After this curious meeting, Val paid several visits to the little corner
house; so many, indeed, that his tutor interfered, as he had a perfect
right to do, and reproached him warmly for his love of low society, and
for choosing companions who must inevitably do him harm. Mr Grinder was
quite right in this, and I hope the tutors of all our boys would do
exactly the same in such a case; but Val, I am afraid, did not behave so
respectfully as he ought, and indeed was insubordinate and scarcely
gentlemanly, Mr Grinder complained. The young tutor, who had been an
Eton boy himself not so very long before, had inadvertently spoken of
poor Dick as a “Brocas cad.” Now I am not sufficiently instructed to
know what special ignominy, if any, is conveyed by this designation; but
Val flamed up, as he did on rare occasions, his fury and indignation
being all the greater that he usually managed to restrain himself. He
spoke to Mr Grinder as a pupil ought not to have done. He informed him
that if he knew Dick he never would venture to use such terms; and if he
did not know him, he had no right to speak at all, not being in the
least aware of the injustice he was doing. There was a pretty business
altogether between the high-spirited impetuous boy and the young man
who had been too lately a boy himself to have much patience with the
other. Mr Grinder all but “complained of” Val--an awful proceeding,
terminating in the block, and sudden execution in ordinary cases--a
small matter enough with most boys, but sufficiently appalling to those
who had attained such a position as Val’s, high up in school; and
intolerable to his impetuous temperament. This terrible step was averted
by the interposition of mediators, by the soft words of old Mr Grinder,
who was Val’s “dame,” and other friends. But young Mr Grinder wrote a
letter to Rosscraig on the subject, which gave Lady Eskside more
distress and trouble than anything which had happened to her for a long
time. If she had got her will, her husband would have gone up instantly
to inquire into the matter, and it is possible that the identity of Dick
and his mother might have been discovered at once, and some future
complications spared. The old lady wrung her hands and wept salt tears
over the idea that “his mother’s blood” was asserting itself thus, and
that her son Richard’s story might be about to be repeated again, but
with worse and deeper shades of misery. Lord Eskside, however, who had
been so much disturbed by dangers which affected her very lightly, was
not at all moved by this. He demurred completely to the idea of going to
Eton, but agreed that Val himself should be written to, and explanations
asked. Val wrote a very magnificent letter in reply, as fine a
production as ever sixteen (but he was seventeen by this time) put
forth. He related with dignity how he had encountered a friendly boy on
the river’s side who helped him when his boat swamped--how he had
discovered that he was an admirable fellow, supporting his old mother,
and in want of work--how he had exerted himself to procure work for this
deserving stranger, and how he had gone to his house two or three times
to see how he was getting on. “I have been lending him books,” wrote
Val, “and doing what I could to help him to get on. His master, who took
him on my recommendation, and Lichen’s (you know Lichen? the captain of
the boats), says he never had such a good man in his place; and I have
thought it was my duty to help him on. If you and grandmamma think I
ought not to do so,” Valentine concluded majestically, “I confess I
shall be very sorry; for Brown is one of the best fellows that ever was
born.”
Lady Eskside wept when she read this letter--tears of joy, and pride,
and happy remorse at having thought badly of her boy. She wrote him such
a letter as moved even Val’s boyish insensibility, with a ten-pound note
in it, with which she intrusted him to buy something for his _protégé_.
“It is like your sweet nature to try to help him,” she said; “and oh,
Val, my darling, I am so ashamed of myself for having a momentary fear!”
Mr Grinder had a somewhat cold response from Lord Eskside, but not so
trenchant as my lady would have wished it. “We are very much obliged to
you for your care,” said the old lord; “but I think Valentine has given
such good reasons for his conduct that we must not be hard upon him. Of
course nothing of this sort should be allowed to go too far.” Thus Val
was victorious; but I am glad to have to tell of him that as soon as he
was sure of this, he went off directly and begged Mr Grinder’s pardon.
“I had no right, sir, to speak to you so,” said the boy. They were
better friends ever after, I believe; and for a long time Lady Eskside
was not troubled with any terrors about Val’s “mother’s blood!”
All this time Dick “got on” so, that it became a wonder to see him. He
had finished Val’s carving long ago, and presented it to his gracious
patron, declining with many blushes the “five bob” which he had been
promised. Before he was eighteen, he had grown, in virtue of his
absolute trustworthiness, to be the first and most important ministrant
at the “rafts.” Everybody knew him, everybody liked him. So far as young
squires and lordlings constitute that desirable thing, Dick lived in the
very best society; his manners ought to have been good, for they were
moulded on the manners of our flower of English youth. I am not very
sure myself that he owed so much to this (for Eton boys, so far as I
have seen, bear a quite extraordinary resemblance to other boys) as to
his naturally sweet and genial temper, his honest and generous
humbleness and unselfishness. Dick Brown was the very last person Dick
thought of, whatever he might happen to be doing--and this is the rarest
of all qualities in youth. Then he was so happy in having his way, and a
“home,” and in overcoming his mother’s fancy for constant movement, that
his work was delightful to him. It was hard work, and entailed a very
long daily strain of his powers--too long, perhaps, for a growing
boy--but yet it was pleasant, and united a kind of play with continuous
exertion. All summer long he was on the river-side, the busiest of lads
or men, in noiseless boating-shoes, and with a dress which continually
improved till Dick became the nattiest as well as the handiest of his
kind. He had a horror of everything that was ugly and dirty: when others
lounged about in their hour’s rest, while their young clients were at
school, Dick would be hot about something;--painting and rubbing the old
boats, scraping the oars, bringing cleanness, and order, and that bold
kind of decoration which belongs to boat-building, to the resuscitation
of old gigs and “tubs” which had seemed good for nothing. He would even
look after the flowers in the little strip of garden, and sow the seeds,
and trim the border, while he waited, if there happened to be no old
boats to cobble. He was happy when the sun shone upon nothing but
orderliness and (as he felt it) beauty.
In his own rooms this quality of mind was still more apparent. I have
said that he and his mother lived with Spartan simplicity. This enabled
him to do a great deal more with his wages than his more luxurious
companions. First, comforts, and then superfluities--elegances, if we
may use the word--began to flow into the room. The elegances, perhaps,
were not very elegant at first, but his taste improved at the most rapid
rate. When he had nothing better to do, he would go and take counsel
with Fullady the wood-carver, and get lessons from him, helping now and
then at a piece of work, to the astonishment of his master. In the
evening he carved small pieces of furniture, with which he decorated his
dwelling. In winter he was initiated into the mysteries of
boat-building, and worked at this trade with absolute devotion and real
enjoyment. In short, Dick’s opinion was that nobody so happy as himself
had ever lived--his work was as good as play, and better, he thought;
and he was paid for doing what it gave him the greatest pleasure to
do--a perennial joke with the gentle fellow. In all this prosperity Dick
never forgot his first patron. When Val rowed, Dick ran by the bank
shouting till he was hoarse. When Val was preferred to be one of the
sublime Eight, who are as gods among men, he went almost out of his wits
with pride and joy. “_We’ll_ win now, sure enough, at Henley!” he said
to his mother, with unconscious appropriation of the possessive pronoun.
But when Dick heard of the squabble between Val and his tutor, his good
sense showed at once. He took his young patron a step aside, taking off
his hat with almost an exaggeration of respect--“Don’t come to our
house again, sir,” he said; “the gentleman is in the right. You are very
kind to be so free with me, to talk and make me almost a friend; but it
wouldn’t do if every Eton gentleman were to make friends with the
fellows on the water-side--the gentleman is in the right.”
“My people don’t think so, Brown,” cried Val; “look here, what has been
sent me to buy you something,” and he showed his ten-pound note.
Dick’s eyes flashed with eager pleasure, not for the money, though even
that was no small matter. “I don’t understand,” lie added, after a
moment, shaking his head. “I don’t think they’d like it either, if they
knew. You must have been giving too good an account, sir, of mother and
me.”
Val only laughed, and crushed the crisp bank-note into the pocket of his
trousers. “I mean to spend it for you on Monday, when I am going to town
on leave,” he said. He was going to see Miss Percival, his grandmother’s
friend. And, in fact, he did buy Dick a number of things, which seemed
to his youthful fancy appropriate in the circumstances. He bought him
some books, a few of those standard works which Val knew ought to be in
everybody’s library, though he did not much trouble them himself; and a
capital box of tools, and drawing materials, for Dick had displayed some
faculty that way. Both the boys were as happy as possible--the one in
bestowing, the other in receiving, this gift. Lady Eskside’s present
gave them the deepest pleasure, though she was so far from knowing who
was the recipient of her bounty. “Brown,” said Val, solemnly, after they
had enjoyed the delight of going over every separate article, and
examining and admiring it--“Brown, you mind what I am going to say. You
must rise in the world; you have made a great deal of progress already,
and you must make still more. Heaps of fellows not half so good as you
have got to be rich, and raised themselves by their exertions. You must
improve your mind; and you must take the good of every advantage that
offers, and rise in the world.”
“I’ll try, sir,” said Dick, with the cheeriest laugh. He was ready to
have promised to scale the skies, if Val had recommended it. He arranged
his books carefully in a little bookcase he had made, which was far
handsomer than the old one which had received the yellow
volumes--overflowings of Val’s puerile library. But I am not sure that
Macaulay and Gibbon instructed him much more than the ‘Headless
Horseman’ had done. His was not a mind which was much affected by
literature; he cared more for doing than for reading, and liked his box
of tools better than his library. Musing over his work, he revolved many
things in his head, and got to have very just views about matters
concerning which his education had been a blank; but he did not get his
ideas out of books. That was not a method congenial to him, though he
would have acknowledged with respect that it was most probably the right
way. But anyhow, Val had done his duty by his _protégé_. He had put into
his hands the means of rising in the world, and he had suggested this
ambition. Whatever might happen hereafter, he had done his best.
And Dick’s mother continued contented also, which was a perpetual wonder
to him. She weathered through the winter, though Dick often watched her
narrowly, fearing a return to her old vagrant way. When Val’s boat
disappeared from the river with all the others, she was indeed restless
for a little while; but it was, as it happened, just about that time
that Val took to visiting the little corner house, and these visits kept
her in a visionary absorption, always afraid, yet always glad, when he
came. In spring she was again somewhat alarming to her son, moving so
restlessly in the small space they had, and looking out so wistfully
from the window, that he trembled to hear some suggestion of fresh
wandering. All that she asked, however, was, When did the boats go up
for the first time? a question which Dick answered promptly.
“On the 1st of March, mother. I wish it was come,” cried Dick, with
animation.
“And so do I,” she said, with musing eyes fixed on the river; then
alarmed, perhaps, lest he should question her, she added hastily, “It is
cheery to see the boats.”
“So it is,” said Dick, “especially for you, mother, who go out so
seldom. You should take a walk along the banks; it’s cheerful always. I
don’t think you half know how pretty it is.”
She shook her head. “I am not one for walks,” she said, with a half
smile--“not for pleasure, Dick. Since I’ve given up our long tramps, I
don’t feel to care for moving. I’m getting old, I think.”
“Old!” said Dick, cheerily; “it will be time enough to think of that in
twenty years.”
“Twenty years is a terrible long time,” she replied, with a little
shiver; “I hope I’ll be dead and gone long before that.”
“I wish you wouldn’t speak so, mother.”
“Ah, but it’s true. My life ain’t much good to any one,” she said. “I am
not let to live in my own way, and I can’t live in any other. If God
would take me, it would be for the best. Then I might have another
chance.”
“Mother, you break my heart,” cried Dick, with a face full of anxiety,
throwing away his tools, and coming up to her. “Do you mean that it is I
that won’t let you live your own way?”
“I don’t blame nobody but myself--no; you’ve been a good boy--a very
good boy--to me,” she cried; “better, a long way, than I’ve been to
you.”
“Mother,” said the lad, laying his hand on her shoulder, his face
flushing with emotion, “if it’s hard upon you like this--if you want to
start off again----”
“No, I don’t, I don’t!” she said, with suppressed passion; then falling
back into her old dreamy tone--“So the boats go up on the 1st of March?
and that’s Monday. To see ’em makes the river cheery. I’m a little down
with the winter and all; but as soon as I see ’em, I’ll be all right.”
“Please God, mother,” said pious Dick, going back to his carving. He was
satisfied, but yet he was startled. For, after all, why should she care
so much about the boats?
This 1st of March inaugurated Val’s last summer on the river--at least,
on this part of the river, for he had still Oxford and its triumphs in
prospect. That “summer half” was his last in Eton, and naturally he made
the most of it. Val had, as people say, “done very well” at school. He
was not a brilliant success, but still he had done very well, and his
name in the school list gave his grandparents great pleasure. Lord
Eskside kept a copy of that little _brochure_ on his library table, and
would finger it half consciously many a time when some county magnate
was interviewing the old lord. Val’s name appeared in it like this: *
Ross (5) γ. Now this was not anything like the stars and ribbons of the
name next above his, which was B * Robinson, (19) α; for I do not mean
to pretend that he was very studious, or had much chance of being in the
Select for the Newcastle Scholarship (indeed he missed this
distinction, though he went in for it gallantly, without being, however,
much disappointed by his failure). To be sure, I have it all my own way
in recording what Val did at Eton, since nobody is likely nowadays,
without hard labour in the way of looking up old lists, to be in a
position to contradict me. But he had the privilege of writing his
letters upon paper bearing the mystic monogram of Pop.--_i.e._, he was a
member of _Eton Society_, which was a sure test of his popularity; and
he was privileged in consequence to walk about with a cane, and to take
part in debates on very abstruse subjects (I am not quite sure which
privilege is thought the most important), and received full recognition
as “a swell,”--a title which, I am happy to say, bears no vulgar
interpretation at Eton, as meaning either rank or riches. And he was a
very sublime sight to see on the 4th of June, the great Eton holiday,
both in the morning, when he appeared in school in court dress--breeches
and black silk stockings--and delivered one of those “Speeches” with
which Eton upon that day delights such members of the fashionable world
as can spare a summer morning out of the important business of the
season; and in the evening, when he turned out in still more gorgeous
array, stroke of the best boat on the river, and a greater personage
than it is easy for a grown-up and sober-minded imagination to conceive.
It happened that this particular year Mr Pringle was in London upon some
business or other, and had brought his daughter Violet with him to see
the world. Vi was seventeen, and being an only daughter, and the chief
delight of her parents’ hearts, and pride of her brothers’, big and
little, was already “out,” though many people shook their heads at Mrs
Pringle’s precipitancy in producing her daughter. Violet’s hair was
somewhat darker now that it was turned up, but showed the pale golden
hue of her childhood still in the locks which, when the wind blew upon
her, would shake themselves out in little rings over her ears and round
her pretty forehead. Her eyes were as dark and liquid as they had been
when she was a child, with a wistful look in them, which was somewhat
surprising, considering how entirely happy a life she had led from her
earliest breath, surrounded with special love and fondness; but so it
was, account for it who will. Those tender eyes that shone out of her
happy youthful face were surely conscious of some trouble, which, as it
did not exist in the present, must be to come, and which, with every
pretty look, she besought and entreated you to ward off from her, to
help her through. But a happy little maiden was Vi, looking through
those pretty eyes, surprised and sweet, at London--tripping everywhere
by her proud father’s side, with her hand on his arm, looking at the
fine pictures, looking at the fine people and the fine horses in the
Park, and going over the sights as innocent country people do when such
a happy chance as a child to take about happens to them. Some one
suggested to Mr Pringle the fact of the Eton celebration during this
pleasant course of dissipation, and Vi’s eyes lighted up with a sweet
glow of pleasure beyond words when it was finally decided that they were
to go.
And go they did, conscientiously seeing everything. They went to
“Speeches” in the morning--that august ceremonial--and heard Val speak,
and a great many more. Violet confined her interest to the modern
languages which she understood; but Mr Pringle felt it incumbent upon
him to look amused at the jokes in Greek, which, I fear, the poor
gentleman in reality knew little more about than Vi did. But the
crowning glory of the morning was that Val in his “speaking clothes”
(and very speaking, very telling articles they were, in Violet’s eyes at
least) walked through college with them afterwards, bareheaded, with the
sun shining on his dark curls, the same bold brown boy who had carried
off the little girl from the Hewan six years before, though by this time
much more obsequious to Vi. He showed himself most willing and ready all
day to be the cicerone of “his cousins;” and when in the evening,
Violet, holding fast by her father’s arm, her heart beating high with
pleasure past and pleasure to come, walked down to the rafts in company
with Val in the aquatic splendours of his boating costume--straw hat
wreathed with flowers, blue jacket and white trousers--the girl would
have been very much unlike other girls if she had not been dazzled by
this versatile hero, grand in academic magnificence in the morning, and
resplendent now in the uniform of the river. “I am so sorry I can’t take
you out myself,” said Val, “for of course I must go with my boat; but I
have a man here, the best of fellows, who will row you up to Surly.
Here, Brown,” he cried, “get out the nicest gig you have, and come
yourself--there’s a good fellow. I want my cousins to see everything.
Oh, I’ll speak to Harry, and make it all right. I want you, and nobody
else,” he added, looking with friendly eyes at his _protégé_. I don’t
think Mr Pringle heard this address, but looking round suddenly, he saw
a young man standing by Valentine whose appearance made his heart jump.
“Good God!” he cried instinctively, staring at him. Dick had grown and
developed in these years. He had lost altogether the slouch of the
tramp, and was, if not so handsome as Val, trim and well made, with a
chest expanded by constant exercise, and his head erect with the
constant habit of attention. He was dressed in one of Val’s own coats,
and no longer looked like a lad on the rafts. For those who did not look
closely, he might have been taken for one of Val’s schoolfellows, so
entirely had he fallen into the ways and manners of “the gentlemen.” He
was as fair as Val was dark, about the same height, and though not like
Val, was so like another face which Mr Pringle knew, that his heart made
a jump into his mouth with wonder and terror. Perhaps he might not have
remarked this likeness but for the strange association of the two lads,
standing side by side as they were, and evidently on the most friendly
terms. “Who is that?” cried Mr Pringle, staring with wide-open eyes.
“It is the best fellow in the world,” cried Val, laughing, as Dick
sprang aside to arrange the cushions in a boat which lay alongside the
raft. “He’ll take you up to Surly faster than any one else on the
river.”
“But, Valentine--it is very kind of him,” said Vi, hesitating--“but you
did not introduce him to us----”
“Oh, he’s not a gentleman,” said Val, lightly; “that is to say,” he
added, seeing Dick within reach, with a hasty blush, “he’s as good in
himself as any one I know; but he ain’t one of the fellows, Vi; he works
at the rafts--his name is Brown. Now, do you think you can steer? You
used to, on the water at home.”
“Oh yes,” said Violet, with modest confidence. Val stood and looked
after them as the boat glided away up the crowded river; then he stalked
along through the admiring crowd, feeling as a man may be permitted to
feel who holds the foremost rank on a day of _fête_ and universal
enjoyment.
“To him each lady’s look was lent,
On him each courtier’s eye was bent.”
To be sure there were a great many others almost as exalted as Val; and
only the initiated knew that he rowed in the Eight, and was captain of
the Victory,--the best boat on the river. He stalked along to his boat,
over the delicious turf of the Brocas, in the afternoon sunshine,
threading his way through throngs of ladies in pretty dresses, and
hundreds of white-waistcoated Etonians. How proud the small boys who
knew him were, after receiving a nod from the demigod as he passed, to
discourse loudly to gracious mother or eager sister, Val’s style and
title! “That’s Ross at my dame’s--he’s in the Eight--he won the school
sculling last summer half; and we think we’ll get the House Fours, now
he’s captain. He’s an awfully jolly fellow when you know him,” crowed
the small boys, feeling themselves exalted in the grandeur of his
acquaintance; and the pretty sisters looked after Val, a certain awe
mingling with their admiration; while Philistines and strangers,
unaccompanied by even a small boy, felt nobodies, as became them. Then
came the start up the river. Never was a prettier sight than this
ceremonial. The river all golden with afternoon glory; the great trees
on the Brocas expanding their huge boughs in the soft air, against the
sky; the banks all lined with animated, bright-coloured crowds; the
stream alive with attendant boats; and the great noble pile of the
castle looking down serene from its height upon the children and
subjects at its royal feet, making merry under its great and calm
protection. It is George III.’s birthday--poor, obstinate, kindly old
soul!--and this is how a lingering fragrance of kindness grows into a
sort of fame. They say he was paternally fond and proud of the boys, who
thus yearly, without knowing it, celebrate him still.
Dick took his boat with Val’s cousins in it up the river, and waited
there among the willows, opposite the beautiful elms of the Brocas, till
the “Boats” went past in gay procession. He pointed out Val’s boat and
Val’s person to Violet with a pleasure as great as her own. “It is the
best boat on the river, and he is one of the best oars,” cried Dick, his
honest fair face glowing with pleasure. “We all think his house must win
the House Fours--they didn’t last year, for Mr Lichen was still here,
and he’s heavier than Mr Ross; but Grinder’s will have it this time.”
Dick’s face so brightened with generous delight, and acquired an
expression so individual and characteristic, that Mr Pringle began to
breathe freely, and to say to himself that fancy had led him astray.
“Do you belong to this place?” he asked, when they started again to
follow the boats up the river, in the midst of a gay flotilla, looking
Dick very steadily, almost severely, in the face.
“Not by birth, sir,” said Dick. “Indeed, I don’t belong anywhere; but
I’m settled here, I hope, for good.”
“But you don’t mean to say you are a boatman?” said Mr Pringle; “you
don’t look like it. It must be a very precarious life.”
“I am head man at the rafts,” said Dick--“thanks to Mr Ross, who got me
taken on when I was a lad”--(he was not quite nineteen then, but
maturity comes early among the poor), “and we’re boatbuilders to our
trade. You should see some of the boats we turn out, sir, if you care
for such things.”
“But I suppose, my man, you have had a better education than is usual?”
said Mr Pringle, looking so gravely at him that Dick thought he must
disapprove of such vanities. “You don’t speak in the least like the
other lads about here.”
“I suppose it’s being so much with the gentlemen,” said Dick, with a
smile. “I am no better than the other lads. Mr Ross has given me
books--and things.”
“Mr Ross must have been very kind to you,” said Mr Pringle, with vague
suspicions which he could not define--“he must have known you before?”
“Hasn’t he just been kind to me!” said Dick, a flush coming to his fair
face; “an angel couldn’t have been kinder! No, I never saw him till two
years ago; but lucky for me, he took a fancy to me--and I, if I may make
so bold as to say so, to him.”
“Mr Brown,” said Violet, looking at him with a kind of heavenly dew in
her dark eyes--for to call such effusion of happiness tears would be a
word out of place--“I am afraid, if we are going through the lock, I
shall not be able to steer.”
This was not in the least what she wanted to say. What she wanted to say
was, I can see you are a dear, dear, good fellow, and I love you for
being so fond of Val; and how Dick should have attained to a glimmering
of understanding, and known that this was what she meant, I cannot
tell--but he did. Such things happen now and then even in this stupid
everyday world.
“Never mind, Miss,” he said cheerfully, looking back at her with his
sunshiny blue eyes, “I can manage. Hold your strings fast that you may
not lose them: the steerage is never much use in a lock; and if you’re
nervous, there’s the Sergeant, who is a great friend of Mr Ross’s, will
pull us through.”
The lock was swarming with boats, and Violet, not to say her father, who
was not quite sure about this mode of progression, looked up with hope
and admiration at the erect figure of the Sergeant, brave and fine in
his waterman’s dress with his silver buttons, and medals of a fiercer
service adorning his blue coat. The Sergeant had shed his blood for his
country before he came to superintend the swimming of the favoured ones
on the Thames. His exploits in the water and those of his pupils are
lost to the general public, from the unfortunate fact that English
prejudice objects to trammel the limbs of its _natateurs_ by any
garments. But literature lifts its head in unsuspected places, and the
gentle reader will be pleased to learn that the Sergeant’s Book on
Swimming will soon make the name, which I decline to deliver to
premature applauses, known over all the world. He looked to Violet, who
was somewhat frightened by the crowds of boats, like an archangel in
silver buttons, as he caught the boat with his long pole, and guided
them safely through.
I cannot, however, describe in detail all the pretty particulars of the
scene, which excited and delighted Violet more than words can tell. Her
father was infinitely less interested than usual in her pleasure, having
something else in his mind, which he kept turning over and over in his
busy brain, while he led her round the supper-table of the boys at
Surly, or held her fast during the fireworks at the end of the evening.
Was this the other? If it was the other, what motive could the Eskside
people have to hide him, to keep him in an inferior station? Did Val
know? and if Val knew, how could he be so rash as to present to his
natural adversary, a boy who had in every feature Dick Ross’s face? Mr
Pringle was bewildered with these thoughts. Now and then, when Dick’s
face brightened into expressiveness, he said to himself that it was all
nonsense, that he was crazy on this point, and that any fair lad who
appeared by Val’s side would immediately look like Richard in his
prejudiced eyes. Altogether he was more uncomfortable than I can
describe, and heartily glad when the show was over. He took Val by the
arm when he came to say good-bye to them, and drew him aside for a
moment.
“Does your grandfather know of your intimacy with this lad?” he asked,
with the morose tone which his voice naturally took when he was excited.
“Yes, of course they do,” said Val, indignant. “I never hid anything
from them--why should I?”
“Who is he, then? I think I have a right to know,” said Mr Pringle.
“A right to know! I don’t understand you,” said Val, beginning to feel
the fiery blood tingling in his veins; but he thought of Vi, and
restrained himself.
“He is Brown,” he said, with a laugh; “that’s all I know about him.
You’re welcome to know as much as I do; though as for right, I can’t
tell who has the right. You can ask the men at the rafts, who have just
the same means of information as I.”
While this conversation was going on, Violet had spoken softly to Dick.
“Mr Brown,” she said, being naturally respectful of all strangers, “I am
so glad of what you told us about Mr Ross.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Dick; “you could not be more glad to hear than
I am to tell. I should like to let every one know that though he’s only
a boy, he’s been the making of me.”
“But--I beg your pardon--are you older than a boy?” said Vi.
Dick laughed. “When you have to work for your living, you’re a man
before you know,” he said, with a certain oracular wisdom that sank
deeply into Vi’s mind. But the next moment her father called her
somewhat sharply, and she awoke with a sigh to the consciousness that
this wonderful day was over, and that she must go away.