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"I beg your pardon, sir," he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to awake his father; "I am sorry to rouse you up, but there's a fire near Mr Strelley's warehouse, and I must be off to try and get it put out. I hope it has not caught any of the premises yet; but pray call up some of our neighbours, there's not a moment to be lost!" "Where! where! what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr Deane, starting.
Seldom indeed did his hosts refuse his offer, or fail to be sensible that besides his fair payment for keep of man and beast, he had left a blessing behind him. At many of these midland farms great bargaining took place, for Mr Strelley's droves supplied them with store cattle, as agriculture was beginning to be better understood than it had ever before been in England.
Their first business was very soon accomplished, as the butchers, to whom Mr Strelley's beasts were well-known, looked forward to supply themselves regularly from those which were brought to them by his drovers.
Mr Strelley's offer was duly placed before Mr Deane. "If Jack remains much longer idle at home, he will be getting into mischief, if he has not got into it already," he thought to himself. "I have no reason to be ashamed of my boy, and perhaps it will be my own fault if I have cause to be at any future time.
I have so far led you into the scrape by giving you the letters, and I have resolved to bear you company; for I doubt, without me, that you would manage to escape." "This is bad news indeed," exclaimed Jack, sitting up in bed, and beginning to dress as rapidly as he could. "But if I go south, how shall I be able to execute Mr Strelley's commission?
The pack-horses and the other herds must have passed before the accident had occurred; for there was scarcely room to allow the animals to get by between the cart and the ditch. Just as Mr Strelley's herd arrived at the waggon, over it went, completely blocking up the road.
Last year, during the vacation, I took a trip with Will Brinsmead, Mr Strelley's head drover, as far as Stourbridge, to the fair, and I never enjoyed any thing more in my life. I thought then, and I think now, that for a young man who likes being on horseback, and enjoys the free air of heaven, galloping across country, there is not a pleasanter sort of life.
He started to his feet, and remembering that Mr Strelley's great wool warehouse was near the sheds, as well as a number of cottages thatched with straw, belonging to the people employed on the river, he dreaded that a very considerable conflagration might be the consequence. Jack sprang to the window.
"You are hard upon me, Master Brinsmead!" said Jack. "I am not conscious of having said any thing about Mr Strelley's affairs to Pearson, or to any one else. I have committed faults in my time, that I know, and am very likely to have to pay the penalty I rather hope I may but I have never acted dishonourably to any one who has trusted me."
No other living creature was in sight, so that Jack and his companion were not afraid of talking in their usual tone of voice. They kept, however, well under the shade of the trees. "Those are some of Mr Strelley's beasts, I believe," said Jack: "a fine lot they are, too; they will soon be off towards Cambridge, and bring a good round sum at Stourbridge Fair.
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