I shook him by the hand pretty vigorously.
“You’ve got a middling strong grip of your fist for one of the overgrown sort,” said he. “Where’s your friend, John Brent?”
“Here in London, searching for Miss Clitheroe!”
“Where’s your horse?—the Black?”
“Dead! Shot and drowned in the Missouri, helping off a fugitive slave.”
“That’s brave. Well, Richard Wade, my dear child Ellen Clitheroe and her father are here in my house. They are safe here, after all their troubles, up in that room where perhaps you marked the roses in the window. She has been sick at heart to have heard nothing from you since she came to England. It will be the one thing she lacks to see you, and if you will let me say a few words to you first, I’ll take you to them.”
“Go on. If you have protected my friends, you are my friend, and I want to hear what you have to say.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
“CAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS.”
“I am short, and I shall try to make a long story short,” said Padiham. “I wish to tell you, in as few words as I may, why Mr. Clitheroe and his daughter are in my house.