With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

by G. A. Henty

"Don't try to get up, Aggie," Mrs. Walsham said. "You are faint and shaken with all this excitement. Your grandpapa and I were two very foolish people, to let you come out.

"Now, Mr. Wilks, the best thing you can do, is to find a boy outside, and send him up to the Hall, with a message that the carriage is to come down directly.

"I think, Mr. Linthorne, she had better get back home. I should be glad enough, as you know, to keep her here for the night; but this house is rocking with the wind, now, and she would not be likely to get any sleep here. I will run up and see how James is, and if he is all right, I will come up with her and stop the night. She is very much shaken, and had better not be alone."

Mrs. Walsham soon came downstairs again, and said that James said he never felt better in his life, and that, by all means, she was to go up to the Hall. She then set about and prepared a cup of tea, which greatly restored Aggie, and, by the time the carriage arrived, the girl was able to walk to the gate.

Mr. Wilks had offered to remain with James, but the latter would not hear of it. The lad was, indeed, well pleased to hear that they were all going up to the Hall, as thereby he escaped hearing any more of his own praises. Besides, he was most anxious to get down to the beach again, for no one could say what might take place there before morning.

As soon, therefore, as he heard the door close, he jumped out of bed, and when, peeping through the blinds, he saw the carriage drive off with its four occupants, he at once began to dress. He felt bruised and sore from the blows he had received, and a red wheal round his chest, beneath the arms, showed where the rope had almost cut into the flesh. However, he soon dressed himself, and descended the stairs, went into the kitchen, and told the astonished girl that he was going out; then, having made a hasty meal of bread and cold meat, he put on his oilskins again, and started for the shore.

He did not, however, wait long. So heavy was the sea, now, that nothing whatever could be done should any vessel drive ashore, and, as for the fisher boats, the sailors shook their heads as they spoke of them.

"They were farther away to the west, so the chaps as got ashore tells us. They may have got in, somewhere, before it got to the worst. If not, it must have gone hard with them."

Finding that there was nothing to be done, and that he was much more stiff and bruised than he had believed, Jim made his way back again, and turned into bed; where he soon fell asleep, and did not wake until the following morning.

One of the grooms had come down from the Hall, at six o'clock, to inquire how he was, and the message given by the girl, that he had been out, but that he had come back and was now sound asleep, satisfied Mrs. Walsham, and enabled her to devote her undivided attention to her charge, who needed her care more than her son. Before night, indeed, the squire had sent down to Sidmouth for Dr. Walsham's successor, who said that Aggie was very feverish, and must be kept perfectly quiet for some days. He sent her up a soothing draught, and Mrs. Walsham sat up with her all night. She slept but little, and talked almost incessantly, sometimes rambling a little.