The Channings



540



  " But indeed it is. Greater news even than that.
We have found Charley, Mr. Huntley. "
  Mr. Huntley sprang from the chair he was taking.
"Found Charley!    Have you really   Where has
he Hamish, I see by your countenance that the
tidings are good. He must be alive."
  " He is alive and well. At least, well, comparatively
speaking. A barge was passing down the river at
the time he fell in, and the man leaped overboard and
saved him. Charley has been in the barge ever since,
and has had brain fever."
  " And how did he come home" wondered Mr.
Huntley, when he had sufficiently digested the news.
  "The barge brought him back. It is on its way
up again. Charley arrived under escort of the barge-
woman, a red handkerchief on his head in lieu of his
trencher, which, you know, he lost that night," added
Hamish, laughing. " Lady Augusta, who was going
out of the house as he entered, was frightened into
the belief that it was his ghost, and startled them all
with her cries to that effect, including the bishop, who
was with my father in the drawing-room."
  " Hamish, it is like a romance !" said Mr. Huntley.
  " Very nearly, taking one circumstance with another.
My father's return, cured; Roland's letter; and now
Charley's resuscitation. Their all happening together
renders it the more remarkable. Poor Charley does
look as much like a ghost as anything, and his curls
are gone. They had to cut his hair close in the
fever. "
  Mr. Huntley paused. " Do you know, Hamish,"
he presently said, " I begin to think we were all a
set of muffs. We might have thought of a barge."
  " If we had thought of a barge, we should never
have thought the barge would carry him off," objected
Hamish. " However, we have him back now, and
I thank God. I always said he would turn up, you
know. "
  " I must come and see him," said Mr. Huntley.
  I was at the college school this morning, therefore
close to your house, but I did not call. I thought
your father would have enough callers, without me."
  Hamish laughed. "He has had a great many.