A Mother's Spirit Read Free

was doing any good, and he was only too aware how near they were to the main road. He could hear the traffic and knew if he didn’t stop the pony before the road, it was highly unlikely any of them would survive.
    However, though his mouth was dry with fear, he kept the panic out of his voice and hands as he continued to stroke and talk as gently as he could. Gradually, he felt the pony begin to respond and to slow slightly. Then people came forward to hold him. He was eventually brought to a halt only a couple of yards from the road.He stood with his head down, his sides heaving and gleaming with sweat. Joe slid from his back, ran to the carriage door and opened it.
    Gloria was lying curled in a ball on the floor of the carriage, certain she was going to die. She had begun to uncurl herself stiffly as the carriage stopped, though she still shook.
    Joe climbed inside the carriage and lifted the child gently to her feet. Her bonnet had become dislodged and her hair was tousled around her head, and although her face was brick red, it didn’t detract from her beauty at all.
    ‘Are you all right, miss?’ Joe asked solicitously.
    Gloria opened her mouth to speak, and began to weep in fear and relief. She put her arms around Joe’s neck, and he didn’t protest, knowing that she probably needed the comfort of another human being. She cried into his shoulder as he lifted her in his arms and carried her from the carriage.
    They were still clasped together like this when Brian reached them, red-faced and panting. From every side people told him of the bravery of the young man, newly arrived in the country, who, without a shadow of a doubt, had saved the life of young Gloria Brannigan.
    Brian knew that without being told. He had died a thousand times as he pounded after the careering carriage, and even as he watched the young man from the immigrant ship leap on to the back of the terrified pony, he feared he would not be able to stop the pony in time.
    He peeled his still distraught daughter from Joe’s arms as he said to him, ‘I owe you a debt that it will take a lifetime to repay. Brian Brannigan is my name, and this is my daughter, Gloria.’
    ‘Joe Sullivan, sir,’ Joe said. ‘And as for what I did, I am just glad that your daughter is unharmed.’
    ‘Thanks to you,’ Brian said, looking Joe up and down. He liked what he saw. Joe was a handsome man, with expressive dark eyes. He stood straight and tall, and lookedfully in command of himself, and only his tousled brown hair and his rumpled suit were evidence of his act of bravery. ‘None but my coachman, Tim Walsh, tried to stop the pony,’ Brian went on, ‘and now the poor man is lying comatose on the ground awaiting an ambulance. Everyone else kept out of the way.’
    ‘You can’t blame them, sir,’ Joe said. ‘I would say the pony was too panicked to stop in any way other than the one I tried, and even I wasn’t sure that it would work.’
    Gloria was looking at Joe with a sort of awed expression. ‘What did you do?’ she asked.
    ‘Leaped on the pony’s back, that’s what,’ Brian told his daughter. ‘And in doing so saved your life and risked his own.’
    ‘I… I don’t know what to say,’ Gloria said. ‘Thank you, I suppose, but that doesn’t seem very much really.’
    ‘It isn’t,’ Brian agreed, ‘but here is a better offer.’ He turned to Joe. ‘You have just come off the immigrant ship?’
    ‘Aye, sir.’
    ‘Have you a job?’
    ‘No, but I have a neighbour looking out for me.’
    ‘Well, I own a factory and I sure could use a brave young fellow like yourself. How d’you feel about that?’
    Joe couldn’t believe his luck. In payment for saving this man’s daughter, he was being offered employment. And though the man was still red-faced and breathless from his unaccustomed exertion, he looked to be honest and straightforward.
    ‘I feel grand about it, sir,’ Joe said.
    ‘Are you looking for that sort of work?’
    ‘I am