Part 7 (1/2)

”For-shame, Henry!” burst out Sam; and the same moment those two feet were secured, and John was a prisoner. Miss Fosbrook called out to the rest to go on to church, and she and Sam dragged the boy up to the nursery, and shut him in there, roaring pa.s.sionately.

Nurse Freeman, knowing nothing about it, could not believe but that the stranger lady had made her child naughty, and said something about their Mamma letting him go to church; and ”when the child wished to go to church, it seemed strange he should not.”

Miss Fosbrook would not defend herself, for she was in great haste; but Sam exclaimed, ”Stuff! he was as naughty as could be all this morning, and only wanted to go now because he was told not.”

Johnnie bellowed out something else, but Miss Fosbrook would not let Sam go on; she touched his arm, and drew him off with her, he exclaiming, ”Foolish old Freeman! she will pet and spoil him all church-time, till he is worse than ever.”

It was lucky for her that she was too much hurried to dwell on this vexation; she almost ran to save herself from being late, and scarcely heard Sam's mutterings about wis.h.i.+ng to break Martin Greville's head.

”You need not hurry so much,” he said; ”there's a shorter cut, only I suppose you can't get through a gap.”

”Can't I?” she laughed; and he led her on straight through the Short- horns. Some of them looked at her more than she fancied, but she knew she might give up all hopes of Sam if he detected her fears.

Then came the gap, where a tree had been cut down in the hedge, and such a jump down from it! But she gathered up her muslin, and made her leap so gallantly, that the boy cried,

”Hurrah! well done!” and came and walked close to her, saying confidentially, ”I say, do you think we shall ever do the pig?”

”I am sure it might be done. If you are likely to do it you must know better than I.”

”I don't know that I much care about it. It will be rather a bother; only now we have said it, I shall hate it if we don't do it.”

”I think the pleasure of giving it will be a delightful reward for a little self-command.”

”Only Hal and the girls will make such a work about it. I'm glad, after all, that Bessie has nothing to do with it, or she would want to dress it up in flowers and ribbons. Ha-ha! But what a little crab it is!”

”Don't be too sure of that. People may have other designs.”

”Bessie's can't be anything but trumpery.”

”Sometimes present trumpery is a step to something better. 'A was an Archer' is not very wise, but it is the road to reading--and even if it were not so, Sam, it is not right to shame people into giving; for what is not bestowed for the true reasons, does no good to giver nor to receiver.

Sam looked up with a frown of attention, as if he were trying to take in the new light; but he did take it in, and smacking his hands together with a noise like a pistol-shot, said, ”Ay, that's it! We don't want what is grudged.”

Miss Fosbrook thought of words that would another time be more familiar to Sam. ”Not grudgingly, nor of necessity, for G.o.d loveth a cheerful giver.”

What she said was, ”You see, if you plague Bessie too much, to make her like ourselves, when she is really so different, you are driving her to the shamming you despise so much.”

”But ought not she to be cured of being silly?”

”When we have quite made up our minds upon what silliness is. There, the bell has stopped.”

CHAPTER IV.

The most part of church-time Johnnie was eating Nurse Freeman's plum- cake. Perhaps this did not make him any easier in the conscience, but he had a very unlucky sentiment, that as he was already naughty and in disgrace, it was of no use to take the trouble of being good till he could make a fresh beginning; and after what the Grevilles had said, he did not think that would be till Papa and Mamma came home; he did not at all mean to give in to a girl that was not even twenty. So he would not turn to the only wise thing he could have done, the learning of his Collect, but he teased Nurse out of more cake and more, and got what play he could out of little George, and that was not much, for Johnnie was not in a temper to be pleasant with a little one.

Coming home from church, Collects were to be learnt and said before tea: but Hal, after glancing over his own, took up his cap and said, ”Come along, Sam, Purday will be feeding the pigs; I want to choose the size of ours.”

”I've not done,” said Sam.

”Papa never said we were to say them to Miss Fosbrook.”