The New Collected Short Stories Read Online Free Page A

wife had sprained her ankle, Leyland had torn one of his nails on a tree trunk, and I myself had scraped and damaged my ear. I never noticed it till I had stopped.
    We were all silent, searching one another’s faces. Suddenly Miss Mary Robinson gave a terrible shriek. ‘Oh, merciful heavens! where is Eustace?’ And then she would have fallen, if Mr Sandbach had not caught her.
    ‘We must go back, we must go back at once,’ said my Rose, who was quite the most collected of the party. ‘But I hope – I feel he is safe.’ Such was the cowardice of Leyland, that he objected. But, finding himself in a minority, and being afraid of being left alone, he gave in. Rose and I supported my poor wife, Mr Sandbach and Miss Robinson helped Miss Mary, and we returned slowly and silently, taking forty minutes to ascend the path that we had descended in ten.
    Our conversation was naturally disjointed, as no one wished to offer an opinion on what had happened. Rose was the most talkative: she startled us all by saying that she had very nearly stopped where she was.
    ‘Do you mean to say that you weren’t – that you didn’t feel compelled to go?’ said Mr Sandbach.
    ‘Oh, of course, I did feel frightened’ – she was the first to use the word – ‘but I somehow felt that if I could stop on it would be quite different, that I shouldn’t be frightened at all, so to speak.’ Rose never did express herself clearly: still, it is greatly to her credit that she, the youngest of us, should have held on so long at that terrible time.
    ‘I should have stopped, I do believe,’ she continued, ‘if I had not seen mamma go.’ Rose’s experience comforted us a little about Eustace. But a feeling of terrible foreboding was on us all, as we painfully climbed the chestnut-covered slopes and neared the little clearing. When we reached it our tongues broke loose. There, at the further side, were the remains of our lunch, and close to them, lying motionless on his back, was Eustace.
    With some presence of mind I at once cried out: ‘Hey, you young monkey! jump up!’ But he made no reply, nor did he answer when his poor aunts spoke to him. And, to my unspeakable horror, I saw one of those green lizards dart out from under his shirt-cuff as we approached.
    We stood watching him as he lay there so silently, and my ears began to tingle in expectation of the outbursts of lamentations and tears.
    Miss Mary fell on her knees beside him and touched his hand, which was convulsively entwined in the long grass.
    As she did so, he opened his eyes and smiled.
    I have often seen that peculiar smile since, both on the possessor’s face and on the photographs of him that are beginning to get into the illustrated papers. But, till then, Eustace had always worn a peevish, discontented frown; and we were all unused to this disquieting smile, which always seemed to be without adequate reason.
    His aunts showered kisses on him, which he did not reciprocate, and then there was an awkward pause. Eustace seemed so natural and undisturbed; yet, if he had not had astonishing experiences himself, he ought to have been all the more astonished at our extraordinary behaviour. My wife, with ready tact, endeavoured to behave as if nothing had happened.
    ‘Well, Mr Eustace,’ she said, sitting down as she spoke, to ease her foot, ‘how have you been amusing yourself since we have been away?’
    ‘Thank you, Mrs Tytler, I have been very happy.’
    ‘And where have you been?’
    ‘Here.’
    ‘And lying down all the time, you idle boy?’
    ‘No, not all the time.’
    ‘What were you doing before?’
    ‘Oh; standing or sitting.’
    ‘Stood and sat doing nothing! Don’t you know the poem “Satan finds some mischief still for——”’
    ‘Oh, my dear madam, hush! hush!’ Mr Sandbach’s voice broke in; and my wife, naturally mortified by the interruption, said no more and moved away. I was surprised to see Rose immediately take her place, and, with more