For without a word of explanation Peggy had flung down her book and fled from the room. Hatless, and in her thin house-shoes, she rushed out of the house, and tore over the fields as fast as her shaking legs could carry her. In her plan to give Joe a fright, she had never thought of Father, who returned by the same road; and now that horrible white object was stationed just in the very danger-spot where a plunging horse might mean a matter of almost certain death, for the wall of the five-acre field abutted the road on one side, and on the other there was only a narrow patch of grass between the steep bank which shelved down sheer into the river, while the closed gate stopped any chance of a dash forward. Peggy's heart was beating like a sledge-hammer as she flew through the wood. Already she heard a distant rumbling of wheels, and putting on a last desperate spurt, she reached the gate. She could never afterwards tell exactly what happened at that moment, except that the gig-lamps flashed suddenly in her eyes, 'Whoa, my lad!' shouted Father's voice, and Prince's rearing, kicking form loomed large before her as he backed persistently towards the bank. It took Peggy just one instant to open the gate, and catching up her ghost to hurl the whole wretched thing over the wall, and in another she had seized the horse by the rein, and, soothing him with her well-known voice, dragged him forward with all the strength of her wiry little arms. She was barely in time, for already one wheel was over the edge, but, the object of his fear being removed, Prince allowed himself to be cajoled into the road again, where he stood, panting and trembling in every limb.