"Don't you think, sir, if it could anyhow be managed, you ought to try
and get him down here again? You know how much better he grew while he
was here."
"Yes," said Uncle Richard quietly, as he went on with his breakfast.
"And though I'm not clever as a nurse, you know, sir, I'd do anything I
could to make him well."
"I do know it, Mrs Fidler," said Uncle Richard warmly; "but," he added,
with his face growing more grave, "he will not come down here again."
Mrs Fidler sighed, and Tom kept his eyes fixed upon his coffee-cup.
The breakfast passed off very silently, and as soon as it was over,
Uncle Richard went into the next room, when Mrs Fidler seized upon the
opportunity to speak.
"I feel as if I must say it, Master Tom," she said, in a low tone of
voice, "and I know you won't tell your uncle, but I don't like Mr James
Brandon a bit, and I don't like his son; but if master will bring him
down there's nothing I won't do to try and make him well; and I do
assure you, Master Tom, that there's a deal more in good jellies and
very strong beef-tea than there is in doctors' stuff."
"They're much nicer," said Tom, smiling.
"Ah, but it isn't all that, sir; it's the strength there is in them.
Perhaps master might like me to go up and nurse his brother."
"No, I'm sure he would not," said Tom; and just then his uncle returned.
"Going to walk part of the way with me, Tom?" said Uncle Richard.
"I'm going to walk all the way with you, uncle, and carry your bag,"
said Tom; and ten minutes later they were on the road, chatting about
the telescope, and the next things to be done, so that the long walk to
the station was made to seem short. Then the train came steaming in,
and Uncle Richard stepped into his compartment.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to come, uncle, and tell him I
forgive him again?" whispered Tom, as he handed in the little black bag.
"Certain. I'll give your message. Good-bye."
The train glided away, and Tom started back for home with his mind busy
for a few minutes over the scene at Mornington Crescent; and then
thoughts flew on to the mill and into the future, when perhaps some far
greater telescope would be mounted, and nights occupied searching the
heavens.
Then Tom's thoughts came back to earth, and Pete Warboys' hole under the
great pine-tree, and he was still busy over that, and the great
gipsy-like boy's habits,--poaching, probably stealing, and making
himself a nuisance to everybody,--when he caught sight of the lad
himself peering into a patch of coppice evidently watching something,
that something proving to be the dog, which soon after leaped out into
the road.
Tom's footsteps had been silenced by the soft green turf which margined
the way, so that he was close up to the lad before he was noticed, and
then Pete gave a bound and shot into the coppice, followed by his dog;
but once more the dog turned back to give him a friendly bark.
"After no good, or he wouldn't have rushed away like that," thought Tom,
as he went on, reached the cottage feeling very little the worse for his
long morning's walk, and meaning to go up and busy himself in the
laboratory; but to his surprise Mrs Fidler stopped him.
"Don't go away, Master Tom; it's close to one o'clock, and lunch will be
ready. We will have regular dinner at seven, when your uncle comes
back."
"If he does come to-night," said Tom.
"Oh, he will, my dear, if he possibly can, you may depend upon it."
The housekeeper was right, for soon after half-past six the station fly
brought Uncle Richard back, tired, but looking brighter than when he
started.
"How is he?" said Tom anxiously.
"Better, much better. Your aunt says a change came over him soon after
we had gone, my boy, and the doctor thinks that he will come round now."
Tom looked very hard in his uncle's eyes, and Uncle Richard looked very
hard in his, but neither of them spoke. They each thought the same
thing though, and that was, that the doctor had said he had something
upon his mind. That something was no longer there, and its removal had
achieved what no medical man could have done, and so quickly that it
seemed to be like a miracle.
A week passed, and two answers to letters of inquiry came down to
Heatherleigh, both saying that Uncle James was improving fast.
Another week, and only one letter came, with the same report.
The next week a short acknowledgment came from Sam, to say that his
father was nearly well, and had gone down to Bournemouth for a change.
"I think, Tom, we may as well finish the telescope," said Uncle Richard
dryly. "Let's set to work at once."
That same day Mrs Fidler, who had heard the news, seized an opportunity
to deliver her opinions to Tom.
"It's just as I thought, sir," she said, "he was never really bad. It
was all nerves and fidgetting about himself. He thought he was in a
very bad state, and kept on making himself worse and worse, till he
believed that he was going to die. It was nothing but nerves."
"It was something else," thought Tom; and what that something was he did
not confide to the housekeeper.
"I'm glad he has got well again," he said to himself; "but I hope
neither he nor Cousin Sam will come down here."