“I was just thinking so,” cried Rupert. “My mother ought to be here. Who will go for her?”
“Johnny can,” said Tod. “He is of no good here.”
For that matter, none of us were any good, for we could do nothing for Temple.
I did not relish the task: I did not care to tell a mother that her son, whom she believes is well and hearty, is lying in danger. But I had to go: Rupert seemed to take it as a matter of course.
“Don’t alarm her more than you can help, Ludlow,” he said. “Say that Slingsby turned faint in the water this morning, and the medical men seem anxious. But ask her not to lose time.”
Mr. Best started me on his own horse—a fine hunter, iron-grey. The weather was broiling. Templemore lay right across country, about six miles off by road. It was a beautiful place; I could see that much, though I had but little time to look at it; and it stood upon an eminence, the last mile of the road winding gradually up to its gates.
As ill-luck had it, or perhaps good-luck—I don’t know which—Mrs. Temple was at one of the windows, and saw me ride hastily in. Having a good memory of faces, she recollected mine. Knowing that I had started with her sons in the boat, she was seized with a prevision that something was wrong, and came out before I was well off the horse.
“It is Mr. Ludlow, I think,” she said, her plain dark face (so much like Slingsby’s) very pale. “What ill news have you brought?”
I told her in the best manner I was able, just in the words Rupert had suggested, speaking quietly, and not showing any alarm in my own manner.