Elisabeth Fairchild Read Online Free PDF

graciously presented it to Fanella Quinby.
    With a look of astonished appreciation, Nell promptly placed the bonnet on her head and tied the pink ribbon beneath her chin. “I shall see you knighted, Mr. Ferd,” she said gratefully. “Thrice in one day have you rescued a damsel in distress.”
     
    Nell was touched by the consideration she received. A gentleman gave her his place on the bench behind the driver’s, where the swaying of the coach would not be so uncomfortable as at the hind end of the roof, and gallant Mr. Ferd had cleverly seen to the last minute delivery of a bonnet. She began to think that she would never be able to repay this young man ’s repeated kindnesses, and that bothered her. She did not like to remain beholden to anyone, most especially not handsome young men with dancing blue eyes.
    An opportunity for restitution presented itself when something behind them in the road caught the attention of most of the topside passengers, as well as the postboy and guard, who perched on the very hindmost bench of the coach, above the back boot, gun in hand.
    “Stupid creature.” The guard said to the postboy. “Looks as if he means to follow us.”>
    “Shoot at him,” the postboy recommended. “That will turn him away.”
    The guard lifted his blunderbuss to his shoulder, ready to oblige.
    Nell craned her neck to see what it was the men meant to shoot. A flash of black and white fur caught her eye. “Stop!” she shrieked. “Bandit!”
    The blunderbuss jerked up, discharging harmlessly into the air, but the explosion of shot, coupled with the words  ’stop ’ and  ’bandit ’, unsettled all of the passengers. Even the baby and the enormous woman inside the coach, immediately voiced their distress, the one by bawling at the top of its lungs, the other by rattling off a stream of invective that grew in volume to compensate for the full scale howl that the baby eventually attained.
    Mr. Ferd, who had been handed the ribbons, slowed the team, all the while fending off the original driver, who urged him to, “Whip ’em along, man! We can outrun any highwayman in England with four fresh rare ’uns ’tween the shafts.”
    “I am sure we can,” he agreed calmly. “But, a-a-as I’ve no wish to outrun this particular Bandit, we shall spare the horses. Gates!” He called.
    “Yes sir,” Gates murmured, with an agreeable grin. As the coach slowed and Beau Ferd called out firmly, “Up, Bandit, up boy!” Gates stretched out over the side of the coach top, caught hold of the leaping dog by the scruff of his thickly furred neck, as, nails scrabbling on canvas, it valiantly attempted to board.
    “See. The scamp holds us up again.” Beau leaned back to share his amusement with Nell, the sparkle in his eyes an unexpected intimacy.
    Before she could so much as nod, Gates called out, “Got ’im, your grace,” and Mr. Ferd leaned forward, to touch up the team.
     
     

Chapter Three

    The dog, Bandit, eyed Nell from beneath his master’s seat, from the moment he settled there. To be sure, he kept his ear cocked in the direction whence he might hear the coachman’s voice or whistle, but his great tawny orbs stared at her with that hopeful look most dogs fasten on someone they think might offer them attention, affection, and a scratch behind the ear.
    Nell had a fondness for animals, rooted in a deep, spiritual reverence for life, a reverence intensified by the unexpected death of her father. Death pointed up the tenuous gift that life was. To Nell, animals represented the very essence of that gift. They offered labor, food, clothing, transport and companionship to man. They were living, breathing, thinking creatures possessed of a spark just as vital, in its essence, as that within man. Life was precious and all too brief. It should not be wasted.
    Animals sensed her affinity for them. Mr. Ferd’s dog was no exception. It was Bandit, and not the bleak and treeless course through the gentle hills of