JOHN'S BROTHER.
"RUTH, I'm going to spend the evening at home; my brother Dick's just
returned from Australia, and mother's sent up for me to see him. You'll
come with me, of course," said John, a few evenings after.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I can't even ask to be spared. It's Jane's evening
out, and we've got company, and there's hot supper ordered."
"What a nuisance! Ask Jane to give up for once; you're always obliging
her."
"No, I can't do that, John, for cook is not best pleased, and Jane
doesn't go the way to manage her."
"I'll go and give cook the length of my tongue, I declare," said John,
angrily.
"Now you'll do nothing of the sort. You'll go and spend the evening with
your brother, and give him my kind regards, and be sure and bring me
back all the news." So saying, Ruth gave John a bright decided nod, and
whisked back into the kitchen.
"What do you think of that, cook? the unreasonableness of men!"
"What's up now?" asked cook, who was bending with a gloomy face over
preparations for an elaborate supper.
"Why, John wanted me to go home with him to-night, and didn't see why I
couldn't, though I told him how busy we should be."
"It's quite enough to have one of you gadding out and filling my hands
with your work," growled cook.
"Yes, it's too bad, but we'll manage well enough without Jane; let me
help you mix that, now," and Ruth took the basin, and with deft fingers,
which cook secretly admired, beat the compound it contained till it was
pronounced "just the thing."
Notwithstanding her brightness and ready surrender of an evening's
pleasure, Ruth watched John go off with a keen feeling of
disappointment, and for some minutes there was silence in the room.
"She's worth a dozen Janes," said cook to herself, for she was not so
wholly engrossed with her own pursuits as to be quite unobservant of
Ruth's disappointment.
"I don't know how it is," thought Ruth, as the busy evening wore away;
"cook and I do get on well together; she's quite pleasant to-night, and
wasn't cross, though I took the wrong sauce in just now."
Ah, Ruth, if there were more sunny tempers and unclouded faces like
yours in the world, there would oftener come to clouded minds and gloomy
moods just such brightness as you have brought to your fellow-servant
to-night!
John's brother Dick was several years older than John. Some ten years
previously he had taken to a seafaring life, but soon tiring of it, he
had settled in Australia. We say settled, but Dick Greenwood was one of
those men who could never be truly said to settle to anything. He had
tried farming, but the work was too hard; then he had joined a party
going into the bush, their free and easy life having an attraction for
him. After that, he went into a city store, and just as he had mastered
the details of the business and might have succeeded in it, he was
charmed by the performances of a band of travelling actors, and not
being without natural ability in that direction, he had induced them to
accept his services, and now, with little money, and a great deal of
shady experience, he had worked his passage back to England, that he
might just see how things were looking in the old country.
"Well, Jack, my boy, how are you?" he said in a loud, hoarse voice, as
John entered the room, which was redolent of tobacco and brandy.
"All right, Dick; glad to see you, though I shouldn't have known you
again. My word, you're a little different to the thin lath of a fellow
you were when you left home."
"You may say so," cried Dick; "I was a poor milksop then, and no
mistake; but I've improved, and, you bet, I've learned a thing or two."
John was not quite so sure of the improvement. At least the stripling
who had left his father's home was fresh and pure looking, but the man
who had returned in his place was bloated and pimpled, and his once
frank eyes now wandered furtively about.
"John's grown a fine fellow, hasn't he, Dick?" asked the mother,
proudly.
"He ain't bad-looking, if that's what you mean, but he don't look up to
snuff. No offence, Jack. I'll teach you a few wrinkles. Have a pipe,
boy."
"Thanks," said John, replenishing his own.
"Take a glass," and Dick made a bumper of hot spirit and pushed it
towards his brother.
"I don't take spirit, Dick. A glass of ale now and then is enough for
me."
"Stuff and nonsense, Jack. Take it like a man. There's nothing like a
glass of brandy and water for putting life into a fellow."
John took the glass, with a twinge of conscience as he thought of Ruth.
But in the excitement of his brother's stirring accounts of bush life
everything else was forgotten, and he not only drained the spirit before
him, but finished a second glass with which Dick slyly supplied him.
"I tell you, Jack," said his brother, at the close of the evening, "life
in England is a slow-going, humbugging sort of thing; hard work and
little pay; you've got to bow and scrape to those who've got the brass,
and they lord it over you as they don't dare to do anywhere else. Now,
where I've come from, Jack's as good as his master, and in as fair a way
of making his fortune too. Take my advice, boy, and come back with me.
In a year or two you'll have made a home for that bonny lass I've been
hearing of, and you can send for her. What do you say, eh?"
For a minute John was too surprised to speak. "Really, Dick, you've
taken me unawares. I'd like to get on faster than I have been doing, and
make a better home for my little woman than I've any prospect of doing
here; but for all that, what you propose is too serious a step to think
of taking without a deal of thought, and I don't know what Ruth would
say."
"If the girl's got any grit in her, she'll say, 'go, by all means, and
send for me as quick as you can.' You can work your passage out, and I
could get you into a store at Melbourne, and you're such a sticker,
you'd be sure to get on. Now I never expect to be a rich man; I can't
plod, and I must have change; but you're different, and would soon make
your fortune."
John bade his parents and brother good-night, and walked home revolving
the new idea. It was surrounded by a halo of romance that rendered it
increasingly attractive to him. Success and happiness seemed to lay
within his easy reach, and by the time that he arrived at his master's
house he had quite decided to accompany his brother back to Australia,
if Ruth would only consent to follow him.
"And she's such a loving, sensible little thing; she wouldn't wish to
stand in my way for a moment, especially when she knows it is for her
own sake I want to go."
So thinking, John let himself in through the garden door, and was not
surprised to find a dark figure, with white cap and apron, standing on
the kitchen doorstep waiting for him.
"You are late, John; cook and Jane have gone to bed."
"Well, Ruthie, I'm glad of that, because if you're not too tired, I want
a chat with you."
Too tired, indeed! When all the evening Ruth had been looking forward to
that few minutes as her ample compensation for the disappointments and
worries she had borne so patiently.
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