"JOCK, dear, I want you here."
Jock was hard at work, running his new engine and carriages round
the room, one evening a week later. It was dusk, and lights had been
lighted.
"'PARIS,'" shouted an eager voice. Then—"Yes, Mum. D'rectly minute.
Mayn't I just go on to Edinburgh?"
"Yes, just that, and then come here."
Jock's notions of "Joggraphy" were vague. His engine contrived somehow
to touch at Australia on the way to Edinburgh, and then to land its
(imaginary) passengers in Ireland. Having accomplished this feat, he
ran to his mother.
"Mum, I do love my new pocket-book. It's most awfully nice. How did you
know I wanted it?"
"Mothers guess things sometimes. Jock dear, I have something to say,
and I want you to be brave about it. Something that we can't quite
like—and yet—it has to be." Jock waited expectantly. "I am thinking—"
she stopped for a moment—"I am thinking of going out to Dad."
"Out to India!" Jock opened his eyes. "Why—Mum—but that'll be awfully
jolly, won't it?"
She held his hand, speaking with a little shake in her voice. "You see,
dear, I always meant to go as soon as I should be well enough. And I am
well now."
"Dad 'll think me grown a lot. I s'pose he wants you there most
tremenjously. Don't you want to go, Mummie?"
"Very, very much—to be with dear Dad. But—"
"Shall we start d'rectly? What a lot of things we'll have to pack."
"'I' must start in about two weeks. But—Jock, my darling—I can't take
you with me."
Jock stared up in her face. That she should go and leave him behind had
never entered his thoughts as the barest possibility. A year earlier,
if she could have travelled, she would have left him, but since she
could not, nothing was said about the matter. He had always had his
mother; he could not imagine living without her. He had known vaguely
that some day he would have to go to school, but that had lain too far
ahead to be considered.
"You see, dear, you have to be in England. You must be brought up like
other English boys. You must learn to think as Englishmen think—to be
able to do your duty by-and-by to our Country and our King. You have to
learn how to be fair to others—how to take a beating—how to serve and
how to obey."
"Couldn't you and Dad teach me all that?"
"I'm afraid not. And the climate of India is bad for English boys; and
the life would be bad too—in many ways. There would be no proper games
for you—no boys to play with. So many things would be harmful—things
you can't understand."
"And will you be gone only a very little while? Will you come back—very
soon?" A choky feeling came into Jock's throat, but he held it down.
Dad often said that British boys didn't cry.
"We shall both come back—as soon as possible."
"Will it be—six weeks?"
Her lips were trembling. Jock gave one glance up. Then he put his curly
head down on her knees, and fought his battle out in silence. Her hand
crept round him.
"Have I got to stop here—all alone?" he presently asked.
"No, this house will be let to strangers. And you will be with dear,
kind Grannie. You know how fond she is of you."
"Will Aunt Judith be there?"
"Yes. She will take such care of my Jock."
"I don't want her. I want—want—you."
Another break, and Jock spoke again. "Will Aunt Judith teach me my
lessons?"
"You will have lessons from a kind clever man who lives near
Grannie—Mr. Moore, the curate. He has boys of his own, and you will
learn with them for the present."
"A man!" This was promotion. Jock sat up, interested. Till now he had
had only women-teachers.
"And you will have no end of games with the boys. Think what it will
mean—being in the country, with fields and woods and flowers and birds.
So different from a town like this. And you will write to me every
week, and I shall write every week to you."