now!” and giving the loud cluck which she felt to be the correct signal for a start, and slapping the reins upon Ned’s back, she essayed to start. John had held Ned’s head up to this moment, but now he let go, and, with a bound, Ned started forward, to find himself suddenly jerked almost upon his haunches.

“Not if _I_ know it, you little villain!” cried his driver.

Ned came to a standstill, but gave his head two or three ominous shakes sidewise, which, to any one understanding him as Denise understood him, meant mischief ahead, but Aunt Miranda merely regarded them as a proof of her control over him.

“Now I shall take my time and go by the river-road,” she announced to those watching her, “and you need not expect me back for more than an hour. I’ve no notion of being hustled about.”

At the announcement that she was going by the river-road, Denise sprang forward and clasped her hands about her mother’s arm, whispering excitedly: “Oh, mamma, she ought not go that way with Ned. You know Mr. Blair’s Nero!”

“Aunt Miranda,” called Mrs. Lombard, “I would advise you to take the other road. Mr. Blair’s--” but Aunt Miranda had not paused for any instructions, and, with a backward nod, drove off with determination in her eye and defiance in her attitude.

Now Ned’s mouth still pained from the jerk it had received, and Ned’s sense of right and justice had been outraged at the very outset. He was never vicious, but, on the other hand, he was invariably wisely handled, and carefully driven. A horse’s mouth, if properly treated, is a wonderfully sensitive thing, and Ned’s was filled with many delicate nerves which had never been abused. But there was nothing gentle about the person who now had him in hand, and the poor little beast was having anything but a pleasant time of it. With arms stretched straight out in front of her, reins grasped as though she were driving upon a race-track, and her body as rigidly erect as though an instant’s relaxation would bring instant death, she sent her charger along the one road in all Springdale that he detested, for midway between his home and the village lived his sworn enemy, Mr. Blair’s big Newfoundland dog. Several months before, Denise had had an experience the like of which neither she nor Ned wished repeated. She was driving home from the post-office one morning, when over Mr. Blair’s high fence bounded a huge dog, to rush into the road and pounce upon Ned’s back, and bite savagely at the saddle. It was fortunate for Ned that the dog happened to set his teeth in the harness, or the poor little horse would have had a very bad quarter of an hour indeed. Denise held on to the reins, and laid the whip upon the dog with a will, but it made little impression upon his shaggy coat, and something very serious might have occurred had not Mr. Blair’s groom rushed to their rescue to beat the dog off and drag him back to their own grounds. But both Denise and Ned had received a thorough fright, and after that carefully avoided the river-road.

As he approached Mr. Blair’s grounds, Ned steadily increased his pace, evidently wishing to get past as speedily as possible. But Aunt Miranda entirely mistook his motive, and set herself to work to discipline him. They got past the danger-point, and went upon their way, doing the errand at the post-office without any interruption, and all would have gone well had Aunt Miranda taken the broad hint which Ned tried to give her when they came to the two roads leading toward home. Ned wished to take the upper one. Aunt Miranda wished to take the lower one, and for a few minutes it was a question as to which would carry their point.

What was really “good horse sense” upon Ned’s part, Aunt Miranda chose to regard as balkiness, and set herself religiously to work to overcome it. A lively scuffle ensued, and for a few moments it seemed as though the occupant of that little phaeton would have to make good her threat of putting Ned into it and dragging him home if she wished to have him go that particular road. Presently he stopped his antics, stood stock-still, and seemed to consider the situation. Then, giving a defiant neigh, he started pell-mell down the road she wished to follow, as though to say:

“You stupid old thing, I’ve done my best to keep you out of trouble, but if you are determined to have it, why go ahead. Because Nero was not around when we came up, it is no reason to feel sure that he won’t be there when we go back, and if you come to grief it will be your own fault. I’ll take _my_ chances, and if I don’t make good use of _my_ legs in an emergency, it will not be _my_ fault. Now come on with you!” and off he pelted full tilt. In vain did Aunt Miranda tug at those reins. Ned had the bit in his teeth and she might as well have tugged at a post, for fear of Nero, combined with his determination to get past that dreaded spot as speedily as possible, settled Aunt Miranda’s fate, and Ned was putting for friends and safety.

“You little wretch, how dare you? It is all because you have been utterly spoiled with coddling. Such nonsense! There never was a beast or child that wasn’t utterly ruined with such folly. _Will_ you go slower and behave yourself?” and Aunt Miranda tugged with a will. Now Ned’s sight was keen and his hearing acute, and what Aunt Miranda neither saw nor heard owing to her tirade toward him, he saw and heard distinctly.

They came to the Blair grounds, were speeding past, when over the fence sprang a creature which Aunt Miranda took to be nothing less than a bear. She let go her right rein, grabbed for the whip, meantime tugging with might and main upon her left rein. Perhaps it was this which really saved her, for when the great dog saw what he took to be a still greater one, turn directly toward him, as though to pounce straight upon him, some of his courage failed him and he paused for just a second. But in that second a number of things happened. The sudden jerk upon the left rein had thrown Ned completely out of his gait, and caused him to swerve suddenly toward the gutter, which was nothing more than a deep gully beside the road. Into it went the wheels, and over tipped the phaeton, landing Aunt Miranda, whip and all, in a heap. As she fell out, the sudden overturn brought the whip full upon Ned’s back, and at the same moment she loosened her hold upon the other rein. Thus released, and with a stinging lash across his haunches, it was no wonder that Ned took the broad hint to depart, and he departed with might and main; tearing down the road with the phaeton bounding along behind him, for it had righted almost instantly, he paused not upon the order of going, or for ladies who for the past hour had made life a wearisome thing for him, to say nothing of having ill-treated his chief crony, Beauty Buttons, but went with a will.

The shriek which issued from Aunt Miranda’s lips when she landed in the soft grass of the gully, did double duty, for it scared the cowardly dog half out of his wits and also summoned Mr. Blair’s groom, who came running to the rescue of the irate lady sitting bolt upright in the gutter.

“Are you hurt, ma’am? Are you hurt?” demanded the man anxiously as he bent over her.

“Hurt! It is a wonder that I’m not killed! Who owns that dog? I am going at once to have him killed. Stand back, I don’t need any help. But that dog has got to die! Take me to your master this minute,” and up she rose to stalk after the astonished man.