The Eagle Cliff, R. M. Ballantyne [best fiction books to read .txt] 📗

that time recovered sufficiently to admit of his going downstairs, his friends were wont to spend much of their time in the snug sitting-room which had been apportioned to him. He usually held his levées costumed in a huge flowered dressing-gown, belonging to the laird, so that, although he began to look more like his former self, as he recovered from his injuries, he was still sufficiently disguised to prevent recognition on the part of Mrs Moss.

Nevertheless, the old lady felt strangely perplexed about him.

One day the greater part of the household was assembled in his room when Mrs Moss remarked on this curious feeling.

“I cannot tell what it is, Mr Barret, that makes the sound of your voice seem familiar to me,” she said; “yet not exactly familiar, but a sort of far-away echo, you know, such as one might have heard in a dream; though, after all, I don’t think I ever did hear a voice in a dream.”

Jackman and Milly glanced at each other, and the latter put the safety-valve to her mouth while Barret replied—

“I don’t know,” he said, with a very grave appearance of profound thought, “that I ever myself dreamt a voice, or, indeed, a sound of any kind. As to what you say about some voices appearing to be familiar, don’t you think that has something to do with classes of men? No man, I think, is a solitary unit in creation. Every man is, as it were, the type of a class to which he belongs—each member possessing more or less the complexion, tendencies, characteristics, tones, etcetera, of his particular class. You are familiar, it may be, with the tones of the class to which I belong, and hence the idea that you have heard my voice before.”

“Philosophically put, Barret,” said Mabberly; “I had no idea you thought so profoundly.”

“H’m! I’m not so sure of the profundity,” said the little old lady, pursing her lips; “no doubt you may be right as regards class; but then, young man, I have been familiar with all classes of men, and therefore, according to your principle, I should have some strange memories connected with Mr Jackman’s voice, and Mr Mabberly’s, and the laird’s, and everybody’s.”

“Well said, sister; you have him there!” cried the laird with a guffaw; “but don’t lug me into your classes, for I claim to be an exception to all mankind, inasmuch as I have a sister who belongs to no class, and is ready to tackle any man on any subject whatever, between metaphysics and baby linen. Come now, Barret, do you think yourself strong enough to go out with us in the boat to-morrow?”

“Quite. Indeed, I would have begged leave to go out some days ago, but Doctor Jackman there, who is a very stern practitioner, forbids me. However, I have my revenge, for I compel him to sit with me a great deal, and entertain me with Indian stories.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Junkie, who happened to be in the room, “he hasn’t told you yet about the elephant hunt, has he?”

“No, not yet, Junkie,” returned Barret; “he has been faithful to his promise not to go on with that story till you and your brothers are present.”

“Well, but tell it now, Mr Jackman, and I’ll go an call Eddie and Archie,” pleaded the boy.

“You will call in vain, then,” said his father, “for they have both gone up the burn, one to photograph and the other to paint. I never saw such a boy as Archie is to photograph. I believe he has got every scene in the island worth having on his plates now, and he has taken to the cattle of late— What think ye was the last thing he tried? I found him in the yard yesterday trying to photograph himself!”

“That must indeed have puzzled him; how did he manage?” asked MacRummle.

“Well, it was ingenious. He tried to get Pat Quin to manipulate the instrument while he sat; but Quin is clumsy with his fingers, at least for such delicate work, and, the last time, he became nervous in his anxiety to do the thing rightly; so, when Archie cried ‘Now,’ for him to cover the glass with its little cap, he put it on with a bang that knocked over and nearly smashed the whole concern. So what does the boy do but sets up a chair in the right focus and arranges the instrument with a string tied to the little cap. Then he sits down on the chair, puts on a heavenly smile, and pulls the string. Off comes the cap! He counts one, two—I don’t know how many—and then makes a sudden dash at the camera an’ shuts it up! What the result may be remains to be seen.”

“Oh, it’ll be the same as usual,” remarked Junkie in a tone of contempt. “There’s always something goes wrong in the middle of it. He tried to take Boxer the other day, and he wagged his tail in the middle of it. Then he tried the cat, and she yawned in the middle. Then Flo, and she laughed in the middle. Then me, an’ I forgot, and made a face at Flo in the middle. It’s a pity it has got a middle at all; two ends would be better, I think. But won’t you tell about the elephants to us, Mr Jackman? There’s plenty of us here—please!”

“Nay, Junkie; you would not have me break my word, surely. When we are all assembled together you shall have it—some wet day, perhaps.”

“Then there’ll be no more wet days this year, if I’ve to wait for that,” returned the urchin half sulkily.

That same day, Milly, Barret, and Jackman arranged that the mystery of the cowardly young man must be cleared up.

“Perhaps it would be best for Miss Moss to explain to her mother,” said Giles.

“That will not I,” said Milly with a laugh.

“I have decided what to do,” said Barret. “I was invited by her to call and explain anything I had to say, and apologise. By looks, if not by words, I accepted that invitation, and I shall keep it. If you could only manage somehow, Milly, to get everybody out of the way, so that I might find your mother alone in—”

“She’s alone now,” said Milly. “I left her just a minute ago, and she is not likely to be interrupted, I know.”

“Stay, then; I will return in a few minutes.”

Barret retired to his room, whence he quickly returned with shooting coat, knickerbockers, pot-cap and boots, all complete.

“‘Richard’s himself again!’ Allow me to congratulate you,” cried Jackman, shaking his friend by the hand. “But, I say, don’t you think it may give the old lady rather a shock as well as a surprise?”

Barret looked at Milly.

“I think not,” said Milly. “As uncle often says of dear mother, ‘she is tough.’”

“Well, I’ll go,” said Barret.

In a few minutes he walked into the middle of the drawing-room and stood before Mrs Moss, who was reading a book at the time. She laid down the book, removed her glasses, and looked up.

“Well, I declare!” she exclaimed, with the utmost elevation of her eyebrows and distension of her eyes; “there you are at last! And you have not even the politeness to take your hat off, or have yourself announced. You are the most singularly ill-bred young man, for your looks, that I ever met with.”

“I thought, madam,” said Barret in a low voice, “that you would know me better with my cap on—”

He stopped, for the old lady had risen at the first sound of his voice, and gazed at him in a species of incredulous alarm.

“Forgive me,” cried Barret, pulling off his cap; but again he stopped abruptly, and, before he could spring forward to prevent it, the little old lady had fallen flat upon the hearth-rug.

“Quick! hallo! Milly—Giles! Ass that I am! I’ve knocked her down again!” he shouted, as those whom he summoned burst into the room.

They had not been far off. In a few more minutes Mrs Moss was reviving on the sofa, and alone with her daughter.

“Milly, dear, this has been a great surprise; indeed, I might almost call it a shock,” she said, in a faint voice.

“Indeed it has been, darling mother,” returned Milly in sympathetic tones, as she smoothed her mother’s hair; “and it was all my fault. But are you quite sure you are not hurt?”

“I don’t feel hurt, dear,” returned the old lady, with a slight dash of her argumentative tone; “and don’t you think that if I were hurt I should feel it?”

“Perhaps, mother; but sometimes, you know, people are so much hurt 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