Read it through once

This was written on November 20. A day or two afterwards the Doctor grew suddenly worse, so bad indeed that his daughter feared for his life. The days were spent in watching and praying by his bedside, with reading from St. John’s Gospel, “which he and I both prefer,” and with frequent visits from the Shinfield clergyman, who must have noted what was, possibly, hidden from the daughter’s eyes, that the old man was sinking fast. By the last day of November his condition was most alarming, so much so that as Dr. May from Reading had not arrived, Miss Mitford set off with Ben, the gardener, in the pony-chaise to fetch him. It was a Sunday evening, pitch-dark, and they had to trust to the pony’s instinct to find their way. Dr. May was not at home when they arrived, and, after a fruitless wait for him, and receiving some advice from the physician’s partner, they set off home again at seven o’clock. The darkness was still intense, so that they could see little before them, and they had just reached a spot half-way to home when two footpads sprung at them from the hedge on either side the road. One wrenched the reins from Ben, the other seized Miss Mitford’s umbrella; the pony, plunging from the tug at the reins, caused one of the miscreants to swerve in the act of aiming a blow with a bludgeon at Ben. The blow descended on the pony’s flanks, making it dart forward with a terrific plunge and then tear madly off home. The suddenness of the whole thing threw off both the men, one of whom fell beneath the chaise and was run over. By a merciful Providence no vehicle or other person was met on the road, for Ben could not control the pony until the cottage was neared, when the sagacious creature slowed up of its own accord and stopped quietly at the door.