THROWING AT THE BATS.
Aroused thus abruptly out of sleep, cross and startled, Mrs. Dare
attacked the two boys with angry words. "I will know what you have been
doing," she exclaimed, rising and shaking out the flounces of her dress.
"You have been at some mischief! Why do you come violently in, in this
manner, looking as frightened as hares?"
"Not frightened," replied Cyril. "We are only hot. We had a run for it."
"A run for what?" she repeated. "When I say I will know a thing, I mean
to know it. I ask you what you have been doing?"
"It's nothing very dreadful, that you need put yourself out," replied
George. "One of old Markham's windows has come to grief."
"Then that's through throwing stones again!" exclaimed Mrs. Dare. "Now I
am certain of it, and you need not attempt to deny it. You shall pay for
it out of your own pocket-money if he comes here, as he did the last
time."
"Ah, but he won't come here," returned Cyril. "He didn't see us. Is tea
not ready?"
"You can go to the school-room and see. You are to take it there this
evening."
The boys tore away to the school-room. Unlike Julia, they did not care
where they took it, provided they had it. Miss Benyon was pouring out
the tea as they entered. They threw themselves on a sofa, and burst into
a fit of laughter so immoderate and long that their two young sisters
crowded round eagerly, asking to hear the joke.
"It was the primest fun!" cried Cyril, when he could speak. "We have
just smashed one of Markham's windows. The old woman was at it in a
nightcap, and I think the stone must have touched her head. Markham and
Herbert were holding a confab together and they never saw us!"
"We were chucking at the leathering bats," put in George, jealous that
his brother should have all the telling to himself, "and the stone----"
"It is leather-winged bat, George," interrupted the governess. "I
corrected you the other night."
"What does it matter?" roughly answered George. "I wish you wouldn't put
me out. A leathering-bat dipped down nearly right upon our heads, and we
both heaved at him, and one of the stones went through the window,
nearly taking, as Cyril says, old Mother Markham's head. Won't they be
in a temper at having to pay for it! They are as poor as charity."
"They'll make you pay," said Rosa.
"Will they?" retorted Cyril. "No catch, no have! I'll give them leave to
make us pay when they find us out. Do you suppose we are donkeys, you
girls? We dipped down under the hedge, and not a soul saw us. What's for
tea?"
"Bread and butter," replied the governess.
"Then those may eat it that like! I shall have jam."
Cyril rang the bell as he spoke. Nancy, the maid who waited on the
school-room, came in answer to it. "Some jam," said Cyril. "And be quick
over it."
"What sort, sir?" inquired Nancy.
"Sort? oh--let's see: damson."
"The damson jam was finished last week, sir. It is nearly the season to
make more."
Cyril replied by a rude and ugly word. After some cogitation, he decided
upon black currant.
"And bring me up some apricot," put in George.
"And we'll have some gooseberry," called out Rosa. "If you boys have
jam, we'll have some too."
Nancy disappeared. Cyril suddenly threw himself back on the sofa, and
burst into another ringing laugh. "I can't help it," he exclaimed. "I am
thinking of the old woman's fright, and their dismay at having to pay
the damage."
"Do you know what I should do in your place, Cyril?" said Miss Benyon.
"I should go back to Markham, and tell him honourably that I caused the
accident. You know how poor they are; they cannot afford to pay for it."
Cyril stared at Miss Benyon. "Where'd be the pull of that?" asked he.
"The 'pull,' Cyril, would be, that you would repair a wrong done to an
unoffending neighbour, and might go to sleep with a clear conscience."
The last suggestion amused Cyril amazingly he and conscience had not a
great deal to do with each other. He was politely telling Miss Benyon
that those notions were good enough for old maids, when Nancy appeared
with the several sorts of jam demanded. Cyril drew his chair to the
table, and Nancy went down.
"Ring the bell, Rosa," said Cyril, before the girl could well have
reached the kitchen. "I can't see one sort from another; we must have
candles."
"Ring it yourself," retorted Rosa.
"George, ring the bell," commanded Cyril.
George obeyed. He was under Cyril in the college school, and accustomed
to obey him.
"You might have told Nancy when she was here," remarked Miss Benyon to
Cyril. "It would have saved her a journey."
"And if it would?" asked Cyril. "What were servants' legs made for, but
to be used?"
Nancy received the order for the candles, and brought them up. It was to
be hoped her legs _were_ made to be used, for scarcely had Cyril begun
to enjoy his black currant jam when they were heard coming up the stairs
again.
"Master Cyril, Mr. Markham wants to see you."
Cyril and the rest exchanged looks. "Did you say I was at home?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you were an idiot for your pains! I can't come down, tell him. I
am at tea."
Down went Nancy accordingly. And back she came again. "He says he must
see you, Master Cyril."
"Be a man, Cyril, and face it," whispered Miss Benyon in his ear.
Cyril jerked his head rudely away from her. "I won't go down. There!
Nancy, you may tell Markham so."
"He has sat down on the garden bench, sir, outside the window to wait,"
explained Nancy. "He says, if you won't see him he shall ask for Mr.
Dare."
Cyril appeared to be in for it. He dashed his bread and jam on the
table, and clattered down. "Who's wanting me?" called out he, when he
got outside. "Oh!--is it you, Markham?"
"How came you to throw a stone just now, and break my window, Cyril
Dare?"
The words threw Cyril into the greatest apparent surprise. "_I_ throw a
stone and break your window!" repeated he. "I don't know what you mean."
"Either you or your brother threw it; you were both together. It entered
my mother's bedroom window, and went within an inch of her head. I'll
trouble you to send a glazier round to put the pane in."
"Well, of all strange accusations, this is about the strangest!" uttered
Cyril. "We have not been near your window; we are upstairs at our tea."
At this juncture, Mr. Dare came out. He had heard the altercation in the
house. "What's this?" asked he. "Good evening, Markham."
Markham explained. "They crouched down under the hedge when they had
done the mischief," he continued, "thinking, no doubt, to get away
undetected. But, as it happened, Brooks the nurseryman was in his ground
behind the opposite hedge, and he saw the whole. He says they were
throwing at the bats. Now I should be sorry to get them punished, Mr.
Dare; we have been boys ourselves; but if young gentlemen will throw
stones, they must pay for any damage they do. I have requested your son
to send a glazier round in the morning. I am sorry he should have denied
the fact."
Mr. Dare turned to Cyril. "If you did it, why do you deny it?"
Cyril hesitated for the tenth part of a second. Which would be the best
policy? To give in, or to hold out? He chose the latter. His word was as
good as that confounded Brooks's, and he'd brave it out! "We didn't do
it," he angrily said; "we have not been near the place this evening.
Brooks must have mistaken others for us in the dusk."
"They did do it, Mr. Dare. There's no mistake about it. Brooks had been
watching them, and he thinks it was the bigger one who threw that
particular stone. If I had set a house on fire," Markham added to Cyril,
"I'd rather confess the accident, than deny it by a lie. What sort of a
man do you expect to make?"
"A better one than you!" insolently retorted Cyril.
"Wait an instant," said Mr. Dare. He proceeded to the school-room to
inquire of George. That young gentleman had been an admiring hearer of
the colloquy from a staircase-window. He tore back to the school-room on
the approach of his father; hastily deciding that he must bear out Cyril
in the denial. "Now, George," said Mr. Dare, sternly, "did you and Cyril
do this, or did you not?"
"Of course we did not, papa," was the ready reply. "We have not been
near Markham's. Brooks must be a fool."
Mr. Dare believed him. He was leaving the room when Miss Benyon
interposed.
"Sir, I should be doing wrong to allow you to be deceived. They did
break the window."
The address caused Mr. Dare to pause. "How do you know it, Miss Benyon?"
Miss Benyon related what had passed. Mr. Dare cast his eyes sternly upon
his youngest son. "It is you who are the fool, George, not Brooks. A lie
is sure to get found out in the end; don't attempt to tell another."
Mr. Dare went down. "I cannot come quite to the bottom of this
business, Markham," said he, feeling unwilling to expose his sons more
than they had exposed themselves. "At all events you shall have the
window put in. A pane of glass is not much on either side."
"It is a good deal to my pocket, Mr. Dare. But that's all I ask. And you
know my character too well to fear I would make a doubtful claim. Brooks
is open to inquiry."
He departed; and Mr. Dare touched Cyril on the arm. "Come with me."
He took him into the room, and there ensued an angry lecture. Cyril
thought George had confessed, and stood silent before his father. "What
a sneak he must have been!" thought Cyril. "Won't I serve him out!"
"If you have acquired the habit of speaking falsely, you had better
relinquish it," resumed Mr. Dare. "It will not be a recommendation in
the eyes of Mr. Ashley."
"I am not going to Ashley's," burst forth Cyril; for the mention of the
subject was sure to anger him. "Turn manufacturer, indeed! I'd
rather----"
"You'd rather be a gentleman at large," interrupted Mr. Dare. "But," he
sarcastically added, "gentlemen require something to live upon. Listen,
Cyril. One of the finest openings that I know of in this city, for a
young man, is in Ashley's manufactory. _You_ may despise Mr. Ashley as a
manufacturer; but others respect him. He was reared a gentleman--he is
regarded as one; he is wealthy, and his business is large and
flourishing. Suppose you could drop into this, after him?--succeed to
this fine business, its sole proprietor? I can tell you that you would
occupy a better position, and be in receipt of a far larger income than
either Anthony or Herbert will be."
"But there's no such chance as that, for me," debated Cyril.
"There is the chance: and that's why you are to be placed there. Henry,
from his infirmity, is not to be brought up to business, and there is no
other son. You will be apprenticed to Mr. Ashley, with a view to
succeeding, as a son would, first of all to a partnership with him,
eventually to the whole. Now, this is the prospect before you, Cyril;
and prejudiced though you are, you must see that it is a fine one."
"Well," acknowledged Cyril, "I wouldn't object to drop into a good thing
like that. Has Mr. Ashley proposed it?"
"No, he has not distinctly proposed it. But he did admit, when your
apprenticeship was being spoken of, that he might be wanting somebody to
succeed him. He more than hinted that whoever might be chosen to succeed
him, or to be associated with him, must be rendered fit for the
connection by being an estimable and a good man; one held in honour by
his fellow citizens. No other could be linked with the name of Ashley.
And now, sir, what do you think he, Mr. Ashley, would say to your
behaviour to-night?"
Cyril looked rather shame-faced.
"You will go to Mr. Ashley's, Cyril. But I wish you to remember, to
remember always, that the ultimate advantages will depend upon yourself
and your conduct. Become a good man, and there's little doubt they will
be yours; turn out indifferently, and there's not the slightest chance
for you."
"I shan't succeed to any of Ashley's money, I suppose?" complacently
questioned Cyril, who somewhat ignored the conditions, and saw himself
in prospective Mr. Ashley's successor.
"It is impossible to say what you may succeed to," replied Mr. Dare, in
so significant a tone as to surprise Cyril. "Henry Ashley's I should
imagine to be a doubtful life; should anything happen to him, Mary
Ashley will, of course, inherit all. And he will be a fortunate man who
shall get into her good graces and marry her."
It was a broad hint to a boy like Cyril. "She's such a proud thing, that
Mary Ashley!" grumbled he.
"She is a very sweet child," was the warm rejoinder of Mr. Dare. And
Cyril went upstairs again to his jam and his interrupted tea.
Meanwhile the evening went on, and the drawing-room was waiting for Lord
Hawkesley. Mrs. Dare and Adelaide were waiting for him--waiting
anxiously in elegant attire. Mr. Dare did not seem to care whether he
came or not; and Julia, who was buried in an easy chair with her book,
would have preferred, of the two, that he stayed away. Between eight and
nine he arrived. A little man; young, fair, with light eyes and sharp
features, a somewhat cynical expression habitually on his lips.
Helstonleigh, in its gossip, conjectured that he must be making young
Anthony Dare useful to him in some way or other, or he would not have
condescended to the intimacy. For Lord Hawkesley, a proud man by nature,
had been reared as an earl's son and heir; which meant an exclusiveness
far greater in those days than it is in these. This was the third
evening visit he had paid to Mrs. Dare. Had Adelaide's good looks any
attraction for him? _She_ was beginning to think so, and to weave
visions upon the strength of it. Entrenched as the Dares were in their
folly and assumption, Adelaide was blind to the wide social gulf that
lay between herself and Viscount Hawkesley.
She sat down at the piano at his request and sang an Italian song. She
had a good voice, and her singing was better than her Italian accent.
Lord Hawkesley stood by her and looked over the music.
"I like your style of singing very much," he remarked to her when the
song was over. "You must have learnt of a good master."
"_Comme ca_," carelessly rejoined Adelaide. As is the case with many
more young ladies who possess a superficial knowledge of French, she
thought it the perfection of good taste to display as much of it as she
did know. "I had the best professor that Helstonleigh can give; but what
are Helstonleigh professors compared with those of London? We cannot
expect first-rate talent here."
"Do you like London?" asked Lord Hawkesley.
"I was never there," replied Adelaide, feeling the confession, when made
to Lord Hawkesley, to be nothing but a humiliation.
"Indeed! You would enjoy a London season."
"Oh, so much! I know nothing of the London season, except from books. A
contrast to your lordship, you will say," she added, with a laugh. "You
must be almost tired of it; _desillusionne_."
"What's that in English?" inquired Lord Hawkesley, whose French studies,
as far as they had extended, had been utterly thrown away upon him.
Labouring under the deficiency, he had to make the best of it, and did
it with a boast. "Used up, I suppose you mean?"
Adelaide coloured excessively. She wondered if he was laughing at her,
and made a mental vow never to speak French to a lord again.
"Will you think me exacting, Miss Dare, if I trespass upon you for
another song?"
Adelaide did not think him exacting in the least. She was ready to sing
as long as he pleased.