Walter looked up to see if his father or aunt would give the account, and then, when neither spoke, he plunged at once into his narrative.
“You must know, then, that we were all much distressed and perplexed when my father showed us the letter, Amos, which you accidentally dropped, and which we should none of us have read under ordinary circumstances. We knew that you felt it to be your duty to go to poor Julia; but we none of us liked the last part of the letter, and I am sure I can say truly that I had my grievous suspicions from the very first. However, when we got the news of your having set off to this meeting, we could not have prevented it, even if we had thought it right to do so; it would have been too late then. But we did not think it would have been right; and auntie comforted us with the assurance that God would take care of you, as you were gone on a work he must approve of. So we waited patiently—or, as far as I was concerned, impatiently—all day, and went to bed with heavy hearts when you did not turn up, and we had heard nothing of you. But father reminded us how you had been absent once before for the night, when you had been summoned to look after those poor children, and that you had come back all safe; so we hoped that we should see you this morning early, or at any rate before luncheon.
“And who do you think was our first messenger? Ah! you will hardly guess. Why, none other than Prince, your pony. We were sitting at breakfast very dull, and imagining all sorts of things, when Harry hurried into the room, as white as if he had just seen a ghost, and cried out, ‘Master, master! here’s Prince come back all alone, and never a word about poor dear Master Amos!’ You may be sure this did just upset us all, and no mistake. I was out in the stable-yard in a moment, and there was Prince sure enough, and all the servants round him; and they had got a stable bucket with some corn in it, and he was devouring it as though he had been starved for a week. ‘And where’s your master, Prince?’ I said. The poor animal only whinnied, but seemed almost as if he understood my question. As for Harry, who had joined me in the yard, he could only blubber out, ‘Eh! he’s done for, sure enough. They’ve been and gone and murdered him, and haven’t had even the good feeling to send us back his lifeless corpse. Whatever shall we do?’ ‘Nay, Harry,’ I said, ‘it hasn’t come to that yet; we must go and look after him, and bring him back; he’ll turn up all right, I daresay.’—‘The Lord grant it,’ said the dear old man.
“Well, you may be sure we were all in a pretty state, and at our wits’ end what to do. Father set off at once for the police station, and Harry and I started at the same time for Marley Heath.”
Here Miss Huntingdon interposed, and said, “And I ought to tell you, dear Amos, that when your father was feeling a little anxious about Walter’s going, lest he too should fall into some snare or difficulty, your brother would not hear of any one else taking his place, and rushed away saying, ‘It would be a privilege to suffer anything for such a brother as Amos.’”
“Auntie, auntie!” cried her nephew remonstratingly, “you mustn’t tell secrets; I never meant Amos to know anything about that.”
There was a brief silence, for all the party were deeply moved, and the two brothers clasped hands eagerly and lovingly. Then Walter continued: “So Harry took the old mare, and I took my pony, and we set off soon after breakfast, and got in a little time to Marley Heath; and I can’t say I felt very warm to the place, and certainly it didn’t look very warm to me. ‘What’s to come next?’ I said to Harry. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we must make inquiries.’ That was all easy enough to say, but who were we to make inquiries of? The only living thing about was an old donkey who had strayed on to the heath, and was trying to get a mouthful of something off a bare patch or two; and as we came up he stared at us as though he thought that we were bigger donkeys than he was for coming to such a place at such a time. It wasn’t much use looking about, for there was nothing to guide us. We tried to track your pony’s footmarks, but as there had been more snow in the night, and it had now set in to thaw, we could see nothing anywhere in the way of footmarks to trust to. Certainly it was a regular puzzle, for we hadn’t the slightest idea which way to turn. ‘Well, Harry?’ I said. ‘Well, Master Walter?’ he said in reply; but that didn’t help us forward many steps. ‘Let us ride on till we get to some house where we may make inquiries,’ I said. So we set off, and after a bit came to a farm-house, and asked if any one had seen two people on horseback about, that day or the day before, describing Amos as one. No; they had seen no such riders as we described, therefore we had to trot back to the heath again. ‘Well, Harry?’ I said again. ‘Well, Master Walter?’ he replied; and we stared at one another like two—well, I hardly know what to say, but certainly not like two very wise men. So we rode about, first in this direction, and then in that, till we began to be fairly tired.
“It was now getting on for luncheon time, so we made for a farm-house, got some bread and cheese and milk, and a feed for our horses, and then set out again; and weary work we had. At last I was almost giving up in despair, and beginning to think that we had better go home and try some other plan, when, as we were passing near a copse, we saw a tall figure slouching along through the melting snow. The man did not see us at first, but when he looked round and made out who we were, he began to quicken his pace, and strode along wonderfully. There was no mistaking him; it was Jim Jarrocks, the fellow who won my sovereign in that foolish match on Marley Heath. Jim evidently had rather we had not met, for he had a couple of hares slung over his shoulder, which he could not well hide. However, there was no help for it, so he put a bold face on the matter, and touched his hat as I overtook him, and said, ‘Your servant, Mr Walter; I hope you’re well.’ Of course I did not think anything about the hares then, I was too full of Amos; so I asked him if he had seen Amos alone, or with another horseman. ‘No, sir,’ he replied, ‘I’ve not; but I’ll tell you what I’ve seen. Last night I found Mr Amos’s pony, Prince, about a mile from here; he was saddled and bridled, and had broke loose somehow or other, it seemed. So, as in duty bound, I got on him, and rode him over to the Manor-house, and fastened him up in the stable-yard; for it was late, and I didn’t like to rouse anybody.’—‘All right, Jim,’ I said; ‘Dick found him when he went to the stables this morning. But whereabouts was it that you found him?’—‘Well, it’s a queer and awkward road to get to it,’ he said; ‘but I can show you the way.’—‘And is there any house near where you found Prince?’ I asked.—‘House! no; nothing of the kind,’ said he, ‘except the brickmaker’s cottage, about a mile further on.’—‘And no one lives in that cottage, I suppose?’—‘No; and hasn’t done for months past;’—then he stopped all of a sudden, and said, ‘By-the-by, there was smoke coming out of the chimney of that cottage as I passed it last night; that was strange anyhow.’—‘Well, then, Jim,’ I said, ‘there may be some one in it now, and we can find out if they’ve seen anything of my brother. Just put us in the way to the cottage; there’s a good man.’—‘By all means,’ he said, and strode on before us for about a mile, and then pointed up a winding lane. ‘There,’ he cried; ‘keep along that lane till you come to an open field, and you’ll soon see the cottage; you can’t miss it, for there isn’t another anywhere about. Good afternoon, sir.’ And away he went, evidently glad to get off with his hares as speedily as possible. The rest does not take much telling. We soon came to the cottage, and discovered dear Amos, and encountered that miserable man who has treated him so cruelly. Ah! well, it’s been a good ending to a bad beginning.”
“Thank you, my dear brother,” said Amos warmly; “it was well and kindly done. Yes, God has been very good in delivering me out of my trouble, and specially in making you, dear Walter, the chief instrument in my deliverance.”
“I only wonder,” said his brother, “that the wretched man did not make off with the pony.”