“Somebody must have set him free, Morgan.”
“Somebody? What somebody would do that? There arn’t no monkeys about here as I know of, or it might have been one of them. Nobody else would do it. Ah, I see.”
He pointed to the noose, and showed me how the rope was frayed and teazled out, as if by the application of claws.
“That’s it, plain enough. He’s had all night to do it in, and there he has been scrat, scrat, scrat, scrat at his neck with those fore-paws of his, till he got it loose and pushed it over his head.”
“Nonsense!” I said; “a thing like that wouldn’t be clever enough.”
“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “They’re clever enough to hunt and catch dinners by slapping the water with their tails till the fish are stunned; they’re clever enough to make nests and lay eggs; and this one was clever enough to try and cut me down with his tail, and I don’t see that it was so very wonderful for him to try and scratch off anything that hurt his neck. Mind that gun, my lad; you don’t want to shoot me, I know.”
I coloured, and felt vexed at my clumsiness in the way of carrying the loaded piece, and stood watching while Morgan untied the rope from the tree, rolled it up in a ring, fastened it, and put his arm through before turning back.
“Never mind,” he said, cheerily, “better luck next time. Now let’s get home to breakfast. I dare say he has gone down to the river and got his long enough ago.”
We walked back to find a couple of men from the settlement—which promised some day to be a town—and as I caught sight of them, I felt sure that it was bad news which they had brought, and my father’s serious face confirmed the idea as he spoke to one of the men.
“Yes; tell the General I will be there in good time,” my father was saying, as we came within earshot; and the men saluted and went off in regular military style, for many of them who had now turned settlers and farmers had served in the army with the leaders of the expedition. And often, on thinking it over since, I have felt how wise a selection of men there was; for, as you have yet to learn, it was highly necessary to have folk who could turn their swords and spears into ploughshares and sickles; but who, when it was necessary, could turn them back and use them in the defence of their new homes.