"With William the Norming," she said gently.
"An' how she was derived from them, you know, an' all that?"
Mrs. Berrill nodded.
"We hall know as 'ow Mrs. Chundle is a—a very superior person," she said.
Mrs. Chundle stitched away in silent graciousness.
"Tommy," cried a distant voice—it was the poet's—"Tommy, come here,I've just hit the bottle three times running."
Tommy grinned.
"I must go," he said. "I'm jolly glad you and Mrs. Berrill are pals," and he disappeared in the direction of the poet.
"Which I 'ope 'e won't turn out no worse than 'is dear father. God bless 'im," said Mrs. Berrill, as they discussed the tattered jacket.
And so the days tripped by, sunny and showery—true April days. Up in the downs was a new shrill bleating of lambs, and down in the valley rose the young wheat, green and strong and hopeful.
The water-meadows grew each day more velvety and luscious, as the young grass thickened, and between the stems, in the copse, came a shimmer of blue and gold, of blue-bell and primrose.
The stream sang buoyantly down to the mill, and Tommy wandered over the country-side, happy in it all—and indeed almost part of it.
Moreover, Madge and her governesswould often come upon him, all unexpectedly, too, in some byway of their daily travel, and he would show them flowers and bird's-nests, and explain for their benefit the position of each farmhand and labourer in the commonwealth of Camslove, and thus the days went by so happily that they seemed to have vanished almost as they came, and on a morning Tommy woke up to the fact that the holidays had ended. A grim showery day it was, too—a day of driving wind and cold rain—and Tommy loitered dismally from arbour to house, and house to arbour.
The poet was busy on a new work, and Mrs. Chundle, too intent on marking and packing his clothes to be good company.
Madge would be indoors, as it was raining, and it was too cold and uninviting for a bathe.
He spent the afternoon trudging about the muddy lanes with the doctor, but the evening found him desolate.
Ah, these sad days that form our characters, as men tell us—characters that, at times, we feel we could willingly dispensewith, so that the days might be always sunny, and the horizons clear.
Even the longest of dreary days ends at last, however, and Tommy fell sorrowfully asleep in the summer house, a rain-drop rolling dismally down his freckled nose, and his mind held captive by troubled visions of school.
A day or two after Tommy's departure, the poet stooped, in a side path of his garden, to pick up a stray sheet of paper.
On it he saw two words in his own handwriting.
"Mollie—folly—"
He sighed.
"I remember," he said.
Then he looked again, for in a round, sprawling hand was written yet another word—"jolly."
The poet wiped his glasses and folded up the paper.
Then he coughed.
"I had not thought of that," he observed, meditatively.
A hot August noon blazed over Becklington common, as I lay thinking and thinking, staring up into the blue sky, and for all the richness of the day, sad enough in heart.
In the valley below me the stream still splashed happily down to the mill, and away on the far hills the white flocks were grazing peacefully as ever.
And above my head poised and quivering sang a lark.
The Spring had rounded into maturity, and Summer, lavish and wonderful and queenly, rested on her throne.
Why should there be war anywhere in the world? I asked.
And yet along a far frontier it flickered even now, sinister and relentless. A little war and, to me, a silent one—yet there it rose and fell and smouldered, and grew fierce, and in the grip of it two brave grey eyes had closed forever.
I heard the quiet, well-known voice.
"Tommy is not an ordinary boy," it said.
How we had smiled at the simple honest pride that this soldier had taken in his son.
I turned over and groaned, as I thought of it all—our parting in the old study—our promise—the half-comedy, half-responsibility of the situation.
And we had borne it so lightly, tossed for the boy, taken him more as an obstreperous plaything than a serious charge.
And now—well it matters not upon which of us the mantle of his legal guardian had fallen, nor upon whom lay the administration of his affairs—for we all had silently renewed our vows to one who was dead, and felt that there was something sacred in this mission, which lay upon the shoulders of each one of us.
Poor Tommy—none of us knew how the blow had taken him, for to none of us had he written since the news reached England, save indeed when, in a brief line to me, he had announced his return next week.
We had all written to him, as our separate natures and feelings had dictated, but no reply had reached us—and how should we know that of all the letters he had received, only one was deemed worthy of preservation—and that written in a round childish hand?
"Dear Tommy—I am so sorry. Your loving Madge."
A damp sorry little note it was, but it remained in Tommy's pocket long after our more stately compositions had been torn up and forgotten.
To us, leading our quiet commonplace peaceful life in this little midland village, the shock had come with double force.
Perhaps we had been apt to dwell so little on the eternal verities of chance and change and life and death as to have become almost oblivious of their existence, at any rate in our own sphere.
Those of the villagers who, year by year, in twos and threes, were gathered to their fathers, were old and wrinkled and ready fordeath, resting quietly under the good red earth, well content with sleep.
And these we had missed, but scarcely mourned, feeling that, in the fitness of things, it was well that they should cease from toil.
But here was our friend, straight and strong and vigorous, cut down by some robber bullet in an Indian pass—and to us all, I fancy, the shock came with something of terror, and something of awakening in its tragedy. Outwardly we had shown little enough.
The poet, when the first stun of the blow had passed, had written his grief in the best lines I had ever seen from his pen.
The vicar had preached a quiet scholarly sermon in our friend's memory.
And now all reference to the dead had ceased among us, for the time.
To-morrow, Tommy was to come back from school, and all of us, I fancy, dreaded the first meeting.
We had arranged that each of our houses was to be open to him, and that in each a bedshould be prepared, so that, as the mood took him, he might sleep where he thought best.
But the meeting, at the station, was a matter of considerable trepidation to us.
I strolled down the hill to the poet's house.
"Good morning," I said, "I—I am rather keen on running up to town, to-morrow, to see those pictures, you know."
The poet smiled.
"I did not know you were a patron of art," he observed. "I am gratified at this development."
"Ah—could you meet Tommy at 2.15?"
The poet's face fell.
"I—I am very busy," he said, deprecatingly.
"'Lucien and Angelica' ought to be concluded by to-morrow evening."
We were silent, both looking into the trembling haze, up the valley.
"The doctor," suggested the poet.
"I will try."
But the doctor was also very much engaged.
"Two cases up at Bonnor, in the downs," he explained.
I called on the vicar.
"I—I want to go up to town to see that china exhibit," I observed.
He looked interested.
"I didn't know you were a connoisseur," he remarked.
"Not at all, not at all—the merest tyro."
"I am glad. You will find the show well worth your attention."
I bent my head to the vicar's roses.
"These Richardsons are very lovely," I said.
The vicar smiled.
"I think they have repaid a little trouble," he said modestly.
"Ah—could you possibly meet the 2.15 to-morrow?"
"You are expecting a parcel?"
"No—not exactly. Tommy, you know."
The vicar took a turn on the lawn. Then he came to a standstill in front of me.
"I had planned a visit to Becklington," he said.
I bowed.
"I am sorry," said I, and turned to go.
At the gate he touched my shoulder.
"Mathews!"
I paused.
"I am a coward, Mathews—but I will go."
We looked into each other's eyes, and I repented.
"No, old friend. I ought to go and I will go. By Jove, I will."
"So be it," said the vicar.
I had played with my luncheon, to the concern of my man, who regarded me anxiously.
"Are you not well, sir?" he asked.
"Quite well," I replied, icily, with a remark about bad cooking, and careless service, and strode towards the station.
I paced the platform moodily twentyminutes before the advertised arrival of the train.
I was very early, but somebody, apparently, was before me.
I caught a glimpse of a strangely characteristic hat in the corner of the little waiting-room.
Its shapelessness was familiar.
I looked in, and the poet seemed a little confused.
"Lucien and Angel—?" I began, enquiringly.
He waved his hand, with some superiority.
"Inspiration cannot be commanded," he observed. "They shall wait until Saturday."
We sat down in the shade, and conversation flagged. Presently steps approached, pacing slowly along the wooden platform.
It was the vicar.
He looked a little conscious, and no doubt read the enquiry in my eyes.
"It is too hot," he said, "to drive to Becklington before tea," and the three of us sat silently down together.
At last a porter came, and looked up and down the line.
Apparently he saw no obstruction, for he proceeded to lower the signal.
We rose and paced to and fro, with valorously concealed agitation.
A trap dashed along the white road, and some one ran, breathlessly, up the stairs.
He seemed a little surprised at the trio which awaited him.
"I thought you had two cases in Bonnor," I observed, with a piercing glance.
The doctor looked away, but did not reply, and I forbore to press the point.
Far down the line shone a cloudlet of white smoke and the gleam of brass through the dust.
"Becklington, Harrowley, Borcombe and Hoxford train," roared the porter, apparently as a reminder to the station-master, for there were no passengers.
We stood, a nervous group, in the shadow of the waiting-room.
"Poor boy—poor little chap," said thevicar at last. "We must cheer him up—God bless him."
Youth is not careless of grief, but God has made it the master of sorrow, and Tommy's eyes were bright, as he jumped onto the platform.
He smiled complacently into our anxious faces—so genuine a smile that our poor carved ones relaxed into reality.
"I've got a ripping chameleon," he observed cheerfully.
Through the still boughs the sunlight fell, as it seemed to me, in little molten streams, and I pushed back my chair still deeper into the shadow of the elm.
Even there it was not cool, but at any rate the contrast to the glaring close-cropped lawn was welcome.
I stared up through the listless, delicate leaves into a sky of Mediterranean blue. Surely, it was the hottest day of summer—of memory.
The flowers with which my little garden is so profusely peopled hung languorously above the borders, and the hum of a binder in the neighbouring wheat field seemed an invitation to siesta.
Down sunny paths, I dropped into oblivion.
A touch awoke me, but my eyes were held tight beneath a pair of cool hands.
"Good gracious," I gasped. "Bless my——"
Tommy laughed and sauntered into view.
"You were making a beastly row," he observed, frankly. "I thought it was a thunderstorm."
I looked at him with envious eyes.
His sole attire consisted of a striped blazer and a pair of knickerbockers. He was crowned in a battered wide-awake hat, and from this to the tips of his brown toes he looked buoyant and cool despite the tan on his chest and legs.
He deposited the rest of his garments and a towel upon the grass, and sprawled contentedly beside them.
"It was so jolly hot that I didn't bother about dressing," he observed, lazily.
Then he sat up quickly.
"I say; you don't mind, do you? it's awful slack of me to come round here like this."
"Not a bit," said I, as my thoughts fled back to the days when I also was lean andspringy, and blissfully contemptuous of changes in the weather.
Ah, well-a-day—well-a-day!
Linger the dreams of the golden days—They were bright, though they fled so soon,Rosy they gleamed in the early raysOf the sun, that dispelled them at noon.
The joys of reminiscence are mellow, but at times they may become a little soporific—I awoke with a start.
"Whoo—ee."
It was a whistle, low and penetrating, and would seem to have risen from the wood beyond the stream.
I noticed that Tommy was alert and listening.
"Whoo—ee."
Again it rose, with something of caution in its tone, but a spice of daring in the higher note of its conclusion.
I watched Tommy, idly, with half-closed eyes.
He was performing a rapid toilet.
Presently he looked up at me from his shoe-laces.
"I taught her that whistle," he observed, complacently.
"Whom?" I asked.
"Why, Madge—Madge Chantrey," he said.
"You seem to have found an apt pupil."
"Rather."
"But I hope," I spoke severely, "I trust, Tommy, that you haven't taught her to play truant."
He looked at me, cheekily; then he vanished through the gate.
"Happy dreams," he said, "and, I say, don't snorequiteso loudly, you know."
And I heard him singing as he ran through the wood.
Said Madge, from the first stile, on the right:
"I managed it beautifully; she was reading some of those stupid rhymes by the poet—only I oughtn't to call them names, because he's a friend of yours—and I watchedher getting sleepier and sleepier, and then I came through the little gate behind the greenhouse and simply ran all the way, and, I expect, she's fast asleep, and I wonder why grown-up people always go to sleep in the very best part of all the day."
"I think it's their indigestions, you know," said Tommy thoughtfully.
"But they never eat anything all day—only huge big feeds at night."
"I think everybody's alittlesleepy after lunch."
"I'm not."
"Not after two helps of jam roll?"
"How do you know I had two helps?"
"Never mind," said Tommy, then.
"See that spadger," he cried suddenly.
"Got him, no—missed him, by Jove."
The sparrow was twittering, mockingly, behind the hedge, and a bright-eyed rabbit scuttled into safety.
"Let's go through the park," cried Tommy.
"I'll show you a ripping little path, rightby the house, where there's a cave I made before—no one knows it but father and I, an' you can go right by it, an' never see it. Come on."
They scrambled over the iron railings that bound the neat, though modest, domain surrounding Camslove Grange. Through the tall tree trunks they could see the old house with its rough battlements and extended wings. In front of it the trim lawns sloped down to the stream, while behind, the Italian garden was cut out of a wild tangle of shrubs and brushwood.
Into this Tommy plunged, with the unerring steps of long acquaintance, holding back the branches, as Madge followed close upon his heels.
Once he turned, and looked back eagerly into her eyes.
"We're just by the path now—Isn't it grand?"
"Rather," she said.
Presently, with much labour, they reached a microscopical track through the underwood.
"There," observed Tommy, with the proud air of a proprietor, "Didn't I tell you?"
"No one could possibly find it, I should think," said Madge.
"Rather not. Let's go to the cave."
Followed some further scrambling, and Tommy drew back the bushes triumphantly.
"See—" he began, but the words died upon his lips, for there, standing all unabashed upon this sacred ground, was a boy about his own age.
Tommy stammered and grew silent, looking amazedly at the stranger. He was a pale boy with dark eyes, and a Jewish nose.
"You are trespassing," he said coolly.
Tommy gasped.
"Who—who are you?" he asked at last.
"I tell you you are trespassing."
Tommy flushed.
"I'm not," he said. "I—I belong here."
The other boy gave a shout.
"Father," he cried, "Here's some trespassers."
Tommy stood his ground, surveying the intruder with some contempt, while Madge wide-eyed held his arm.
There were footsteps through the bushes, and a tall stout man in a panama hat came into view.
"Hullo," he said, "This is private property, you know."
Tommy looked at him gravely.
"I don't understand—I—I belong here, you know."
The big man smiled.
"You're a native, are you?" he said cheerfully. "Well, you're a pretty healthy looking specimen—but this place here is mine—for the time, at any rate."
"It was my father's," said Tommy, with a strange huskiness in his throat.
"Don't know anything about that—got it from the agents for six years—like to see the deed, heh?" and he chuckled, a little ponderously.
Tommy looked downcast and hesitant, and the big man turned to his son.
"Well, well," he said, "I guess they'll know better next time. Take 'em down the drive, Ernie, and show 'em out decently."
The three walked silently down the old avenue.
At the gate, the pale boy turned to Tommy.
"Back my father's got more money than yours," he said.
Tommy's eyes swept him with a look of profound contempt, but a lump in his throat forbade retort, and he turned away silent.
Madge, dear little woman, saw the sorrow in his eyes, and held her peace, picking flowers from the bank as they walked slowly down the path.
On a green spray a little way ahead a bird was singing full-throated and joyous, but to Tommy its music was mockery.
He took a long aim and brought the little songster, warm and quivering, on to the pathway in front of them.
As they came to it he kicked it aside, but Madge, stooping, lifted it from the long grass and hid it, quite dead, in her frock.
The tears had risen to her eyes, and she was on the point of challenging this seemingly wanton cruelty.
But there was something in Tommy's face that her eyes were quick to notice, and she was silent.
Thus is tact so largely a matter of instinct.
And, in a minute, Tommy turned to her.
"I—I should jolly well like to—to kill that chap," he said.
Madge said nothing, fondling the warm little body that she held beneath her pinafore.
As they turned the corner of the hedge, they came into the full flood of the sunlight over the meadows, and Tommy smiled.
"I say, I'm awfully sorry we should have got turned out like that, Madge, but I—I didn't know there was somebody else inthere—an' that I wasn't to go there, an' that."
"Never mind," said Madge, "let's come up home, and I'll show you my cave—I've got one, too. It's not so good as yours, of course, because you're a boy, but I think it's very pretty all the same, and it'salmostas hard to get at."
My lady's lawn is splashed with shadeAll intertwined with sun,And strayingly beneath the boughsTheir tapestry is spun,For the angel hands of summer-timeHave woven them in one.My lady's lawn is wrapped with peace,Its life throbs sweet and strong.Caressingly across its breastThe laughing breezes throng,And the angel wings of summer-timeHave touched it into song.
"Thank you," said Lady Chantrey. "I feel so honoured, you know, to have my little garden immortalised in verse."
The poet wrapped up his papers and restored them to his pocket, with a smile.
"Not immortalised, Lady Chantrey," he replied modestly, "not even described—only, if I may say so, appreciated."
From her invalid chair, in the shade, Lady Chantrey looked out over the lawn, sunny and fragrant, a sweet foreground to the wide hills beyond.
She turned to the poet with something like a sigh.
"I wonder why it is that we fortunate ones are so few," she said. "Why we few should be allowed to drown ourselves in all this beauty, that so many can only dream about. It would almost seem a waste of earth's good things."
The poet was silent.
"After all, they can dream—the others, I mean," he said, presently.
"But never attain."
"It is good that they know it is all here—somewhere."
Lady Chantrey lay back in her chair.
"I wish I could give it to them," she said, opening her hands. "I wish I could give it to them, but I am so stupid, and weak, and poor;—you can."
"I?" stammered the poet.
She looked at him, with bright eyes.
"You have the gift," she said. "You can at any rate minister to their dreams."
"But nobody reads poetry, and I—I do not write for the crowd."
She shook her head.
"I think everybody reads poetry," she said, "and I think, in every house, if one could but find it, there is some line or thought or dream, if you will, cut out, long since, and guarded secretly—and more, read—read often, as a memory, perhaps only as a dream, but, for all that, a very present help—I would like to be the writer of such a poem."
"It would certainly be gratifying," assented the poet.
"It would be worth living for."
The poet looked at her gravely—at the sweet-lined face, and the white hair, and tired grey eyes.
"Do you know, Lady Chantrey," he said, "you always give me fresh inspiration. I—I wonder—"
But what the poet wondered was only the wonder, I suppose, of all writers of all ages, and, in any case, it was not put into words, for across the lawn came a rustle of silk and muslin, heralding visitors, and the poet became busy about tea-cups and cream.
Though physical weakness, and want of means, prevented Lady Chantrey from entertaining to any large extent, yet I doubt if any woman in the county was more really popular than this gentle hostess of Becklington Hall; for Lady Chantrey was of those who had gained the three choicest gifts of suffering—sweetness and forbearance and sympathy.
Such as Lady Chantrey never want for friends, for indeed they give, I fancy, more than they receive.
On this sunny afternoon several groups were dotted about the cool lawns of Becklington, when Tommy and Madge came tea-wards from the cave.
Lady Chantrey beckoned them to her side.
"I am so glad to see you again, Tommy," she said. "You never come to see me now. I suppose old women are poor company."
"I wish they were all like you," said Tommy, squatting upon the grass at her feet.
Then he remembered a question he had meant to ask her,
"I say, Lady Chantrey, who's living at the Grange?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know, Tommy. I heard that your guardian had let it—it was your father's wish, you know—but I did not know the tenants had arrived."
"Oh, Lady Chantrey, there's a boy there, an' he's such an awful cad."
"Cad?" echoed Lady Chantrey, questioningly.
"He—he isn't one little atom of a gentleman."
"And therefore a cad?"
Tommy coloured.
"He's an awful bounder, Lady Chantrey."
Everybody was busy in conversation, and Lady Chantrey laid a frail hand on Tommy's shoulder—then,
"Tommy," she said in a low voice, "a gentleman never calls anyone a cad—for that reason. It implies a comparison, you see."
Tommy blushed furiously, and looked away.
"I—I'm awful sorry. Lady Chantrey," he mumbled.
"Tell me about your holidays," she said.
A servant stepped across the lawn to Lady Chantrey's chair followed by a stout lady, in red silk.
"Mrs. Cholmondeley," she announced.
"And how do you do, my dear Lady Chantrey? Feeling a little stronger, I hope. Ah, that's very delightful. Isn't it too hot for anything? I have just been calling at the dear Earl's—Lady Florence is looking so well—"
Mrs. Cholmondeley swept the little circle gathered about the tea-table with a quickglance. It is good to have the Earl on one's visiting list.
Her eyes rested on Mollie Gerald, pouring out tea, and she turned to Lady Chantrey:
"Is that the young person who has been so successful with your daughter's music, Lady Chantrey?"
Mollie's cheeks were scarlet, as she bent over the tea-pot, for Mrs. Cholmondeley's lower tones were as incisive as her ordinary voice was strident.
"Yes, that is my friend, Miss Gerald," said Lady Chantrey, smiling at Mollie.
Mrs. Cholmondeley continued a diatribe upon governesses.
"You never know,dearLady Chantrey, who they may be. So many of them are so exceedingly—"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I have been very fortunate," said Lady Chantrey.
Tommy wandered up with some cake, which he offered to Mrs. Cholmondeley, who smiled graciously.
"And who is this?" she asked.
Lady Chantrey explained.
"Not the poor colonel's heir?"
Lady Chantrey nodded.
"Really; how interesting—how are you, my dear?"
"All right," said Tommy, in obvious good health.
"This is Mrs. Cholmondeley, of Barnardley."
Tommy looked interested.
"I've heard about you from Mrs. Chundle," he said. "She's a sort of relation of yours, derived from the same lot, you know."
Mrs. Cholmondeley looked a little bewildered, and the poet patently nervous.
"Really I—"
"She's an awful good sort—Mrs. Chundle. She's the poet's housekeeper—so I expect she has to work for her living, you know."
The poet gasped.
"It's—it's all a mistake," he stammered, but not before Mrs. Cholmondeley hadturned a violent purple, and a smile had travelled round the little ring of visitors.
All at once Tommy became aware that somehow things had gone wrong and retreated hastily from the lawn, seeking the refuge of the cave among the laurels, and in a minute or two, the poet, with a murmured pretext about a view, also vanished.
Tommy wandered disconsolately down the flagged path between the bushes, ruminating upon the strange contrariness of affairs on this chequered afternoon.
Near the arbour in the laurels Miss Gerald met him.
Her eyes were dancing.
"O, Tommy, you celestial boy," she cried.
Tommy was doubtful of the adjective, but the tone was certainly one of approbation, and he looked modestly at the path.
"You're a perfect young angel," proceeded Miss Gerald, enthusiastically, "and I'd kiss you only I suppose you wouldn't like it."
Tommy looked at her, dubiously.
"I shouldn't very much," he observed, but chivalry stepped manfully to the fore, and he turned a brown cheek towards her.
"You can if you like, you know," he added, looking resignedly across the valley.
She stooped and dropped a kiss upon his cheek.
"You're the very broth of a boy," she said, as she ran back to the house.
Presently the laurels rustled, and the poet stole out into the pathway.
Tommy was disappearing into a sidewalk, and the poet looked after him with a curious expression.
"O you incomprehensible person," said he.
"You daren't climb into the hay-loft."
"Daren't I?" said Tommy, scornfully. "You see if I don't." And he shinned easily up the ladder.
The hay-loft was cool and fragrant—a welcome contrast to the glaring yard.
"Come up too," said Tommy.
Madge's black eyes flashed.
"I will," she said, clambering up the steps.
Tommy stooped down and gave her a hand.
"Good girl," he said, approvingly. Then he laid his hand on her lips, and they crouched back into the shade.
For into the barn stepped one of the farm labourers.
"We mustn't get found out, for the man here is an awful beast of a chap," said Tommy, in a low whisper.
The labourer had not perceived them andwas soon bent over a machine chopping up fodder for the cattle.
His back was towards them, and he breathed heavily, for the work was hard. His red neck formed a tempting target, and Tommy was an accurate shot. Moreover, his pockets were full of peas.
He took a careful aim and let fly, and there was a hoarse exclamation from the man at the wheel.
Tommy drew back into shelter, where Madge was curled up in the new hay.
"Got him rippingly," said Tommy, "plumb in the back of the neck."
Madge looked a little reproachful.
"O Tommy, it must have hurt him dreadfully."
Tommy chuckled.
"'Spect it did tickle him a bit," he said, looking cautiously round the corner.
The man had resumed work and the hum of the wheel filled the barn.
Tommy selected another portion of the man's anatomy and let fly a little harder.
There was a shout and a sound of muttered exclamation in the barn below them, as Tommy backed into the hay with quiet enjoyment.
As they listened they could hear the man stumping round the barn, swearing softly, and presently he was joined by some one else, for a loud voice broke into his grumbling.
"What the dickens are you doing, Jake?"
"Darned if I know," said the man. "On'y there bees summat as hits I unnever I goes at the wheel, master."
"That's the farmer himself just come in," said Tommy burrowing deeper into the hay.
They could hear him speaking.
"Get on wi' your work, Jake, an' don't get talkin' your nonsense to me, man."
The man grumbled.
"Darned if it are nonsense, master," he said. "Just you wait till you be hit yoursen—right in the bark o' your neck, too."
"O Tommy, do hit him—the farmer I mean."
Tommy shook his head.
"It wouldn't do," he said.
Madge looked at him with a challenge in her eyes.
"You daren't," she whispered.
Tommy flushed.
"We should be caught."
"Oh—then you daren't?"
Tommy was silent, and the farmer's foot was heavy in the barn below.
"You daren't," repeated Madge.
Tommy looked at her, with bright eyes.
"All right," he said. "If you want to see, look round the corner, only don't let him cob you."
Then he drew back a little from the opening and took a flying shot, finding a target in one of the farmer's rather conspicuous ears.
He gave a sudden yell, and his pale eyes seemed to stand out from his head, as he looked amazedly round the building.
The man at the wheel spat into his hands, with a quiet grin.
"Darned if they ain't hit you, master," he said, grinding with some zest.
"My word, they shall pay for it," shouted the farmer, conning the situation with frowning brows.
Then he stepped to the ladder.
"See as they don't get out, Jake, if I send anyone down," he said loudly, and Jake grunted an assent.
Madge was trembling.
"O Tommy, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. Tell him it's all my fault."
"It's all right," said Tommy cheerfully, "He—he won't dare to touch me."
A pair of red cheeks appeared above the floor of the loft, and the pale eyes looked threateningly into the gloom.
In a minute they encountered Tommy's brown ones, bright and defiant.
The farmer grunted.
"Bees you there, eh?" he asked.
Tommy grinned.
"All right, you needn't get shirty," he said.
"Shirty, eh? I wunt get shirty. Don't you make no mistake. Jake!"
"Ah!"
"My stick down there?"
"Ah."
"Will you 'ave it up 'ere or down yon, young man?"
Tommy flushed hotly, and Madge held his arm.
"You daren't hit me," he said.
The farmer laughed.
"You've bin trespassin' more'n once, young man, wi' your catapult an' your sharp tongue, an' now I'm goin' to 'ave my bit. Up 'ere or down yon?"
Tommy temporized.
"Let us come down," he said, eyeing the door warily.
"Young miss, you get down first," said the farmer.
Madge obeyed with pale cheeks, and stood, half in sunlight, at the door.
"Jake!"
"Ah!"
"See the young rip don't get out."
"Ah!"
Tommy clambered down, standing between the two men. Then he made a bolt for freedom, dodging Jake's half-hearted attempt at resistance.
But the farmer held him as he recoiled from Jake and jerked him over a truss of hay.
And for the next few minutes Tommy was very uncomfortable.
"Oh, you cad, you cad, you beastly, putrid cad."
Tommy spoke between his teeth at each stroke of the farmer's stick.
The man released him in a minute or two, and Tommy rushed at him with both fists. The farmer laughed.
"Guess you won't come knockin' about this barn again in a hurry," he said as he pushed him easily into the yard and closed the great door with a thud.
For a moment Tommy stood, white with anger. Then he thought of Madge, whohad been a spectator of the tragedy. But she was nowhere to be seen, and he walked gloomily down the lane.
Now Madge, with a beating heart and a stricken conscience, had fled for help, running blindly down the lane, with the idea of securing the first ally who should appear.
And she almost ran into the arms of the pale boy from the Grange.
"Hullo, what's the matter?" he asked, looking at Madge curiously.
Madge blurted out the story, with eager eyes.
'Could he help her? Was there anybody near who could save Tommy from a probable and violent death?'
The pale boy looked at her admiringly, as he considered the question.
Then,
"My father knows the man—he owes my father some money, I think. I'll see if I can do anything."
They ran down the lane together, anddoing so encountered Tommy, flushed and ruffled.
"O, Tommy"—Madge began, but stopped suddenly, at the look on Tommy's face.
For to Tommy this seemed the lowest depth of his degradation, that the pale boy should be a witness of his discomfiture.
He looked at them angrily, and then, turning on his heel, struck out across the fields, the iron entering deeply into his soul.
Youth is imitative, and Tommy had often heard the phrase.
"I—I don't care a damn," he said.
For a moment he felt half-frightened, but the birds were still singing in the hedge, and, in the next field, the reapers still chattered gaily at their work.
Moreover, the phrase seemed both consolatory and emphatic.
"I don't care a damn," he repeated, slowly, climbing the stile, into the next field.
Said a voice from behind the hedge:
"Girl in it?"
Tommy looked round, and encountered a tall young man in tweeds. He was looking at him, with amused eyes.
"I—I don't know what you mean," said Tommy.
The young man laughed.
"They're the devil, girls are," he observed.
Tommy was puzzled and eyed the stranger cautiously, thinking him the handsomest man he had seen.
Nor, in a way, was he at fault, for the young man was straight, and tall, and comely.
But there was something in the eyes—a lack of honest lustre—and in the lips—too sensuous for true manliness, that would have warned Tommy, had he been older, or even in a different frame of mind. Just now, however, a friend was welcome, and Tommy told his tale, as they strolled through the fields together.
Presently,
"You belong to Camslove Grange, don't you?" asked the stranger.
"I did."
"And will again, I suppose, eh?"
Tommy looked doubtful, and the young man laughed.
"Sorry—I ought to have put it the other way round, for it will belong to you."
Tommy shook his head.
"I don't think so," he said. "Some other Johnny's got it, you see."
The young man looked at his watch.
"My name's Morris—I live at Borcombe House—you'd better come and feed with me."
"Thanks, I'd like to, awfully."
"That's right—the old man will be glad to see you, and we'll have a game of billiards."
"I can't play."
"Never mind. I'll teach you—good game, pills."
Squire Morris was cordial from the grip of his hand to the moisture in his baggy eyes.
"The heir of Camslove," he said. "Well,well, I am so glad to see you, dear boy, so very glad to see you. You must come often."
For a moment a misgiving arose in Tommy's heart.
"Did you know my father?" he asked, as the old man held his hand.
"Yes, yes; not as well as I would have liked to know him, by no means as well as I would have liked to know him—but I knew him, oh yes. I knew him well enough."
Tommy felt reassured, and the three entered the old hall, hung with trophies of gun and rod and chase.
"A bachelor's abode," laughed the young man. "We're wedded to sport—no use for girls here, eh dad?"
The squire laughed wheezily.
"The dog," he chuckled, "the young dog."
Presently the squire led them to the dining room, where a bountiful meal was spread—so bountiful that Tommy,already predisposed for friendship, rapidly thawed into intimacy.
Both the squire and his son seemed intent on amusing him, and Tommy took the evident effort for the unaccomplished deed—for, in truth, the stories that they told were almost unintelligible to him, though, to the others, they appeared humorous enough.
Presently the squire grew even more affectionate. He had always loved boys, he said, and Tommy was not to forget it. He was a stern enemy, but a good friend, and Tommy was not to forget it. He would always be proud to shake hands with Tommy, wherever he met him, and Tommy was to keep this in remembrance.
Presently he retired to the sofa, with a cigar, which he was continually dropping.
The young man winked, genially, at Tommy.
"He always gets sleepy about this time," he explained.
"Sleepy?" interrupted his father, "not abit of it. See here," and he filled the three glasses once more from the decanter.
"To the master of Camslove Grange," he cried, lifting his glass. And they drank the health, standing.
As Tommy walked home over the starlit fields, the scene came back to him.
The old man, wheezy but gracious, his son flushed and handsome, the panelled walls and their trophies, and the sparkling glasses—a brave picture.
True—he was still sore, but the episode of the farmer and his stick seemed infinitely remote, and Madge and the pale boy, ghosts of an era past: for had he not drunk of the good red wine, and kept company with gentlemen?
I suppose that, by this time, I had grown fond of Tommy, in a very real way, for, as the weeks passed by, I was quick to notice the change in the boy.
There was a suggestion of swagger and an assumption of manliness in his manner, that troubled me.
I noticed, too, that he avoided many of his old haunts.
Often he would strike out across the downs and be away from early morning until starlight, and concerning his adventures he would be strangely reticent.
But I do not profess to have fathomed the ways and moods of boys, and I merely shrugged my shoulders, perhaps a little sorrowfully.
"I suppose he is growing up," thought I. And yet, for all that, I could not keep myself from wondering what influence wasat work upon the boy's development. Even the doctor, who, of us all, saw the least of him, noticed the change, for he asked me suddenly, one late September day,
"What's the matter with Tommy?"
I looked at him with feigned surprise.
"I—he's all right, isn't he?"
The doctor shook his head.
"He has altered very much this summer, and I am afraid the alteration has not been good."
I cut at a nettle with my walking-stick.
"He is growing, of course."
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
"Then you have noticed nothing else—nothing in his demeanour or conversation—or friends?"
I abandoned my defences.
"Yes, I have noticed it, and I cannot understand it—and I am sorry for it."
"When does he return to school?"
"To-morrow."
The doctor appeared to be thinking. In a minute he looked into my face.
"It is a good thing, on the whole," he said, adding slowly.
"Don't drive the boy; let him forget."
He drove away, and I looked after him in some wonderment, for his words seemed enigmatical.
As I walked back to my garden I could hear Tommy whistling in his bedroom. There was a light in the room, and I could see him, half undressed, fondling one of his white rats. I remembered how he had insisted on their company and smiled.
"Sir."
From the shadow of the hedge a voice addressed me.
"Sir."
"Hullo," I said. Then, as I peered through the gloom, I saw a young woman standing before me, and, even in the dusk, I could read the eagerness in her eyes.
Her face was familiar.
"Surely I know you?" I asked.
"I'm Liza Berrill."
She spoke rapidly; yet, over her message she seemed hesitant.
Then:
"Oh, sir, don't let him be friends wi' that gentleman."
I stared.
"What do you mean?"
She pointed to the window!
Tommy was in his night-shirt, with the white rat running over his shoulders.
"Well?"
"Master Tommy, sir. There's a-many 'ave noticed it; don't let 'im get friends wi'——"
"With whom?"
Even in the dusk I could see the dull crimson creep into her cheeks.
"Squire Morris's son," she muttered.
We stood silent and face to face for a minute.
"You understand, sir?"
I remembered, and held out my hand.
"Yes, Liza; I understand. Thank you."
"Good night, sir."
"Good night."
She ran, with light footsteps, down the lane, and I stood alone beneath the poplars.
Far up into the deepening sky they reached, like still black sentinels, and between them glimmered a few early stars. In his bedroom I could see Tommy, holding the white rat in one hand and kneeling a moment at his very transient prayers.
I remembered a day whereon the colonel's riding-whip had been laid about Squire Morris's shoulders.
My heart beat high at the thought, for the squire had insulted one whose sweet face had long lain still. I thought of the son.
"Poor Liza," I murmured, and lifted the garden latch.
And as I looked up at Tommy's darkened window:
"God forbid," I said.
Next morning I called Tommy aside.
"Do you know young Morris, of Borcombe?"
He nodded.
"Tommy, I—I wish you would endeavour to avoid him in the future. He is no fit companion for you."
"Why?"
"I—you would not understand yet, Tommy; you must take my word for it."
Tommy looked a little sullen.
"He's a jolly good sort," he said. "I know him well; he's a jolly good sort."
"I am asking you, Tommy,"—I hesitated then. "For your father's sake," I added.
Tommy looked straight into my eyes.
"He was a friend of father's," he said, quietly.
"Your father thrashed the squire with his own hand; I saw him do it."
Tommy stood very still.
"Why?"
"I—I cannot explain it exactly; you must take my word."
Tommy turned on his heels.
"He's a jolly good sort," he muttered.
"But you must not make him a friend."
Tommy was silent, kicking at the carpet.
"I shall if I like," he said, presently; and that was the last word.
And it was only when I came back, rather sadly, from the station that I remembered the doctor's words and found a meaning for them.
"Oh, what a fool I am!" I said.