To her surprise, the anxiety in her father’s face calmed down.
“An accident! is that all?” he said, with a long-drawn breath of relief.
“All! papa!”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Heriot, half-impatiently, “you think I’ve no feeling. You are mistaken, May. But that boy, that brother of yours, has been in worse scrapes—scrapes that no doctor could mend. However, that’s not the question. How did you hear? and when did it happen? and what is it? Arm, or leg, or collar-bone? I know how lads lame themselves. Hunting is all very well in moderation, but these young men pay dear for it. They think no more of breaking a limb than if it was the branch of a rotten tree.”
“But, papa, I am afraid it is, perhaps, more serious than you think,” faltered Marjory, half rendered hopeful by his ease, half frightened by indifference.
“Never fear,” said Mr. Heriot; “women always think worse of such things than they deserve. Tom’s not the lad to come to harm that way. It’s long or the de’il dee at a dykeside.”
Then a moment of silence followed. She felt as if her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She was bewildered by her father’s strange levity. She strolled round the cliff slowly, as if she were in a dream, not feeling sure for one dizzy moment whether her senses might not have deceived her, whether the telegram might not be some mere delusion and her father right. He was so confident and easy in his confidence—and surely on these kind of subjects, at least, he must know better than she did. But then, to be sure, it was not on her judgment the matter rested. It was Tom’s friend who had communicated news which nobody’s opinion could change; and already the lights were lengthening and the afternoon passing away.
“Papa, you will not mind my going to him,” she said, hurriedly. “He wishes it; he has sent for me. And I wish very much to go at once.”
“He has sent for you?”
“For all of us. He says, ‘Tell my father—’ I fear, I fear, he must be very bad. Oh! my poor Tom, my poor Tom!”