Laid up in Lavender

by Stanley John Weyman

It made matters--my matters--worse, for I could have cried with vexation when I read in his face that he had looked for their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager remark to childish ignorance.

"Some time I will," he said with a quiet smile de haut en bas; "but I do not often attend one in person. I am the Chief's private secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum."

It turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so that father lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. Not for a long time had I been used to young men talking politics to him, when they could talk--politics--to me.

Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was almost more than I could bear. He--Mr. Herapath, of course--was always on the spot fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house, taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy father's society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a glimpse of the Sultind peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with colour, in a far-off atmosphere of its own beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills, that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came to my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view; and said to father that he feared his little girl was tired as well as cold--and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as father and I drove down; he was walking beside Clare's cariole and they were laughing heartily.

And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my teeth together viciously and vowed that if ever we met in London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me dislike him.

However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I felt that I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had, before his coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I was the more vexed when I came upon him fishing; and fishing where he had no right to be. Father had spoken to him about the danger of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet he was there, thinking, I daresay, that we should not know. It was a spot where one bank rose into a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water ran with the speed of a mill race. But on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water so promising that it had tempted some one to devise means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, which might have served only it did not reach the nearer end of the cliff. However, the foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away, in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.

And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not stand upright; the first person who fished there must have learned to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were short for me. I thought of this as I watched him, and I laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards, meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all sorts of foolish things might happen. I felt sure that I should have no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of course, he would do it.

I lost no time, but ran down the slope. My way lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It is wonderful how swiftly a thing that cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing--oh, so vainly--that we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the stone to roll. It was done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was easy, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck the piece of board which only rested lightly at either end, and before I could take it in the little bridge plunged end first into the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.

He threw up his hands, for he had turned, and we both saw it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was impossible. Then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to me in the direction of home--again and again. The roar of the falls drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen, rough rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no better way; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with me, but it was not the time for that, and I tried to collect myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at the top set off at a rim homewards.

I cannot tell how I did it; how I passed over the uneven ground or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning father made afterwards. I only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole, breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I slipped and dropped down places from which I should at other times have shrunk, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on for his life, the clamour of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my heart's beating with fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the afternoon sunshine, father's stool-car even then at the door ready to take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I knew; and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the porch, and climbed into the car. Father was not slow either; he snatched a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time, but so much may happen in a little time.