The Eagle Cliff | Page 4

but leaving me to guess whether you meant Thursday morning or evening."
"How stupid! My dear fellow, I forgot that!"
"Just so. Well to make sure of losing no time, instead of coming here by trains, which, as you know, are very awkward and slow in our neighbourhood, besides necessitating long waits and several changes, I just packed my portmanteau, gun, rods, etcetera, and gave directions to have them forwarded here by the first morning train, then took a few winks of sleep, and at the first glimmer of daylight mounted my wheel and set off across country as straight as country roads would permit of--and--here I am."
"True, Barret, and in good time for tea too. We don't sail till morning, for the tide does not serve till six o'clock, so that will give us plenty of time to put the finishing touches to our plans, allow your things to arrive, and permit of our making--or, rather, renewing--our acquaintance with Giles Jackman. You remember him, don't you?"
"Yes, faintly. He was a broad, sturdy, good-humoured, reckless, little boy when I last saw him at old Blatherby's school."
"Just so. Your portrait is correct. I saw him last month, after a good many years' interval, and he is exactly what he was, but considerably exaggerated at every point. He is not, indeed, a little, but a middle sized man now; as good-humoured as ever; much more reckless; sturdier and broader a great deal, with an amount of hair about his lip, chin, and head generally that would suffice to fit out three or four average men. He has been in India--in the Woods and Forests Department, or something of that sort--and has killed tigers, elephants, and such-like by the hundred, they say; but I've met him only once or twice, and he don't speak much about his own doings. He is home on sick-leave just now."
"Sick-leave! Will he be fit to go with us?" asked Barret, doubtfully.
"Fit!" cried Mabberly. "Ay, much more fit than you are, strong and vigorous though you be, for the voyage home has not only cured him; it has added superabundant health. Voyages always do to sick Anglo-Indians, don't you know? However ill a man may be in India, all he has to do is to obtain leave of absence and get on board of a ship homeward bound, and straightway health, rushing in upon him like a river, sends him home more than cured. So now our party is made up, yacht victualled, anchor tripped; and--`all's well that ends well.'"
"But all is not ended, Bob. Things have only begun, and, as regards myself, they have begun disastrously," said Barret, who thereupon related the incident of the little old lady being run down.
"My dear fellow," cried Mabberly, laughing, "excuse me, don't imagine me indifferent to the sufferings of the poor old thing; but do you really suppose that one who was tough enough, after such a collision, to sit up at all, with or without the support of the railings, and give way to indignant abuse--"
"Not abuse, Bob, indignant looks and sentiments; she was too thorough a lady to think of abuse--"
"Well, well; call it what you please; but you may depend upon it that she is not much hurt, and you will hear nothing more about the matter."
"That's it! That's the very thing that I dread," returned Barret, anxiously. "To go through life with the possibility that I may be an uncondemned and unhung murderer is terrible to think of. Then I can't get over the meanness of my running away so suddenly. If any one had said I was capable of such conduct I should have laughed at him. Yet have I lived to do it--contemptibly--in cold blood."
"Contemptibly it may have been, but not in cold blood, for did you not say you were roused to a state of frenzied alarm at the sight of the bobby? and assuredly, although unhung as yet, you are not uncondemned, if self-condemnation counts for anything. Come, don't take such a desponding view of the matter. We shall see the whole affair in the morning papers before sailing, with a report of the old lady's name and condition--I mean condition of health--as well as your unmanly flight, without leaving your card; so you'll be able to start with an easy--Ha! a cab! yes, it's Jackman. I know his manservant," said Mabberly, as he looked out at the window.
Another moment and a broad-chested man, of about five-and-twenty, with a bronzed face--as far as hair left it visible--a pair of merry blue eyes, and a hearty manner, was grasping his old schoolfellows by the hand, and endeavouring to trace the likeness in John Barret to the quiet little boy whom he used to help with his tasks many years before.
"Man, who would have thought you