CHAPTER V

THE WRONG END

'You won't say, what is it I want? but, what is it I've got to do?

What have I got to do or to bear, and how can I do it or bear it best?

That's the only safe point to make for, my lad; make for it and leave

the rest.'--J. H. EWING.

For the next few days Betty and her nephew spent most of their spare

time on Hezekiah's bench under the kitchen window at the Place. Betty

talked of nothing but naval battles, but Godfrey still said very

little, and after that Sunday night never spoke again of being a

sailor. Angel wondered, for it was not like Godfrey, who generally had

plenty to say; but she noticed sometimes, when Betty was telling Kiah

Parker's stories, that Godfrey's face took that strange resolute set

that surprised her so much when he first came. It gave her new ideas

about her little nephew, and showed her that, under all his liveliness

and fancy, there was a strong will which it would be very hard to alter

if once he made up his mind. It frightened her a little, for she did

not feel half wise enough to lead him to make up his mind the right

way. She did not talk to Betty about it; indeed at present Betty's

head seemed too full of ships to hold anything else. Hezekiah had made

Godfrey a beautiful little model vessel, carpentering quite wonderfully

with his remaining fingers, and had taught him the names of the ropes,

which the boy learnt directly. That was all very well, but when it

came to his saying them over to Betty when he ought to have been doing

his reading lesson, and drawing little ships on the slate when he

should have been at his sums, Angel began to be rather alarmed, and

ventured to speak gently to her sister about Godfrey's neglecting his

lessons. Betty was always ready enough to own herself in the wrong;

she was overwhelmed with penitence before Angel had half finished her

gentle remonstrance.

'I declare I want looking after twenty times more than Godfrey does,'

she exclaimed, with the quick tears in her bright eyes. 'I won't go

near Kiah for a week, and no more shall he.'

'Oh no, you mustn't do that!' exclaimed Angelica, in dismay; 'that

wouldn't be fair to poor Kiah or Godfrey either. I like you to go

there. I think it is a good thing; only I don't think it ought to

interfere with other things that have to be done.'

Betty stopped her as usual with a vehement hug.

'You are, next to Martha, the wisest person in the world, Angel. It's

Godfrey's history lesson this morning, and I'll take care we both do it

properly.'

But Betty had to find out that it is easier to make resolutions for

ourselves than to impress them upon other people. Godfrey was by no

means inclined for his history lesson that morning. Betty had taken a

great deal of trouble to understand about the Norman Conquest herself,

and to make it easy for Godfrey, but he would not take any interest

to-day in the oppression of the poor Saxons, or the curfew bell, or

Domesday Book.

'I want to go back to them coming over,' he persisted. 'What was his

flag-ship like--the admiral's I mean?'

'If you mean William the Conqueror's I don't know, and he wasn't an

admiral, he was a general. Godfrey, don't look out of the window--what

are you thinking about?'

'I'm thinking that if the Channel Fleet had watched the harbours

properly those French ships wouldn't ever have got out of port.'

'Godfrey, you must attend to what I am telling you. Now then, what was

the curfew?'

'A bird with a long beak that squeals; Kiah says----'

Betty rose up majestically.

'Godfrey, if you think it is funny to pretend that you think I said

curlew you are very much mistaken. I have a very great many things to

do, more things than a little boy like you can count, and I can't spend

all the morning with you. So I am going to write on this slate: "The

curfew bell was rung at eight o'clock every night as a sign that people

were to put their lights out and go to bed," and you are to go on

copying it and copying it till the slate is quite full.'

Godfrey said not a word, only watched while Betty wrote the words in a

bold round hand, and ruled double lines with a decided sweep of her

slate pencil, and then walked out of the room with her most 'maiden

aunt' expression. But when she was gone I am sorry to say that he got

on a chair, reached down his wooden ship from its high shelf, climbed

out of the window into the garden, and went out through a gate in the

fence and across the fields. He was not back when Betty and Angel came

in together, to find the blank slate and Godfrey's high chair pushed up

to the table, but no one in the room. They called his name about the

garden and paddock, and just as Betty was beginning to get into a panic

and to declare it was all her fault, he appeared, coming back slowly

across the field towards the wicket gate. The two aunts met him, Angel

looking grieved and Betty indignant.

'Godfrey, this is very naughty,' began Angel, gravely.

'I don't see that you can have any heart at all,' said Betty, 'because

it's quite plain you want to break both ours. Perhaps when we are both

in our graves, with stones over us like Miss Jane's--only we couldn't

afford near such large ones--you'll feel something pricking you.'

'I know I shall,' said her nephew promptly, 'because then Penny would

pin my collar, and she always sticks the point of the pin inside.'

'Godfrey,' said Angel gravely, 'this isn't a thing to laugh at. Where

have you been?'

'To Farmer White's pond to have a naval battle,' said Godfrey frankly.

'You must never go to that pond alone; it is deep in the middle and

very dangerous, and you have disobeyed Aunt Betty. Next time you do

it, I--I shall be obliged to whip you.'

Angel's voice faltered, and she turned a little pale as she spoke. In

those days most little boys were whipped for disobedience, and Angel

had always had a dreadful feeling that she might have to do it some

day. There was no one else whose business it was to punish Godfrey,

and so she knew that the duty would have to be done by herself, and the

very thought made her feel quite cold and shaky.

Godfrey looked straight into her eyes.

'Yes, Aunt Angel,' he said. Then he suddenly took hold of her hand and

stroked it.

'I didn't want to crack your heart, and Aunt Betty's,' he said.

'Please don't get thin; I'm sorry I had the battle. I'll go home now,

and write all about the cover-up-candle-bell.'

For the next few days there was no fault to find with the way Godfrey's

lessons were learnt, and he watched for every chance of pleasing

Angelica, as if he were really afraid of her heart cracking, as Betty

had suggested it might. The weather was cold and frosty now, and the

two young aunts were much disturbed at the idea of Godfrey's first

winter in a northern climate. Angel consulted with Penny and Martha,

and stitched away diligently to provide the necessary warm clothes, and

he certainly looked much stronger already than when he had first come

to Oakfield.

There came a day, a bright, frosty day in December, when both the young

ladies were in the kitchen helping Penelope with the mince-meat for

Christmas pics, and Godfrey had his sum to do in the parlour by

himself. Outside the sun was shining. There had been a little

sprinkling of snow the day before and a sharp frost at night, and all

the garden was white and sparkling like the ice on a sugared cake,

while the bare trees shone like fairy land. Godfrey's eyes would not

keep on the grey figures and the black slate. It was his first English

winter, you see, and it seemed to him like Aunt Betty's stories of

enchantment. And besides, only last night, when they sat together in

the window seat and watched the stars coming out keen and clear above

the white world, she had told him about Arctic discoverers, and how

they sailed away over the grey northern seas till the ice barred their

way, and how the bones of many brave men had been left behind in that

dread, frozen world. Thinking of those great deeds always made

Godfrey's cheeks glow and his heart beat quick, and now he laid down

his slate and went and leaned with both elbows on the window ledge and

looked out. And looking at what we want and oughtn't to have is a

first step which takes us a long way, and the end of it was that

Godfrey did as I fear many of us have done before him--left what he

ought to do for what he wanted to do; that is to say, he went into the

hall, took down his hat and coat, and went out into the frosty garden.

He opened the wicket gate into the field, and the first person he saw

there was Nancy Rogers, looking like a Christmas card with her red

cloak and hood and a basket on her arm, as she came up the steep, snowy

path which led across the field to the village.

Godfrey and Nancy were great friends, and she came running directly he

called to her.

'Would you like to come for a cruise with me and the _Victory_, Nancy?'

he asked.

Nancy knew as well as Godfrey that she had no business to go. Her

mother and Patty had their Christmas preparations to make as well, and

wanted the eggs she had been to fetch. But, like Godfrey, she put

'want' before 'ought' that afternoon.

'Mother always likes me to do what the young ladies and Master Godfrey

want,' she said to herself, and so she turned her face away from home

with Godfrey and the _Victory_.

'Please, where is the cruise, Master Godfrey?' she asked, as she

trotted along on the frozen snow.

'We are going to sail the _Victory_ on Farmer White's pond,' said

Godfrey, 'and to watch those white ducks' harbours, for they've got

ships building there I know.'

'Oh but, Master Godfrey, please we can't,' exclaimed Nancy; 'the pond's

frozen and the ship won't float.'

'Frozen!' exclaimed Godfrey; 'do you mean to say all that water's ice

like these puddles?'

Nancy nodded.

'I see it as I come along,' she said. 'Pete says two more nights'

frost and we'll be going sliding.'

Godfrey had never been sliding, his thoughts were of Arctic discoverers.

'Very well, Nancy,' he said, 'if we can't watch the harbours we'll find

the North-west Passage.'

'Yes, Master Godfrey,' said Nancy readily, and without the least idea

what he meant.

'Do you know about the Arctic Circle?' asked Godfrey.

Nancy shook her head doubtfully; at the Oakfield Dame School there was

not much taught beyond the 'three R's.'

'Please, is it quite round?' she asked respectfully.

'I don't know about round,' said Godfrey, who didn't quite understand

the words himself, 'but I think it is a kind of fairy place. The sea

is all ice, they have frost and snow there always.'

'Dear now, how bad for the early potatoes!' remarked Nancy, 'and as for

sowing beans, why you might as well leave it alone. I suppose they

just keep the cows on turnips year in, year out, poor things!'

'Cows!' said Godfrey scornfully; 'of course there aren't any cows, only

Polar bears prowling on the ice. And there are icebergs, great

mountains of ice all blue, and they come crashing together and grinding

up the ships, like a great giant's teeth, Aunt Betty says. And it's

always dark, dark all day for months together.'

'Oh dear!' said Nancy, much awe-struck, 'I shouldn't like to be one of

the people that lives there, Master Godfrey.'

'Nobody does live there but the Polar bears, and there's a sort of red

light comes in the sky that they can see to prowl by, I suppose, and

the stars, I should think they're brighter than even they were last

night; weren't they bright last night, Nancy, just about supper time?'

Nancy couldn't say she had noticed; there had been sausages for supper,

father had killed a pig.

'But if nobody lives there how do they know about it?' she asked.

'Because brave men have gone there to see,' said Godfrey, with the

eager light coming into his eyes. 'Aunt Betty says that country is

full of the graves of brave men who have gone up there and died away in

the dark and the cold.'

'Poor things!' sighed Nancy. 'I daresay now their friends will have

put up nice handsome stones over their graves, won't they?'

'No, there aren't any stones,' said Godfrey; 'Aunt Betty says their

deeds are their monuments.'

Nancy looked as if she thought such monuments rather unsatisfactory.

'Father put up a nice stone with a vase a-top of it to his

great-uncle,' she remarked, 'and the captain's grandfather he's got two

angels crying and a skull at the bottom; it's a nice handsome grave,

that is.'

They had reached the pond by this time, a piece of dark water over-hung

by willows and covered with black ice, which had been broken at one end

for the cattle to drink. Godfrey began at once to invent.

'We'll put the _Victory_ here,' he said, launching his boat into the

dark hole; 'this is the last piece of open water, Nance, and from here

we must just take to the ice, you and I, and leave the crew to take

care of the ship till we get back. Take your rifle, I see there are

Polar bears prowling over there among the icebergs.'

'Where?' asked Nancy, rather alarmed.

'Why there, things with turned-up tails and what you'd p'r'aps take for

yellow bills when first you saw them. I should like their fur for Aunt

Angel. Now we are going to start to find the North-west Passage.

Beyond that place where the Polar bears are no one has ever been, and

no one knows what is there.'

'Oh yes, please, Master Godfrey, I do,' exclaimed Nancy, ready as usual

with information; 'the pig-sty.'

'Nobody knows that comes with me on the _Victory_', persisted Godfrey

firmly, 'or if they do they've got to think they don't know as soon as

possible. Now, say good-bye to the crew and come along.'

Nancy did not find it so easy as Godfrey seemed to do to imagine the

empty decks of the little _Victory_ fully manned, so her good-byes did

not take long. But when she found that her captain's intention was to

cross the pond on the ice, she hung back.

'It won't bear, Master Godfrey; Pete said it wasn't going to bear

to-day.'

'What's bear?' asked Godfrey, with a foot on the ice.

'You can't walk on it, it'll break,' urged Nancy.

'What'll happen if it does?' asked Godfrey, with interest. That dark

smooth surface, the first ice he had ever trodden on, had a strange

attraction for him.

'You'll be drowned,' said Nancy solemnly; 'Pete knew a man whose

brother was drowned through the ice. He'd had a drop too much beer and

he got off the path.'

'There isn't any path here and I don't drink beer,' said Godfrey

loftily. 'Are you coming?'

'Oh, if you please, Master Godfrey, I think I'd sooner stop with the

crew!' faltered Nancy.

'Very well,' said Godfrey calmly; 'if I leave my bones in the Arctic

Circle, go home in the _Victory_ and take the news to my countrymen in

England.'

'Oh, Master Godfrey, do come back!' screamed Nancy, for the ice was

really swaying; 'it won't be only your bones, it will be all of you if

it breaks.'

'I can't hear you,' said Godfrey, with his back to her; 'you and the

crew are miles away, I'm beyond where the foot of anything ever trod

except Polar bears. Why, what's that?' and he doubled up his hand and

looked through it for a telescope.

'It's the tub they used to use for the pig-wash,' exclaimed Nancy;

'it's frozen into the ice. Oh, Master Godfrey, do come back!'

'Some other discoverer has been here before me,' said Godfrey gravely,

without noticing her. 'I see the hulk of a vessel locked in the ice,

and unless I am mistaken she flies English colours. I must board her

and see whether----'

A shriek from Nancy and a dreadful rumbling crack cut short his speech,

and the next moment Godfrey knew what was meant by ice not bearing.

The smooth surface gave way under him, the cold water was round his

feet, and in an instant he would have been underneath it altogether but

for the tub, to which he clung with all his might. There was a

dreadful moment while Nancy screamed at the top of her voice and

Godfrey's knees and feet battered the tub in the cold black water, then

with the triumphant exclamation, 'I've boarded her,' he tumbled over

into it.

Luckily the tub, though old, was fairly water-tight, and bobbed up and

down with Godfrey inside it in the big hole which he had made, and

though a wide space of cracked ice and dark water lay between him and

the shore, he seemed to be safe for the present. As for Nancy, she did

the wisest thing she could and rushed down the lane calling for help.

She did not have to run far. Almost directly she heard steps on the

frosty road, quickened at the sound of her screams, and a gentleman

came round the bend of the lane, sending his voice before him as he

shouted: 'What's the matter?'

His own eyes told him quicker than Nancy's breathless explanation.

'All right,' he exclaimed, 'he's safe while he keeps still. Don't cry,

little woman, and I'll tow him ashore.'

The next minute he had dragged a rail from a broken fence close by and

held it out to Godfrey.

'Hold tight,' he said; 'stand in the middle so that you balance your

craft. Now then, a long pull and a strong pull,' and in another minute

he had dragged the tub through the drifting ice to the bank and was

lifting Godfrey out.

'There, young man,' he said as he set him on his feet, 'lucky for you

you're safe ashore, for this pond's deep enough to cover half-a-dozen

giants of your height. How came you cruising among the ice in a leaky

craft, I should like to know?'

'I boarded her because the ice broke,' said Godfrey frankly; 'I didn't

know it was going to break.'

'No, I don't suppose you did. Lucky for you that you had her to board,

young gentleman. Now then, right about face, and put your best foot

foremost, and home as fast as you can before you get cold. Where do

you live?'

'At Oakfield,' said Godfrey, picking up the _Victory_.

'At Oakfield, do you? Then we shall have the pleasure of each other's

company, for I am going that way. Let's see how fast you can walk.'

Godfrey and Nancy trotted beside him as he strode along the frosty road.

'Now what put it into your head to come and look for frozen-up craft in

the pond here?' he asked.

'I didn't,' said Godfrey. 'I came to watch the French ports, and then

I found it had turned into the Arctic Circle, so I went after the

North-west Passage instead. I wanted to be like one of those brave

men.'

'Did you, though? And what particular heroes do you want to imitate?'

'I want to be a brave sailor,' said Godfrey promptly, 'like Lord

Nelson, and Admiral Collingwood, and most of all Kiah Parker's Captain

Maitland.'

'And why "most of all"? I hope you'll be a braver man and a finer

fellow than that, young man.'

Godfrey's head only reached about as high as the gentleman's elbow, but

he looked at him with as much scorn as if he had been a head taller.

'You don't understand a bit about it,' he said; 'nobody could be a

finer fellow than the captain if he tried all his life long. P'r'aps

you don't know about him carrying the little cabin-boy below with the

French bullets flying all round; you'd better get Kiah to tell you, and

then you'll be sorry you've been so stupid.'

'Oh well, we won't quarrel about such an unimportant person. What

house in Oakfield do you live in?'

'At Oakfield Cottage,' said Godfrey, still a little distrustful of a

man who called Captain Maitland an unimportant person.

'Oh, I remember going to Oakfield Cottage when I was a little boy. And

whom do you live with?'

'With my two maiden aunts,' said Godfrey.

'They're so good!' put in Nancy, who liked to have her word in the

conversation.

'I've no doubt they are. Now I haven't got any aunts at all that I

know of, married or single. We'd better not tell these good ladies how

nearly their nephew was at the bottom of the pond or we shall frighten

them out of their wits, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, but I must,' said Godfrey, gravely, 'because they told me not to

come, and I did, and Aunt Angel's going to whip me.'

'Ah, well, of course we must tell the truth then, and perhaps if I beg

for you I might get her to let you off the whipping.'

Godfrey shook his head.

'Aunt Angel always does what she says,' he remarked.

'Well, she's quite right there,' said his new friend, though to himself

he thought,

'Poor little chap, he's small for flogging. I wonder if the old lady's

hand is heavy.'

Then he asked aloud,

'What made you come Arctic exploring if you knew the whipping was to

follow?'

'I didn't like my sum,' confessed Godfrey, 'and I did want to be like

those brave men.'

'Ah,' said the stranger thoughtfully, 'do you know, little chap, you've

begun at the wrong end? What do you think makes a brave man?'

'Killing lots of Frenchmen,' said Godfrey promptly.

'Not a bit of it. Now, little maid, what do you say?'

'I think, please sir, that brave men don't mind when Frenchmen kill

them, and shoot their legs and their fingers off like Uncle Kiah's.'

'That's nearer the mark, but that's not all. The bravest men are the

ones that do what they don't like because it's right, and leave what

they do like because it's wrong.'

Godfrey's grave eyes looked up at the gentleman's face as they were

used to looking at his Aunt Angel. After a minute he said, slowly,

'Should I have been more like the captain if I'd stayed and done the

sum instead of going to be an Arctic discoverer?'

'You'd have been more like a hero, my lad, and you will be another

time, I know. This is the way to Oakfield Cottage, isn't it? Do you

live there too, little lass?'

'Oh no, sir,' said Nancy; 'we live at the Place, sir, and take care of

it for the captain.'

'Do you, though! And is it hard work?'

Nancy looked as important as if the welfare of the whole house depended

on her efforts.

'Of course one can't help thinking a deal about what he'll say when he

comes home,' she said. 'Patty says he'll as like as not be very

particular in his ways. Sailors get to be that neat, she says. She

always says it if I racket about or if I spill anything or break

things.'

'Well, I wouldn't frighten myself before he comes, if I were you,' said

the stranger good-naturedly. 'I shouldn't be surprised if he's not so

very alarming. These people who look so big from a distance are often

small enough when you get them close. Ah, there's the Cottage, I

remember it, and somebody coming to the gate to look for you. These

are your sisters, I suppose; you didn't tell me you had any sisters.'

'No,' said Godfrey, 'these are my aunts.'

Then he ran straight forward and had hold of Angelica's dress in a

moment, looking up straight into her face.

'Aunt Angel,' he began, when Betty stopped him by a scream.

'Godfrey, you're wet! Wherever have you been?'

'I've been in the pond,' said Godfrey's clear voice; 'I mean my legs

have. Before that I was on the ice, but it broke, and then there was

only water for me to be on. If there hadn't been a tub I should have

been at the bottom. Aunt Angel, Aunt Angel dear, don't look like that;

your cheeks are quite white--oh, is your heart cracking? I've come for

you to whip me; please whip me quick. I wanted to be brave, and I've

begun at the wrong end.'

'Oh, Godfrey, how could you, how could you?' faltered Betty.

'It wasn't at all difficult, Aunt Betty,' said Godfrey earnestly;

'p'r'aps that was why it wasn't brave.'

'I beg your pardon,' said the stranger, who had been standing by

unnoticed, 'but, if I might suggest, I would get this young gentleman's

wet things off, and I'm sure he'll be none the worse, and will be wiser

another time.'

Angel pulled herself together and made a grave curtsey.

'Thank you, sir, for your kindness in bringing our nephew home. He

shall come indoors and get dry at once. Godfrey, come with me,' and

she curtsied again and led Godfrey into the house. Betty was following

when Nancy rushed up to her and whispered eagerly:

'Please Miss Bet--Miss Elizabeth, the gentleman got Master Godfrey safe

out of the tub. I don't know what we should ha' done if it hadn't ha'

been for him.'

'I'll run and thank him again,' said Betty impulsively; 'what's his

name, Nance?'

'I don't know, miss; I never saw him before.'

I think p'r'aps I ought to ask him in,' said Betty,

and she followed the stranger down the lane. He turned at the sound of

her steps and took off his hat.

'I'm afraid you think us very rude, sir,' she said, with a pretty

blush, 'but we were--we were thinking very much about our nephew, you

see; he has no one but us to think for him. We are very much obliged

indeed to you, my sister and I. Will you--will you come in and have a

glass of elder wine, if you have far to go in the cold?'

'Thank you very much,' said the stranger heartily. 'I shall hope to

avail myself of your kind hospitality another day, for I am staying a

short time in Oakfield, and shall hope to see more of your nephew, who

seems to me a very fine little fellow. I must ask my friend here to

show me the shortest cut to Oakfield Place,' and he looked at the

astonished Nancy with a sly smile. 'My name is Maitland, Captain

Maitland of the _Mermaid_. Come along, little woman, and make a clean

breast of the Arctic expedition,' and he took off his hat again, gave

his hand to Nancy, who could do nothing but stare at him with her mouth

and eyes wide open, and went off down the road. It must be confessed

that Betty, though she was thirteen years old and an aunt, stared very

hard after him too, and stood by the garden gate in the darkening

winter afternoon looking with all her eyes down the lane, as if one of

the heroes of her history books had suddenly come to life. Then she

turned round and rushed back to the house and half-way up the stairs,

burning to tell her news. But there she stopped short suddenly, and

after a minute sat down on the stairs and dropped her chin in her

hands. There she sat without moving until the door of Godfrey's room

opened and Angelica came out. The two sisters sprang to meet each

other.

'Oh, Angel!' burst out Betty.

'Oh, Betty, I've done it!' and Angel sank down on the stairs, and hid

her face on her sister's shoulder.

'Have you whipped him?' asked Betty.

'Yes, I said I would, and I had to; you know what Martha said--he must

be able to depend on what we said. I whipped him and put him to bed.'

'Poor Angel, poor dear, how your hands are shaking. You couldn't have

hit him very hard.'

'I don't know; it seemed to me as if I did, and he is so little.'

'Did he cry?' asked Betty.

'Oh no, but he's so brave he wouldn't, not even if I really hurt him

dreadfully.'

The idea of slender, gentle Angelica doing bodily violence to any one

would have been amusing if the sisters had not been too serious to see

it.

'Penny met us on the stairs,' Angel went on, 'and she wanted to pet

him, and I wouldn't let her. I think she thought me very cruel, and if

she knew I'd whipped him----'

'Well, we ar'n't bringing up Godfrey to please Penny,' said Betty

decidedly, 'and really and truly, Angel dear, I expect you hurt

yourself more than you did him. Come down into the parlour, your

fingers are as cold as ice. I've got something to tell you, too.'

She put her arm round her sister's waist, and drew her downstairs,

telling the remarkable news about the strange gentleman as they went.

Angel could not but be interested.

'Captain Maitland,' she said, 'was it really? Do you know I hardly saw

him, I only had a sort of idea that there was a gentleman there. I

hope I was not very rude. I ought to have said something more to him.'

'But I did, Angel, so it doesn't matter. I offered him elder

wine--that was all right, wasn't it? But I was so glad when he said

no, for you know that little last piece of cake is getting stale, and

we don't bake till to-morrow, and Penny might have been cross about

getting the wine hot with all the mince-meat about.'

'Perhaps it was as well,' said Angelica rather abstractedly. 'How odd

it should have been Captain Maitland, Godfrey's hero, that brought him

home! Did Godfrey know who he was?'

'I don't think so; I'm sure Nancy didn't. I'm not sure whether he's

quite like what I expected, Angel.'

Angel scarcely answered, there was not much room for any one except

Godfrey in her thoughts at that moment. Penelope came in presently

with a log for the fire, and an air of severe disapproval about her,

and asked stiffly whether the poor dear young gentleman upstairs were

to have any supper or not. Angel ordered bread-and-milk very quietly,

but in such a way that Penny went out of the room with no more than a

half-suppressed snort.

'She hates me,' sighed Angel sorrowfully; 'I wonder if Godfrey does.'

'He isn't such a stupid,' said Betty stoutly; and they sat together

silent in the twilight, missing the little figure that always squeezed

up between them during that idle half-hour--''twixt the gloaming and

the mirk.' At last Angel stood up and said, almost appealingly:

'Betty, don't you think I might go to him now?'

'Angel dear, I've been biting my tongue for ever so long to keep from

saying it. I'm quite sure you might.'

Angel waited for no more. She was upstairs directly and pausing at

Godfrey's door. How would he meet her? Would he be sulky? Would he

refuse to speak to her? She hesitated with her fingers on the handle.

Then she heard Godfrey's voice inside. He seemed to be saying his

lessons.

'England is an island; an island is a piece of land, and I'm not going

to say what it is surrounded by, but I know. France is a country, and

the capital of it is Paris, and I'm not going to say what there is

between France and England, nor what there are sailing about there, but

I know.'

'Godfrey,' said Angelica softly in the doorway.

'Aunt Angel!' and a pair of arms were stretched out in the dusk, and

Angel's head drawn down until her face was close to Godfrey's own.

'Aunt Angel, Aunt Angel dear, I can't see you in the dark, but I'm

feeling your cheeks to see if they are thin. Do you feel at all as if

your heart was cracking? Promise me you and Aunt Betty won't be like

that Aunt Jane.'

'We shall both be very happy, Godfrey, if you are sorry for being

naughty, not only for vexing us,' said Angel with a deep breath of

relief.

'I am,' said Godfrey eagerly; 'I won't again. I've begun directly

beginning at the right end. Did you hear me beginning at the right

end, Aunt Angel?'

'The right end of what, dear?'

'Of being a brave man. That gentleman said it was doing what you

didn't like because it was right, and leaving the nice things because

they were wrong. So I'm saying my geography, and leaving out all the

parts about ships. Do you think he knows, Aunt Angel? I think he is a

good man, only rather stupid.'

'What makes you think he's stupid, Godfrey?'

'Because he didn't seem to think that Kiah's captain was a very, very

great man. But I daresay he was only ignorant, and Aunt Betty says we

should never be hard on ignorance.'

Angel smiled in the dark.

'I can tell you why he said that, Godfrey,' she said. 'Do you know,

that gentleman is Captain Maitland himself?'

Godfrey sat upright, and Angel could feel rather than see his wide eyes

fixed upon her.

'Him! That man that got me out of the tub! he whispered, in an almost

awe-struck voice; 'is that Kiah's captain? And I never knew.'

'You'll see him again,' Angel said, tucking him up fondly; 'he is

coming to see us, he told Aunt Betty so.'

Godfrey was silent for fully a minute. Then he said, doubtfully:

'But why did he say that? Because he must know how brave he is.'

'I don't think that really brave, good people ever think much of

themselves,' said Angel thoughtfully.

'Why don't they?'

'I think,' said Angelica, turning over the thought in her slow

deliberate way, 'I think, Godfrey, it is because they expect more of

themselves. It is like going up a mountain, the higher you get the

further you see, and you see heights above you and don't feel as if you

had got very far. When people begin to be a little brave and good they

see better what real courage and goodness mean, and they aren't

satisfied with themselves.'

Godfrey had drawn her face down on to the pillow beside him.

'I suppose he knows a great deal about being brave,' he said. 'Do you

think he does what he doesn't like when it's right?'

'Yes, Godfrey dear, I expect he does.'

'So do you, don't you? I know you didn't like whipping me; I know what

your face is like when things hurt you. Dear little Aunt Angel, you

sha'n't make that face any more for me; you're beginning at the right

end of being brave, I suppose. I didn't know before you could be

brave, but I thought it was all killing Frenchmen. Tell me something:

do women have to do that, what you said about leaving the world better?'

'Oh yes, Godfrey,' whispered Angel. It was easy to talk, she felt,

here in the dusk, with the soft cheek pressed against hers. 'Even if

they can't do any great work themselves, perhaps they can help those

who do.'

'Like you and Aunt Betty and me. I'm your little oak-tree, like

godpapa Godfrey's, and you planted me and you look after me. And you'd

like me to come up brave and be a great captain and win a battle one

day. Would you mind if the Frenchies shot my leg off, like Kiah's?'

'I should have to try to be proud, Godfrey; it would be very hard.'

'Then you'd be brave again, wouldn't you--braver than me, because I

don't know that I should mind if I was as nice as Kiah? And p'r'aps

the King would want me to have a medal, and I should say, "No, please,

not for me, your Majesty"; and he'd say, "Who for, then?" and I should

say, "For my maiden aunts."'

[Illustration: Chapter V tailpiece]

[Illustration: Chapter VI headpiece]