At the glad news Jinny burst into tears, and, in the mist they made, her mother faded away. But she walked in soft happiness back to the house, and said her prayers of gratitude and went believingly to bed and slept as when she was a babe.
So long did she sleep that when she woke, the old man was standing over her again, just as the morning before, save that now he was in his everyday earth-coloured smock and wore a frown instead of a wedding-look, and the sunshine was streaming into the room.
“Where’s my breakfus, Jinny?” he said grumpily.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “I must have overslept myself.” And then she remembered Mr. Pennymole’s story, and a smile came over her face.
“There’s nawthen to laugh at,” he said savagely. “Ef ye goo out at bull’s noon, ye’re bound to forgit my breakfus. And that eatin’ his head off too! Ye know there’s no work for him. Ye dedn’t want to bring him back.”
“Back?” she almost screamed. “Is Methusalem back?”
“As ef ye dedn’t know!” he said, disgusted.
Disregarding him and everything else, she sprang out of bed, rolling the blanket round her, and with bare feet she sped to the stable. But she had hardly got outside before the jet of hope had sunk back. It was but another of her grandfather’s delusions.
But no! O incredible, miraculous, enchanting spectacle! There he was, the dear old beast, not dead but sleeping, exactly as the Angel-Mother had said, not a hair of his mane injured, not an inch of his tail less, and never did two Polynesian lovers rub noses half so passionately as this happy pair.
Jinny would have rubbed his nose still more adoringly had she known—as she knew later—the rôle it had played in his salvation. The threatening thunder-clouds had made Mr. Skindle put off his slaughtering till the morning, so that he himself might get home before the storm broke. The doomed horses he left shut in his field—who cared whether they got wet? But as soon as the coast was clear of Skindle and his latest-lingering myrmidons, Methusalem had simply lifted the latch of the gate with his nose and gone home. Mr. Skindle, oblivious of this accomplishment of his, though he had seen it practised on his never-forgotten journey with Jinny, had imagined him conclusively corralled. Mr. Charles Mott, returning with some boon companions from a distant hostelry where the draughts were more generous than he was allowed at “The Black Sheep,” was among the few who saw the noble animal hurrying homewards, and he told Jinny the next Tuesday that she ought to enter Methusalem for the Colchester Stakes. His unusual rate of motion was also reported by Miss Gentry, who, lying awake with a headache after the excitement of the day, had heard him snort past her window just when the storm was ebbing. He must have sagely sheltered while it raged and have arrived at Blackwater Hall soon after Jinny had beheld her vision.