[Illustration: 9119]
The day for Donald's departure had arrived--that is, to the extent that
the sun, rising clear and bright at four o'clock, shone alike upon the
big castle on the hill and the little one beneath it. In the big castle,
let us hope, since we may not know, that even crowned heads were resting
easily, and that the level rays were powerless at that early hour to
waken them to that sense of great uneasiness supposed to be inseparable
from the lot of the “nobly born.”
But alas! I for one know to a Certainty that in the little castle there
was rebellion almost amounting to mutiny, and that one curly, uncrowned
head, that need not have had a care in all the world, was tossing
uneasily on its pillow. It was behaving, indeed, like the most unruly
little head imaginable, and obstinately refusing to accept a course of
action which heads far older and wiser than the little head in question
had agreed upon as in every way desirable. Indeed, the little queen,
whose realm was the hearts of her nearest and dearest, would have been
obliged to abdicate, for a while at least, I fancy, had she not chosen
before nightfall of that same day to bury her head in the lap of her
very most loyal subject, and with tears and sohs confess to her extreme
unreasonableness and avow her determination not soon again to be
overtaken by such a sorry state of mind and temper. Even Donald stared
at Marie-Celeste in grieved and reproving wonder, and yet to all
appearances it was all for Donald's sake, this defiant, protesting
attitude of hers, and Donald knew it. The trouble was that Marie-Celeste
did not see or would not see either rhyme or reason in Donald's being
sent down to Nuneham.
She gave full rein to a certain “little member,” and working herself up
to the highest pitch of excitement, gave vent in very aggressive
fashion to such sentiments as these. For her part, she thought it was
a downright shame to send a little fellow, who was just getting over
a fever, away to work himself to death on an old farm, where he would
surely be ill again before a week was over. And then it seemed so mean
not to be willing to pay his expenses outright for just one summer, till
he should be able to go to sea, instead of making him go to work and
earn money in the mean time.
For her part, too, when somebody (which was Harold) stood ready only
too gladly to pay Donald's way on the trip they were to take through
the Lake Country, and was just longing to invite him, she thought it was
_cruelly unkind_ in somebody else (which was her father) to say he did
not think best that he should be invited. If she were Harold, she just
believed she would go right ahead as she thought best herself. She
should think he had a right to do what he chose with his own without so
much as asking “by your leave” of anybody.
And this unqueenly state of mind lasted, I am sorry to say, for three
whole days together, to the dire distress of the truest hearts in
her kingdom. And all this while the wilful little queen was trying to
convince herself that it was ready for Donald's sake, when the truth
was that the long walks with Donald, when Harold--who was making up some
necessary back work at college--was not at her service, were what she
was determined not to give up, and the reading aloud in the evenings,
when Donald was such a delightful listener; and, in fact, the hundred
and one little amusing things that Donald was continually doing, and
that made the days go by in such happy, merry fashion.
If only at the outset some good little fairy might have held a magic
mirror close to her defiant little mind, and she could have seen
“selfishness” written large, right straight across all her motives,
there perhaps need never have been this dark chapter in her reign. But
lacking the fairies, some of us have to learn a good many things from
experience; and though hard enough in the learning, the lessons are
worth their weight in gold. Even queens have to goto the same school,
and it is a blessed thing for everybody when its lessons are learned _by
heart_ and in a way to be always remembered.
But at sunset on the fourth day Marie-Celeste relented, and coming into
the house with a white flag of truce at her eyes, threw herself at the
feet of her dearest subject, and burying her head, as I have already
hinted, in the lap of the same, capitulated body and soul.
Donald was gone. They had seen him off at the station--Harold and
she--and Donald, never allowing himself for a moment to regard this
whole affair in any light but the true one, kept a stiff upper lip
to the last, and smiled the cheeriest good-by as the guard banged the
carriage-door and the train glided out from the depot. Before he jumped
on the train, however, he had whispered, as the last of many entreaties:
“I know it's all for my sake, Marie-Celeste, but all the same, it's an
awful grind on me the way you're acting; and if you don't come to see it
so pretty soon, your father and mother will wish they had never let you
do anything for me. Honor bright, Marie-Celeste, you're not fair to them
or to me at all. Please give in as soon as you go home, and say you're
sorry, because you are--you _know_ you are.” And it was the “yes, I
am” in Marie-Celeste's eyes, though her lips still firmly pressed each
other, that made Donald's heart a thousand-fold lighter. And so, as you
have read, Marie-Celeste did really give in, without so much as a mental
reservation, and other hearts than Donald's were wondrously lightened,
and there was joy throughout all the kingdom that the queen had come to
her senses.
Meantime, Donald's train made good time to Nuneham; and there was Chris
at the station waiting with open arms to receive him, and, what was
more, he took Donald into them in a way that nipped in the bud those
queer little misgivings that spring up unbidden when one chances to
be leaving old scenes for new. And then when they reached the cottage,
there stood dear old Mis, Hartley, looking the picture of motherliness
in her snow-white cap and kerchief; and the welcome that she gave Donald
made him feel beyond all doubting that he had but exchanged one dear
home for another; and that meant worlds to a boy who had come to know
for the first time what a dear place home might be.
[Illustration: 0122]
In the hour that intervened between Donald's arrival and supper he had
had a chat with Mr. Hartley, in which the old keeper had taken to the
boy immensely; had made friends with Martha, as she showed him to the
little room under the eaves and helped him to stow away the contents of
his sailor chest, and had won his way straight to Mrs. Hartley's
heart, who was but a woman, after all, and gratified by the undisguised
admiration in his frank, honest eyes. There remained only one inmate of
the cottage yet to be encountered--the gentleman about whom Chris had
told him, and who had met with the driving accident a few weeks back;
but the gentleman in question bad his own ideas as to the time and place
when that dreaded encounter was to be gotten through with, and Donald
was not to be favored with an interview that evening.
“If it's not too much bother, Mrs. Hartley,” Ted had said, “I'll have my
supper here in my room to-night. I think for a first drive Harry took me
a little too far this afternoon.”
“I was afraid of that--afraid of that,” said Mrs. Hartley, looking at
Ted with the deepest solicitude, so that Ted felt like a fraud, for
though tired indeed from the drive, he had quite strength enough to take
his seat at the table with the rest but for the presence of that new and
undesired guest, Donald.
“Your sailor-boy arrived all right?” asked Ted, partly by way of
diverting conversation from himself and partly because there was the
possibility of meeting him to be provided against.
“Yes, indeed,” her face lighting up as she spoke; “and he seems the
most attractive little fellow. I want you should meet him after--”
“Not to-night, I think, Mrs. Hartley, if you don't mind. I'll just see
Harry a few moments when he comes and turn in very early. The little
sailor-boy will keep all right till morning, won't he?'”
Deeply annoyed that Ted's strength should have been so apparently
overtaxed, Mrs. Hartley paid no attention to this last remark.
“I shall take Mr. Allyn to task when he comes to-night,” she said
severely (that is, for her); “he should have known better; but if I
leave you now perhaps you'll get a good sleep before ever it's time for
your supper;” and then as she went out Ted drew a long sigh, and had
half a mind to call the dear old lady back and take her right into his
confidence. But no; on the whole, he thought he would wait and once more
consult Harry, and, besides, he was really too tired to enter upon any
explanations just then.
“Why, where's Ted?” asked Harry Allyn with real concern, as at his usual
hour he brought up at the doorway of the little cottage and peered into
the room beyond. The evening meal over, the old couple were seated on
the settle just outside the door, and Mrs. Hartley made room for Harry
between them.
“You've quite used Mr. Morris up!” she said reprovingly; “you ought not
to have gone so far; all these weeks of nursing ought to have taught you
better than that, Mr. Allyn.”
“Why, Mrs. Hartley!” for from any one so mild this was indeed censure.
“Really I think you are a little hard on me. It was Ted's own fault. I
wanted to turn back two or three times, and Ted wouldn't hear of it.”
“You should have turned, all the same. Invalids never know what is best
for them.”
“Well, how used up is he?” asked Harry with a sigh, more concerned at
the thought of harm done to Ted even than at Mrs. Hartley's disapproval.
“It is an awful pity if he's going to have a regular set-back.”
“Oh, it's not so bad as that, I fancy;” for sooner or later, Mrs.
Hartley always felt self-reproachful, no matter how justly she had taken
any one to task; “but Mr. Morris wants to see you for a few moments, so
you can go in and judge for yourself.”
“So, you're a wreck,” said Harry, entering Ted's room and closing the
door gently after him.
“Well, I'm pretty tired, but I'm here for a reason, you know.”
“Oh!” evidently relieved; “I thought possibly that was it; you didn't
get any chance, then, to have a word with Donald?”
“No; there didn't seem to be any way to manage, so I just kept my room.
Some day soon I'm going to tell them here all about myself, but I want
to do it in my own time and way, and not seem pushed to it because of
Donald's coming, and as though I only told because I thought I couldn't
keep them longer from knowing.”
“Look here, Ted, I'll manage this thing for you,” said Harry, after a
few moments' silence. “I'll drop in to breakfast in the morning, and
I'll contrive somehow to get the boy in here for a word with you as soon
as he shows his face below stairs.”
“Agreed,” answered Ted.
“Well, then, good-night, and do you get a good rest, so that Mrs.
Hartley will not think me wholly unfit in future to act as guardian on
your drives.”
True to his word, bright and early the next morning Harry unbolted the
outer door of the inn at Nuneham, where no one was yet stirring, and
started for his two-mile walk to the Hartleys'. It was a glorious July
morning, the air clear as a bell, and a bird here and there carolling
with all the abandon of June in the hedgerows.
One after the other he passed the typical little English farms that
skirt the roadway, seeming in their trim perfection and miniature
proportions more like toys to unaccustomed eyes.
It was only half-past six by the time he reached the Hartleys', and
Donald, as good fortune would have it, had just come downstairs and was
standing right in the doorway. Donald, who had been absent on a tour
of the farm with Chris when Harry was at the house the night before, at
once surmised who the new-comer was, but gazed in blank amazement,
none the less, as Harry, calling him by name, commanded him rather
imperatively to stay just where he was for a moment. Then opening Ted's
door, Harry said in a loud whisper:
“He's just outside here, and there's no one else within gun-shot; shall
I bring him in?”
“Yes,” sighed Ted, since the thing was inevitable.
No sooner said than done. Donald found himself in the stranger's room
and with his face aflame with the strangeness and suddenness of the
manner of his introduction. But behold! he was no stranger. In bed
though Ted was, and pale and white from his illness, one glance was
sufficient, and Donald stood transfixed, his hands on his hips in sailor
fashion and absolutely speechless.
“You know me, Donald?” said Ted, raising himself on one elbow.
“Yes, sir,” getting the words out with difficulty; “you're Mr. ------”
“Yes, but stop right where you are, for you're not to mention here who I
am. Do you think you can keep a secret?”
“If I choose I can for this was a very queer proceeding, and he was not
going to be led blindfold.
“Well, then, will you please be good enough to choose to keep it till
matters can be explained to you?”
“When will that be?” in a business-like way that was rather amusing.
“Till we can go for a walk after breakfast, and I can enlighten you,”
said Harry.
“And you mean that now, just for a little while, I am not to let the
Hartleys know that we've met before?” but as though he did not in the
least take to the idea.
“Exactly,” said Ted.
“Well, of course I can't refuse to do that much; but up at Windsor, you
know, they think you are off on a driving trip, and are wondering that
you don't write.”
“There's nothing to wonder at in that,” Ted answered a little sadly;
“Harold knows I've never been in the habit of writing, or of doing some
other things, for that matter, that might perhaps have been expected of
me.”
“Yes, I know,” was Donald's frank answer; “it's an awful pity.”
“'Nough said, my young friend,” remarked Harry, and fearing what next
might follow, marched him out of the room with a “Now be on your guard,
young man, and be sure and remember your promise.”