Part 31 (1/2)

As for John, he had walked down to the wood as usual, in full possession of his present self, and as he supposed of his future intentions, and yet, sitting opposite to these married lovers for a quarter of an hour, wrought a certain change in him that nothing ever effaced. It was an alien feeling to him to be overcome by a yearning discontent. Something never yet fed and satisfied made its presence known to him. It was not that sense which comes to all, sooner or later, that human life cannot give us what we expected of it, but rather a pa.s.sionate waking to the certainty that he never even for one day had possessed what it might have given. He had never been endowed for one day with any deep love, with its keen perceptions and high companions.h.i.+p.

”Well, I suppose I didn't deserve it,” he thought, half angrily, while he tried to trample the feeling down and stifle it. But his keener instincts soon rose up in him and let him know that he did deserve it.

It was very extraordinary that he had not won it--there were few men, indeed, who deserved it half so well.

”But it's too late now,” he chose to say to himself, as he drove home.

”It's not in my line either to go philandering after any woman. Besides, I hate red hair. The next _Dissolution_ I'll stand for the borough of Wigfield. Seven children to bring up, and one of them almost as big as myself--what a fool I am! What can I have been thinking of?”

”What are you laughing at, papa?” said Barbara, who was sitting beside him.

”Not at you, my darling,” he replied; ”for you are something real.”

For the next few weeks neither he nor Valentine saw much of Dorothea: excepting at three or four dinners, they scarcely met at all. After this came the Harrow holidays. Johnny came home, and with him the inevitable Crayshaw. The latter was only to stay a week, and that week should have been spent with Brandon, but the boys had begged hard to be together, having developed a peculiar friends.h.i.+p for one another which seemed to have been founded on many fights, in consequence of which they had been strictly forbidden to meet.

This had taken place more than a year before, when Crayshaw, having been invited by John to spend the holidays with his boy, the two had quarrelled, and even fought, to such a degree that John at last in despair had taken Johnnie over to his grandfather's house, with the declaration that if he so much as spoke to Crayshaw again, or crossed the wide brook that ran between the two houses, he would fine him half-a-crown every time he did it.

”Ith all that hateful map,” said young hopeful sulkily, when he was borne off to his banishment.

”You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” quoth his father. ”I don't care what it's about. You have no notion of hospitality. I won't have you fight with your guest.”

Crayshaw was in very weak health, but full of mischief and fun. For a few days he seemed happy enough, then he flagged, and on the fifth morning he laid half-a-crown beside John's plate at breakfast.

”What's this for?” asked John.

”Because it is not fair that he should be fined, and not I.”

”Put it in the missionary box,” said John, who knew very well that the boys had been constructing a dam together all the previous day.

”It was about their possessions that they quarrelled,” said Gladys in giving an account of the matter afterwards. ”They made a plan that they would go into partners.h.i.+p, and conquer all the rest of the world; but when they looked at the great map up in Parliament, and Johnnie found how much the most he had got, he said Cray must annex j.a.pan, or he would not join. Cray said it was against his principles. So they quarrelled, and fought once or twice; but perhaps it was just as well, for you know the rest of the world would rather not be conquered. Then, when they were fined for playing together, they did every day. They made a splendid dam over the brook, which was very low; but one night came a storm, father's meadows were flooded, they could not get the dam undone, and some sheep were drowned. So they went to Grand, and begged him to tell father, and get them off. They said it was a strange thing they were never to be together, and neither of them had got a penny left. So Grand got them forgiven, and we went all over the meadows for two or three days in canoes and punts.”

And now these two desirable inmates were to be together for a week. A great deal can be done in a week, particularly by those who give their minds to it because they know their time is short. That process called turning the house out of windows took place when John was away. Aunt Christie, who did not like boys, kept her distance, but Miss Crampton being very much scandalized by the unusual noise, declared, on the second morning of these holidays, that she should go up into Parliament, and see what they were all about. Miss Crampton was not supposed ever to go up into Parliament; it was a privileged place.

”Will the old girl really come, do you think?” exclaimed Crayshaw.

”She says she shall, as soon as she has done giving Janie her music lesson,” replied Barbara, who had rushed up the steep stairs to give this message.

”Mon peruke!” exclaimed Johnnie looking round, ”you'd better look out, then, or vous l'attrapperais.”

The walls were hung with pictures, maps, and caricatures; these last were what had attracted Johnnie's eyes, and the girls began hastily to cover them.

”It's very unkind of her,” exclaimed Barbara. ”Father never exactly said that we were to have our own playroom to ourselves, but we know, and she knows, that he meant it.”

Then, after a good deal of whispering, giggling, and consulting among the elder ones, the little boys were dismissed; and in the meantime Mr.

Nicholas Swan, who, standing on a ladder outside, was nailing the vines (quite aware that the governess was going to have a reception which might be called a warning never to come there any more), may or may not have intended to make his work last as long as possible. At any rate, he could with difficulty forbear from an occasional grin, while, with his nails neatly arranged between his lips, he leisurely trained and pruned; and when he was asked by the young people to bring them up some shavings and a piece of wood, he went down to help in the mischief, whatever it might be, with an alacrity ill suited to his years and gravity.

”Now, I'll tell you what, young gentlemen,” he remarked, when, ascending, he showed his honest face again, thrust in a log of wood, and exhibited an armful of shavings, ”I'm agreeable to anything but gunpowder, or that there spark as comes cantering out o' your engine with a crack. No, Miss Gladys, ex-cuse me, I don't give up these here shavings till I know it's all right.”

”Well, well, it _ith_ all right,” exclaimed Johnnie, ”we're not going to do any harm! O Cray, he'th brought up a log ath big ath a fiddle. Quelle alouette!”

”How lucky it is that she has never seen Cray!” exclaimed Barbara.