Mr Sudberry was bereft of breath at this discovery; so was everyone else. When the boy stumped up the hill and flung down the basket with an emphatic, “there!” his father turned to the small clerk—
“How now, sir, did you bid Jacky carry that?”
“Please, sir—no, sir;” (whimpering), “but Master Jacky forced it out of my hand, sir, and insisted on carrying it. He saw that I was very tired, sir—and so I am, but I would not have asked him to carry it, if I had been ever so tired—indeed I would not, sir.”
“I’m not displeased, my boy,” said Mr Sudberry, kindly, patting him on the head; “I only wanted to know if he offered.”
“Of course I did,” cried the imp, stoutly, with his arms akimbo—“and why not? Don’t you see that the poor boy is dead beat; and was I goin’ to stand by and see him faint by his-self; all alone on the mountain?”
“Certainly not!” and Mr Sudberry seized Jacky and whirled him round till he was quite giddy, and fell on the heather with a cheer, and declared that he would not budge from that spot until they had lunched. Need we say that Mr Sudberry himself was the subject of a new sensation that day,—a sensation of a peculiarly hopeful nature,—as he gazed at his youngest son; while that refined little creature crammed himself with sandwiches and ginger-bread, and besmeared his hands and visage with a pot of jam, that had been packed away by his mother for her own darling’s special use?
“My poor lad, you must not come any farther with us. I had no idea you were so much fatigued. Remain here by the provisions, and rest in the sunshine till we return.”
So Mr Sudberry gave Peter a plaid that had been carried up to serve as a table-cloth, and told him to wrap well up in it, lest he should catch cold. They left him there on the knoll, refreshed and happy, and with a new feeling in his breast in regard to Jacky, whom, up to that day, he had regarded as an imp of the most hopelessly incorrigible description.
“Over the mountain and over the moor” the Sudberrys wandered. The ridge was gained, and a new world of mountains, glens, gorges, and peaks was discovered on the other side of it, with the Lake of the Clouds lying, like a bright diamond, far below them. They descended into this new world with a cheer. A laugh or a cheer was their chief method of conversation now—their spirits as well as their bodies being so high. “Not a house to be seen! not a sign of man! the untrodden wilderness!” cried Mr Sudberry.
“Robinson Crusoe! Mungo Park! Pooh!” shouted George. “Hooray!” yelled Jacky. The whole party laughed again, and down the slope they went, at such a pace that it was a miracle they did not terminate their career in the lake with the poetic name.