The Eagle Cliff | Page 3

the other.
The ragged girl said nothing, but looked unspeakable things.
Burning with shame, trembling with anxiety, covered with dust and considerably bruised, Barret sprang up, left his fallen steed, and, raising the little old lady with great tenderness in his arms, sat her on the pavement with her back against the railings, while he poured out abject apologies and earnest inquiries.
Strange to say the old lady was not hurt in the least--only a good deal shaken and very indignant.
Stranger still, a policeman suddenly appeared in the distance. At the same time a sweep, a postman, and a servant girl joined the group.
Young Barret, as we have said, was sensitive. To become the object and centre of a crowd in such circumstances was overwhelming. A climax was put to his confusion, when one of the street arabs, observing the policeman, suddenly exclaimed:--
"Oh! I say, 'ere's a bobby! What a lark. Won't you be 'ad up before the beaks? It'll be a case o' murder."
"No, it won't," retorted the other boy; "it'll be a case o' manslaughter an' attempted suicide jined."
Barret started up, allowing the servant maid to take his place, and saw the approaching constable. Visions of detention, publicity, trial, conviction, condemnation, swam before him.
"A reg'lar Krismas panty-mime for nuffin'!" remarked the ragged girl, breaking silence for the first time.
Scarcely knowing what he did, Barret leaped towards his bicycle, set it up, vaulted into the saddle, as he well knew how, and was safely out of sight in a few seconds.
Yet not altogether safe. A guilty conscience pursued, overtook, and sat upon him. Shame and confusion overwhelmed him. Up to that date he had been honourable, upright, straightforward; as far as the world's estimation went, irreproachable. Now, in his own estimation, he was mean, false, underhand, sneaking!
But he did not give way to despair. He was a true hero, else we would not have had anything to write about him. Suddenly he slowed, frowned, compressed his lips, described a complete circle--in spite of a furniture van that came in his way--and deliberately went back to the spot where the accident had occurred; but there was no little lady to be seen. She had been conveyed away, the policeman was gone, the little boys were gone, the ragged girl, sweep, postman, and servant maid--all were gone, "like the baseless fabric of a vision," leaving only new faces and strangers behind to wonder what accident and thin old lady the excited youth was asking about--so evanescent are the incidents that occur; and so busily pre-occupied are the human torrents that rush in the streets of London!
The youth turned sadly from the spot and continued his journey at a slower pace. As he went along, the thought that the old lady might have received internal injuries, and would die, pressed heavily upon him: Thus, he might actually be a murderer, at the best a man-slaughterer, without knowing it, and would carry in his bosom a dreadful secret, and a terrible uncertainty, to the end of his life!
Of course he could go to that great focus of police energy--Scotland Yard--and give himself up; but on second thoughts he did not quite see his way to that. However, he would watch the daily papers closely. That evening, in a frame of mind very different from the mental condition, in which he had set out on his sixty miles' ride in the afternoon, John Barret presented himself to his friend and old schoolfellow, Bob Mabberly.
"You're a good fellow, Barret; I knew you would come; but you look warm. Have you been running?" asked Mabberly, opening the door of his lodging to his friend. "Come in: I have news for you. Giles Jackman has agreed to go. Isn't that a comfort? for, besides his rare and valuable sporting qualities, he is more than half a doctor, which will be important, you know, if any of us should get ill or come to grief. Sit down and we'll talk it over."
Now, it was a telegram from Bob Mabberly which led John Barret to suddenly undertake a sixty miles' ride that day, and which was thus the indirect cause of the little old lady being run down. The telegram ran as follows:--
"Come instanter. As you are. Clothes unimportant. Yacht engaged. Crew also. Sail, without fail, Thursday. Plenty more to say when we meet."
"Now, you see, Bob, with your usual want of precision, or care, or some such quality--"
"Stop, Barret. Do be more precise in the use of language. How can the want of a thing be a quality?"
"You are right, Bob. Let me say, then, that with your usual unprecision and carelessness you sent me a telegram, which could not reach me till late on Wednesday night, after all trains were gone, telling me that you sail, without fail, on Thursday,