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The elder sister of this lady had previously become the wife of my grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Bothwell, and brought into our family a good fortune. Miss Jemima, or Miss Jemmie Falconer, as she was usually called, had also about ten thousand pounds sterling then thought a very handsome portion indeed.
The line of the horizon was unbroken by any hills in the distance, and the nearer ones seemed gradually to lose themselves in the darkness of the landscape. The two natives, whom the stockmen had named Peter and Jemmie, were of infinite service to us, from their knowledge of all the passes, and the general features of the country.
"Me describe! and to your honour! far be it from Jemmie Ratcliffe," responded the prisoner. "Come, sir, no trifling I insist on an answer."
"The gentleman here has not the same interest in snuff-boxes which moves us to loud speech." "True," said Dame Bottles, "and I readily wish that my Jemmie had no reason to care if snuff-boxes were made from cabbage-leaves." I had been turning a scheme in my mind, and here I thought I saw my opportunity to introduce it.
'Here, woman, he cried to Moggy, who was passing again, 'give that pimping rascal his answer; and see, Sirrah, if I find you sneaking about the place again, I'll lay that whip across your back. Nutter went into the small room again. 'An' how are ye, Jemmie how's every inch iv you? enquired Moggy of the boy, when his agitation was a little blown over.
"If you let anything pass on the road because you do not lack it at the moment, you will ultimately die of starvation, Jemmie dear," quoth the mother. "How often have I told you?" "Aye," he answered somewhat irritably, "you also often have told me to take snuff-boxes."
The tone of such critics was "To be sure, no one will justify Sir Philip Forester, but then we all know Sir Philip, and Jemmie Falconer might have known what she had to expect from the beginning. What made her set her cap at Sir Philip? He would never have looked at her if she had not thrown herself at his head, with her poor ten thousand pounds.
And Jemmie roused himself with an effort, and, trying hard to get upon his knees, he began to pray. By-and-by the other wounded soldiers heard him, and all who could crawl gathered round, and there, in that far-away nullah, little Jemmie 'said a prayer' for them all. Surely a strange and almost ghastly prayer-meeting that! As they prayed, some one noticed the flicker of a light in the distance.
There was a great outcry in a feminine voice, and a large woman rushed forward and flung her arms about the highwayman. "Oh, Jemmie, my son, my son!" she screamed, "whatever have they done to ye this time?" "Silence, mother dear," said Bottles. "'Tis nought but a wind-broken bough fallen on my head. Have you no manners? Do you not see the gentleman waiting to enter and warm himself?"
She was a woman of high principle, however, and masculine good sense, as some of her letters testify, which are still in my wainscot cabinet. Jemmie Falconer was the reverse of her sister in every respect. Her understanding did not reach above the ordinary pitch, if, indeed, she could be said to have attained it.
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