The Best Ballantyne Westerns. R. M. Ballantyne

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      “No, he didn’t.”

      “Oh dear!” said Tom, rubbing his long nose in great perplexity. “It’s an ’orrible case o’ sudden and onexpected pison.”

      She was sorry for it, but couldn’t help that; and thereupon, bidding him good-morning, shut the door.

      Tom’s wits had come to that condition which just precedes “giving it up” as hopeless, when it occurred to him that he was not far from Mr Kennedy’s residence; so he stepped into the cariole again and drove thither. On his arrival, he threw poor Mrs Kennedy and Kate into great consternation by his exceedingly graphic, and more than slightly exaggerated, account of what had brought him in search of the doctor. At first Mrs Kennedy resolved to go up to Fort Garry immediately, but Kate persuaded her to remain at home, by pointing out that she could herself go, and if anything very serious had occurred (which she didn’t believe), Mr Kennedy could come down for her immediately, while she (Kate) could remain to nurse her brother.

      In a few minutes Kate and Tom were seated side by side in the little cariole, driving swiftly up the frozen river; and two hours later the former was seated by her brother’s bedside, watching him, as he slept, with a look of tender affection and solicitude.

      Rousing himself from his slumbers, Charley looked vacantly round the room.

      “Have you slept well, darling?” inquired Kate, laying her hand lightly on his forehead.

      “Slept—eh! oh yes, I’ve slept. I say, Kate, what a precious bump I came down on my head, to be sure!”

      “Hush, Charley!” said Kate, perceiving that he was becoming energetic. “Father said you were to keep quiet—and so do I,” she added, with a frown. “Shut your eyes, sir, and go to sleep.”

      Charley complied by shutting his eyes, and opening his mouth, and uttering a succession of deep snores.

      “Now, you bad boy,” said Kate, “why won’t you try to rest?”

      “Because, Kate dear,” said Charley, opening his eyes again—“because I feel as if I had slept a week at least; and not being one of the seven sleepers, I don’t think it necessary to do more in that way just now. Besides, my sweet but particularly wicked sister, I wish just at this moment to have a talk with you.”

      “But are you sure it won’t do you harm to talk? do you feel quite strong enough?”

      “Quite: Samson was a mere infant compared to me.”

      “Oh, don’t talk nonsense, Charley dear, and keep your hands quiet, and don’t lift the clothes with your knees in that way, else I’ll go away and leave you.”

      “Very well, my pet, if you do I’ll get up and dress and follow you, that’s all! But come, Kate, tell me first of all how it was that I got pitched off that long-legged rhinoceros, and who it was that picked me up, and why wasn’t I killed, and how did I come here; for my head is sadly confused, and I scarcely recollect anything that has happened. And before commencing your discourse, Kate, please hand me a glass of water, for my mouth is as dry as a whistle.”

      Kate handed him a glass of water, smoothed his pillow, brushed the curls gently off his forehead, and sat down on the bedside.

      “Thank you, Kate; now go on.”

      “Well, you see—” she began.

      “Pardon me, dearest,” interrupted Charley, “if you would please to look at me you would observe that my two eyes are tightly closed, so that I don’t see at all.”

      “Well, then, you must understand—”

      “Must I? oh!—”

      “That after that wicked horse leaped with you over the stable fence, you were thrown high into the air, and turning completely round, fell head foremost into the snow, and your poor head went through the top of an old cask that had been buried there all winter.”

      “Dear me!” ejaculated Charley; “did any one see me, Kate?”

      “Oh yes.”

      “Who?” asked Charley, somewhat anxiously; “not Mrs Grant, I hope? for if she did she’d never let me hear the last of it.”

      “No; only our father, who was chasing you at the time,” replied Kate, with a merry laugh.

      “And no one else?”

      “No—oh yes, by-the-bye, Tom Whyte was there too.”

      “Oh, he’s nobody! Go on.”

      “But tell me, Charley, why do you care about Mrs Grant seeing you?”

      “Oh! no reason at all, only she’s such an abominable quiz.”

      We must guard the reader here against the supposition that Mrs Grant was a quiz of the ordinary kind. She was by no means a sprightly, clever woman, rather fond of a joke than otherwise, as the term might lead you to suppose. Her corporeal frame was very large, excessively fat, and remarkably unwieldy; being an appropriate casket in which to enshrine a mind of the heaviest and most sluggish nature. She spoke little, ate largely, and slept much—the latter recreation being very frequently enjoyed in a large arm-chair of a peculiar kind. It had been a water-butt, which her ingenious husband had cut half-way down the middle, then half-way across, and in the angle thus formed fixed a bottom, which, together with the back, he padded with tow, and covered the whole with a mantle of glaring bed-curtain chintz, whose pattern alternated in stripes of sky-blue and china roses, with broken fragments of rainbow between. Notwithstanding her excessive slowness, however, Mrs Grant was fond of taking a firm hold of anything or any circumstance in the character or affairs of her friends, and twitting them thereupon in a grave but persevering manner that was exceedingly irritating. No one could ever ascertain whether Mrs Grant did this in a sly way or not, as her visage never expressed anything except unalterable good-humour. She was a good wife and an affectionate mother, had a family of ten children, and could boast of never having had more than one quarrel with her husband. This disagreement was occasioned by a rather awkward mischance. One day, not long after her last baby was born, Mrs Grant waddled towards her tub with the intention of enjoying her accustomed siesta. A few minutes previously her seventh child, which was just able to walk, had scrambled up into the seat and fallen fast asleep there. As has been already said, Mrs Grant’s intellect was never very bright, and at this particular time she was rather drowsy, so that she did not observe the child, and on reaching her chair, turned round preparatory to letting herself plump into it. She always plumped into her chair. Her muscles were too soft to lower her gently down into it. Invariably on reaching a certain point they ceased to act, and let her down with a crash. She had just reached this point, and her baby’s hopes and prospects were on the eve of being cruelly crushed for ever, when Mr Grant noticed the impending calamity. He had no time to warn her, for she had already passed the point at which her powers of muscular endurance terminated; so grasping the chair, he suddenly withdrew it with such force that the baby rolled off upon the floor like a hedgehog, straightened out flat, and gave vent to an outrageous roar, while its horror-struck mother came to the ground with a sound resembling the fall of an enormous sack of wool. Although the old lady could not see exactly that there was anything very blameworthy in her husband’s conduct upon this occasion, yet her nerves had received so severe a shock that she refused to be comforted for two entire days.

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