“Well, it’s too long a story for me to go through now,” laughed Jennison. But the laugh was a very short one. Again he looked sharply out into the empty garden.
“There was a grand mess about every thing—telegrams, letters, and so on. You’ll hear all that from your father himself, and from Marcy. The best of my news is that they are both at a farm-house, not three miles from here! I have a horse and buggy out there this minute”—he pointed to the rear gate of the garden, over which, sure enough, rose the black top of a vehicle—“to take you over to them. We needn’t lose a minute.”
The strain released brought its shock. The boy’s heart beat violently, with an inexpressible sense of returning comfort and joy.
“How good, how very good you are, sir!” he answered, innocently, casting aside all the mysterious “joke” of the railroad train. “It will make Philip feel like a new creature. But why didn’t papa come with you? or Mr. Marcy?”
“Your father’s been very ill since the report of your being drowned. He’s not well over it yet, and Mr. Marcy is with him. Don’t be frightened; the shock’s all past, but he’s not strong. So don’t lose a moment, please. You can come back in a few hours for your things.”
“But you don’t want me to go—without Philip. You don’t mean that we must start this minute, do you?” The boy looked up in timid surprise, though the brightness of his face, since the news, would have been a pleasure for any one to notice except a man who seemed as absorbed and hurried as was the bringer of these tidings. “I can’t.”
“O, nonsense! You mustn’t stop for any thing now. Time is precious, and it’s cruel in you to waste a second before you satisfy your father that you are really alive. He doubts it yet. You don’t know how ill he has been. We’ll just slip right out of this gate here to the buggy.”
“But Philip—”
“I’ve made it all right for Philip with Mr. Banger. Philip’s to follow us the moment he gets back. He may be some time.”