Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (most important books of all time .TXT) 📗

A yard or two farther and the brown horse and his burden must have gone over the terrible drop, as straight as a plumb-line, on to the awful rocks below. We could see where the brown had torn up the turf as he struck all four hoofs deep into it at once. Indeed, he had been newly shod, a freak of Jim’s about a bet with a travelling blacksmith. Then the other tracks, the long score on the brink⁠—over the brink⁠—where the frightened, maddened animal had made an attempt to alter her speed, all in vain, and had plunged over the bank and the hundred feet of fall.

We peered over, and saw a bright-coloured mass among the rocks below⁠—very still. Just at the time one of the ration-carriers came by with a spring cart. Mr. Falkland lifted his daughter in and took the reins, leaving his horse to be ridden home by the ration-carrier. As for us we rode back to the shearers’ hut, not quite so fast as we came, with Jim in the middle. He did not seem inclined to talk much.

“It’s lucky I turned round when I did, Dick,” he said at last, “and saw you making the ‘danger-look-out-sharp’ signal. I couldn’t think what the dickens it was. I was so cocksure of catching the mare in half-a-mile farther that I couldn’t help wondering what it was all about. Anyhow, I knew we agreed it was never to be worked for nothing, so thought the best thing I could do was to call in the mare, and see if I could find out anything then. When I got alongside, I could see that Miss Falkland’s face was that white that something must be up. It weren’t the mare she was afraid of. She was coming back to her. It took something to frighten her, I knew. So it must be something I did not know, or didn’t see.

“ ‘What is it, Miss Falkland?’ I said.

“ ‘Oh!’ she cried out, ‘don’t you know? Another fifty yards and we’ll be over the downfall where the trooper was killed. Oh, my poor father!’

“ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said. ‘We’ll not go over if I can help it.’

“So I reached over and got hold of the reins. I pulled and jerked. She said her hands were cramped, and no wonder. Pulling double for a four-mile heat is no joke, even if a man’s in training. Fancy a woman, a young girl, having to sit still and drag at a runaway horse all the time. I couldn’t stop the brute; she was boring like a wild bull. So just as we came pretty close I lifted Miss Falkland off the saddle and yelled at old Brownie as if I had been on a cattle camp, swinging round to the near side at the same time. Round he came like one o’clock. I could see the mare make one prop to stop herself, and then go flying right through the air, till I heard a beastly ‘thud’ at the bottom.

“Miss Falkland didn’t faint, though she turned white and then red, and trembled like a leaf when I lifted her down, and looked up at me with a sweet smile, and said⁠—

“ ‘Jim, you have paid me for binding up your wrist, haven’t you? You have saved me from a horrible death, and I shall think of you as a brave and noble fellow all the days of my life.’

“What could I say?” said Jim. “I stared at her like a fool. ‘I’d have gone over the bank with you, Miss Falkland,’ I said, ‘if I could not have saved you.’

“ ‘Well, I’m afraid some of my admirers would have stopped short of that, James,’ she said. She did indeed. And then Mr. Falkland and all of you came up.”

“I say, Jim,” said one of the young fellows, “your fortune’s made. Mr. Falkland’ll stand a farm, you may be sure, for this little fakement.”

“And I say, Jack,” says old Jim, very quiet like, “I’ve told you all the yarn, and if there’s any chaff about it after this the cove will have to see whether he’s best man or me; so don’t make any mistake now.”

There was no more chaff. They weren’t afraid. There were two or three of them pretty smart with their hands, and not likely to take much from anybody. But Jim was a heavyweight and could hit like a horse kicking; so they thought it wasn’t good enough, and left him alone.

Next day Mr. Falkland came down and wanted to give Jim a cheque for a hundred; but he wouldn’t hear of so much as a note. Then he said he’d give him a billet on the run⁠—make him under overseer; after a bit buy a farm for him and stock it. No! Jim wouldn’t touch nothing or take a billet on the place. He wouldn’t leave his family, he said. And as for taking money or anything else for saving Miss Falkland’s life, it was ridiculous to think of it. There wasn’t a man of the lot in the shed, down to the tarboy, that wouldn’t have done the same, or tried to. All that was in it was that his horse was the fastest.

“It’s not a bad thing for a poor man to have a fast horse now and then, is it, Mr. Falkland?” he said, looking up and smiling, just like a boy. He was very shy, was poor Jim.

“I don’t grudge a poor man a good horse or anything else he likes to have or enjoy. You know that, all of you. It’s the fear I have of the effect of the dishonest way that horses of value are come by, and the net of roguery that often entangles fine young fellows like you and your brother; that’s what I fear,” said Mr. Falkland, looking at the pair of us so kind and pitiful like.

I looked him in the face, though I felt I could not say he was wrong. I felt, too, just then, as if