It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 100

"You have been a kind master to me."

"I should think I have, too. By Jove, you won't find such another in a hurry."

"No, sir, I am sure I should not, but there is an opening for me of a different sort altogether. I have a friend, a squatter, near Bathurst, and I am to join him if you will be so kind as to let me go."

"What an infernal nuisance!" cried the young gentleman, who was like most boys, good-natured and selfish. "The moment I get a servant I like he wants to go to the devil."

"Only to Bathurst, sir," said Robinson deprecatingly, to put him in a good humor.

"And what am I to do for another?"

At this moment in came Jenny with all the paraphernalia of breakfast.

"Here, Jenny," cried he, "here's Robinson wants to leave us. Stupid a.s.s!"

Jenny stood transfixed with the tray in her hand. "Since when?" asked she of her master, but looking at Robinson.

"This moment. The faithful creature greeted my return with that proposal."

"Well, sir, a servant isn't a slave and suppose he has a reason?"

"Oh! they have always got a reason, such as it is. Wants to go and squat at Bathurst. Well, Tom, you are a fool for leaving us, but of course we shan't pay you the compliment of keeping you against your will, shall we?" looking at Jane.

"What have I to do with it?" replied she, opening her gray eyes. "What is it to me whether he goes or stays?"

"Come, I like that. Why you are the housemaid and he is the footman, and those two we know are always"--and the young gentleman eked out his meaning by whistling a tune.

"Mr. Miles," said Jenny, very gravely, like an elder rebuking a younger, "you must excuse me, sir, but I advise you not to make so free with your servants. Servants are encroaching, and they will be sure to take liberties with you in turn; and," turning suddenly red and angry, "if you talk like that to me I shall leave the room."

"Well, if you must! you must! but bring the tea-kettle back with you.

That is a duck!"

Jenny could not help laughing, and went for the tea-kettle. On her return Robinson made signals to her over the master's head, which he had begun to frizz. At first she looked puzzled, but following the direction of his eye she saw that her master's right hand was terribly cut and swollen. "Oh!" cried the girl. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"Eh?" cried Mr. Miles, "what is the row?"

"Look at your poor hand, sir!"

"Oh, ay! isn't it hideous. Met with an accident. Soon get well."

"No, it won't, not of itself; but I have got a capital lotion for bruises, and I shall bathe it for you."

Jenny brought in a large basin of warm water and began to foment it first, touching it so tenderly. "And his hand that was as white as a lady's," said Jenny pitifully, "po-o-r bo-y!" This kind expression had no sooner escaped her than she colored and bent her head down over her work, hoping it might escape notice.

"Young woman," said Mr. Miles with paternal gravity, "servants are advised not to make too free with their masters; or the beggars will forget their place and take liberties with you. He! He! He!"

Jenny put his hand quietly down into the water and got up and ran across the room for the door. Her course was arrested by a howl from the jocose youth.

"Murder! Take him off, Jenny; kick him; the beggar is curling and laughing at the same time. Confound you, can't you lay the irons down when I say a good thing. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

This strange trio chuckled a s.p.a.ce. Miles the loudest. "Tom, pour out my tea; and you, Jenny, if you will come to the scratch again, ha!

ha!--I'll tell you how I came by this."

This promise brought the inquisitive Jenny to the basin directly.

"You know Hazeltine?"

"Yes, sir, a tall gentleman that comes here now and then. That is the one you are to run a race with on the public course," put in Jenny, looking up with a scandalized air.

"That is the boy; but how the deuce did you know?"

"Gentlemen to run with all the dirty boys looking on like horses,"

remonstrated the grammatical one, "it is a disgrace."

"So it is--for the one that is beat. Well, I was to meet Hazeltine to supper out of town. By-the-by, you don't know Tom Yates?"

"Oh," said Jenny, "I have heard of him, too."

"I doubt that; there are a good many of his name."

"The rake, I mean; lives a mile or two out of Sydney.

"So do half a dozen more of them."

"This one is about the biggest gambler and sharper unhung."

"All right! that is my friend! Well, he gave us a thundering supper--lots of lush."

"What is lush?"

"Tea and coffee and barley-water, my dear. Oh! can't you put the thundering irons down when I say a good thing? Well, I mustn't be witty any more, the penalty is too severe."

I need hardly say it was not Mr. Miles's jokes that agitated Robinson now; on the contrary, in the midst of his curiosity and rising agitation these jokes seemed ghastly impossibilities.

"Well, at ten o'clock we went upstairs to a snug little room, and all four sat down to a nice little green table."

"To gamble?"

"No! to whist; but now comes the fun. We had been playing about four hours, and the room was hot, and Yates was gone for a fresh pack, and old Hazeltine was gone into the drawing-room to cool himself. Presently he comes back and he says in a whisper, "Come here, old fellows." We went with him to the drawing-room, and at first sight we saw nothing, but presently flash came a light right in our eyes; it seemed to come from something glittering in the field. And these flashes kept coming and going. At last we got the governor, and he puzzled over it a little while. 'I know what it is,' cried he, 'it is my cuc.u.mber gla.s.s.'"

Jenny looked up. "Gla.s.s might glitter," said she, "but I don't see how it could flash."

"No more did we, and we laughed in the governor's face; for all that we were wrong. 'There is somebody under that wall with a dark lantern,'

said Tom Yates, 'and every now and then the gla.s.s catches the glare and reflects it this way.' 'Solomon!' cried the rest of us. The fact is, Jenny, when Tom Yates gets half drunk he develops sagacity more than human. (Robinson gave a little groan.) Aha," cried Miles, "the beggar has burned his finger. I'm glad of it. Why should I be the only sufferer by his thundering irons? 'Here is a lark,' said I, 'we'll nab this dark lantern--won't we, Hazy?' 'Rather,' said Hazy. 'Wait till I get my pistols, and I'll give you a cutla.s.s, George,' says Tom Yates. I forget who George was; but he said he was of n.o.ble blood, and I think myself he was some relation to the King-of-trumps, the whole family came about him so--mind my hair now. 'Oh, bother your artillery,' said I. 'Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.' When I'm a little cut you may know it by my quoting Shakespeare. When I'm sober I don't remember a word of him--and don't want to."

"No, the _Sporting Magazine_, that is your Bible, sir," suggested Jenny.

"Yes, and let me read it without your commentary--mind my hair now.

Where was I? Oh. Hazeltine and I opened the door softly and whipped out, but the beggar was too sharp for us. No doubt he heard the door. Anyway, before we could get through the shrubbery he was off, and we heard him clattering down the road ever so far off. However we followed quietly on the gra.s.s by the road-side at a fair traveling pace, and by and by what do you think? Our man had pulled up in the middle of the road and stood stock still. 'That is a green trick,' thought I. However, before we could get up to him he saw us or heard us, and off down the road no end of a pace. 'Tally ho!' cried I. Out came Hazy from the other hedge, and away we went--'Pug' ahead, 'Growler' and 'Gay-lad' scarce twenty yards from his brush, and the devil take the hindmost. Well, of course, we made sure of catching him in about a hundred yards--two such runners as Hazy and me--"