The Eagle Cliff, Robert Michael Ballantyne [top 10 books to read TXT] 📗

that they _can't_ feel it."

"True, child, but in these circumstances they are usually unable to express their views about feeling altogether, which I am not, you see-- no thanks to that--th-to John Barret."

"Oh! mother, I cannot bear to think of it--"

"No wonder," interrupted the old lady. "To think of my being violently knocked down _twice--almost_ three times--by a big young man like that, and the first time with a horrid bicycle on the top of us--I might almost say mixed up with us."

"But, mother, he _never_ meant it, you know--"

"I should _think_ not!" interjected Mrs Moss with a short sarcastic laugh.

"No, indeed," continued Milly, with some warmth; "and if you only knew what he has suffered on your account--"

"Milly," cried Mrs Moss quickly, "is all that _I_ have suffered on _his_ account to count for nothing?"

"Of course not, _dear_ mother. I don't mean that; you don't understand me. I mean the reproaches that his own conscience has heaped upon his head for what he has inadvertently done."

"Recklessly, child, not inadvertently. Besides, you know, his conscience is not _himself_. People cannot avoid what conscience says to them. Its remarks are no sign of humility or self-condemnation, one proof of which is that wicked people would gladly get away from conscience if they could, instead of agreeing with it, as they should, and shaking hands with it, and saying, `we are all that you call us, and more.'"

"Well, that is exactly what John has done," said Milly, with increasing, warmth. "He has said all that, and more to me--"

"To _you_?" interrupted Mrs Moss; "yes, but you are not his conscience, child!"

"Yes, I am, mother; at least, if I'm not, I am next thing to it, for he says _everything_ to me!" returned Milly, with a laugh and a blush. "And you have no idea how sorry, how ashamed, how self-condemned, how overwhelmed he has been by all that has happened."

"Humph! I have been a good deal more overwhelmed than he has been," returned Mrs Moss. "However, make your mind easy, child, for during the last week or two, in learning to love and esteem John Barret, I have unwittingly been preparing the way to forgive and forget the cowardly youth who ran me down in London. Now go and send Mr Jackman to me; I have a great opinion of that young man's knowledge of medicine and surgery, though he _is_ only an amateur. He will soon tell me whether I have received any hurt that has rendered me incapable of feeling. And at the same time you may convey to that coward, John, my entire forgiveness."

Milly kissed her mother, of course, and hastened away to deliver her double message.

After careful examination and much questioning, "Dr" Jackman pronounced the little old lady to be entirely free from injury of any kind, save the smashing of a comb in her back-hair, and gave it as his opinion that she was as sound in wind and limb as before the accident, though there had unquestionably been a considerable shock to the feelings, which, however, seemed to have had the effect of improving rather than deranging her intellectual powers. The jury which afterwards sat upon her returned their verdict in accordance with that opinion.

It was impossible, of course, to prevent some of all this leaking into the kitchen, the nursery, and the stable. In the first-mentioned spot, Quin remarked to the housemaid,--"Sure, it's a quare evint entirely," with which sentiment the housemaid agreed.

"Aunt Moss is a buster," was Junkie's ambiguous opinion, in which Flo and the black doll coincided.

"Tonal'," said Roderick, as he groomed the bay horse, "the old wumman iss a fery tough person."

To which "Tonal'" assented, "she iss, what-e-ver."


CHAPTER FIFTEEN.


ELEPHANTS AGAIN--FOLLOWED BY SOMETHING MORE AWFUL.

There came a rainy day at last at Kinlossie House. Such days will come at times in human experience, both in metaphor and fact. At present we state a fact.

"It will bring up the fush," was Roderick's remark, as he paused in the operation of cleaning harness to look through the stable door on the landscape; "an' that wull please Maister MacRummle."

"It will pe good for the gress too, an' that will please Muss Mully," said Donald, now permanently appointed to the stables.

"H'm! she wull pe carin' less for the gress, poy, than she wass used to do," returned the groom. "It iss my opeenion that they wull pe all wantin' to co away sooth pefore long."

We refer to the above opinions because they were shared by the party assembled in Barret's room, which was still retained as a snuggery, although its occupant was fully restored to normal health and vigour.

"You'll be sure to get `that salmon' next time you try, after all this rain, MacRummle," said Mabberly. "At least, I hope you will before we leave."

"Ay, and you must have another try with the repeater on the Eagle Cliff, Mac. It would never do to leave a lone widdy, as Quin calls it, after murdering the husband."

"Perhaps I _may_ have another day there," answered the old gentleman, with a pleased smile; for although they roasted him a good deal for mistaking an eagle for a raven, and only gave him credit for a "fluke," it was evident that he congratulated himself not a little on his achievement.

"Archie is having an awful time skinning and stuffing it," said Eddie, who sat by the window dressing trout flies.

Junkie, who was occupied at another window, mending the top of his rod, remarked that nothing seemed to give Archie so much pleasure as skinning and stuffing something. "He's always doing it," said the youngster. "Whatever happens to die, from a tom-cat to a tom-tit, he gets hold of. I do believe if he was to die, he would try to skin and stuff himself!"

At that moment Archie entered the room.

"I've got it nearly done now," he said, with a pleased expression, while he rubbed his not-over-clean hands. "I'll set him up to-night and photograph him to-morrow, with Flo under his wings to show his _enormous_ size."

"Oh! that minds me o' the elephants," cried Junkie, jumping up and running to Jackman, who was assisting. Barret to arrange plants for Milly. "We are _all_ here now--an' you _promised_, you know."

A heavy patter of rain on the window seemed to emphasise Junkie's request by suggesting that nothing better could be done.

"Well, Junkie, I have no objection," said the Woods-and-Forester, "if the rest of the company do not object."

As the rest of the company did not object, but rather expressed anxiety to hear about the hunt, Jackman drew his chair near to the fire, the boys crowded round him, and he began with,--"Let me see. Where was I?"

"In India, of course," said Junkie. "Yes; but at what part of the hunt?"

"Oh! you hadn't begun the hunt at all. You had only made Chand somethin' or other, Isri Per-what-d'ee-call-it, an' Raj Mung-thingumy give poor Mowla Buksh such an awful mauling."

"Just so. Well, you must know that next day we received news of large herds of elephants away to the eastward of the Ganges, so we started off with all our forces--hunters, matchlock-men, onlookers, etcetera, and about eighty tame elephants. Chief among these last were the fighting elephants, to which Junkie gave such appropriate names just now, and king of them all was the mighty Chand Moorut, who had never been known to refuse a fight or lose a victory since he was grown up.

"It was really grand to see this renowned mountain of living flesh towering high above his fellows. Like all heroes, he was calm and dignified when not in action--a lamb in the drawing-room, a lion in the field. Even the natives, accustomed as they were to these giants, came to look at him admiringly that morning as he walked sedately out of camp. He was so big that he seemed to grow bigger while you looked at him, and he was absolutely perfect in form and strength--the very Hercules of brutes.

"The trackers had marked down a herd of wild elephants, not three miles distant, in a narrow valley, just suited to our purpose. On reaching the ground we learned that there was, in the jungle, a `rogue' elephant--that is, an old male, which had been expelled from the herd. Such outcasts are usually very fierce and dangerous. This one was a tusker, who had been the terror of the neighbourhood, having killed many people, among them a forester, only a few days before our arrival.

"As these `rogues' are always very difficult to overcome, and are almost sure to injure the khedda, or tame elephants of the hunt, if an attempt is made to capture them, we resolved to avoid him, and devote our attention entirely to the females and young ones. We formed a curious procession as we entered the valley--rajah and civilians, military men and mahowts, black and white, on pads and in howdahs--the last being the little towers that you see on elephants' backs in pictures.

"Gun-men had been sent up to the head of the valley to block the way in that direction. The sides were too steep for elephants to climb. Thus we had them, as it were, in a trap, and formed up the khedda in battle array. The catching, or non-combatant elephants, were drawn up in two lines, and the big, fighting elephants were kept in reserve, concealed by bushes. The sides of the valley were crowded with matchlock-men, ready to commence shouting and firing at a given signal, and drive the herd in the direction of the khedda.

"It was a beautiful forenoon when we commenced to move forward. All nature seemed to be waiting in silent expectation of the issue of our hunt, and not a sound was heard, the strictest silence having been enjoined upon all. Rich tropical vegetation hung in graceful lines and festoons from the cliffs on either side, but there was no sign of the gun-men concealed there. The sun was--"

"Oh! bother the sun! Come on wi' the fight," exclaimed the impatient Junkie.

"All in good time, my boy. The sun was blazing in my eyes, I was going to say, so, you see, I could not make out the distant view, and therefore, can't describe it," ("Glad of it," murmured the impertinent Junkie); "but I knew that the wild elephants were there, somewhere in the dense jungle. Suddenly a shot was heard at the head of the valley. We afterwards learned that it had been fired over the head of a big tusker elephant that stood under a tree not many yards from the man who fired. Being young, like Junkie, and giddy, it dashed away down the valley, trumpeting wildly; and you have no conception how active and agile these creatures can be, if you have seen only the slow, sluggish things that are in our Zoos at home! So terrible was the sound of this elephant's approach, that the ranks of the khedda elephants were thrown into some confusion, and the mahowts had difficulty in preventing them from turning tail and running away. Our leader, therefore, ordered the gladiator, Chand Moorut, to the front. Indeed, Chand ordered