At last the landlady's head appeared at an upper window.

With a few words to Mrs.Busvargus, which caused that worthy soul to dress in haste with many ejaculations, I raced up the hill again and across the downs for Lizard Town.

My strength was giving way; my head swam, my sides ached terribly, my legs almost refused to obey my will, and a thousand lights danced and sparkled before my eyes, but still I kept on, now staggering, now stumbling, but still onward, nor stopped until I stood before Uncle Loveday's door.
There at last I fell; but luckily against the door, so that in a moment or two I became conscious of Aunt Elizabeth standing over me and regarding me as a culprit caught red-handed in some atrocious crime.
"Hoity-toity! What's the matter now?
Why, it's Jasper! Well, of all the freaks, to come knocking us up! What's the matter with the boy?
Jasper, what ails you ?" Incoherently I told my story, at first to Aunt Elizabeth alone, but presently, in answer to her call, Uncle Loveday came down to hear.
The pair stood silent and wondering.
They were not elaborately dressed.

Aunt Elizabeth, it is true, was smothered from head to foot in a gigantic Inverness cape, that might have been my uncle's were it not obviously too large for that little man.

Her nightcap, on the other hand, was ostentatiously her own.
No other woman would have had strength of mind to wear such a head-dress.