Chapter XXVII: Conclusion

Just one more scene, readers, and then you must say good-bye to Snap and Frank, Dick, Towzer, and the author. I don't call you 'gentle' reader, as some fellows might do, because, though I like boys to grow up 'gentlemen,' I am not very fond myself of gentle boys--youngsters who sit in the drawing-room and do knitting and play the piano. I dare say they are good enough in their way, but they will never enjoy a merry bout with the boxing-gloves, or, when they grow older, a breathless scurry after stampeded cattle or a pack like the old Berkshire. And that last sentence brings me home again, of course.

It was a November morning at Fairbury, and the way the thrushes were whistling would have persuaded any but a hunting man that it was balmy April instead of bleak November. Bleak it certainly was not. The air was a little fresh and crisp, to be sure, and a good many of the leaves had fluttered down already, but the covers were still too thick to shoot, and the old cock-pheasants who were crowing lustily in the shrubbery last night knew that as well as old Admiral Chris, whose fingers had been itching ever since the first of October for a 'cut at a rocketer.'

'Uncle Chris always does kill a few "magpies" about the end of September,' had been Frank's verdict long ago, and I fear that the allegation was true in fact, for that keen old sportsman, used to shooting in an Indian jungle at everything he saw, from peacocks to a native gun-bearer, could not always resist the attractions of a precocious 'longtail.'

It was just nine o'clock; morning prayers were over, and the sun glanced off the old red brick and through the tree-boughs into the windows of the breakfast-room of the Hall. There it lit on a snowy cloth, glanced at a tempting pink ham and some cold game on the sideboard, peeped over the top of the plate-warmer before the fire, and discovered kidneys lying lovingly alongside little rolls of bacon (for all the world like the ringlets of the last generation) and many other good things. There was a pleasant aroma of coffee about the room; a glow of firelight within, and a more glorious glow of sunlight without.

Altogether it was a room the very memory of which makes me feel hungry and happy.

In the room, at the moment at which I ask you to peep into it, are four people: a little grey-haired lady in a dark dress, and a quantity of pretty feathery white things about her, as becoming as hoarfrost on an evergreen; and three men. You could not disguise the Admiral if you tried, so I won't try; but it is hard to believe that it is he indeed, for, instead of looking older, he looks positively juvenile, in spite of the old-fashioned blue stock which he wears.

Every friend will be there,
And all trouble and care
Will be left far behind----'

he hummed.

'And so will you, Chris, if you don't stop singing and rescue the kidneys from Willie,' interrupts Mrs. Winthrop, with a smile in her bright eyes.

'Oh, don't, mother, that's too bad of you, and you know it's my last chance before that North-west appetite arrives on the scene,' expostulates that young gentleman, arrayed in all the glory of white leathers, although an old shooting-coat still clothes the form which in another hour will blossom into pink.

'It's not like Snap to be so late,' said the Admiral, 'and the morning of the opening meet too!'

'You forget, Chris, that he didn't get here, could not have got here, until three this morning. How would five hours' sleep suit you, my brother?'

'Well, mother, the Admiral started early,' put in Frank. 'I heard the first gun ten minutes after you left the dining-room last night.'

'Pooh, pooh! boy,' puffed the indignant veteran, and would probably at that moment have conclusively proved to his disrespectful nephew that no Admiral ever snores; but just then there came a tap at the French window, and everyone rushed to open it. Another moment both Mrs. Winthrop's hands lay in Snap's, and his tall young figure bent as he kissed the little woman reverently on the forehead.

'God bless you, Snap!' was all she could say, and his answer came quite quietly:

'He has, dear--aren't we all at home again?'

And then, somehow, all settled quietly into their old places, only that there was a tendency on the part of everyone to follow Snap's every action with friendly eyes, anxious to discover something which they could do for their hero.

As for Snap, he was not such a prig as to think for a moment that this great change, or any of it, was his doing. 'Deuced lucky' was what he called it--in his own heart he had a more reverent way of speaking of it.

This November morning was just two years from the day when he and Towzer had stood watching the Eastern train disappear along the line, carrying Frank and the old German's papers with it. In Berlin Frank had found that the professor's name was as well known as the Kaiser's; more, that his name was known as well in London or Paris as in Berlin. Von Bulberg, the professor's friend, had received Frank with open arms, had gathered the scientists of the great city together to fête him and listen to his story, had helped him to find an honest and expert lawyer, and, between them, they had taken out the patents and executed every wish expressed in that last will and testament.

As for the 'few little houses at Potsdam,' the worthy aeronaut evidently set small store by the ordinary things of this earth. When a young man he had come into a very considerable property, of which he had spent very little, and ever since his inventions had been adding one small fortune to another, all of which had been invested in house property at Potsdam. The result was that when Frank's lawyer laid the accounts before him he found that an income of nearly 10,000_l._ a year would fall to the share of himself and his friends, as representing 'the few little houses at Potsdam.'

As the professor had no kith or kin, the boys had no scruple in taking the good things Providence had sent them, but I fancy that a very considerable portion of their share of the royalties on the professor's two patents finds its way to such institutions as Dr. Barnardo's Home for Boys and the like.

With their portion of the money Frank and Towzer had bought back the old home, investing all they had to spare in Snap's ranche, for neither persuasion nor anything else could tear him away from Dick and the Bull Pine Range, upon which these two partners had now got together as fine a herd as you will see in the North-west. After much correspondence and two years of waiting his old friends had at last induced him to come home for a winter's hunting.

Out West, Dick was in command, and under him was as smart a lot of riders as even he could desire. The cattle did well on the Bull Pine Range, being well sheltered among the bluffs round the Lone Mountain, so that during the winter there was no reason why 'the boss' should not come over to the old country for a spin with the hounds if he could afford it. And Snap could afford that, and a good deal more. Ten per cent. for your money would be marvellously good interest in any business in England; with luck, Dick and Snap did not think much of twice that at Bull Pine.

'So, Snap, I see your professor's patent is to be adopted by the Army,' remarked the Admiral.

'Yes, Lord W. has approved it, and what he approves is bound to "go" nowadays,' replied Snap. 'I should think they would be very useful for reconnoitring an enemy's position, for surveying the country generally, and taking messages from point to point.'

'That's all very well, but what are the other fellows going to do all the time? wouldn't they put a bullet into your great gas-bag and bring it down with a run?' demanded the Admiral.

'I think not, sir,' said Frank; 'we had a hole or two in ours, and she didn't come down as fast as we wanted her to always.'

'Besides, you forget, uncle,' added Towzer, 'that she would be a little "taller" even than the tallest rocketer, and you know they are too tall even for you sometimes.'

'Well, you may be right, Snap,' the Admiral allowed, taking no notice of Towzer's insinuations, 'but I'm glad that I shall never be Admiral of a fleet of those crafts.'

'You agree with Dick, sir,' said Snap; '"give me a cayuse," he says, "as'll buck itself out of its girths, as'll buck itself out of its skin, if you like, but no more of them bally balloons for me!"'

'Ah, well! here are our cayuses, Snap, and it is about time that we got into the saddle. It is a good four miles to the Lawn,' remarked Frank; while Towzer, always intent on creature comforts, was anxious to know what Snap would have in his flask.

'No spirits, thank you, old chap,' was the answer. 'I've brought a large supply of good ones of my own. Neither, whisky nor "tip" could compare to the spirits I am in this morning.'

Five minutes later they were in their saddles, the Winthrops in pink, dressed with all that scrupulous neatness which is essential for a soldier or a fox-hunter, and which comes amiss to no one. Snap was more quietly attired, but his was an easy figure for the tailor to fit, and when he rode up with his friends, the connoisseurs of men and of horses, who were chatting and smoking at the meet, decided with one consent that, though there might be a bow where there ought to have been a strap, a button too many or too few, yet, allowing for the fact that he was 'only a colonist,' that young Hales looked a good sort, and '_a workman_, sir, all over.'

A 'workman all over.' It's hunting slang, I know, but it is the keynote of the English character still, thank goodness. If you _can_ work and _will_ work, and that work is honest and true, men will respect you, women admire you, and even the most exacting of relations forgive you what one may call vice, another mischief, an indulgent old sailor 'go,' or a Nor'-West cowboy, like Dick, 'sand.'

_Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London._