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For his humane efforts Fred received a severe scratching on the face, and was compelled to seek refuge in flight. For some time after this the Sudberry Family were particularly careful not to wander too far from their mountain home. Mr Sudberry forbade everyone, on pain of his utmost displeasure, to venture up among the hills without McAllister or one of his lads as a guide.
That volatile metal, being set free, at once leaped into its liberator's bosom, and gushed down between his body and his clothes to the floor! "I'll thrash him to within an inch " "No, I won't," he muttered, suddenly wheeling round on his heel and returning slowly to the parlour. "I'll say nothing whatever about it." And Mr Sudberry kept his word Jacky never heard of it from that day to this!
Fast and furious was the dancing that night. Native animal spirits did it all. No artificial stimulants were there. "Tatties and mulk" were at the bottom of the whole affair. The encounter of that forenoon seemed to have had the effect of recalling the spirit of his youth to Mr Sudberry, and his effervescing joviality gave tone to all the rest.
"My dear," said Mr Sudberry, on returning to the parlour, "they are `champing tatties." "What?" "`Champing tatties, in other words, mashing potatoes, which it would seem, with milk, constitute the supper of the family." Thus was Mrs Sudberry's mind relieved, and from that night forward no further notice was taken of the sound.
A groan instantly followed, as George spilt the whole of it. As it fell on the cloth, however, it was soon gathered up, and then Mr Sudberry ordered everyone to sit down on the grass in a circle round the cloth. "What a good boy Jacky has suddenly become!" remarked Lucy in some surprise. "Darling!" ejaculated his mother. "A very good little fellow," said Flora, with a peculiar smile.
The passage of so many seasons over him appeared to have exercised a polishing influence on the merchant, for Mr Sudberry's cranium shone like a billiard-ball. In temperament Mr Sudberry was sanguine, and full of energy. He could scarcely have been a successful merchant without these qualities. He was also extremely violent.
Mr Sudberry glanced at the falls, frowned, and compressed his lips. He felt that he was "in for it;" he resolved not to be beat, so on he went! The fish went right down the first fall; the fisher leaped over a ledge of rock three feet high, scrambled across some rough ground, and pulled up at an eddy where the fish seemed disposed to rest.
Meanwhile, Mrs Sudberry was thrown into a species of frenzied horror, which no words can describe, and which was not in any degree allayed by the grave shaking of the head, with which Mr McAllister accompanied his vain efforts to comfort and re-assure her.
"Jacky, darling," said Mrs Sudberry, "do try to give up those ugly slang words they're so naughty that is to say at least they are very ugly if they're not positively naughty." "She's a jolly old brick," retorted Jacky, with a look at his mother that was the concentrated essence of defiance. "Dear child!"
"Oh! ahem!" said Mr Sudberry, with peculiar emphasis; "you seem a stout fellow, and might find more difficult ways of earning half a crown. However, I'll give you that sum if you go up and tell them to send down a barrow." "I'll wait here," replied the man, with a sarcastic grin, limping back to his former seat on the bank.
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