“And now,” went on Mat, “I’ll ask you a favour: help me to get away in that ship you spoke of this very night, and the matter’ll blow over, for they can’t really prove anything ’gin you.”
Burns looked at his watch; then pondered awhile over this suggestion. At last, after several vigorous puffs at a black clay pipe which he was smoking, he spoke:—
“It would be a very mean trick to send you out of England because I have broken the law—for I find it’s true what you said,—were it not that a few hours ago, before all this happened, you were wishing to be off as soon as you could earn some money. Now promise, if I help you to start, never to go back on me by saying, when you find what a hard life it is out there, ‘If it had not been for Burns I might have been home now.’”
“Yes, I promise,” answered Mat eagerly.
“Then I’ll start you fair. You shall have enough money to keep you until you can look about, and the gun you stuck to so bravely is yours. You must get more clothes in London, and I will write a line to the captain for you to take; I will also send a letter to my brother on the Darling Downs about you, and give you his address. And now come round to the stable; you have no time to lose if you wish to catch the mail at Southampton. You can leave the horse at the station inn there.”
When bidding good-bye, the gipsy wrung Burns’ hand and said,—
“I thank you for what you’re doing for me; it’s just what I’ve set my heart on this long time, and if hard work will do it, I shall make it a first matter to pay you back the money as you’ve started me with. And there’s one thing, let them know at my camp all about my going. It won’t go no farther, anything you tell ’em; and bid good-bye for me to my old dad, and mother and sister, and tell my brother—we’re twins, you know—and I can’t abide not saying good-bye to him,—tell him all about Broomfield’s colt, and—”
Here Mat’s feelings entirely failed him, wearied with pain both in body and mind, he clambered stiffly on to the horse. Burns called out,—
“I’ll tell them all you say, and send your brother to see you off; there’s time yet before she sails.”
“Thank you for that,” replied Mat. And, waving his arm, rode off, with his gun on his back, and a bundle of things strapped to the bow of the saddle.