‘I see that something unusual has happened,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, with sympathy in his voice. ‘Tell me all about it.’
‘You’ll see it here,’ said his retainer, handing over a short and simple letter from Carrie Walton, in which the impending tragedy of a woman’s life-drama was briefly told. In a few sorrowful words the girl told how that worked upon by the continuous persuasions and reproaches of her parents, she had consented to marry Mr. Homminey on the following Friday week. She had not heard from him, John Windsor, for a long time—perhaps he had forgotten her. In a few days it would be too late, etc. But she was always his sincere friend and well-wisher, Caroline Walton.
‘You see, sir,’ began Mr. Windsor, with something of his old confidence and cool calculation of difficulties in an emergency which required instant bodily exertion, ‘it’s been this way. I’ve been so taken up with these new cattle, and the way everything’s been changed lately, since the weather broke, that I’ve forgot to write to the poor thing. I was expecting to go down with the first lot of fat cattle next month, and I laid it out to square the whole matter, and bring her back with me, if you’ll give us the hut by the river bank to live in. I’ve been a little late—or it looks like it—and they’ve persuaded her into marrying that pumpkin-headed, corn-eating Hawkesbury hog, just because he’s got a good farm and some money in the bank. But if I can get down before the time, if it’s only half an hour, she’ll come to me, and I think I can win the heat if Ben Bolt doesn’t crack up.’
‘What time have you to spare between this and the day of the wedding?’ inquired Ernest.
‘It’s to be on Friday week,’ said Jack.
‘You can never be there in time—it is impossible!’ cried Ernest in a tone of voice which showed his sympathy with his faithful servant. ‘I pity you sincerely, John!’
‘Pity be hanged, sir. You’ll excuse my way of talking. I’m a little off my head, I know; what I mean to say is, I ain’t one of those chaps that can grub upon pity, and the likes of it. But I can do it, if the old horse holds out, and luckily Joe’s been riding him regular since the feed came, and he’s fit to race a mile, or travel a hundred, any day.’
‘Why, it is a hundred and eighty miles to the mail-coach station, and unless you get there by to-morrow night, you can’t get down for another week.’
‘I shall get there,’ replied Jack slowly and with settled determination. ‘Ben can do a hundred miles a day, for two days at a pinch, and I have a good bit of the second night thrown in. The mail don’t start until midnight. If we’re not there, I’ll turn shepherd again, and sell Ben to a thrashing machine; we won’t have any call to be thought horse or man again. I shall get to Mindai some time to-night—that’s eighty miles—and save the old horse all I can; then start about three in the morning, and polish off the hundred miles, if he’s the horse I take him to be. He’ll have easy times after, if he does it, for I’ll never sell him. Good-bye, sir.’
‘Good-bye, John; I wish you good fortune, as I really believe my young friend Carry’s happiness is at stake. Here are some notes to take with you—money is always handy in elopements, I am informed.’