PRISSY'S COMPROMISE.
AFTERthe turmoil and excitement of the notably adventurous days which ended with the capture of the castle, the succeeding weeks dragged strangely. The holidays were dwindling as quickly as the last grains of sand in an hourglass, and there was an uneasy feeling in the air that the end of old and the beginning of new things were alike at hand.
Mr. Picton Smith returned from London the day after the great battle. That afternoon he was closeted for a long time with Mr. Burnham, but not even the venturesome Sir Toady Lion on his hands and knees, could overhear what the two gentlemen had to say to each other. At all eventsMr. Smith did not this time attempt to force any confession from the active combatants. His failure on a former occasion had been complete enough, and he had no desire once more to confess himself worsted by Hugh John's determination to abjure all that savoured even remotely of the "dasht-mean."
But it is certain that the Smoutchy ringleaders were not further punished, and Mr. Smith took no steps to enforce the interdict which he had obtained against trespassers on the castle island.
For it was about this time that Prissy, having taken a great deal of trouble to understand all the bearings of the case, at last, with a brave heart, went and knocked at her father's study door.
"Come in," said the deep grave voice instantly, sending a thrill through the closed door, which made her tremble and rather wish that she had not come.
"Saint Catherine of Siena would not have been afraid," she murmured to herself, and forthwith opened the door.
"Well, little girl, what is it? What can I do for you?" said her father, smiling upon her; for he had heard of her ambassadorial picnic to the Smoutchies, and perhaps his daughter's trustful gentleness had made him a little ashamed of his own severity.
Prissy stood nerving herself to speak the words which were in her heart. She had seen Peace and kindly Concord bless her mission from afar; and now, like Paul before King Agrippa, she would not be unfaithful to the heavenly vision.
"Father," she said at last, "you don't really want to keep people out of the castle altogether, do you?"
"Certainly not, if they behave themselves," said her father, "but the mischief is that they don't."
"But suppose, father, that there was some one always there to see that they did behave, would you mind?"
"Of course not," replied her father, "but you know, Prissy, I can't afford to keep a man down on the island to see that sixpenny trippers don't pull down my castle stone by stone, or break their own necks by falling into the dungeon."
Prissy thought a little while, and then tried a new tack.
"Father"—she went a little nearer to him and stroked the cuff of his coat-sleeve—"does the land beyond the bridge belong to you?"
Mr. Picton Smith moved away his hand. Her mother used to do just that, and somehow the memory hurt. Nevertheless, all unconsciously, the touch of the child's hand softened him.
"No, Prissy," he said wonderingly, "but what do you know about such things?"
"Nothing at all," she answered, "but I am trying to learn. I want everybody to love you, and think you as nice as I know you to be. Don't you think you could let some one you knew very well live in the little lodge by the white bridge, and keep out the horrid people, or see that they behaved themselves?"
"The town would never agree to that," said her father, not seeing where he was being led.
"Don't you think the town's people would if you gave them the sixpences all for themselves?"
Her father pushed back his chair in great astonishment and looked at Prissy.
"Little girl," he said very gravely, "who has been putting all this into your head? Has anybody told you to come to me about this?"
Prissy shook her head quickly, then she looked down as if embarrassed.
"Well, what is it? Go on!" said her father, but the words were more softly spoken than you would think only to see them printed.
"Nobody told me about anything—I just thought about it all myself, father," she answered, taking courage from a certain look in Mr. Smith's eyes; "once I heard you say that the money was what the town's-people cared about. And—and—well, I knew that Jane Housemaid wanted to get married to Tom Cannon, and you see they can't, because Tom has not enough wages to take a house."
Prissy was speaking very fast now, rattling out the words so as to be finished before her father could interpose with any grown-up questions or objections.
"And you know I remembered last night when I was lying awake that Catherine would have done this——"
"What Catherine?" said her father, who did not always follow his daughter's reasoning.
"Saint Catherine of Siena, of course," said Prissy, for whom there was no other of the name; "so I came to you, and I want you to let Tom andJane have the cottage, and Jane can take up the sixpences in a little brass plate like the one Mr. Burnham gets from the churchwardens on Sunday. And, oh! but I would just love to help her. May I sometimes, father?"
"Well," said her father, laughing, "there is perhaps something in what you say; but I don't think the Provost and Magistrates would ever agree. Now run away and play, and I will see what can be done."
But all the same Prissy did not go and play, and it was not Mr. Picton Smith who saw what could be done. On the afternoon of the same day the Provost of the good town of Edam entered the Council Chamber wiping his face and panting vigorously. He was a stout man of much good humour when not crossed in temper, the leading chemist and druggist in the town, and as the proprietor of more houses and less education than any man in Edam, of very great influence among the councillors.
"Well, billies," he cried jovially, "what do you think? There's a lass has keep'd me from the meetin' of this council for a full half-hour."
"A lass!" answered the senior bailie, still more hilariously, "that's surely less than proper. I will be compelled to inform Mrs. Lamont of the fact."
"Oh, it was a lassie of twelve or thirteen," answered the Provost. "So none of your insinuations, Bailie Tawse, and I'll thank you. She had a most astonishing tale to tell. It appears sheis Picton Smith's lassie from Windy Standard; and she says to me, says she, 'Provost, do you want to have the tourist folk that come to Edam admitted to the castle?' says she. 'Of course,' says I, 'that is what the law-plea is about. That dust is no settled yet.' 'Then,' says she, brisk as if she was hiring me at Yedam fair, 'suppose my father was willing to let ye charge a sixpence for admission, would you pay a capable man his wages summer and winter to look after it—a man that my father would approve of?' 'Aye,' says I, 'the council would be blythe and proud to do that'—me thinking of my sister's son Peter that was injured by a lamp-post falling against him last New Year's night as he was coming hame frae the Blue Bell. 'Then,' says she, 'I think it can be managed. My father will put Tom Cannon in the lodge at the white bridge. You will pay him ten shillings in the week for his wife looking after the gate and taking the parties over the castle.' 'His wife,' says I; 'Tom is no married that ever I heard.' 'No,' says she, 'but he will be very quick if he gets the lodge.' Then I thocht that somebody had put her up to all this, and I questioned her tightly. But no—certes, she is a clever lass. I verily believe if I had said the word she would hae comed along here to the council meeting and faced the pack o' ye. But I said to her that she might gang her ways hame, and that I would put the matter before the council mysel'!"
"'THEN,' SAID PRISSY, 'I THINK IT CAN BE MANAGED.'"
The Provost, who had been walking up and down all the time and wiping his brow, finally plumped solidly into his chair. There was a mighty discussion—in which, as usual, many epithets were bandied about; but finally it was unanimously agreed that, if the offer were put on a firm and legal basis and the interdict withdrawn, the "Smith's Lassie" compromise, as it was called for brevity, might be none such a bad solution of the difficulty for all parties.
Thus by the wise thought and brave heart of a girl was the great controversy ended. And now the tourist and holiday-maker, each after his kind, passes his sixpence into the slot of a clicking gate, instead of depositing it in the brazen offertory salver, which had been the desire of Prissy's heart.
"For," said one of the councillors generously, when the plate was proposed, "how do we know that Mrs. Cannon might not keep every second sixpence for herself—or maybe send it up to Mr. Smith? We all know that she was long a servant in his house. No, no, honesty is honesty—but it's better when well looked after. Let us have a patent 'clicker.' I have used one attached to my till for years, and found it of great utility in the bacon-and-ham trade."
But the change made no difference to Hugh John and no difference to Toady Lion; for they came and went to the castle by the stepping-stones, and Cissy Carter took that way too, leaping as nimbly as any of them from stone to stone.
On the Sunday after this was finally arranged, Mr. Burnham gave out his text:—
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
And this is the way he ended his sermon:"There is one here to-day whom I might without offence or flattery call a true child of God. I will not say who that is; but this I will say, that I, for one, would rather be such a peacemaker, and have a right to be called by that other name, than be general of the greatest army in the world."
"I think he must mean the Provost—or else my father," said Prissy to herself, looking reverently up to where, in the front row of the upper seats, the local chief magistrate sat, mopping his head with a red spotted handkerchief, and sunning himself in the somewhat sultry beams of his own greatness.
As for Hugh John, he declared that for a man who could row in a college boat, and who worshipped an old blue coat hung up in a glass case, Mr. Burnham said more drivelling things than any man alive or dead.
And Toady Lion said nothing. He was only wondering all through the service whether he could catch a fly without his father seeing him.—He found that he could not. After this failure he remembered that he had a brandy ball only half sucked in his left trousers' pocket. He got it out with some difficulty. It had stuck fast to the seams, and finally came away somewhat mixed up with twine, sealing wax, and a little bit of pitch wrapped in leather. But as soon as he got down to it the brandy ball proved itself thoroughly satisfactory, and the various flavours developed in the process of sucking kept Toady Lion awake till the blessed "Amen" released the black-coated throng.
Toady Lion's gratitude was almost an entire thanksgiving service of itself.
As he came out through the crowded porch, he put his hand into his father's, and with a portentous yawn piped out in his shrillest voice, "Oh, I is so tired."
The smile which ran round the late worshippers showed that Toady Lion had voiced the sentiments of many of Mr. Burnham's congregation.
At this moment Mr. Burnham himself came out of the vestry just in time to hear the boy's frank expression of opinion.
"Never mind, Toady Lion," he said genially, "the truth is, I was a little tired myself to-day. I promise not to keep you quite so long next Sunday morning. You must remind me if I transgress. Nobody will, if you don't, Toady Lion."
"Doan know what 'twansguess' is—but shall call out loud if you goes on too long—telling out sermons and textises and fings."
As they walked along the High Street of Edam, Prissy glanced reverently at the Provost.
"Oh, I wish I could have been a peacemaker too, like him," she sighed, "and then Mr. Burnham might have preached about me. Perhaps I will when I grow up."
For next to Saint Catherine of Siena, the Provost was her ideal of a peacemaker.
As they walked homeward, Mr. Burnham came and touched Prissy on the shoulder.
"Money cannot buy love," he said, somewhat sententiously, "but you, my dear, win it by loving actions."
He turned to Toady Lion, who was trotting along somewhat sulkily, holding his sister's hand, and grumbling because he was not allowed to chase butterflies on Sunday.
"Arthur George," said Mr. Burnham, "if anybody was to give you a piece of money and say, 'Will you love me for half-a-crown,' you couldn't do it, could you?"
"Could just, though!" contradicted Toady Lion flatly, kicking at the stones on the highway.
"Oh no," his instructor suavely explained, "if it were a bad person who asked you to love him, you wouldn't love him for half-a-crown, surely!"
Toady Lion turned the matter over.
"Well," he said, speaking slowly as if he were thinking hard between the words, "it might have to be five sillin's if he wasverybad!"
HUGH JOHN'S WAY-GOING.
THEsecret which had oppressed society after the return of Mr. Picton Smith from London, being revealed, was that Hugh John and Sammy Carter were both to go to school. For a while it appeared as if the foundations of the world had been undercut—the famous fellowship of noble knights disbanded, Prissy and Cissy, ministering angel and wild tomboy, alike abandoned to the tender mercies of mere governesses.
Strangest of all to Prissy was the indubitable fact that Hugh John wanted to go. At the very first mention of school he promptly forgot allabout his noblest military ambitions, and began oiling his cricket bat and kicking his football all over the green. Mr. Burnham was anxious about his pupil's Latin and more than doubtful about his Vulgar Fractions; but the General himself was chiefly bent on improving his round arm bowling, and getting that break from the left down to a fine point.
Every member of the household was more or less disturbed by the coming exodus—except Sir Toady Lion. On the last fateful morning that self-contained youth maundered about as usual among his pets, carrying to and fro saucers of milk, dandelion leaves cut small, and other dainties—though Hugh John's boxes were standing corded and labelled in the hall, though Prissy was crying herself sick on her bed, and though there was even a dry hard lump high up in the great hero's own manly throat.
His father was giving his parting instructions to his eldest son.
"Work hard, my boy," he said. "Tell the truth, never tell tales, nor yet listen to them. Mind your own business. Don't fight, if you can help it; but if you have to, be sure you get home with your left before the other fellow. Practise your bowling, the batting will practise itself. And when you play golf, keep your eye on the ball."
"I'll try to play up, father," said Hugh John, "and anyway I won't be 'dasht-mean'!"
His father was satisfied.
Then it was Prissy who came to say good-bye.She had made all sorts of good resolutions, but in less than half a minute she was bawling undisguisedly on the hero's neck. And as for the hero—well, we will not say what he was doing, something most particularly unheroic at any rate.
Janet Sheepshanks hovered in the background, saying all the time, "For shame, Miss Priscilla, think shame o' yoursel'—garring the laddie greet like that when he's gaun awa'!"
But even Janet herself was observed to blow her own nose very often, and to offer Hugh John the small garden hoe instead of the neatly wrapped new silk umbrella she had bought for him out of her own money.
And all the while Sir Toady Lion kept on carrying milk and fresh lettuce leaves to his stupid lop-eared rabbits. Yet it was by no means insensibility which kept him thus busied. He was only playing his usual lone hand.
Yet even Toady Lion was not without his own proper sense of the importance of the occasion.
"There's a funny fing 'at you wants to see at the stile behind the stable," he remarked casually to Hugh John, as he went past the front door with an armful of hay for bedding, "but I promised not to tell w'at it is."
Immediately Hugh John slunk out, ran off in an entirely different direction, circled about the "office houses," reached the stile behind the stable—and there, with her eyes very big, and her underlip quivering strangely, he discovered Cissy Carter.
He stopped short and looked at her. Thepressure of having to say farewell, or of making a stated speech of any kind, weighed heavily upon him. The two looked at each other like young wild animals—or as if they were children who had never been introduced, which is the same thing.
"Hugh John Picton, you don't care!" sobbed Cissy at last. "And I don't care either!" she added haughtily, commanding herself after a pathetic little pause.
"I do, I do," answered Hugh John vehemently, "only every fellow has to. Sammy is going too, you know!"
"Oh, I don't care a button for Sammy!" was Cissy's most unsisterly speech.
Hugh John tried to think of something to say. Cissy was now sobbing quietly and persistently, and that did not seem to help him.
"Say, don't now, Ciss! Stop it, or you'll make me cry too!"
"You don't care! You don't love me a bit! You know you don't!"
"I do—I do," protested the hero, in despair, "there—there—nowyou can't say I don't care."
"But you'll be so different when you come back, and you'll have lost your half of the crooked sixpence."
"I won't, for true, Cissy—and I shan't ever look at another girl nor play horses with them even if they ask me ever so."
"You will, I know you will!"
A rumble of wheels, a shout from the front door—"Hugh John—wherever can that boy have got to?"
"Good-bye, Ciss, I must go. Oh hang it, don't go making a fellow cry. Well, Iwillsay it then, 'I love you, Ciss!' There—will that satisfy you?"
"A SLIM BUNDLE OF LIMP WOE."
Something lit on the end of Cissy's nose, which was very red and wet with the tears that had run down it. There was a clatter of feet, and the Lord of Creation had departed. Cissy sank down behind the stone wall, a slim bundle of limp woe, done up in blue serge trimmed with scarlet.
The servants were gathered in the hall. Several of the maids were already wet-eyed, for Hugh John had "the way with him" that made all women want to "mother" him. Besides, he had no mother of his own.
"Good-bye, Master Hugh!" they said, and sniffed as they said it.
"Good-bye, everybody," cried the hero, "soon be back again, you know." He said this very loudly to show that he did not care. He was going down the steps with Prissy's fingers clutched in his, and every one was smiling. All went merry as a marriage bell—never had been seen so jovial a way-going.
"Ugh—ugh—ugh!" somebody in the hall suddenly sobbed out from among the white caps of the maids.
"Go upstairs instantly, Jane. Don't disgrace yourself!" cried Janet Sheepshanks sharply, stamping her foot. For the sound of Jane's sudden and shameful collapse sent the other maids' aprons furtively up to their eyes.
And Janet Sheepshanks had no apron. Not that she needed one—of course not.
"Come on, Hugh John—the time is up!" said his father from the side of the dog-cart, where (somewhat ostentatiously) he had been refastening straps which Mike had already done to a nicety.
At this moment Toady Lion passed with half a dozen lettuce leaves. He was no more excited "than nothing at all," as Prissy indignantly said afterwards.
"Good-bye, Toady Lion," said Hugh John,"you can have my other bat and the white rat with the pink eyes."
Toady Lion stood with the lettuce leaves in his arms, looking on in a bored sort of way. Prissy could have slapped him if her hands had not been otherwise employed.
He did not say a word till his brother was perched up aloft on the dog-cart with his cricket bat nursed between his knees and a new hard-hat pulled painfully over his eyes. Then at last Toady Lion spoke. "Did 'oo find the funny fing behind the stable, Hugh John?"
Before Hugh John had time to reply, the dog-cart drove away amid sharp explosions of grief from the white-capped throng. Jane Housemaid dripped sympathy from a first-floor window till the gravel was wet as from a smart shower. Toady Lion alone stood on the steps with his usual expression of bored calmness. Then he turned to Prissy.
"Why is 'oo so moppy?"
"Oh, you go away—you've got no heart!" said Prissy, and resumed her luxury of woe.
If Toady Lion had been a Gallic boy, we should have said that he shrugged his shoulders. At all events, he smiled covertly to the lettuces as he moved off in the direction of the rabbit-hutches.
"It was averyfunny fing w'at was behind the stable," he said. For Sir Toady Lion was a humorist. And you can't be a humorist without being a little hard-hearted. Only the heart of a professional writer of pathos can be one degree harder.
THE GOOD CONDUCT PRIZE.
ITwas three years after. Sometimes three years makes a considerable change in grown-ups. More often it leaves them pretty much where they were. But with boys and girls the world begins all over again every two years at most. So the terms went and came, and at each vacation, instead of returning home, Hugh John went to London. For it so happened that the year he had left for school the house of Windy Standard was burned down almost to the ground, and Mr. Picton Smith took advantage of the fact to build an entirely new mansion on a somewhat higher site.
The first house might have been saved had the Bounding Brothers been in the neighbourhood, orindeed any active and efficient helpers. But the nearest engine was under the care of the Edam fire brigade, who upon hearing of the conflagration, with great enthusiasm ran their engine a quarter of a mile out of the town by hand. Then their ardour suddenly giving out, they sat down and had an amicable smoke on the roadside till the horse was brought to drag the apparatus the rest of the distance.
But alas! the animal was too fat to be got between the shafts, so it had to be sent back and a leaner horse forwarded. Meantime the house of Windy Standard was blazing merrily, and when the Edam fire company finally arrived, the ashes were still quite hot.
So in this way it came about that it was three long years before Hugh John again saw the hoary battlements of the ancient strength on the castle island which he and his army had attacked so boldly. There were great changes in the town itself. The railway had come to Edam, and now steamed and snorted under the very walls of the Abbey. Chimneys had multiplied, and the smoke columns were taller and denser. The rubicund Provost had gone the way of all the earth, even of all provosts! And the leading bailie, one Donnan, a butcher and army contractor, sat with something less of dignity but equal efficiency in his magisterial chair.
Hugh John from the station platform saw something of this with a sick heart, but he was sure that out in the pure air and infinite quiet ofWindy Standard he would find all things the same. But a new and finer house shone white upon the hill. Gardens flourished on unexpected places with that appearance of having been recently planted, frequently pulled up by the roots, looked at and put back, which distinguishes all new gardens. Here and there white-painted vineries and conservatories winked ostentatiously in the sun.
What a time Hugh John had been planning they would have! For months he had thought of nothing but this. Toady Lion and he would do all over again those famous deeds of daring he had done at the castle. Again they would attack the island. Other secret passages would be discovered. All would be as it had been—only nicer. And Cissy Carter—more than everything else he had looked forward to meeting Cissy. Prissy had seen her often, and even during the last week she had written to Hugh John (Prissy always did like to write letters) that Cissy Carter was just splendid—so much older andsoimproved. Cissy was now nearly seventeen, being (as before) a year and three months older than Hugh John.
Now the distinguished military hero had not been much troubled with sentiment during his school terms. Soldiers at the front never are. He was fully occupied in doing his lessons fairly. He got on well with "the fellows." He was anxious to keep up his end in the games. But, for all that, during these years he had sacredly kept the half of the crooked sixpence in his box, hidden in the end of a tie which he never wore. Now, however, he had looked it out, and by dintof hammering his imagination, he had managed to squeeze out an amount of feeling which quite astonished himself.
He would be noble, generous, forbearing. He remembered how faithfully Cissy had loved him, and how unresponsive he had been in the past. He resolved that all would be very different now.
It was.
Then again he had brought back a record of some distinction from St. Salvator's. He had won the school golf championship. He possessed also a fine bat with an inscription on silver, telling how in the match with St. Aiden's, a rival college of much pretension, he had made 100 not out, and taken eight wickets for sixty-nine.
Besides this presentation cricket bat Hugh John had brought home only one other prize. This was a fitted dressing-bag of beautiful design, with a whole armoury of wonderful silver-plated things inside. It was known as the Good Conduct Prize, and was awarded every year, not by the masters, but by the free votes of all the boys. Prissy was enormously proud of this tribute paid to her brother by his companions. The donor was an old gentleman whose favourite hobby was the promotion of the finer manners of the ancient days, and the terms of the remit on which the award must be made were, that it should be given to the boy who, in the opinion of his fellow-students, was most distinguished for consistent good manners and polite breeding, shown both by his conduct to his superiors in school, and in association with his equals in the playing fields.
At first Hugh John had taken no interest whatever in this award, perhaps from a feeling that his own claims were somewhat slender—or thinking that the prize would merely be some "old book or other." But it happened that, in order to stimulate the school during the last lax and sluggish days of the summer term, the head-master took out the fittings of the dressing-bag, and set the stand containing them on his desk in view of all.
There was a set of razors among them.
Instantly Hugh John's heart yearned with a mighty desire to obtain that prize. How splendid it would be if he could appear at home before Toady Lion and Cissy Carter with a moustache!
That night he considered the matter from all points of view—and felt his muscles. In the morning he was down bright and early. He prowled about the purlieus of the playground. At the back of the gymnasium he met Ashwell Major.
"I say, Ashwell Major," he said, "about that Good Conduct Prize—who are you going to vote for?"
"Well," replied Ashwell Major, "I haven't thought much—I suppose Sammy Carter."
"Oh, humbug!" cried our hero; "see here, Sammy will get tons of prizes anyway. What does he want with that one too?"
"Well," said the other, "let's give it to little Brown. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He's such a cake."
Hugh John felt that the time for moral suasion had come.
"Smell that!" he said, suddenly extending the clenched fist with which a week before he had made "bran mash" of the bully of the school.
"SMELL THAT!"
Reluctantly Ashwell Major's nostrils inhaled the bouquet of Hugh John's knuckles. Ashwell Major seemed to have a dainty and discriminating taste in perfumes, for he did not appear to relish this one.
Then Ashwell Major said that now he was goingto vote solidly for Hugh John Smith. He had come to the conclusion that his manners were quite exceptional.
And so as the day went on, did the candidate for the fitted dressing-bag argue with the other boarders, waylaying them one by one as they came out into the playground. The day-boys followed, and each enjoyed the privilege of a smell at the fist of power.
"I rejoice to announce that the Good Conduct Prize has been awarded by the unanimous vote of all the scholars of Saint Salvator's to Hugh John Picton Smith of the fifth form. I am the more pleased with this result, that I have never before known such complete and remarkable unanimity of choice in the long and distinguished history of this institution."
These were the memorable words of the headmaster on the great day of the prize-giving. Whereupon our hero, going up to receive his well-earned distinction, blushed modestly and becomingly; and was gazed upon with wrapt wonder by the matrons and maids assembled, as beyond controversy the model boy of the school. And such a burst of cheering followed him to his seat as had never been heard within the walls of St. Salvator's. For quite casually Hugh John had mentioned that he would be on the look-out for any fellow that was a sneak and didn't cheer like blazes.
Moral.—There is no moral to this chapter.
HUGH JOHN'S BLIGHTED HEART.
ONthe first evening at home Hugh John put on his new straw hat with its becoming school ribbon of brown, white and blue, for he did not forget that Prissy had described Cissy Carter as "such a pretty girl." Now pretty girls are quite nice when they are jolly. What a romp he would have, and even the stile would not be half bad.
He ran down to the landing-stage, having given his old bat and third best fishing-rod to his brother to occupy his attention. Toady Lion was in an unusually adoring frame of mind, chiefly owing to the new bat with the silver inscription which Hugh John had brought home with him. If that were Toady Lion's attitude, how would itbe with the enthusiastic Cissy Carter? She must be more than sixteen now. He liked grown-up girls, he thought, so long as they were pretty. And Cissy was pretty, Prissy had distinctly said so.
The white punt bumped against the landing-stage, but the brown was gone. However, he could see it at the other side, swaying against the new pier which Mr. Davenant Carter had built opposite to that of Windy Standard. This was another improvement; you used to have to tie the boat to a bush of bog-myrtle and jump into wet squashy ground. The returned exile sculled over and tied up the punt to an iron ring.
Then with a high and joyous heart he started over the moor, taking the well-beaten path towards Oaklands.
Suddenly, through the wood as it grew thinner and more birchy, he saw the gleam of a white dress. Two girls were walking—no, not two girls, Prissy and a young lady.
"Oh hang!" said Hugh John to himself, "somebody that's stopping with the Carters. She'll go taking up all Cissy's time, and I wanted to see such a lot of her."
The white dresses and summer hats walked composedly on.
"I tell you what," said Hugh John to himself, "I'll scoot through the woods and give them a surprise."
And in five minutes he leaped from a bank into the road immediately before the girls. Prissy gave a little scream, threw up her hands, and then ran eagerly to him.
"Why, Hugh John," she cried, "have you really come? How could you frighten us like that, you bad boy!"
And she kissed him—well, just as Prissy always did.
Meanwhile the young lady had turned partly away, and was pulling carelessly at a leaf—as if such proceedings, if not exactly offensive, were nevertheless highly uninteresting.
"Cissy," called Priscilla at last, "won't you come and shake hands with Hugh John."
The girl turned slowly. She was robed in white linen belted with slim scarlet. The dress came quite down to the tops of her dainty boots. She held out her hand.
"How do you do—ah, Mr. Smith?" she said, with her fingers very much extended indeed.
Hugh John gasped, and for a long moment found no word to say.
"Why, Cissy, how you've grown!" he cried at length. But observing no gleam of fellow-feeling in his quondam comrade's eyes, he added somewhat lamely, "I mean how do you do, Miss—Miss Carter?"
There was silence after this, as the three walked on together, Prissy talking valiantly in order to cover the long and distressful silences. Hugh John's usual bubbling river of speech was frozen upon his lips. He had a thousand things to tell, a thousand thousand to ask. But now it did not seem worth while to speak of one. Why should a young lady like this, with tan gloves half-way to her elbows and the shiniest shoes, with stockingsof black silk striped with red, care to hear about his wonderful bat for the three-figure score at cricket, or the fact that he had won the golf medal by doing the round in ninety-five? He had even thought of taking some credit (girls will suck in anything you tell them, you know) for his place in his class, which was seventh. But he had intended to suppress the fact that the fifth form was not a very large one at St. Salvator's.
But now he suddenly became conscious that these trivialities could not possibly interest a young lady who talked about the Hunt Ball in some such fashion as this: "He issucha nice partner, don't you know! He dances—oh, like an angel, and the floor was—well, just perfection!"
Hugh John did not catch the name of this paragon; but he hated the beast anyhow. He did not know that Cissy was only bragging about her bat, and cracking up her score at golf.
"Have you seen 'The White Lady of Avenel' at the Sobriety Theatre, Mr. Smith?" she said, suddenly turning to him.
"No," grunted Hugh John, "but I've seen the Drury Lane pantomime. It was prime!"
The next moment he was sorry he had said it. But the truth slipped out before he knew. For so little was Hugh John used to the society of grown-up big girls, that he did not know any better than to tell them the truth.
"Ah, yes!" commented Cissy Carter condescendingly, "I used quite to like going to pantomimes when I was a child!"
A slight and elegant young man, with a curlingmoustache turned up at the ends, came towards them down the bank. He had grey-and-white striped trousers on, a dark cutaway coat, and a smart straw hat set on the back of his head. He wore gloves and walked with a pretty cane. Hugh John loathed him on sight.
"Good-evening, Courtenay," said Cissy familiarly, "this is my friend, Prissy Smith, of whom you have heard me speak; and this is her brother just home from school!"
("What a beast! I hate him! Calls that a moustache, I daresay. Ha, ha! he should just see Ashwell Major's. And I can lick Ashwell Major with one hand!")
"Aw," said the young man with the cane, superciliously stroking his maligned upper lip, "the preparatory school, I daresay—Lord, was at one once myself—beastly hole!"
("I don't doubt it, you look it," was Hugh John's mental note.) Aloud he said, "Saint Salvator's is a ripping place. We beat Glen Fetto by an innings and ninety-one!"
Mr. Courtenay Carling took no notice. He was talking earnestly and confidentially to his cousin. Hugh John had had enough of this.
"Come on, Priss," he said roughly, "let's go home."
Prissy was nothing loath. She was just aching to get him by himself, so that she might begin to burn incense at his manly shrine. She had had stacks of it ready, and the match laid for weeks and weeks.
"Good-night," said Cissy frigidly. Hugh Johntook hold of her dainty gloved fingers as gingerly as if each had been a stinging nettle, and dropped them as quickly. Mr. Courtenay Carling paused in his conversation just long enough to say over his shoulder, "Ah—ta-ta—got lots of pets to run round and see, I s'pose—rabbits and guinea-pigs; used to keep 'em myself, you know, beastly things, ta-ta!"
And with Cissy by his side he moved off, alternately twirling his moustache and glancing approvingly down at her. Cissy on her part never once looked round, but kept poking her parasol into the plants at the side of the road, as determinedly as if it had been the old pike manufactured by the exiled king O'Donowitch. Such treatment could not have been at all good for such a miracle of silk and lace and cane; but somehow its owner did not seem to mind.
"What an awful brute!" burst out Hugh John, as soon as Prissy and he were clear.
"Oh, howcanyou say so!" said Prissy, much surprised; "why, every one thinks him so nice. He has such lots of money, and is going to stand for Parliament—that is, if his uncle would only die, or have something happen to him!"
Her brother snorted, as if to convey his contempt for "everybody's" opinion on such a matter; but Prissy was too happy to care for aught save the fact that once more her dear Hugh John was safe at home.
"Do you know," she said lovingly, "I could not sleep last night for thinking of your coming! It is so splendid. There's the loveliest lot ofroses being planted in the new potting house, and I've got a pearl necklace to show you—such a beauty—and——"
Thus she rattled on, joyously ticking off all the things she had to show him. She ran a little ahead to look at him, then ran as quickly back to hug him. "Oh, you dear!" she exclaimed. And all the while the heart of the former valiant soldier sank deep and ever deeper into the split-new cricketing shoes he had been so proud of when he sallied forth to meet Cissy Carter by the stile.
"Come on," she cried presently, picking up her skirts. "I'm so excited I don't know what to do. I can't keep quiet. I believe I can race you yet, for all you're so big and have won a silver cricket bat. How I shall love to see it! Come on, Hugh John, I'll race you to the gipsy camp for a pound of candy!"
But Hugh John did not want to race. He did not wantnotto race. He did not want ever to do anything any more—only to fade away and die. His heart was cold and dead within him. He felt that he would never know happiness again. But he could not bear to disappoint Prissy the first night. Besides, he could easily enough beat her—he was sure of that. So he smiled indulgently and nodded acquiescence. He had not told her that he had won the school mile handicap from scratch.
They started, and Hugh John began to run scientifically, as he had been taught to do at school, keeping a little behind Prissy, ready tospurt at the last and win by a neck. Doubtless this would have answered splendidly, only that Prissy ran so fast. She did not know anything about scientific sprinting, but she could run like the wind. So by the time they reached the Partan Burn she had completely outclassed Hugh John. With her skirts held high in her hand over she flew like a bird; but her brother, jumping the least bit too soon, went splash into the shallows, sending the water ten feet into the air.
Like a shot Prissy was back, and reached a hand down to the vanquished scientific athlete.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hugh John," she said; "I ought to have told you it had been widened. Don't let's race any more. I think I must have started too soon, and you'd have beaten me anyway. Here's the gipsy camp."
The world-weary exile looked about him. He had thought that at least it might be some manly pleasure to see Billy Blythe once more, and try a round with the Bounding Brothers. After all, what did it matter about girls? He had a twelve-bladed knife in his pocket which he intended for Billy, and he knew a trick of boxing—a feint with the right, and then an upward blow with the left, which he knew would interest his friend.
But the tents were gone. The place where they had stood was green and unencumbered. Only an aged crone or two moved slowly about among the small thatched cottages. To one of these Hugh John addressed himself.
"Eh, master—Billy Blythe—why, he be 'listedfor a sodger—a corp'ral they say he be, and may be sergeant by this time, shouldn't wonder. Eh, dearie, and the Boundin' Brothers—oh! ye mean the joompin' lads. They're off wi' a circus in Ireland. Nowt left but me and my owd mon! Thank ye, sir, you be a gentleman born, as anybody can see without the crossin' o' the hand."
Sadly Hugh John moved away, a still more blighted being. He left Prissy at the white lodge-gate in order that she might go home to meet Mr. Picton Smith on his return from the county town, where he had been judging the horses at an agricultural show. He would take a walk through the town, he said to himself, and perhaps he might meet some of his old enemies. He felt that above everything he would enjoy a sharp tussle. After all what save valour was worth living for? Wait till he was a soldier, and came back in uniform with a sword by his side and the scar of a wound on his forehead—would Cissy Carter despise him then? He would show her! In the meantime he had learned certain tricks of fence which he would rather like to prove on the countenances of his former foes.
So with renewed hope in his heart he took his way through the town of Edam. The lamps were just being lighted, and Hugh John lounged along through the early dusk with his hands in his pockets, looking out for a cause of offence. Presently he came upon a brilliantly lighted building, into which young men and women were entering singly and in pairs.
A hanging lamp shone down upon a noticeboard.He had nothing better to do. He stopped and read—