“No business of mine,” he thought, as he quietly returned to bed; “I’ve enough to do to-morrow, and want rest. Chickens, eh? Poor old fellow! for chickens read little ewe lamb. Who’d have thought it of the pretty, ladylike girl? And I might have married, and eighteen or twenty years hence have had a daughter like these two in the narrow circle of my acquaintance—a child whom I had tenderly nursed in infancy, trained as she grew up, believed in, trusted, and fancied that I shared her inmost thoughts. Then the revelation would probably have come. No; I don’t think I shall marry now; and—well, how strange! I feel as if I can sleep—that engine ought to be fixed in a week, and we’ll begin at once. I’ll have the smelting-house where I settled, and the furnaces here shall be utilised for supplying additional steam. I must send a telegram off to-morrow to hurry on that tubing. Bah! I’ll let all that go to-night, and—”
“Would you like a little hot water, sir?”
Clive Reed started up.
“Eh? No, thanks. I don’t shave. Can I have a canful of cold, fresh from the river?”
“I have brought one up, sir. Breakfast in half an hour.”
Clive Reed was dressed and out in half that space of time, to find the Major busily tying up some beautiful carnations, one of which he cut and presented, dew wet, to his guest.
“The most aromatic of our plants, Mr Reed,” he said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you in the night, but it was no false alarm. Look! I would not rake them out till you had seen them.”
He pointed to the couple of heavy footprints in the soft soil, and to one of his carnations crushed by a boot heel.
“Nothing missing,” continued the Major. “Our friend was startled; but don’t say anything about the footprints at breakfast.”
“Certainly not. But are you much troubled in this way?”