"A letter, Miss, from Englebourn," said a footman, coming up to
Mary with the note given at the end of the last chapter, on a
waiter. She took it and tore it open; and while she is reading
it, the reader may be introduced to the place and company in
which we find her. The scene is a large old-fashioned square
brick house, backed by fine trees, in the tops of which the rooks
live, and the jackdaws and starlings in the many holes which time
has worn in the old trunks; but they are all away on this fine
summer morning, seeking their meal and enjoying themselves in the
neighbouring fields. In the front of the house is a pretty flower
garden, separated by a haw-haw from a large pasture, sloping
southwards gently down to a stream, which glides along through
water-cress and willow beds to join the Kennet. The beasts have
all been driven off, and on the upper part of the field, nearest
the house, two men are fixing up a third pair of targets on the
rich short grass. A large tent is pitched near the archery
ground, to hold quivers and bow-cases, and luncheon, and to
shelter lookers-on from the mid-day sun. Beyond the brook, a
pleasant, well-timbered, country lies, with high chalk-downs for
an horizon, ending in Marlborough hill, faint and blue in the
west. This is the place which Mary's father has taken for the
summer and autumn, and where she is fast becoming the pet of the
neighborhood.
It will not perhaps surprise our readers to find that our hero
has managed to find his way to Barton Manor in the second week of
the vacation, and having made the most of his opportunities, is
acknowledged as a cousin by Mr. and Mrs. Porter. Their boys are
at home for the holidays, and Mr. Porter's great wish is that
they should get used to the country in their summer holidays. And
as they have spent most of their childhood and boyhood in London,
to which he has been tied pretty closely hitherto, this is a
great opportunity. The boys only wanted a preceptor, and Tom
presented himself at the right moment, and soon became the hero
of Charley and Neddy Porter. He taught them to throw flies and
bait crawfish nets, to bat-fowl, and ferret for rabbits, and to
saddle and ride their ponies, besides getting up games of cricket
in the spare evenings, which kept him away from Mr. Porter's
dinner-table. This last piece of self-denial, as he considered
it, quite won over that gentleman, who agreed with his wife that
Tom was just the sort of companion they would like for the boys,
and so the house was thrown open to him.
The boys were always clamouring for him when he was away, and
making their mother write off to press him to come again; which
he, being a very good-natured young man, and particularly fond of
boys, was ready enough to do. So this was the third visit he had
paid in a month.
Mr. and Mrs. Brown wondered a little that he should be so very
fond of the young Porters, who were good boys enough, but very
much like other boys of thirteen and fifteen, of whom there were
several in the neighborhood. He had indeed just mentioned an
elder sister, but so casually that their attention had not been
drawn to the fact, which had almost slipped out of their
memories. On the other hand, Tom seemed so completely to identify
himself with the boys and their pursuits, that it never occurred
to their father and mother, who were doatingly fond of them,
that, after all, they might not be the only attraction. Mary
seemed to take very little notice of him, and went on with her
own pursuits much as usual. It was true that she liked keeping
the score at cricket, and coming to look at them fishing or
rabbiting in her walks; but all that was very natural. It is a
curious and merciful dispensation of Providence that most fathers
and mothers seem never to be capable of remembering their own
experience, and will probably go on till the end of time thinking
of their sons of twenty and daughters of sixteen or seventeen as
mere children who may be allowed to run about together as much as
they please. And, where it is otherwise, the results are not very
different, for there are certain mysterious ways of holding
intercourse implanted in the youth of both sexes, against which
no vigilance can prevail.
So on this, her great fete day, Tom had been helping Mary all the
morning in dressing the rooms with flowers and arranging all the
details--where people were to sit at cold dinner; how to find the
proper number of seats; how the dining-room was to be cleared in
time for dancing when the dew began to fall. In all which matters
there were many obvious occasions for those little attentions
which are much valued by persons in like situations; and Tom was
not sorry that the boys had voted the whole preparations a bore,
and had gone off to the brook to 'gropple' in the bank for
crayfish till the shooting began. The arrival of the note had
been the first _contre-temps_ of the morning, and they were now
expecting guests to arrive every minute.
"What is the matter? No bad news I hope," he said, seeing her
vexed expression.
"Why, Katie can't come. I declare I could sit down and cry. I
sha'n't enjoy the party a bit now, and I wish it were all over."
"I am sure Katie would be very unhappy if she thought you were
going to spoil your day's pleasure on her account."
"Yes, I know she would. But it is so provoking when I had looked
forward so to having her."
"You have never told me why she cannot come. She was quite full
of it all a few days since."
"Oh, there is a poor old woman in the village dying, who is a
great friend of Katie's. Here is her letter; let me see," she
said, glancing over it to see that there is nothing in it that
she did not wish him to read, "you may read it if you like."
Tom began reading. "Betty Winburn," he said, when he came to the
name, "what, poor dear old Betty? why I've known her ever since I
was born. She used to live in our parish, and I haven't seen her
this eight years nearly. And her boy Harry, I wonder what has
become of him?"
"You will see if you read on," said Mary; and so he read to the
end, and then folded it up and returned it.
"So poor old Betty is dying. Well she was always a good soul, and
very kind to me when I was a boy. I should like to see her once
again, and perhaps I might be able to do something for her son."
"Why should we not ride over to Englebourn to-morrow? They will
be glad to get us out of the way while the house is being
straightened."
"I should like it of all things, if it can be managed."
"Oh, I will manage it somehow, for I must go and see that dear
Katie. I do feel so ashamed of myself when I think of all the
good she is doing, and I do nothing but put flowers about, and
play the piano. Isn't she an angel, now?"
"Of course she is."
"Yes, but I won't have that sort of matter-of-course
acquiescence. Now--do you really mean that Katie is as good as an
angel?"
"As seriously as if I saw the wings growing out of her shoulders,
and dew drops hanging on them."
"You deserve to have some thing not at all like wings growing out
of your head. How is it that you never see when I don't want you
to talk your nonsense?"
"How am I to talk sense about angels? I don't know anything about
them."
"You know what I mean perfectly. I say that dear Katie is an
angel, and I mean that I don't know anything in her--no not one
single thing--which I should like to have changed. If the angels
are all as good as she"--
"_If_! why I shall begin to doubt your orthodoxy."
"You don't know what I was going to say."
"It doesn't matter what you were going to say. You couldn't have
brought that sentence into an orthodox conclusion. Oh, please
don't look so angry, now. Yes, I quite see what you mean. You can
think of Katie just as she is now in heaven without being
shocked."
Mary paused for a moment before she answered, as if taken by
surprise at this way of putting her meaning, and then said
seriously--
"Indeed, I can. I think we should all be perfectly happy if we
were all as good as she is."
"But she is not very happy herself, I am afraid."
"Of course not. How can she be, when all the people about her are
so troublesome and selfish?"
"I can't fancy an angel the least bit like Uncle Robert, can
you?"
"I won't talk about angels any more. You have made me feel quite
as if I had been saying something wicked."
"Now really it is too hard that you should lay all the blame on
me, when you began the subject yourself. You ought at least to
let me say what I have to say about angels."
"Why, you said you knew nothing about them half a minute ago."
"But I may have my notions, like other people. You have your
notions. Katie is your angel."
"Well, then, what are your notions?"
"Katie is rather too dark for my idea of an angel. I can't fancy
a dark angel."
"Why, how can you call Katie dark!"
"I only say she is too dark for my idea of an angel."
"Well, go on."
"Then, she is rather too grave!"
"Too grave for an angel!"
"For my idea of an angel,--one doesn't want one's angel to be
like oneself, and I am so grave, you know."
"Yes, very. Then your angel is to be a laughing angel. A laughing
angel, and yet very sensible; never talking nonsense?"
"Oh, I didn't say that."
"But you said he wasn't to be like you."
"_He_! who in the world do you mean by _he_?"
"Why, your angel, of course."
"My angel! You don't really suppose that my angel is to be a
man."
"I have no time to think about it. Look, they are putting those
targets quite crooked. You are responsible for the targets; we
must go and get them straight."
They walked across the ground towards the targets, and Tom
settled them according to his notions of opposites.
"After all, archery is slow work," he said, when the targets were
settled satisfactorily. "I don't believe anybody really enjoys
it."
"Now that is because you men haven't it all to yourselves. You
are jealous of any sort of game in which we can join. I believe
you are afraid of being beaten by us."
"On the contrary, that is its only recommendation, that you can
join in it."
"Well, I think that ought to be recommendation enough. But I
believe it is much harder than most of your games. You can't
shoot half so well as you can play cricket, can you?"
"No, because I never practice. It isn't exciting to be walking up
and down between two targets, and doing the same thing over and
over again. Why, you don't find it so yourself. You hardly ever
shoot."
"Indeed, I do though, constantly."
"Why, I have scarcely ever seen you shooting."
"That is because you are away with the boys all day."
"Oh, I am never too far to know what is going on. I'm sure you
have never practised for more than a quarter of an hour any day I
have been here."
"Well, perhaps I may not have. But I tell you I am very fond of
it."
Here the two boys came up from the brook, Neddy with his Scotch
cap full of crayfish.
"Why, you wretched boys, where have you been? You are not fit to
be seen," said Mary, shaking the arrows at them which she was
carrying in her hand. "Go and dress directly, or you will be
late. I think I heard a carriage driving up just now."
"Oh, there's plenty of time. Look what whackers, Cousin Tom,"
said Charley, holding out one of his prizes by its back towards
Tom, while the indignant crayfish flapped its tail and worked
around with its claws, in hopes of getting hold of something to
pinch.
"I don't believe those boys have been dry for two hours together
in daylight since you first came here," said Mary, to Tom.
"Well, and they're all the better for it, I'm sure," said Tom.
"Yes, that we are," said Charley.
"I say Charley," said Tom, "your sister says she is very fond of
shooting."
"Ay, and so she is. And isn't she a good shot too? I believe she
would beat you at fifty yards."
"There now, you see, you need not have been so unbelieving," said
Mary.
"Will you give her a shot at your new hat, Cousin Tom?" said
Neddy.
"Yes, Neddy, that I will;" and he added to Mary, "I will bet you
a pair of gloves that you don't hit it in three shots."
"Very well," said Mary; "at thirty yards."
"No, no! fifty yards was the named distance."
"No, fifty yards is too far. Why, you hat is not much bigger than
the gold."
"Well, I don't mind splitting the difference; we will say forty."
"Very well--three shots at forty yards."
"Yes; here, Charley, run and hang my hat on that target."
The boys rushed off with the hat--a new white one--and hung it
with a bit of string over the center of one of the targets, and
then, stepping a little aside, stood, clapping their hands,
shouting to Mary to take good aim.
"You must string my bow," she said, handing it to him as she
buckled on her guard. "Now, do you repent? I am going to do my
best, mind, if I do shoot."
"I scorn repentance; do your worst," said Tom, stringing the bow
and handing it back to her. "And now I will hold your arrows;
here is the forty yards."
Mary came to the place which he had stepped, her eyes full of fun
and mischief; and he saw at once that she knew what she was
about, as she took her position and drew the first arrow. It
missed the hat by some three inches only; and the boys clapped
and shouted.
"Too near to be pleasant," said Tom, handing the second arrow. "I
see you can shoot."
"Well, I will let you off still."
"Gloves and all?"
"No, of course you must pay the gloves."
"Shoot away, then. Ah, that will do," he cried, as the second
arrow struck considerably above the hat, "I shall get my gloves
yet," and he handed the third arrow. They were too intent on the
business in hand to observe that Mr. and Mrs. Porter and several
guests were already on the hand-bridge which crossed the haw-haw.
Mary drew her third arrow, paused a moment, loosed it, and this
time with fatal aim.
The boys rushed to the target, towards which Mary and Tom also
hurried, Mr. and Mrs. Porter and the new comers following more
quietly.
"Oh, look here--what fun," said Charley, as Tom came up, holding
up the hat, spiked on the arrow, which he had drawn out of the
target.
"What a wicked shot," he said, taking the hat and turning to
Mary. "Look here, you have actually gone through three
places--through crown, and side, and brim."
Mary began to feel quite sorry at her own success, and looked at
the wounded hat sorrowfully.
"Hullo, look here--here's papa and mamma and some people, and we
ain't dressed. Come along, Neddy," and the boys made off towards
the back premises, while Mary and Tom, turning round, found
themselves in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Brown,
and two or three other guests.