Читать книгу Anne Hereford - Mrs. Henry Wood - Страница 6

"Did you see Mr. Heneage fire?"

"Oh no, sir. I did not see Mr. Heneage at all."

He took my hand, walked with me a few steps, and showed me a path that was rather wider than the others. "Go straight down here until you come to a cross-path, running right and left: it is not far. Take the one to the right, and it will bring you out in front of the house. Do you understand, little one?"

"Yes, sir," I answered, though, in truth, too agitated to understand distinctly, and only anxious to get away from him. Suppose he should shoot me! was running through my foolish thoughts.

"Make speed to the house, then," he resumed, "and see Charlotte Delves. Tell her what has occurred: that Philip King has been shot, and that she must send help to convey him home. She must also send at once for the doctor, and for the police. Can you remember all that?"

"Oh yes, sir. Is he much hurt?"

"He is dead, child. Now be as quick as you can. Do not tell your aunt what has happened: it would alarm her."

I sped along quicker than any child ever sped before, and soon came to the cross-path. But there I made a mistake: I went blindly on to the left, instead of to the right, and I came suddenly upon Mr. Heneage. He was standing quite still, leaning on his gun, his finger on his lip to impose silence and caution on me, and his face looked as I had never seen it look before, white as death.

"Whose voice was that I heard talking to you?" he asked, in a whisper.

"Mr. Edwin Barley's. Oh, sir, don't stop me; Mr. King is dead!"

"Dead! Mr. King dead?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Edwin Barley says so, and I am on my way to the house to tell Miss Delves to send for the police. Mr. Heneage, did you do it?"

"I! You silly child!" he returned, in an accent of rebuke. "What in the world put that in your head? I have been looking for Philip King--waiting here in the hope that he might pass. There, go along, child, and don't tremble so. That way: you are coming from the house, this."

Back I went, my fears increasing. To an imaginative, excitable, and timid nature, such as mine, all this was simply terrible. I did gain the house, but only to rush into the arms of Jemima, who happened to be in the hall, and fall into a fit of hysterical, nervous, sobbing cries, clinging to her tightly, as if I could never let her go again.

A pretty messenger, truly, in time of need!