At this moment a growl of distant thunder was heard. It was followed by a scream from Mrs Sudberry, and a cry of—
“You’d better send Jacky inside, my dear.”
“Ah, he may as well remain where he is,” replied Mr Sudberry, whose imperfect hearing led him to suppose that his spouse had said, “Jacky’s inside, my dear!” whereas the real truth was that the boy was neither out nor inside.
Master Jacky, be it known, had a remarkably strong will of his own. During the journey he preferred an outside seat in all weathers. By dint of much coaxing, his mother had induced him to get in beside her for one stage; but he had made himself so insufferably disagreeable, that the good lady was thereafter much more disposed to let him have his own way. When the coach stopped, as
we have described, Jacky got out, and roundly asserted that he would never get in again.
When the attention of the party was occupied with the gorgeous scenery at the extremity of the pass, Jacky, under a sudden impulse of wickedness, crept stealthily into the copse that lined the road, intending to give his parents a fright. In less than five minutes these parents were galloping away at the rate of ten miles an hour, each happy in the belief that the sweet boy was with the other.
Somewhat surprised at the prolonged and deathlike silence that reigned around him, Jacky returned to the road, where he actually gasped with horror on finding himself the solitary tenant of an apparently uninhabited wilderness. Sitting down on a stone, he shut his eyes, opened wide his mouth, and roared vehemently.
At the end of about five minutes he ventured to re-open his eyes. His face instantly assumed an expression of abject terror, and the roar was intensified into a piercing shriek when he beheld a fierce little black cow staring at him within a yard of his face.
A drove of shaggy Highland cattle had come suddenly round a turn in the pass while Jacky’s eyes had been shut. They now filed slowly and steadily past the transfixed boy, as if they were a regiment and he a reviewing general. Each animal as it came up, stopped, stared for a few seconds, and passed slowly on with its head down, as if saddened by the sight of such a melancholy spectacle.