on him with a radiance that made him blink. And Mr. Wycherly looked
round the room with the relieved expression of one who, expecting
everything to be changed, found it still blessedly the same.
He had played his great stake and won: and never was winner more happily
relieved. When Montagu finished his morning's lessons and went
downstairs and Mr. Wycherly moved about his room dusting his books and
rearranging the piles of papers on his desk, he might have been heard to
sing softly and with subdued but joyful emphasis certain stanzas that
always concluded with a rollicking "fal la la la la la la."
Presently he went to Montagu's window and looked out toward Arthur's
Seat. But he did not see it, for in dreams he walked in his college
garden beside the bastioned city wall. "I would like to see the
chestnuts in bloom once more," he said softly, "and the perfect grass."
Montagu met his aunt on the staircase as he was going down and she at
once noted that his face looked tear-stained and his eyelids were
swollen with crying. It was so unheard of a thing that Montagu should
cry during his lessons, whatever else he might cry about, that Miss
Esperance stopped him to ask anxiously what had happened. The boy
crimsoned to the roots of his hair. "It was about the catechism, Aunt
Esperance," he said slowly. "I am sorry; I won't be tiresome any more.
"Then he _did_ speak to you?" she exclaimed in surprise.
"Oh, yes!" said Montagu earnestly. "He made me _very_ sorry," and he
fled past his aunt down the little crooked staircase and out into the
garden, for he feared what she might ask him next, and like Elsa, when
she discovered the gaps made by the missing books six years ago, the boy
felt that here again was a sacrifice that "she maun never ken."
The long-stilled voices of habit and tradition called loudly to Mr.
Wycherly, and moving as if in a dream, he went and opened a drawer in
his desk and drew from it a framed picture of his college arms. The
gules were faded but the seeded Or on the tudor roses caught the
sunlight and gleamed gladly, as though it rejoiced to see the brightness
of the day once more. With trembling hands he took down the portrait of
John Knox above the mantel-piece, and hung the arms of New College in
its place.
* * * * *
In looking forward for Montagu Mr. Wycherly had learned to look back, no
longer wholly in pain and shame, but sometimes in liveliest gratitude
that there was so much to remember that was lovely and of good report.
And the more he remembered, the more did action of many sorts seem
imperative, and in the July, after he had confessed himself to Montagu,
he went back to see Oxford once more. Back to the city, of perhaps all
others in the civilised world, to fill the minds and hearts of her sons
with an adoring passion of tenderness, of real filial affection. The
love, that while it worships the virtues of a mother, is only
strengthened by a perfect understanding of her weakness, her humanity,
her beautiful inconsistency.
The great quadrangles spread themselves empty and silent in the
sunlight: the fields, untenanted of "young barbarians all at play"
stretched green and peaceful to the river.
But the gray old buildings smiled their gracious welcome as of old, with
that wonderful mediaeval friendliness that neither time nor absence can
change or lessen. And just as a mother who gets her son home after long
absence in a far country will talk fondly of the dear, by-gone, boyish
days--remembering only such things as made her glad and proud--so Oxford
whispered kind, friendly things to Mr. Wycherly, and he was comforted.
The day after his arrival he went to Matins in Christ Church choir, and
there seemed something peculiarly applicable in the psalms for that, the
twenty-seventh day. For lo! had he not returned to his Jerusalem, well
content to pray for her peace?
Peace be within thy walls: and plenteousness
within thy palaces.
For my brethren and companions' sakes: I will
wish thee prosperity.
Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God:
I will seek to do thee good.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*VALE*
Twilight and evening bell
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell--
When I embark.
LORD TENNYSON.
When Montagu first went to Winchester he was something of a puzzle both
to masters and boys, although his housemaster, an old pupil of Mr.
Wycherly, knew enough of the boy's curious upbringing to explain matters
somewhat to his colleagues:
"He knows far more classics than the average sixth-form boy, and
practically nothing else. Of the world he knows about as much as a child
of three, and of games and other boys, less than any old maid in the
kingdom--a most difficult boy to place. It's a very risky experiment."
And Montagu's housemaster shook his head, for he felt worried about the
child.
Contrary to every one's expectation, however, he got on wonderfully well
with his school-fellows. Boys are tolerant enough of "queerness" if it
is unaccompanied by surliness or "side." If Montagu was "green" he was
also singularly obliging and good-natured. A readiness to render a good
turn is a passport to favour all the world over, and when his
housemaster declared Montagu to know less of other boys than any old
maid in the kingdom he made a mistake. Montagu had lived a good many
years with Edmund, and healthy boyhood is very much the same all the
world over.
He was always ready to give a construe or a copy of verses and it never
ceased to fill him with wonder that the boys in his own form, so much
bigger and wiser and self-assertive than he, apparently found such
difficulty in applying rules he could not remember to have learnt.
His accurate and old-fashioned way of expressing himself in ordinary
conversation was looked upon by the boys as an especially subtle form of
"rotting" or witticism; and it was quite a long time before Montagu
understood how it was that his simplest remarks, offered in all good
faith, were greeted with appreciative grins by his companions, who
generally took it that he was parodying one of the masters. Week by week
he committed fewer solecisms, and except that he seldom got into trouble
over his work, which he thoroughly enjoyed, his school life was very
like that of the rest and entirely happy.
The same term that Montagu went to Winchester Edmund was sent to a
preparatory school, also in England, and the little house at Burnhead
seemed very quiet and deserted.
They had all missed the old servant, Elsa, unspeakably, at first: but
youth is quick to accustom itself to new conditions, and Mr. Wycherly
was roused to so many fresh interests and activities that he hardly
realised what an important piece of the mechanism of Remote had stopped
working. But Miss Esperance mourned silently and deeply for the
faithful friend and servant who had ministered to her so tirelessly,
and, though neither she nor Elsa knew it, ruled her so beneficently for
fifty years.
After the departure of the boys, Miss Esperance grew more and more
fragile till the time came when she was fain to follow Elsa, and fare
forth into the unknown with the same dignified serenity that had
characterised her every act during her long life of upright dealing and
beautiful self-sacrifice.
The end came in the boys' second term at school.
"I am glad the boys have both entered upon their careers," she said to
Mr. Wycherly, in her kind, weak voice, as he sat by her bed the night
she died, "I shall tell Archie what dear, good lads they are--and that
poor young mother I never saw. I can tell her how proud she would have
been, how proud she may be--but perhaps she knows," and Miss Esperance
gave a little sigh as though she would have liked to be the first to
bear this pleasing intelligence. Then putting the thought from her as
savouring of selfishness, she continued, "I'm sure she knows, but she'll
be glad to hear it again: just as I am, when people praise them to me,
who know so well how dear they are."
Mr. Wycherly could not speak, but his hand tightened on the weak little
hand he held. "I would like to have seen Montagu again," she said
wistfully. "He is such a kind boy. But it is so far and he has only
just gone back, and my bonnie wee Edmund, too. It is better as it is.
I have you--and what is far more important, they have you.... I have
indeed been wonderfully blest. I used to look forward with such dread
to a lonely death-bed with no kind hand to hold mine at the last, but
the Lord has been very merciful. His merciful kindness is great toward
us...."
The faint, whispering voice died away into silence. The fluttering in
the frail small hand was stilled. And Mr. Wycherly was left alone, for
Miss Esperance had gone on.
A month later Mr. Wycherly went back to Oxford. Miss Esperance left all
she was possessed of to him, in trust for the boys, with the exception
of a hundred pounds to Robina; and to Montagu, her lace, her
jewels--such humble, old-fashioned trinkets they were--and her
miniatures, "in memory of his great kindness to me when I was ill."
Mr. Wycherly took a tall, old house in Holywell Street, close to his
college, and there the boys always came to spend their holidays. The
quaint three, so strangely linked together by fate and affection,
aroused benevolent curiosity and interest in the minds of friendly dons
and their families. In fact, the curious household was largely managed
by outsiders when the boys were at home. But they loved each other
greatly and it is that alone "which maketh light all that is burthensome
and equally bears all that is unequal. For it carrieth a burthen
without being burthened and maketh all that which is bitter sweet and
savoury."