While they breakfasted, while they bathed, this was the talk. Presently they heard the slave’s whistle and fetched her on the raft. Now, Loo, cunning hussy, waited till she was safely landed on the island, and then told them that dear mamma and Frances were going that day up to Jack’s to see them. Loo had been sent for to go to the town on an errand, and she had heard it mentioned. Instead of going on the errand she ran to play slave.
Charlie had had some knowledge of this yesterday, and waved his cap instead of the white handkerchief as a warning, but they did not see it. If mamma and Frances drove up to Jack’s to see them, of course it would be at once discovered that they were not at Jack’s, and then what a noise there would be.
“Hateful,” said Mark. “It seems to me we’re getting near the hateful ‘Other Side.’”
Volume Three—Chapter Fifteen.
New Formosa—The Black Sail.
Now, at the Other Side, i.e. at home, things had gone smoothly for them till the day before, in a measure owing to the harvest, and for the rest to the slow ways of old-fashioned country people. When they had gone away to Jack’s before in disgrace, Bevis’s mother could not rest, the ticking of the clock in the silent house, the distant beat of the blacksmith’s hammer, every little circumstance of the day jarred upon her. But on this occasion they had, she believed, gone for their own pleasure, and though she missed them, they were not apart and separated by a gulf of anger.
Busy with the harvest, there was no visiting, no one came down from Jack’s, and so the two slipped for the moment out of the life of the hamlet. Presently Bevis’s short but affectionate letter arrived, and prevented any suspicion arising, for no one noticed the postmark. Mamma wrote by return, and when her letter addressed to Bevis was delivered at Jack’s you would have supposed the secret would have come out. So it would in town life—a letter would have been written saying that Bevis was not there, and asking where to forward it.
But not so at the old house in the hills. Jack’s mother put it on the shelf, remarking that no doubt Bevis was coming, and would be there to-morrow or next day. As for Jack he was too busy to think about it, and if he had not been he would have taken little notice, knowing from former experience that Bevis might turn up at any moment. The letter remained on the shelf.