Jeffreys spoke truly when he wrote to Mr Frampton that he did not know
and did not care where he was going next. When he awoke in his heathery
bed next morning, he lay indolently for a whole hour for no other reason
than because he did not know whether to walk north, south, east or west.
He lacked the festive imagination which helps many people under similar
circumstances. It did not occur to him to toss up, nor was he aware of
the value of turning round three times with his eyes closed and then
marching straight before him. Had he been an errant knight, of course
his horse would have settled the question; but as it was, he was not a
knight and had not a horse. He had a dog, though. He had found Julius
in possession of the caretaker at his guardian's house, and had begged
her to let him have him.
"Which way are we going, Julius?" inquired the dog's master, leaning
upon his elbow, and giving no sign which the dog could possibly construe
into a suggestion.
Julius was far too deep an animal not to see through an artless design
like this. But for all that he undertook the task of choosing. He rose
from his bed, shook himself, rubbed a few early flies off his face, and
then, taking up the bundle in his teeth, with a rather contemptuous
sniff, walked sedately off, in the direction of the North Pole.
Jeffreys dutifully followed; and thus it was that one of the most
momentous turns in his life was taken in the footsteps of a dog.
Let us leave him, reader, tramping aimlessly thus o'er moor and fell,
and hill and dale, leaving behind him the smoke of the cotton country
and the noisy shriek of the railway, and losing himself among the lonely
valleys and towering hills of Westmoreland--let us leave him, footsore,
hungry, and desponding, and refresh ourselves in some more cheery scene
and amidst livelier company.
Where shall we go? for we can go anywhere. That's one of the few little
privileges of the storyteller. Suppose, for instance, we take farewell
of humble life altogether for a while, and invite ourselves into some
grand mansion, where not by the remotest possibility could Jeffreys or
Jeffreys' affairs be of the very slightest interest.
What do you say to this tempting-looking mansion, marked in the map as
Wildtree Towers, standing in a park of I should not like to say how many
acres, on the lower slopes of one of the grandest mountains in the Lake
country?
On the beautiful summer afternoon on which we first see it, it certainly
looks one of the fairest spots in creation. As we stand on the
doorstep, the valley opens out before us, stretching far to the south,
and revealing reaches of lake and river, broad waving meadows and
clustering villages, wild crags and pine-clad fells.
We, however, do not stand on the doorstep to admire the view, or even to
ask admission. We have the storyteller's latchkey and invisible cap.
Let us enter. As we stand in the great square hall, hung round in
baronial style with antlers, and furnished in all the luxury of modern
comfort, wondering through which of the dozen doors that open out of the
square it would be best worth our while to penetrate, a footman, bearing
a tray with afternoon tea, flits past us. Let us follow him, for
afternoon tea means that living creatures are at hand.
We find ourselves in a snug little boudoir, furnished and decorated with
feminine skill and taste, and commanding through the open French windows
a gorgeous view down the valley. Two ladies, one middle-aged, one
young, are sitting there as the footman enters. The elder, evidently
the mistress of the mansion, is reading a newspaper; the younger is
dividing her time between needlework and looking rather discontentedly
out of the window.
It is quite evident the two are not mother and child. There is not the
slightest trace of resemblance between the handsome aquiline face of the
elder, stylishly-dressed woman, and the rounder and more sensitive face
of her quietly-attired companion. Nor is there much in common between
the frank eyes and mock-demure mouth of the girl, and the half-
imperious, half-worried look of her senior.
"Tell Mr Rimbolt, Walker," says the mistress, as she puts down her
paper, and moves her chair up to the tea-table, "and Master Percy."
A handsome gentleman, just turning grey, with an intellectual and good-
humoured face, strolls into the room in response to Walker's summons.
"I was positively nearly asleep," he says; "the library gets more than
its share of the afternoon sun."
"It would be better for you, dear, if you took a drive or a walk,
instead of shutting yourself up with your old books."
The gentleman laughs pleasantly, and puts some sugar in his tea.
"You are not very respectful to my old friends," said he. "You forget
how long we've been parted. Where's Percy?"
"Walker has gone to tell him."
"I think he is out," said the young lady; "he told me he was going down
to the river."
"I consider," said Mrs Rimbolt rather severely, "he should tell _me_
what he is going to do, not you."
"But, aunt, I didn't ask him. He volunteered it."
"Fetch your uncle's cup, Raby."
Raby's mouth puckers up into a queer little smile as she obeys.
Walker appears in a minute to confirm the report of Master Percy's
absence. "He's been gone this three hours, mem."
"Let some one go for him at once, Walker."
"I get so terrified when he goes off like this," says the mother;
"there's no knowing what may happen, and he is so careless."
"He has a safe neck," replies the father; "he always does turn up. But
if you are so fidgety, why don't you send Raby to look after him?"
"If any one went with him, it would need to be some one who, instead of
encouraging him in his odd ways, would keep him in hand, and see he did
not come to any harm."
"Oh," says Raby, laughing, "he wouldn't take me with him if I paid him a
hundred pounds. He says girls don't know anything about science and
inventions."
"He is probably right," observes Mrs Rimbolt severely.
"Certainly, as regards the science _he_ practises," says her husband.
"What was it he had in hand last week? Some invention for making people
invisible by painting them with invisible paint? Ha! ha! He invited me
to let him try it on me."
"He _did_ try it on me," chimes in Raby.
"It is nothing to laugh about," says the mother; "it is much better for
him to be of an inquiring turn of mind than--idle," adds she, looking
significantly at her niece's empty hand.
"It strikes me it is we who are of an inquiring turn of mind just now,"
said the father. "I fancy he'll turn up. He generally does.
Meanwhile, I will go and finish my writing." And he politely retires.
"Raby, my dear," says Mrs Rimbolt--Raby always knows what is coming
when a sentence begins thus--"Raby, my dear, it does not sound nice to
hear you making fun of your cousin. Percy is very good to you--"
"Oh yes!" interrupts Raby, almost enthusiastically.
"Which makes it all the less nice on your part to make a laughing-stock
of him in the presence of his own father. It may seem unlikely that
people should be rendered invisible--"
Mrs Rimbolt stops, conscious she is about to talk nonsense, and Raby
gallantly covers her retreat.
"I'm sure I wish I knew half what he does about all sorts of things."
"I wish so too," replies the aunt, severely and ungratefully.
Several hours pass, and still Master Percy does not put in an
appearance. As Mrs Rimbolt's uneasiness increases, half a dozen
servants are sent out in various directions to seek the prodigal. It is
an almost daily ceremony, and the huntsmen set about their task as a
matter of course. No one can recollect an occasion on which Master
Percy has ever come home at the right time without being looked for. If
the appointed hour is four, every one feels well treated if his honour
turns up at five. Nor, with the exception of his mother, and now and
then Raby, does any one dream of becoming agitated for three or four
hours later.
When therefore, just as the family is sitting down to dinner at half-
past six, Walker enters radiant to announce that Master Percy has come
in, no one thinks any more about his prolonged absence, and one or two
of the servants outside say to one another that the young master must be
hungry to come home at this virtuous hour.
This surmise is probably correct, for Percy presents himself in a
decidedly dishevelled condition, his flannel costume being liberally
bespattered with mud, and his hair very much in need of a brush and
comb.
You cannot help liking the boy despite the odd, self-willed solemnity of
his face. He is between fourteen and fifteen apparently, squarely
built, with his mother's aquiline features and his father's strong
forehead. The year he has spent at Rugby has redeemed him from being a
lout, but it is uncertain whether it has done anything more. The master
of his house has been heard to predict that the boy would either live to
be hanged or to become a great man. Some of his less diplomatic school-
fellows had predicted both things, and when at the end of a year he
refused point blank to return to school, and solemnly assured his father
that if he was sent back he should run away on the earliest opportunity,
it was generally allowed that for a youth of his age he had some decided
ideas of his own.
The chief fault about him, say some, is that he has too many ideas of
his own, and tries to run them all together. But we are digressing, and
keeping him from his dinner.
"My dear boy, where have you been?" says the mother; "we have been
looking for you everywhere."
"Oh, out!" replies Percy, hastily taking stock of the bill of fare.
"Well, run and dress yourself, or dinner will be cold."
"I'm too fagged," says Percy, coolly taking a seat. "Some soup,
please."
"I can't have you sit down in that state, Percy," says Mr Rimbolt; "it
is not polite to your mother and Raby."
"If the poor boy is tired," says Mrs Rimbolt, "we must excuse him this
once."
So Mr Rimbolt, as has happened more than once before, gives in, and
Percy does as he pleases.
He does full justice to his dinner, and takes no part in the
conversation, which is chiefly carried on by Mr Rimbolt, sometimes with
his wife, sometimes with Raby. At length, however, the first cravings
of appetite being subdued, he shows a readiness to put in his oar.
"How goes the invisible paint, Percy?" asks his father, with a twinkle
in his eye.
"Used up," replies the boy solemnly. "I'm sure it would answer. I
painted Hodge with it, and could scarcely see him at all from a
distance."
"I believe you paint yourself," says Raby, laughing, "and that's why the
men can't find you."
Percy is pleased at this, and takes it as a recognition of his genius.
He has great faith in his own discovery, and it is everything to him to
find some one else believing in it too.
"If you like to come to the river to-morrow, I'll show you something,"
says he condescendingly. "It licks the paint into fits!"
"Raby will be busy in the village to-morrow," says her aunt. "What is
it you are doing at the river?"
"Oh, ah!" solemnly responds the son, whose year at a public-school has
not taught him the art of speaking respectfully to his parents;
"wouldn't you like to know?"
"I wish you'd play somewhere else, dear. It makes me so uneasy when you
are down by the river."
"Play!" says Percy rather scornfully; "I don't play there--I work!"
"I fear you are neglecting one sort of work for another, my boy," says
Mr Rimbolt; "we never got through Virgil yet, you know--at least, you
didn't. I've been through three books since you deserted our readings."
"Oh, Virgil's jolly enough," replied the boy; "I'm going to finish it as
soon as my experiments are over."
"What experiments?"
"Oh, it's a dodge to--I'd show it you as soon as it's finished. It's
nearly done now, and it will be a tremendous tip."
This is all that can be extracted from the youthful man of science--at
least, by the elders. To Raby, when the family retires to the drawing-
room, the boy is more confidential, and she once more captivates him by
entering heart and soul into his project and entreating to be made a
party in the experiments.
"I'd see," says he; "but mind you don't go chattering!"
Mr Rimbolt gravitates as usual to his library, and here it is that half
an hour later his son presents himself, still in his working garb.
"Father," says the hopeful, "please can you give me some money?"
"Why, you have had ten shillings a week since you came home!"
"Aren't you a millionaire, father?"
"Some people say so."
"Doesn't that mean you've got a million pounds?"
"That's what `millionaire' means."
"Ten shillings a week is only twenty-six pounds a year."
"Quite right, and few boys get such good pocket-money."
"When I come into the property I shall allow my son more than that,"
says Percy gravely.
"Not if you love him as much as I love my son," says Mr Rimbolt, with a
pleasant smile.
"Good-night, father."
"Good-night! Why, it's only half-past seven."
"I know. I'm going to _get_ up early; I've got a lot of work to do.
Besides, I'm miserable."
"Why?"
"Because I can't get any money."
"Why not earn some? I want some one to catalogue my books for me. What
do you say to doing it? I shall pay half a crown a shelf."
Percy hesitates a bit, and looks at the bookcases, and makes a mental
calculation.
"That will be about twelve pounds, won't it? Have you got a book to
write the names on?"
"What! Are you going to begin now?"
"Yes."
And Percy sits up till eleven o'clock, and succeeds in that time in
cataloguing after a fashion, and not badly for a first attempt, two of
the smallest shelves in the library, for which he receives then and
there five shillings, much to his own comfort and to his father's
amusement.
Mrs Rimbolt comes into the library just as the business is concluded.
"Why, Percy, not in bed--and so tired too!"
"Oh, I've been doing some work for father," says the boy, chinking the
two half-crowns in his pocket.
"But your father, I'm sure, would not wish you to injure your health."
"Certainly not. Percy was hard up, and has just been earning five
shillings."
"What do you mean--earning five shillings?"
"Yes--father's been tipping me for cataloguing his books. Jolly hard
work, but he pays on the nail, don't you, father?"
"My dear boy," said the mother, as she and her son walks across the
hall, "why did you not tell me you wanted money? You know I do not
grudge it. I don't like you to stay up so late to earn it, when you
ought to be resting."
"Well, I wouldn't mind another five shillings, mother."
The mother gives him a half-sovereign and kisses him.
Percy, as he walks up the stairs, ruminating on his good luck, feels
considerably more self-respect when he looks at the two half-crowns than
when looking at the half-sovereign.