"Here, you, Vince!" cried Doctor Burnet, pausing in his surgery with a
bottle in each hand--one large and the other small, the latter about to
be filled for the benefit of a patient who believed himself to be very
ill and felt aggrieved when his medical adviser told him that he would
be quite well if he did not eat so much.
"Yes, father."
The boy walked up to the surgery door at the end of the long, low
granite house.
"Upon my word!" cried the Doctor; "it's lucky we have nobody here to see
you. No one would ever take you for a gentleman's son."
"Why not, father?"
"Why not, sir! Look at your trousers and your boots."
Vincent Burnet looked down, and then up in his father's face.
"Trousers a bit tight across the knee," he said deprecatingly. "The
cloth gave way."
"And were your boots too tight at the toes, sir? Look at them."
"They always wear out there," said Vincent; and he once more looked
down, beyond the great tear across the right knee of his trousers, to
his boots, whose toes seemed each to have developed a wide mouth, within
which appeared something which looked like a great grey tongue.
"I don't think this pair were very good leather, father," he said
apologetically.
"Good leather, sir! You'd wear them out it they were cast iron.--Ah, my
dear!"
A pleasant, soft face appeared at the door, and looked anxiously from
father to son.
"Is anything the matter, Robert?"
"Matter? Look at this fellow's clothes and boots!"
"Oh, Vince, my dear, how you have torn your trousers again!"
"Torn them again!--the boy's a regular scarecrow!" cried the Doctor. "I
will not pay for good things for him to go cliff-climbing and wading and
burrowing in caves.--Here: what are you going to do?"
"Take him indoors to sew up that slit."
"No!" cried the Doctor, filling up the bottle; and then, making a small
cork squeak as he screwed it in, "Take your scissors and cut the legs
off four inches above the knees."
"Robert!" cried Mrs Burnet, in a tone of protest.
"And look here, Vince: you can give up wearing shoes and stockings; they
are for civilised beings, not for young savages."
"My dear Robert, you are not in earnest?"
"Ah, but I am. Let him chip and tear his skin: that will grow up again:
clothes will not."
"All right, father; I shan't mind," said the boy, smiling. "Save taking
shoes and stockings off for wading."
"Vincent, my dear!" cried his mother, "how absurd! You would look nice
the next time Michael Ladelle came for you."
"He'd do the same, mother. He always imitates me."
"Yes; you're a nice pair," said the Doctor. "I never saw such young
savages."
"You're too hard upon them, Robert," said Mrs Burnet, laying her arm on
her son's shoulder. "It does not matter out in this wild place, where
there is no one to see him but the fishing people; and see what a
healthy, natural life it is for them."
"Healthy! natural!" cried the Doctor sharply. "So you want to see him
grow up into a sort of Peter the Wild Boy, madam?"
"No," said Mrs Burnet, exchanging an affectionate glance with her
sun-tanned son. "Peter the Wild Boy did not have a college tutor to
teach him the classics, did he, Vince?"
"No, mother; he must have been a lucky fellow," said the boy, laughing.
"For shame, Vincent!" cried Mrs Burnet, shaking her head at the boy
reprovingly. "You do not mean that."
"I believe he does," said the Doctor angrily. "I won't have any more of
it. He neglects his studies shamefully."
"No, no, indeed, dear," cried Mrs Burnet. "You don't know how hard he
works."
"Oh yes, I do: at egging, climbing, fishing, and swimming. I'll have no
more of it; he shall go over to some big school in Germany, where
they'll bring him to his senses."
"I do everything Mr Deane sets me to do, father," said the boy; "and I
do try hard."
"Yes--to break your neck or drown yourself. Look here, sir, when are
you going to pay me my bill?"
"Your bill, father? I don't know what you mean."
"Surgical attendance in mending your broken leg. That's been owing two
years."
"When my ship comes in, father," cried Vince, laughing.
"But, I say, don't send me to a big school, father. I like being here
so much."
"Yes: to waste the golden moments of boyhood, sir."
"But I don't, father," cried Vince. "I really do work hard at
everything Mr Deane sets me, and get it all done before I go out. He
never finds fault."
"Bah! You're getting too big to think of going out to play with Mike
Ladelle."
"But you said, father, that you liked to see a fellow work hard at play
as well as study, and that `all work and no play made Jack a dull boy.'"
"Jack!" cried the Doctor, with his face wrinkling up, as he tried to
look very severe. "Yes Jack. But you're not Jack: he was some common
fisherman's or miner's boy, not the son of a medical man--a gentleman.
There, go and dress that wound in his trousers, my dear."
"And you won't send me off to school, father? I do like private study
at home so much better!"
"Humph! I don't know whether you're aware of it, sir, but you've got a
very foolish, indulgent father, who is spoiling you."
"No, he did not know that," said Mrs Burnet, smiling, as she looked
from one to the other proudly. "And it is not true, is it, Vince?"
"No, mother, not a bit of it," cried the boy.
"And I feel sure that father will not send you away if you try hard to
master all your lessons with Mr Deane."
"Well, it isn't your father who is spoiling you now, Vince," said the
Doctor. "There: I'll give you another six months' trial; and, here--
which way are you going?"
"Round by the south cliff to look for Mike Ladelle."
"Ah, I daresay he's shut up in his father's study hard at work!"
"No, father; I've been up to the house, and they said he had gone out."
"There, go and get mended; and you may as well leave this medicine for
me at James Carnach's. It will be ready for you by the time your mother
has done."
"Yes, father--I'll come," cried the boy; and he hurried out of the
surgery.
"Ah!" said the Doctor, "you undo all my work by your foolish
indulgence."
Mrs Burnet smiled.
"I should be very miserable," she said, "if I could feel that all you
say is true."
"But see what a reckless young rascal he grows."
"No, I cannot see that, dear," replied Mrs Burnet. "He is a thorough,
natural boy, and I am glad to find him so fond of outdoor life."
"And not of his studies?"
"He works very hard at them, dear; and I'm sure you want to see him grow
up manly."
"Of course."
"And not a weak, effeminate lad, always reading books over the fire."
"No, but--"
"Let him go on as he is, dear," said Mrs Burnet gently; "and show him
that you take an interest in his sports."
"Spoil him more still?"
"No: encourage him in his love of natural history."
"And making the place untidy with his messing about. I say: by the way,
have you been at that bottle of acid?"
"I? No, dear."
"Then he has, for some of his sham experiments."
"Mother!"
"Coming, my dear," cried Mrs Burnet, in answer to the call; and she
hurried into the house, leaving the Doctor to write out the directions
upon a label, so that Jemmy Carnach--fisherman when the sea was calm,
and farmer when it was rough--might not make a mistake when he received
his bottle of medicine, and take it all at once, though it would not
have hurt him if he had.
"Nice boy!" muttered the Doctor, as he made a noose in a piece of twine
and carefully tied the label to the bottle; "but I wish the young plague
had been a girl."
At that moment Vince was standing with one foot upon a stool, so that
the knee of his trousers was within easy reach of his mother's busy
fingers, while the bright needle flashed in and out, and the long slit
was gradually being reduced in extent.
"Mind, mother! don't sew it to the skin," he said laughingly; and then,
bending down, he waited his opportunity, and softly kissed the glossy
hair close to his lips.
"I say, mother," he whispered, "don't have me sent away. Father doesn't
mean it, does he?"
"I don't think so, my dear; but he wants to see you try hard to grow
into a manly, sensible lad."
"Well, that's what I am trying to do."
Mrs Burnet took hold of her son's none too clean hand, turned it over,
and held up the knuckles, which seemed to have been cracked across, but
were nearly healed.
"Well, I couldn't help that, mother," protested the boy. "You wouldn't
have had me stand still and let young Carnach knock Mike Ladelle about
without helping him?"
"I don't like fighting, Vince," said Mrs Burnet, with a sigh; "it seems
to me brutal."
"Well, so it is, mother, when it's a big, strong fellow ill-using a
small one. But it can't be brutal for a little one to stick up for
himself and thrash the big coward, can it?"
"That is a question upon which I cannot pretend to decide, Vince. You
had better ask your father."
"Oh, no! I shan't say anything about it," replied the boy, giving his
short shock-brown hair a rub. "I don't like talking about it. Nearly
done?"
"Yes, I am fastening off the thread."
There was a snip given directly after by a pair of scissors; Vince gave
his leg a shake to send the trouser down in its place, and then stooped
and kissed the sweet, placid face so close to his.
"There," he cried; "don't you tell me I didn't pay you for mending the
tear."
"Ready, Vince?" said the Doctor, entering with the bottle neatly done up
in white paper.
"Yes, father."
"Mind, sir! don't break it."
"No, father: all right."
The next minute Vince was trotting sharply down the road towards the
rough moorland, which he had to partly traverse before turning down a
narrow track to the cliff edge, where, in a gap, half a dozen
fishermen's cottages were built, sheltered from the strong south-west
wind.
"You will not send him away, Robert?" said Mrs Burnet.
"Humph! Well, no," said the Doctor, wrinkling up his brow; "it would
seem so dull if he were gone."