Thus reasoning, I trotted away to the town, where I duly transacted my business, and performed various little commissions for my mother and Rose, with very laudable exactitude, consIdering the different circumstances of the case. In returning home, I was troubled with sundry misgivings about the unfortunate Lawrence. The question, what if I should find him lying, still on the damp earth, fairly dying of cold and exhaustion--or already stark and chill? thrust itself most unpleasantly upon my mind, and the appalling possibility pictured itself with painful vividness to my imagination as I approached the spot where I had left him. But no; thank Heaven, both man and horse were gone, and nothing was left to witness against me but two objects--unpleasant enough in themselves, to be sure, and presenting a very ugly, not to say murderous, appearance--in one place, the hat saturated with rain and coated with mud, indented and broken above the brim by that villainous whip-handle; in another, the crimson handkerchief, soaking in a deeply tinctured pool of water--for much rain had fallen in the interim.
Bad news fly fast: it was hardly four o'clock when I got home, but my mother gravely accosted me with--`Oh, Gilbert!-- Such an accident! Rose has been shopping in the village, and she's heard that Mr Lawrence has been thrown from his horse and brought home dying!'
This shocked me a trifle, as you may suppose; but I was comforted to hear that he had frightfully fractured his skull and broken a leg; for, assured of the falsehood of this, I trusted the rest of the story was equally exaggerated; and when I heard my mother and sister so feelingly deploring his condition, I had considerable difficulty in preventing myself from telling them the real extent of the injuries, as far as I knew them.
`You must go and see him to-morrow,' said my mother.
`Or to-day,' suggested Rose: `there's plenty of time; and you can have the pony, if your horse is tired. Won't you, Gilbert--as soon as you've had something to eat?'
`No, no--How can we tell that it isn't all a false report? It's highly im--'
`Oh, I'm sure it isn't; for the village is all alive about it; and I saw two people that had seen others that had seen the man that found him. That sounds far fetched; but it isn't so, when you think of it.'
`Well, but Lawrence is a good rider; it is not likely he would fall from his horse at all; and if he did, it is highly improbable he should break his bones in that way. It must be a gross exaggeration at least.'
`No, but the horse kicked him--or something.'
`What, his quiet little pony?'
`How do you know it was that?'
`He seldom rides any other.'
`At any rate,' said my mother, `you will call to-morrow. Whether it be true or false, exaggerated or otherwise, we shall like to know how he is.'
`Fergus may go.
`Why not you?'
`He has more time: I am busy just now.'
`Oh! but Gilbert, how can you be so composed about it? You won't mind business, for an hour or two, in a case of this sort--when your friend is at the point of death!'
`He is not, I tell you!'
`For anything you know, he may be: you can't tell till you have seen him.--At all events, he must have met with some terrible accident, and you ought to see him: he'll take it very ~d of you if you don't.'
`Confound it! I can't. He and I have not been on good terms, of late.'
`Oh, my dear boy! Surely, surely, you are not so unforgiving as to carry your little differences to such a length as--'
`Little differences, indeed!' I muttered.
`Well, but only remember the occasion! Think how-'
`Well, well, don't bother me now--I'll see about it,' I replied.
And my seeing about it was to send Fergus next morning, with my mother's compliments, to make the requisite enquiries; for, of course, my going was out of the question--or sending a message, either. He brought back intelligence that the young squire was laid up with the complicated evils of a broken head and Certain contusions (occasioned by a fall--of which he did not trouble himself to relate the particulars--and the subsequent misconduct of his horse), and a severe cold, the consequence of lying on the wet ground in the rain; but there were no broken bones, and no immediate prospects of dissolution.
It was evident then, that, for Mrs Graham's sake, it was not his intention to criminate me.