Chapter Thirty Five.

Chapter Thirty Five.Mrs Lee is Incredulous.“Help, help,” cried Aunt Hannah, excitedly, as the lamp broke on the floor, and there was a flash of flame as the spirit exploded, some having splashed into the fire, and for a few minutes it seemed as if the fate of the Little Manor was sealed.But Vane only stared for a moment or two aghast at the mischief, and then seized one end of the blazing hearthrug. Mr Deering seized the other, and moved by the same impulse, they shot the lamp into the hearth, turned the rug over, and began trampling upon it to put out the flame.“Get Mrs Lee out,” shouted Deering. “Here, Vane, the table cover; fetch mats.”The fire was still blazing up round the outside of the rug; there was a rush of flame up the chimney from the broken lamp; and the room was filling fast with a dense black evil-smelling smoke.But Vane worked well as soon as the doctor had half carried out Mrs Lee, and kept running back with door-mats from the hall; and he was on his way with the dining-room hearthrug, when Martha’s voice came from kitchen-ward, full of indignation:“Don’t tell me,” she said evidently to Eliza, “it’s that boy been at his sperriments again, and it didn’t ought to be allowed.”Vane did not stop to listen, but bore in the great heavy hearthrug.“Here, Vane, here,” cried the doctor; and the boy helped to spread it over a still blazing patch, and trampled it close just as Aunt Hannah and Eliza appeared with wash-hand jug of water and Martha with a pail.“No, no,” cried the doctor; “no water. The fire is trampled out.”The danger was over, and they all stood panting by the hall-door, which was opened to drive out the horrible black smoke.“Why, Vane, my boy,” cried the doctor, as the lad stood nursing his hands, “not burned?”“Yes, uncle, a little,” said Vane, who looked as if he had commenced training for a chimney-sweep; “just a little. I shan’t want any excuse for not going to the rectory for a few days.”“Humph!” muttered the doctor, as Mr Deering hurried into the smoke to fetch out his drawings and plans; “next guest who comes to my house had better not be an inventor.” Then aloud: “But what does this mean, Vane, lad, are you right?”“Right?—yes,” cried Deering, reappearing with his blackened plans, which he bore into the dining-room, and then, regardless of his sooty state, he caught the doctor’s hands in his and shook them heartily before turning to Aunt Hannah, who was looking despondently at her ruined drawing-room.“Never mind the damage, Mrs Lee,” he cried, as he seized her hands. “It’s a trifle. I’ll furnish your drawing-room again.”“Oh, Mr Deering,” she said, half-tearfully, half in anger, “I do wish you would stop in town.”“Hannah, my dear!” cried the doctor. Then, turning to Deering: “But; look here, has Vane found out what was wrong?”“Found out?” cried Deering, excitedly; “why, his sharp young eyes detected the one little bit of grit in the wheel that stopped the whole of the works. Lee, my dear old friend, I can look you triumphantly in the face again, and say that your money is not lost, for I can return it, tenfold—Do you hear, Mrs Lee, tenfold, twentyfold, if you like; and as for you—You black-looking young rascal!” he cried, turning and seizing Vane’s hand, “if you don’t make haste and grow big enough to become my junior partner, why I must take you while you are small.”“Oh, oh!” shouted Vane; “my hands, my hands!”“And mine too,” said Deering, releasing Vane’s hands to examine his own. “Yes, I thought I had burned my fingers before, but I really have this time. Doctor, I place myself and my future partner in your hands.”Aunt Hannah forgot her blackened and singed hearthrugs and broken lamp as soon as she realised that there was real pain and suffering on the way, and busily aided the doctor as he bathed and bandaged the rather ugly burns on Vane’s and Mr Deering’s hands. And at last, the smoke having been driven out, all were seated once more, this time in the dining-room, listening to loud remarks from Martha on the stairs, as she declared that she was sure they would all be burned in their beds, and that she always knew how it would be—remarks which continued till Aunt Hannah went out, and then there was a low buzzing of voices, and all became still.And now, in spite of his burns, Deering spread out his plans once more, and compared them for a long time in silence, while Vane and the doctor looked on.“Yes,” he said at last, “there can be no mistake. Vane is right. This speck was taken by the man who traced it for a stop-cock, and though this pipe shows so plainly here in the plan, in the engine itself it is right below here, and out of sight. You may say that I ought to have seen such a trifling thing myself; but I did not, for the simple reason that I knew every bit of mechanism by heart that ought to be there; but of this I had no knowledge whatever. Vane, my lad, you’ve added I don’t know how many years to my life, and you’ll never do a better day’s work as long as you live. I came down here to-day a broken and a wretched man, but I felt that, painful as it would be, I must come and show my old friend that I was not the scoundrel he believed.”The doctor uttered a sound like a low growl, and just then Aunt Hannah came back looking depressed, weary, and only half-convinced, to hear Deering’s words.“There is not a doubt about it now, Mrs Lee,” he cried, joyfully. “Vane has saved your little fortune.”“And his inheritance,” said the doctor, proudly.“No,” cried Deering, clapping Vane on the shoulder, “he wants no inheritance, but the good education and training you have given him. Speak out, my lad, you mean to carve your own way through life?”“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Vane; “you almost take my breath away. I only found out that little mistake in your plans.”“And that was the hole through which your uncle’s fortune was running out. Now, then, answer my question, boy. You mean to fight your own way in life?”“Don’t call it fighting,” said Vane, raising one throbbing hand. “I’ve had fighting enough to last me for years.”“Well, then,carveyour way, boy?”“Oh, yes, sir, I mean to try. I say, uncle, what time is it?”“One o’clock, my boy,” said the doctor, heartily; “the commencement of another and I hope a brighter day.”

“Help, help,” cried Aunt Hannah, excitedly, as the lamp broke on the floor, and there was a flash of flame as the spirit exploded, some having splashed into the fire, and for a few minutes it seemed as if the fate of the Little Manor was sealed.

But Vane only stared for a moment or two aghast at the mischief, and then seized one end of the blazing hearthrug. Mr Deering seized the other, and moved by the same impulse, they shot the lamp into the hearth, turned the rug over, and began trampling upon it to put out the flame.

“Get Mrs Lee out,” shouted Deering. “Here, Vane, the table cover; fetch mats.”

The fire was still blazing up round the outside of the rug; there was a rush of flame up the chimney from the broken lamp; and the room was filling fast with a dense black evil-smelling smoke.

But Vane worked well as soon as the doctor had half carried out Mrs Lee, and kept running back with door-mats from the hall; and he was on his way with the dining-room hearthrug, when Martha’s voice came from kitchen-ward, full of indignation:

“Don’t tell me,” she said evidently to Eliza, “it’s that boy been at his sperriments again, and it didn’t ought to be allowed.”

Vane did not stop to listen, but bore in the great heavy hearthrug.

“Here, Vane, here,” cried the doctor; and the boy helped to spread it over a still blazing patch, and trampled it close just as Aunt Hannah and Eliza appeared with wash-hand jug of water and Martha with a pail.

“No, no,” cried the doctor; “no water. The fire is trampled out.”

The danger was over, and they all stood panting by the hall-door, which was opened to drive out the horrible black smoke.

“Why, Vane, my boy,” cried the doctor, as the lad stood nursing his hands, “not burned?”

“Yes, uncle, a little,” said Vane, who looked as if he had commenced training for a chimney-sweep; “just a little. I shan’t want any excuse for not going to the rectory for a few days.”

“Humph!” muttered the doctor, as Mr Deering hurried into the smoke to fetch out his drawings and plans; “next guest who comes to my house had better not be an inventor.” Then aloud: “But what does this mean, Vane, lad, are you right?”

“Right?—yes,” cried Deering, reappearing with his blackened plans, which he bore into the dining-room, and then, regardless of his sooty state, he caught the doctor’s hands in his and shook them heartily before turning to Aunt Hannah, who was looking despondently at her ruined drawing-room.

“Never mind the damage, Mrs Lee,” he cried, as he seized her hands. “It’s a trifle. I’ll furnish your drawing-room again.”

“Oh, Mr Deering,” she said, half-tearfully, half in anger, “I do wish you would stop in town.”

“Hannah, my dear!” cried the doctor. Then, turning to Deering: “But; look here, has Vane found out what was wrong?”

“Found out?” cried Deering, excitedly; “why, his sharp young eyes detected the one little bit of grit in the wheel that stopped the whole of the works. Lee, my dear old friend, I can look you triumphantly in the face again, and say that your money is not lost, for I can return it, tenfold—Do you hear, Mrs Lee, tenfold, twentyfold, if you like; and as for you—You black-looking young rascal!” he cried, turning and seizing Vane’s hand, “if you don’t make haste and grow big enough to become my junior partner, why I must take you while you are small.”

“Oh, oh!” shouted Vane; “my hands, my hands!”

“And mine too,” said Deering, releasing Vane’s hands to examine his own. “Yes, I thought I had burned my fingers before, but I really have this time. Doctor, I place myself and my future partner in your hands.”

Aunt Hannah forgot her blackened and singed hearthrugs and broken lamp as soon as she realised that there was real pain and suffering on the way, and busily aided the doctor as he bathed and bandaged the rather ugly burns on Vane’s and Mr Deering’s hands. And at last, the smoke having been driven out, all were seated once more, this time in the dining-room, listening to loud remarks from Martha on the stairs, as she declared that she was sure they would all be burned in their beds, and that she always knew how it would be—remarks which continued till Aunt Hannah went out, and then there was a low buzzing of voices, and all became still.

And now, in spite of his burns, Deering spread out his plans once more, and compared them for a long time in silence, while Vane and the doctor looked on.

“Yes,” he said at last, “there can be no mistake. Vane is right. This speck was taken by the man who traced it for a stop-cock, and though this pipe shows so plainly here in the plan, in the engine itself it is right below here, and out of sight. You may say that I ought to have seen such a trifling thing myself; but I did not, for the simple reason that I knew every bit of mechanism by heart that ought to be there; but of this I had no knowledge whatever. Vane, my lad, you’ve added I don’t know how many years to my life, and you’ll never do a better day’s work as long as you live. I came down here to-day a broken and a wretched man, but I felt that, painful as it would be, I must come and show my old friend that I was not the scoundrel he believed.”

The doctor uttered a sound like a low growl, and just then Aunt Hannah came back looking depressed, weary, and only half-convinced, to hear Deering’s words.

“There is not a doubt about it now, Mrs Lee,” he cried, joyfully. “Vane has saved your little fortune.”

“And his inheritance,” said the doctor, proudly.

“No,” cried Deering, clapping Vane on the shoulder, “he wants no inheritance, but the good education and training you have given him. Speak out, my lad, you mean to carve your own way through life?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Vane; “you almost take my breath away. I only found out that little mistake in your plans.”

“And that was the hole through which your uncle’s fortune was running out. Now, then, answer my question, boy. You mean to fight your own way in life?”

“Don’t call it fighting,” said Vane, raising one throbbing hand. “I’ve had fighting enough to last me for years.”

“Well, then,carveyour way, boy?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I mean to try. I say, uncle, what time is it?”

“One o’clock, my boy,” said the doctor, heartily; “the commencement of another and I hope a brighter day.”

Chapter Thirty Six.“I am Glad.”Trivial as Vane’s discovery may seem, it was the result of long months and study of applied science, and certain dearly bought experiences, and though Mr Deering blamed himself for not having noticed the little addition which had thwarted all his plans and brought him to the verge of ruin, he frankly avowed over and over again that he was indebted to his old friend’s nephew for his rescue from such a perilous strait.He was off back to town that same day, and in a week the doctor, who was beginning to shake his head and feel doubtful whether he ought to expect matters to turn out so well, received a letter from the lawyer, to say that there would be no need to call upon him for the money for which he had been security.“But I do not feel quite safe yet, Vane, my boy,” he said, “and I shall not till I really see the great success. Who can feel safe over an affair which depends on the turning on or off of a tap.”But he need not have troubled himself, for he soon had ample surety that he was perfectly safe, and that he need never fear having to leave the Little Manor.Meanwhile matters went on at the rectory in the same regular course, Mr Syme’s pupils working pretty hard, and there being a cessation of the wordy warfare that used to take place with Distin, Macey, and Gilmore, and their encounters, in which Vane joined, bantering and being bantered unmercifully; but Distin was completely changed. The sharp bitterness seemed to have gone out of his nature, and he became quiet and subdued. Vane treated him just the same as of old, but there was no warm display of friendship made, only on Distin’s part a steady show of deference and respect till the day came when he was to leave Greythorpe rectory for Cambridge.It was just at the last; the good-byes had been said, and the fly was waiting to take him to the station, when he asked Vane to walk on with him for a short distance, and bade the fly-man follow slowly.Vane agreed readily enough, wondering the while what his old fellow-pupil would say, and he wondered still more as they walked on and on in silence.Then Vane began to talk of the distance to Cambridge; the college life; and of how glad he would be to get there himself; starting topics till, to use his own expression, when describing the scene to his uncle, he felt “in a state of mental vacuum.”A complete silence had fallen upon them at last, when they were a couple of miles on the white chalky road, and the fly-man was wondering when his passenger was going to get in, as Vane looked at his watch.“I say, Dis, old chap,” he said, “you’ll have to say good-bye if you mean to catch that train.”“Yes,” cried Distin, hoarsely, as he caught his companion’s hand. “I had so much I wanted to say to you, about all I have felt during those past months, but I can’t say it. Yes,” he cried passionately, “I must say this: I always hated you, Vane. I couldn’t help it, but you killed the wretched feeling that day in the wood, and ever since I have fought with myself in silence, but so hard.”“Oh, I say,” cried Vane; “there, there, don’t say any more. I’ve forgotten all that.”“I must,” cried Distin; “I know. I always have felt since that you cannot like me, and I have been so grateful to you for keeping silence about that miserable, disgraceful episode in my life—no, no, look me in the face, Vane.”“I won’t. Look in your watch’s face,” cried Vane, merrily, “and don’t talk any more such stuff, old chap. We quarrelled, say, and it was like a fight, and we shook hands, and it was all over.”“With you, perhaps, but not with me,” said Distin. “I am different. I’d have given anything to possess your frank, manly nature.”“Oh, I say, spare my blushes, old chap,” cried Vane, laughing.“Be serious a minute, Vane. It may be years before we meet again, but I must tell you now. You seem to have worked a change in me I can’t understand, and I want you to promise me this—that you will write to me. I know you can never think of me as a friend, but—”“Why can’t I?” cried Vane, heartily. “I’ll show you. Write? I should think I will, and bore you about all my new weathercock schemes. Dis, old chap, I’m such a dreamer that I’ve no time to see what people about me are like, and I’ve never seen you for what you really are till now we’re going to say good-bye. I am glad you’ve talked to me like this.”Something very like a sob rose in Distin’s throat as they stood, hand clasped in hand, but he was saved from breaking down.“Beg pardon, sir,” said the fly driver, “but we shan’t never catch that train.”“Yes; half a sovereign for you, if you get me there,” cried Distin, snatching open the fly, and leaping in; “good-bye, old chap!” he cried as Vane banged the door and he gripped hands, as the latter ran beside the fly, “mind and write—soon—good-bye—good-bye.”And Vane stood alone in the dusty road looking after the fly till it disappeared.“Well!” he cried, “poor old Dis! Who’d have thought he was such a good fellow underneath all that sour crust. Iamglad,” and again as he walked slowly and thoughtfully back:—“Iamglad.”

Trivial as Vane’s discovery may seem, it was the result of long months and study of applied science, and certain dearly bought experiences, and though Mr Deering blamed himself for not having noticed the little addition which had thwarted all his plans and brought him to the verge of ruin, he frankly avowed over and over again that he was indebted to his old friend’s nephew for his rescue from such a perilous strait.

He was off back to town that same day, and in a week the doctor, who was beginning to shake his head and feel doubtful whether he ought to expect matters to turn out so well, received a letter from the lawyer, to say that there would be no need to call upon him for the money for which he had been security.

“But I do not feel quite safe yet, Vane, my boy,” he said, “and I shall not till I really see the great success. Who can feel safe over an affair which depends on the turning on or off of a tap.”

But he need not have troubled himself, for he soon had ample surety that he was perfectly safe, and that he need never fear having to leave the Little Manor.

Meanwhile matters went on at the rectory in the same regular course, Mr Syme’s pupils working pretty hard, and there being a cessation of the wordy warfare that used to take place with Distin, Macey, and Gilmore, and their encounters, in which Vane joined, bantering and being bantered unmercifully; but Distin was completely changed. The sharp bitterness seemed to have gone out of his nature, and he became quiet and subdued. Vane treated him just the same as of old, but there was no warm display of friendship made, only on Distin’s part a steady show of deference and respect till the day came when he was to leave Greythorpe rectory for Cambridge.

It was just at the last; the good-byes had been said, and the fly was waiting to take him to the station, when he asked Vane to walk on with him for a short distance, and bade the fly-man follow slowly.

Vane agreed readily enough, wondering the while what his old fellow-pupil would say, and he wondered still more as they walked on and on in silence.

Then Vane began to talk of the distance to Cambridge; the college life; and of how glad he would be to get there himself; starting topics till, to use his own expression, when describing the scene to his uncle, he felt “in a state of mental vacuum.”

A complete silence had fallen upon them at last, when they were a couple of miles on the white chalky road, and the fly-man was wondering when his passenger was going to get in, as Vane looked at his watch.

“I say, Dis, old chap,” he said, “you’ll have to say good-bye if you mean to catch that train.”

“Yes,” cried Distin, hoarsely, as he caught his companion’s hand. “I had so much I wanted to say to you, about all I have felt during those past months, but I can’t say it. Yes,” he cried passionately, “I must say this: I always hated you, Vane. I couldn’t help it, but you killed the wretched feeling that day in the wood, and ever since I have fought with myself in silence, but so hard.”

“Oh, I say,” cried Vane; “there, there, don’t say any more. I’ve forgotten all that.”

“I must,” cried Distin; “I know. I always have felt since that you cannot like me, and I have been so grateful to you for keeping silence about that miserable, disgraceful episode in my life—no, no, look me in the face, Vane.”

“I won’t. Look in your watch’s face,” cried Vane, merrily, “and don’t talk any more such stuff, old chap. We quarrelled, say, and it was like a fight, and we shook hands, and it was all over.”

“With you, perhaps, but not with me,” said Distin. “I am different. I’d have given anything to possess your frank, manly nature.”

“Oh, I say, spare my blushes, old chap,” cried Vane, laughing.

“Be serious a minute, Vane. It may be years before we meet again, but I must tell you now. You seem to have worked a change in me I can’t understand, and I want you to promise me this—that you will write to me. I know you can never think of me as a friend, but—”

“Why can’t I?” cried Vane, heartily. “I’ll show you. Write? I should think I will, and bore you about all my new weathercock schemes. Dis, old chap, I’m such a dreamer that I’ve no time to see what people about me are like, and I’ve never seen you for what you really are till now we’re going to say good-bye. I am glad you’ve talked to me like this.”

Something very like a sob rose in Distin’s throat as they stood, hand clasped in hand, but he was saved from breaking down.

“Beg pardon, sir,” said the fly driver, “but we shan’t never catch that train.”

“Yes; half a sovereign for you, if you get me there,” cried Distin, snatching open the fly, and leaping in; “good-bye, old chap!” he cried as Vane banged the door and he gripped hands, as the latter ran beside the fly, “mind and write—soon—good-bye—good-bye.”

And Vane stood alone in the dusty road looking after the fly till it disappeared.

“Well!” he cried, “poor old Dis! Who’d have thought he was such a good fellow underneath all that sour crust. Iamglad,” and again as he walked slowly and thoughtfully back:—“Iamglad.”

Chapter Thirty Seven.Staunch Friends.Time glided on, and it became Gilmore’s turn to leave the rectory. Other pupils came to take the places of the two who had gone, but Macey said the new fellows, did not belong, and could not be expected to cotton to the old inhabitants.“And I don’t want ’em to,” he said one morning, as he was poring over a book in the rectory study, “for this is a weary world, Weathercock.”“Eh? What’s the matter?” cried Vane, wonderingly, as he looked across the table at the top of Macey’s head, which was resting against his closed fists, so that the lad’s face was parallel with the table. “Got a headache?”“Horrid. It’s all ache inside. I don’t believe I’ve got an ounce of brains. I say, it ought to weigh pounds, oughtn’t it?”“Here, what’s wrong?” said Vane. “Let me help you.”“Wish you would, but it’s of no good, old fellow. I shall never pass my great-go when I get to college.”“Why?”“Because I shall never pass the little one. I say, do I look like a fool?”He raised his piteous face as he spoke, and Vane burst into a roar of laughter.“Ah, it’s all very well to laugh. That’s the way with you clever chaps. I say, can’t you invent a new kind of thing—a sort of patent oyster-knife to open stupid fellows’ understanding? You should practice with it on me.”“Come round this side,” said Vane, and Macey came dolefully round with the work on mathematics, over which he had been poring. “You don’t want the oyster-knife.”“Oh, don’t I, old fellow; you don’t know.”“Yes, I do. You’ve got one; every fellow has, if he will only use it.”“Where abouts? What’s it like—what is it?”“Perseverance,” said Vane. “Come on and let’s grind this bit up.”They “ground” that bit up, and an hour after, Macey had a smile on his face. The “something attempted” was “something done.”“That’s what I do like so in you, Vane,” he cried.“What?”“You can do all sorts of things so well, and work so hard. Why you beat the busy bee all to bits, and are worth hives of them.”“Why?” said Vane, laughing.“You never go about making a great buzz over your work, as much as to say: ‘Hi! all of you look here and see what a busy bee I am,’ and better still, old chap, you never sting.”“Ever hear anything of Mr Deering now, uncle?” said Vane, one morning, as he stood in his workshop, smiling over some of his models and schemes, the inventor being brought to his mind by the remark he had made when he was there, about even the attempts being educational.“No, boy; nothing now, for some time; I only know that he has been very successful over his ventures; has large works, and is prospering mightily, but, like the rest of the world, he forgets those by whose help he has risen.”“Oh, I don’t think he is that sort of man, uncle. Of course, he is horribly busy.”“A man ought not to be too busy to recollect those who held the ladder for him to climb, Vane,” said the doctor, warmly. “You saved him when he was in the lowest of low water.”“Oh, nonsense, uncle, I only saw what a muddle his work-people had made, just as they did with our greenhouse, and besides, don’t you remember it was settled that I was to carve—didn’t we call it—my own way.”The doctor uttered a grunt.“That’s all very well,” began the doctor, but Vane interrupted him.“I say, uncle, I’ve been thinking very deeply about my going to college.”“Well, what about it. Time you went, eh?”“No, uncle, and I don’t think I should like to go. Of course, I know the value of the college education, and the position it gives a man; but it means three years’ study—three years waiting to begin, and three years—”“Well, sir, three years what?”“Expense to you, uncle.”“Now, look here, Vane,” said the doctor, sternly, “when I took you, a poor miserable little fatherless and motherless boy, to bring up—and precious ugly you were—I made up my mind to do my duty by you.”“And so you have, uncle, far more than I deserved,” said Vane, merrily.“Silence, sir,” cried the doctor, sternly. “I say—”But whatever it was, he did not say it, for something happened.Strange coincidences often occur in everyday life. One thinks of writing to a friend, and a letter comes from that friend, or a person may have formed the subject of conversation, and that person appears.Somehow, just as the doctor had assumed his sternest look, the door of Vane’s little atelier was darkened, and Mr Deering stood therein, looking bright, cheery of aspect, and, in appearance, ten years younger than on the night when he upset the table, and the Little Manor House was within an inch of being burned down.“Mrs Lee said I should find you here,” he said. “Why, doctor, how well you look. I’ll be bound to say you never take much of your own physic. Glad to see you again, old fellow,” he cried, shaking hands very warmly. “But, I beg your pardon, I did not know you were engaged with a stranger. Will you introduce me?”“Oh, I say, Mr Deering,” cried Vane.“It is! The same voice grown gruff. The weathercock must want oiling. Seriously, though, my dear boy, you have grown wonderfully. It’s this Greythorpe air.”The doctor welcomed his old friend fairly enough, but a certain amount of constraint would show, and Deering evidently saw it, but he made no sign, and they went into the house, where Aunt Hannah met them in the drawing-room, looking a little flustered, consequent upon an encounter with Martha in the kitchen, that lady having declared that it would be impossible to make any further preparations for the dinner, even if a dozen gentlemen had arrived, instead of one.“Ah, my dear Mrs Lee,” said Deering, “and I have never kept my word about the refurnishing of this drawing-room. What a scene we had that night, and how time has gone since!”Vane looked on curiously all the rest of that day, and could not help feeling troubled to see what an effort both his uncle and aunt made to be cordial to their guest, while being such simple, straightforward people, the more they tried, the more artificial and constrained they grew.Deering ignored everything, and chatted away in the heartiest manner; declared that it was a glorious treat to come down in the country; walked in the garden, and admired the doctor’s flowers and fruit, and bees, and made himself perfectly at home, saying that he had come down uninvited for a week’s rest.Vane began at last to feel angry and annoyed; but seizing his opportunity, the doctor whispered:—“Don’t forget, boy, that he is my guest. Prosperity has spoiled him, but I am not entertaining the successful inventor; I am only thinking of my old school-fellow whom I helped as a friend.”“All right, uncle, I’ll be civil to him.”Six days glided slowly by, during which Deering monopolised the whole of everybody’s time. He had the pony-carriage out, and made Vane borrow Miller Round’s boat and row him up the river, and fish with him, returning at night to eat the doctor and Mrs Lee’s excellent dinner, and drink the doctor’s best port.And now the sixth day—the evening—had arrived, and Aunt Hannah had said to Vane:—“I am so glad, my dear. To-morrow, he goes back to town.”“And a jolly good job too, aunt!” cried Vane.“Yes, my dear, but do be a little more particular what you say.”They were seated all together in the drawing-room, with Deering in the best of spirits, when all of a sudden, he exclaimed:—“This is the sixth day! How time goes in your pleasant home, and I’ve not said a word yet about the business upon which I came. Well, I must make up for it now. Ready, Vane?”“Ready for what, sir,—game at chess?”“No, boy, work, business; you are rapidly growing into a man. I want help badly and the time has arrived. I’ve come down to settle what we arranged for about my young partner.”Had a shell fallen in the little drawing-room, no one could have looked more surprised.Deering had kept his word.In the course of the next morning a long and serious conversation ensued, which resulted evidently in Deering’s disappointment on the doctor’s declining to agree to the proposal.“But, it is so quixotic of you, Lee,” cried Deering, angrily.“Wrong,” replied the doctor, smiling in his old school-fellow’s face; “the quixotism is on your side in making so big a proposal on Vane’s behalf.”“But you are standing in the boy’s light.”“Not at all. I believe I am doing what is best for him. He is far too young to undertake so responsible a position.”“Nonsense!”“I think it sense,” said the doctor, firmly. “Vane shall go to a large civil engineer’s firm as pupil, and if, some years hence, matters seem to fit, make your proposition again about a partnership, and then we shall see.”Deering had to be content with this arrangement, and within the year Vane left Greythorpe, reluctantly enough, to enter upon his new career with an eminent firm in Great George Street, Westminster.But he soon found plenty of change, and three years later, long after the rector’s other pupils had taken flight, Vane found himself busy surveying in Brazil, and assisting in the opening out of that vast country.It was hard but delightful work, full at times of excitement and adventure, till upon one unlucky day he was stricken down by malarious fever on the shores of one of the rivers.Fortunately for him it happened there, and not hundreds of miles away in the interior, where in all probability for want of help his life would have been sacrificed.His companions, however, got him on board a boat, and by easy stages he was taken down to Rio, where he awoke from his feverish dream, weak as a child, wasted almost to nothing, into what appeared to him another dream, for he was in a pleasantly-shaded bedroom, with someone seated beside him, holding his hand, and gazing eagerly into his wandering eyes.“Vane,” he said, in a low, excited whisper; “do you know me.”“Distin!” said Vane feebly, as he gazed in the handsome dark face of the gentleman bending over him.“Hah!” was ejaculated with a sigh of content; “you’ll get over it now; but I’ve been horribly afraid for days.”“What’s been the matter?” said Vane, feebly. “Am I at the rectory? Where’s Mr Syme? And my uncle?”“Stop; don’t talk now.”Vane was silent for a time; then memory reasserted itself. He was not at Greythorpe, but in Brazil.“Why, I was taken ill up the river. Have you been nursing me?”“Yes, for weeks,” said Distin, with a smile.“Where am I?”“At Rio. In my house. I am head here of my father’s mercantile business.”“But—”“No, no, don’t talk.”“I must ask this: How did I get here?”“I heard that you were ill, and had you brought home that’s all. I was told that the overseer with the surveying expedition was brought down ill—dying, they said, and then I heard that his name was Vane Lee. Can it be old Weathercock? I said; and I went and found that it was, and—well, you know the rest.”“Then I have you to thank for saving my life.”“Well,” said Distin, “you saved mine. There, don’t talk; I won’t. I want to go and write to the doctor that you are mending now. By-and-by, when you are better, we must have plenty of talks about the old Lincolnshire days.”Distin was holding Vane’s hands as he spoke, and his voice was cheery, though the tears were in his eyes.“And so,” whispered Vane, thoughtfully, “I owe you my life.”“I owe you almost more than that,” said Distin, huskily. “Vane, old chap, I’ve often longed for us to meet again.”It was a curious result after their early life. Vane often corresponded with Gilmore and Macey, but somehow he and Distin became the staunchest friends.“I can’t understand it even now,” Vane said to him one day when they were back in England, and had run down to the old place again. “Fancy you and I being companions here.”“The wind has changed, old Weathercock,” cried Distin, merrily. Then, seriously: “No, I’ll tell you, Vane; there was some little good in me, and you made it grow.”The End.

Time glided on, and it became Gilmore’s turn to leave the rectory. Other pupils came to take the places of the two who had gone, but Macey said the new fellows, did not belong, and could not be expected to cotton to the old inhabitants.

“And I don’t want ’em to,” he said one morning, as he was poring over a book in the rectory study, “for this is a weary world, Weathercock.”

“Eh? What’s the matter?” cried Vane, wonderingly, as he looked across the table at the top of Macey’s head, which was resting against his closed fists, so that the lad’s face was parallel with the table. “Got a headache?”

“Horrid. It’s all ache inside. I don’t believe I’ve got an ounce of brains. I say, it ought to weigh pounds, oughtn’t it?”

“Here, what’s wrong?” said Vane. “Let me help you.”

“Wish you would, but it’s of no good, old fellow. I shall never pass my great-go when I get to college.”

“Why?”

“Because I shall never pass the little one. I say, do I look like a fool?”

He raised his piteous face as he spoke, and Vane burst into a roar of laughter.

“Ah, it’s all very well to laugh. That’s the way with you clever chaps. I say, can’t you invent a new kind of thing—a sort of patent oyster-knife to open stupid fellows’ understanding? You should practice with it on me.”

“Come round this side,” said Vane, and Macey came dolefully round with the work on mathematics, over which he had been poring. “You don’t want the oyster-knife.”

“Oh, don’t I, old fellow; you don’t know.”

“Yes, I do. You’ve got one; every fellow has, if he will only use it.”

“Where abouts? What’s it like—what is it?”

“Perseverance,” said Vane. “Come on and let’s grind this bit up.”

They “ground” that bit up, and an hour after, Macey had a smile on his face. The “something attempted” was “something done.”

“That’s what I do like so in you, Vane,” he cried.

“What?”

“You can do all sorts of things so well, and work so hard. Why you beat the busy bee all to bits, and are worth hives of them.”

“Why?” said Vane, laughing.

“You never go about making a great buzz over your work, as much as to say: ‘Hi! all of you look here and see what a busy bee I am,’ and better still, old chap, you never sting.”

“Ever hear anything of Mr Deering now, uncle?” said Vane, one morning, as he stood in his workshop, smiling over some of his models and schemes, the inventor being brought to his mind by the remark he had made when he was there, about even the attempts being educational.

“No, boy; nothing now, for some time; I only know that he has been very successful over his ventures; has large works, and is prospering mightily, but, like the rest of the world, he forgets those by whose help he has risen.”

“Oh, I don’t think he is that sort of man, uncle. Of course, he is horribly busy.”

“A man ought not to be too busy to recollect those who held the ladder for him to climb, Vane,” said the doctor, warmly. “You saved him when he was in the lowest of low water.”

“Oh, nonsense, uncle, I only saw what a muddle his work-people had made, just as they did with our greenhouse, and besides, don’t you remember it was settled that I was to carve—didn’t we call it—my own way.”

The doctor uttered a grunt.

“That’s all very well,” began the doctor, but Vane interrupted him.

“I say, uncle, I’ve been thinking very deeply about my going to college.”

“Well, what about it. Time you went, eh?”

“No, uncle, and I don’t think I should like to go. Of course, I know the value of the college education, and the position it gives a man; but it means three years’ study—three years waiting to begin, and three years—”

“Well, sir, three years what?”

“Expense to you, uncle.”

“Now, look here, Vane,” said the doctor, sternly, “when I took you, a poor miserable little fatherless and motherless boy, to bring up—and precious ugly you were—I made up my mind to do my duty by you.”

“And so you have, uncle, far more than I deserved,” said Vane, merrily.

“Silence, sir,” cried the doctor, sternly. “I say—”

But whatever it was, he did not say it, for something happened.

Strange coincidences often occur in everyday life. One thinks of writing to a friend, and a letter comes from that friend, or a person may have formed the subject of conversation, and that person appears.

Somehow, just as the doctor had assumed his sternest look, the door of Vane’s little atelier was darkened, and Mr Deering stood therein, looking bright, cheery of aspect, and, in appearance, ten years younger than on the night when he upset the table, and the Little Manor House was within an inch of being burned down.

“Mrs Lee said I should find you here,” he said. “Why, doctor, how well you look. I’ll be bound to say you never take much of your own physic. Glad to see you again, old fellow,” he cried, shaking hands very warmly. “But, I beg your pardon, I did not know you were engaged with a stranger. Will you introduce me?”

“Oh, I say, Mr Deering,” cried Vane.

“It is! The same voice grown gruff. The weathercock must want oiling. Seriously, though, my dear boy, you have grown wonderfully. It’s this Greythorpe air.”

The doctor welcomed his old friend fairly enough, but a certain amount of constraint would show, and Deering evidently saw it, but he made no sign, and they went into the house, where Aunt Hannah met them in the drawing-room, looking a little flustered, consequent upon an encounter with Martha in the kitchen, that lady having declared that it would be impossible to make any further preparations for the dinner, even if a dozen gentlemen had arrived, instead of one.

“Ah, my dear Mrs Lee,” said Deering, “and I have never kept my word about the refurnishing of this drawing-room. What a scene we had that night, and how time has gone since!”

Vane looked on curiously all the rest of that day, and could not help feeling troubled to see what an effort both his uncle and aunt made to be cordial to their guest, while being such simple, straightforward people, the more they tried, the more artificial and constrained they grew.

Deering ignored everything, and chatted away in the heartiest manner; declared that it was a glorious treat to come down in the country; walked in the garden, and admired the doctor’s flowers and fruit, and bees, and made himself perfectly at home, saying that he had come down uninvited for a week’s rest.

Vane began at last to feel angry and annoyed; but seizing his opportunity, the doctor whispered:—

“Don’t forget, boy, that he is my guest. Prosperity has spoiled him, but I am not entertaining the successful inventor; I am only thinking of my old school-fellow whom I helped as a friend.”

“All right, uncle, I’ll be civil to him.”

Six days glided slowly by, during which Deering monopolised the whole of everybody’s time. He had the pony-carriage out, and made Vane borrow Miller Round’s boat and row him up the river, and fish with him, returning at night to eat the doctor and Mrs Lee’s excellent dinner, and drink the doctor’s best port.

And now the sixth day—the evening—had arrived, and Aunt Hannah had said to Vane:—

“I am so glad, my dear. To-morrow, he goes back to town.”

“And a jolly good job too, aunt!” cried Vane.

“Yes, my dear, but do be a little more particular what you say.”

They were seated all together in the drawing-room, with Deering in the best of spirits, when all of a sudden, he exclaimed:—

“This is the sixth day! How time goes in your pleasant home, and I’ve not said a word yet about the business upon which I came. Well, I must make up for it now. Ready, Vane?”

“Ready for what, sir,—game at chess?”

“No, boy, work, business; you are rapidly growing into a man. I want help badly and the time has arrived. I’ve come down to settle what we arranged for about my young partner.”

Had a shell fallen in the little drawing-room, no one could have looked more surprised.

Deering had kept his word.

In the course of the next morning a long and serious conversation ensued, which resulted evidently in Deering’s disappointment on the doctor’s declining to agree to the proposal.

“But, it is so quixotic of you, Lee,” cried Deering, angrily.

“Wrong,” replied the doctor, smiling in his old school-fellow’s face; “the quixotism is on your side in making so big a proposal on Vane’s behalf.”

“But you are standing in the boy’s light.”

“Not at all. I believe I am doing what is best for him. He is far too young to undertake so responsible a position.”

“Nonsense!”

“I think it sense,” said the doctor, firmly. “Vane shall go to a large civil engineer’s firm as pupil, and if, some years hence, matters seem to fit, make your proposition again about a partnership, and then we shall see.”

Deering had to be content with this arrangement, and within the year Vane left Greythorpe, reluctantly enough, to enter upon his new career with an eminent firm in Great George Street, Westminster.

But he soon found plenty of change, and three years later, long after the rector’s other pupils had taken flight, Vane found himself busy surveying in Brazil, and assisting in the opening out of that vast country.

It was hard but delightful work, full at times of excitement and adventure, till upon one unlucky day he was stricken down by malarious fever on the shores of one of the rivers.

Fortunately for him it happened there, and not hundreds of miles away in the interior, where in all probability for want of help his life would have been sacrificed.

His companions, however, got him on board a boat, and by easy stages he was taken down to Rio, where he awoke from his feverish dream, weak as a child, wasted almost to nothing, into what appeared to him another dream, for he was in a pleasantly-shaded bedroom, with someone seated beside him, holding his hand, and gazing eagerly into his wandering eyes.

“Vane,” he said, in a low, excited whisper; “do you know me.”

“Distin!” said Vane feebly, as he gazed in the handsome dark face of the gentleman bending over him.

“Hah!” was ejaculated with a sigh of content; “you’ll get over it now; but I’ve been horribly afraid for days.”

“What’s been the matter?” said Vane, feebly. “Am I at the rectory? Where’s Mr Syme? And my uncle?”

“Stop; don’t talk now.”

Vane was silent for a time; then memory reasserted itself. He was not at Greythorpe, but in Brazil.

“Why, I was taken ill up the river. Have you been nursing me?”

“Yes, for weeks,” said Distin, with a smile.

“Where am I?”

“At Rio. In my house. I am head here of my father’s mercantile business.”

“But—”

“No, no, don’t talk.”

“I must ask this: How did I get here?”

“I heard that you were ill, and had you brought home that’s all. I was told that the overseer with the surveying expedition was brought down ill—dying, they said, and then I heard that his name was Vane Lee. Can it be old Weathercock? I said; and I went and found that it was, and—well, you know the rest.”

“Then I have you to thank for saving my life.”

“Well,” said Distin, “you saved mine. There, don’t talk; I won’t. I want to go and write to the doctor that you are mending now. By-and-by, when you are better, we must have plenty of talks about the old Lincolnshire days.”

Distin was holding Vane’s hands as he spoke, and his voice was cheery, though the tears were in his eyes.

“And so,” whispered Vane, thoughtfully, “I owe you my life.”

“I owe you almost more than that,” said Distin, huskily. “Vane, old chap, I’ve often longed for us to meet again.”

It was a curious result after their early life. Vane often corresponded with Gilmore and Macey, but somehow he and Distin became the staunchest friends.

“I can’t understand it even now,” Vane said to him one day when they were back in England, and had run down to the old place again. “Fancy you and I being companions here.”

“The wind has changed, old Weathercock,” cried Distin, merrily. Then, seriously: “No, I’ll tell you, Vane; there was some little good in me, and you made it grow.”

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