Part 59

Now commenced a search for another place. Day after day Paul went out, and day after day he returned with the same want of success.

“Never mind, Paul,” said the sexton encouragingly. “When you do succeed, perhaps you'll get something worth waiting for.”

One morning Paul went out feeling that something was going to happen,--he didn't exactly know what,--but he felt somehow that there was to be a change in his luck. He went out, therefore, with more hopefulness than usual; yet, when four o'clock came, and nothing had occurred except failure and disappointment, which unhappily were not at all out of the ordinary course, Paul began to think that he was very foolish to have expected anything.

He was walking listlessly along a narrow street, when, on a sudden, he heard an exclamation of terror, of which, on turning round, he easily discovered the cause.

Two spirited horses, attached to an elegant carriage, had been terrified in some way, and were now running at the top of their speed.

There was no coachman on the box; he had dismounted in order to ring at some door, when the horses started. He was now doing his best to overtake the horses, but in a race between man and horse, it is easy to predict which will have the advantage.

There seemed to be but one person in the carriage. It was a lady,--whose face, pale with terror, could be seen from the carriage window. Her loud cries of alarm no doubt terrified the horses still more, and, by accelerating their speed, tended to make matters worse.

Paul was roused from a train of despondent reflections by seeing the horses coming up the street. He instantly comprehended the whole danger of the lady's situation.

Most boys would have thought of nothing but getting out of the way, and leaving the carriage and its inmate to their fate. What, indeed, could a boy do against a pair of powerful horses, almost beside themselves with fright?

But our hero, as we have already had occasion to see, was brave and self-possessed, and felt an instant desire to rescue the lady, whose glance of helpless terror, as she leaned her head from the window, he could see. Naturally quickwitted, it flashed upon him that the only way to relieve a horse from one terror, was to bring another to bear upon him.

With scarcely a moment's premeditation, he rushed out into the middle of the street, full in the path of the furious horses, and with his cheeks pale, for he knew his danger, but with determined air, he waved his arms aloft, and cried “Whoa!” at the top of his voice.

The horses saw the sudden movement. They saw the boy standing directly in front of them. They heard the word of command to which they had been used, and by a sudden impulse, relieved from the blind terror which had urged them on, they stopped suddenly, and stood still in the middle of the street, still showing in their quivering limbs the agitation through which they had passed.

Just then the coachman, panting with his hurried running, came up and seized them by the head.

“Youngster,” said he, “you're a brave fellow. You've done us a good service to-day. You're a pretty cool hand, you are. I don't know what these foolish horses would have done with the carriage if it had not been for you.”

“Let me get out,” exclaimed the lady, not yet recovered from her fright.

“I will open the door,” said Paul, observing that the coachman was fully occupied in soothing the horses.

He sprang forward, and opening the door of the carriage assisted the lady to descend.

She breathed quickly.

“I have been very much frightened,” she said; “and I believe I have been in very great danger. Are you the brave boy who stopped the horses?”

Paul modestly answered in the affirmative.

“And how did you do it? I was so terrified that I was hardly conscious of what was passing, till the horses stopped.”

Paul modestly related his agency in the matter.

The lady gazed at his flushed face admiringly.

“How could you have so much courage?” she asked. “You might have been trampled to death under the hoofs of the horses.”

“I didn't think of that. I only thought of stopping the horses.”

“You are a brave boy. I shudder when I think of your danger and mine. I shall not dare to get into the carriage again this afternoon.”

“Allow me to accompany you home?” said Paul, politely.

“Thank you; I will trouble you to go with me as far as Broadway, and then I can get into an omnibus.”