“Then I’ll go off to Boulogne,” said the Squire, with stern resolution. And back he came to Dyke Manor full of it.
“It will be a wild-goose chase,” observed Mr. Brandon, who had called in. “If Pell has taken himself no further away than Boulogne—that is, allowing he has got out of England at all—he is a greater fool than I took him for.”
“Wild-goose chase or not, I shall go,” said the Pater, hotly. “And I shall take Johnny; he’ll be useful as an interpreter.”
“I will go with you,” came the unexpected rejoinder of Mr. Brandon. “I want a bit of a change.”
And so we went up to London to take the steamer there. And here we were, all three of us, ploughing the waves en route for Boulogne, on the wild-goose chase after Clement-Pell.
Just as the passengers had come to the conclusion that they must die of it, the steamer shot into Boulogne harbour. She was tolerably long swinging round; then was made fast, and we began to land. Mr. Brandon took off his yellow turban and shook his cap out.
“Johnny, I’d never have come if I had known it was going to be like this,” moaned the poor Squire—and every trace of red had gone out of his face. “No, not even to catch Clement-Pell. What on earth is that crowd for?”
It looked about five hundred people; they were pushing and crushing each other, fighting for places to see us land and go through the custom-house. No need to tell of this: not a reader of you, but you must know it well.
The first thing, patent to my senses amidst the general confusion, was hearing my name shouted out by the Squire in the custom-house.
“Johnny Ludlow!”