"Brown! did you hear Lieut. Fowler ask for a glass of ale for self and friend?"
"No, Peggy, dear, I dedn't," said he; "but I'll draw the glasses, of course I will. Polly! Polly! Why, wherever es that maid?"
So the glasses of ale were drawn, although the order was entirely in Mrs. Brown's own imagination; for neither of the gentlemen had given one;--but it was the very thing they both wished, and, no doubt, would have ordered very soon, had not their wishes been anticipated by the landlady, who always had an eye to business.
The two gentlemen then took a stroll together, and Lieut. Fowler tried to dissuade his friend from this rash and foolish undertaking, but to no purpose. He was determined to do it, he said,--it was just the thing he liked; for English sports were so tame, after those he had been accustomed to for the last two years. Hunting tigers and Lions,--that was the sport for him.
"If you are really determined," said Fowler, "I shall bring the girls up from Pendrea-house to have a look at you; but I think you will alter your mind before the morning."
Mrs. Brown had prepared a very nice dinner, and so the friends enjoyed two or three hours' social chat. Morley had heard no tidings of his brother, he said, nor had anyone found anything that was likely to have been his, as far as he could learn; and so he supposed he was not in that ship. But he should remain a day or two longer, he said, to make further search.
When his friend rose to leave, Morley said he would go out a little way with him, and he would ride the mare to try her temper and her paces.
Mrs. Brown was obliged to yield when she found that the gentleman was determined on the feat, and she trusted that the well-known good temper and tractability of the mare would carry them both through with safety,--although the fright into which the mare had been thrown two days before, without any apparent cause, as it seemed, tended to weaken Mrs. Brown's confidence in the perfect steadiness of her husband's pet.
The eventful morning arrived. But it had been kept a profound secret, fearing that, if a rumour of this dangerous feat being about to take place got generally known, there would be a concourse of people on the ground,--and the mare, however steady she was, might get frightened.