"Yon! What was death? I don't understand you," John cried, in wonder and alarm. "Quick, quick! tell me what you mean."
"It's but ower easy to tell;—yon was death. He's never stirred. Horse and man one heap, and no' a breath or a tremble in it. It's easy—easy to tell."
"Good God! Rolls, what do you mean? Not—not the Scaur,—not——"
"That's what I mean," Rolls replied almost sternly. "A bonnie morning's work. Just Tinto, poor fellow, with all his faults, and, maybe, the drink in him that made it easy. Dead—dead."
There was a sort of guttural sob in the old man's voice. His heart was wrung, not for Tinto, but with a deeper and closer horror. But John neither thought nor understood this. He fell back a step and leaned against the wall in horror and bewilderment. "Good God!" he repeated with pale lips, with that instinctive appeal which we make without knowing it in the face of every mystery. Under any circumstances, the suddenness and terribleness of the event would have appalled him; but now, at this moment, with Beaufort under his roof!—he could only gasp for breath—he could not speak. And he was not aware how eagerly Rolls was noticing every look and gesture, and how his agitation struck the old servant to the heart. He asked a few further questions in profound horror and dismay, then went back to his friend with a ghastly countenance, shaken to the bottom of his heart. The very consciousness that behind this sudden and terrible death stood life, added to the effect. He went back to tell Beaufort of it. That was indeed his first intention, but second thoughts presented to him the embarrassing nature of such a communication at the very moment of his friend's arrival. Beaufort did not notice—being occupied with his supper—the pallor and agitation which had produced so great an effect upon old Rolls. But after a while, as John said nothing, he turned half round and said, "I hope nothing serious has happened to the mare——"
"The mare——Oh yes, it was something very serious—not to be made a jest of. A fatal accident has happened—to one of my neighbours. It is appalling in any case to hear of anything so sudden; but what makes it worse is, that I spent some part of to-day in his company. It is not above four or five hours since I parted with him. We had even a little altercation," said John, with a slight shudder. "There's a bitter lesson for you! To quarrel with a man without a thought of any harm, and a little while after to hear that he is dead, with an unkind thought of you in his heart, and you with hard thoughts of him!"
Beaufort answered gravely and sympathetically as became such an announcement. "Was he a man you liked? Was he a friend?"
"No: neither a friend nor a man I liked, but young and strong; such a frame of a man!—worth you and me put together; and to think that in a moment——"
"How did it happen?" Beaufort asked.
"I scarcely asked. He must have fallen, he and his horse, down a precipice—the Scaur,—a place he had often been cautioned against, I believe. Good heavens! to think of it! I thought he must have gone over as we spoke."