"No more do we. Why," said Florence, staring at him with her great
round eyes, "where is he?"
"I don't know," said Wyn.
"Who does?"
"Maybe the master do."
"Mr Cunningham? What did Harry do?"
"Well, Florrie, so far as I know--only I don't think mother knows I know
it--he ran away with poor Mr Alwyn."
"Ran away? What for?"
"Well, they was up at Ravenshurst having a lark--which they oughtn't to
have had anything to do with--and the lady's jewels were all stolen at
the same time. So folks say Harry did it--but whether Mr Alwyn knew--
they never came back again."
"Why should they put it on Harry?"
"He was always playing tricks."
"Playing tricks isn't stealing," said Florence.
"Well, but," said Wyn, "it isn't as if he'd stood his trial--he ran
away. And they say master had never have banished Mr Alwyn if he
hadn't done something downright disgraceful."
"Does no one ever talk about him?"
"Well, old Granny do sometimes to mother; and once I saw his picture,
and Harry's too."
"Where?"
"Well," said Wyn, lowering his voice, "since you're his sister I'll tell
you. One day last winter Mr Edgar was ill, and couldn't come out of
doors, and I went to tell him how all the creatures were; but he didn't
seem to take much interest, his back ached so. But he asked me to fetch
him a little leather case out of a drawer, and he opened it and looked
at it, and he let it fall. And when I picked it up I saw it was a
photograph, and suddenly Mr Edgar said, `Look at it, Wyn;' and there
was my brother Ned and your brother Harry--I knew it must be--and a tall
young gentleman, all sitting in the forest under the big beech with
their guns, and Mr Edgar sitting swinging on the bough behind them,
like other people, and Mr Edgar put his finger on Mr Alwyn's picture
and said, `If ever you see him again, Wyn, tell him I showed this to
you. Don't you forget.' I ain't likely to forget."
"May be they're dead," said Florrie.
"Why, Florence, I look at it like this: It ain't very likely two young
men would both die. I think it over often," said Wyn, "for I know Mr
Edgar thinks of it. There's places in the wood where I know he thinks
of it, and I'd like to hunt all over the world to find Mr Alwyn and
bring him back."
Florence was older than Wyn, and a good deal more versed in the world's
ways.
"I expect they were a couple of bad ones," she said, "or they'd have
been back before now. Well, people may say I take after Harry; but I'll
never run away, not if they tell any number of talcs of me."
"Hush," said Wyn, "here's Grace Elton. Don't you say nothing, Florence,
to _no_ one."
"I ain't given to blabbing," said Florence coolly.
Grace Elton was a pleasant, well-dressed girl, though in a far quieter
style than Florence. Wyn fell behind with a pair of boy Eltons, and the
girls chatted until they reached the little whitewashed school--close by
the church, with a great climbing rose hanging over its rustic doorway.
Ashcroft was a very small village, and the school was a mixed one. On
Sunday two classes of boys, under charge of the clergyman, Mr Murray,
and Miss Hardman, occupied one side of the room. The day-school
mistress taught the younger girls at the other; and under the pretty
latticed window on a square of forms sat the elder ones. They were a
flaxen-haired, rosy-faced set of children, simple and rather
stolid-looking, among whom Wyn Warren, Grace Elton, and others of the
head servants' children were decidedly the superiors. As Florence and
Grace came up to their class, a girl in a straight white frock, with a
red sash and a large straw hat, came and sat down on the teacher's
chair. "Miss Geraldine'll take us," whispered the girls, as they stood
up and curtseyed; "Mrs Murray's got a cold."
The kind-faced, white-haired old clergyman read the prayer, and then the
first class began to repeat fluently, but with an accent that Florence
could hardly follow, a surprising number of lessons.
"Can you say your collect?" said Miss Geraldine to Florence.
"No, teacher. We don't learn lessons at home--we've no time for it,"
said Florence.
"You can learn it for next week," said Miss Geraldine, with a calmness
that astonished Florence as much as the other girls were amazed at
hearing Miss Geraldine called "teacher."
But there was something in the unconscious composure of this slip of a
girl, who looked as if she had never been disobeyed in her life, and did
not know what a struggle to keep order meant, that impressed Florence
with a curious sense of fellow-feeling.
"She's got a spirit of her own," she thought; but Geraldine was only
secure of her position and unquestioned in her relation to the girls she
was teaching.
"Yes, teacher; and I'll look over a hymn too if you like, teacher," said
Florence with alacrity.
"A psalm. Grace Elton will show you."
When the lessons were over the young lady asked questions on them in a
clear, steady little voice, which were nicely answered by the girls, and
then proceeded to hear the Catechism, and, thinking to be polite to the
new-comer and give her an easy piece, asked her her name, to begin with.
Florence was not accustomed to say lessons standing up, nor to say the
Catechism at all, and at the first attempt to repeat her long name she
went off into a hopeless giggle, and stuffed her pocket-handkerchief
into her mouth. Some of the other girls giggled also. Miss Geraldine's
dark eyes gave a little flash.
"When you have done laughing, Florence, I'll ask you again. Grace, go
on."
Florence did not know the next answer that came to her turn, and it soon
became apparent that a great girl of fifteen could not say her
Catechism--a fact common enough at Rapley, but unknown at Ashcroft.
She pouted and shook her shoulders; but there was an odd fascination for
her in this young, firm little teacher, and when the marks were given at
the end of school she anticipated notice for her giggling by saying with
a benevolent smile:
"Law, teacher, I'll say my Catechism next Sunday. I ain't a-going to
give you any trouble."
Geraldine had never seen anyone in the least like Florence before. Her
smiling absence of deference and good-natured patronage amazed her.
"I suppose you don't _intend_ to give trouble," she said. "I am sorry
you don't know your Catechism, but we'll try and teach you while you're
here. Learn the first three answers for next Sunday."
The two pair of bright eyes met, a little defiantly, but somehow
Florence felt uncomfortable.
"Well, she is a plucky little thing," she said to her neighbour as they
rose. "_She_ ain't afraid of us."
"Miss Geraldine!"
"I like the look of her," said Florrie. "I shall try behaving myself.
I can if I choose; some girls can't."