Menhardoc Part 73

"Oh! I say, Will, don't--please don't!" cried d.i.c.k.

"It hurts me, it does indeed. Oh, how I wish I could do something to help you! I tell you what I'll do, and Taff shall help me. I'll save up to help you buy a boat of your own."

"Thank you," said Will gently; "but you must not think of that. No, Master d.i.c.k."

"There; don't call me Master d.i.c.k; say d.i.c.k. I want you to be friends with me, Will. It's all nonsense about you only being a fisher lad. My father said only yesterday to Taff that he should have been very proud to have called you his son."

"Oh!" cried Will, with a deprecatory movement of his hand.

"He did; and that you had the spirit of a true gentleman in your breast.

I say, Will Marion," cried d.i.c.k, giving him a playful kick, "what a fellow you are! I'm as jealous of you as Taff is."

"Nonsense!" cried Will; "and don't you be so hard on him. Do you know what he did yesterday?"

"Made some disagreeable remark," said d.i.c.k bitterly.

"He came up to me when I was alone and shook hands with me, and said he was very sorry that he had been so stuck-up and rude to me as he had been sometimes, and said it was all his ignorance, but he hoped he knew better now."

"Taff did? Taff came and said that to you?" cried d.i.c.k excitedly.

"Yes; and we parted the best of friends."

"There's a chap for you!" cried d.i.c.k warmly. "There's a brick! I say Taff is a fine fellow after all, only he got made so stuck-up and tall-hat and Eton jacketty at one school he went to. But, I say, my father wants you. Come along."

d.i.c.k led the way into the parlour, where the object of their conversation was sitting by the window reading, and Mr Temple busy over some papers.

"Here's Will, father," said d.i.c.k.

"I'll attend to him in a moment," said Mr Temple. "Let me finish this letter."

Will stood in the middle of the room in his shabby, well-worn canvas trousers and coa.r.s.e jersey, his straw hat hanging at full arm's-length by his side, and his clear grey eyes, after a glance at Arthur, fixed almost hungrily upon the specimens of ore and minerals that enc.u.mbered the table and window-sill wherever there was a place where a block could be laid.

The sight of these brought up many a hunt that he had had amongst the old mines and rifts and chasms of the rocks round about the sh.o.r.e, and made him long once more to steal away for a few hours in search of some vein that would give him a chance of making himself independent and working his own way in the world.

d.i.c.k broke his train of thought by coming behind him and placing a chair for him, but he declined.

"I wish I had thought to do that!" said Arthur to himself. "I never think of those little things."

"That's done," said Mr Temple sharply as he fastened down a large blue envelope and swung round to face Will. "Sit down, my lad," he said quickly.

Will hesitated, and then sat down, wondering what was coming; and so accustomed was he to being taken to task that he began to run over in his mind what he had done lately likely to have displeased Mr Temple.

He came to the conclusion at last that he had been encouraging the two lads too much to go out fis.h.i.+ng, and that their father was annoyed with them for making a companion of so common a lad.

Mr Temple gazed straight at him in silence for a few moments, and Will met his gaze frankly and well.

"Let me see, my lad," said Mr Temple at last. "You are quite dependent on Mr and Mrs Marion?"

"Yes, sir," said Will with an ill-suppressed sigh.

"And your parents are both dead?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have no other relatives?"

"No, sir;" and Will looked wonderingly at the speaker, who now ceased, and sat nursing one leg over the other.

"Should you like to be master of a boat of your own?"

"Ye-es, sir," said Will slowly.

"You are very fond of the sea?"

"I like the sea, sir."

"And would like to grow up and be a fisherman?"

Will shook his head.

"I don't want to despise the fishermen, sir," said Will; "but I should choose to be a miner and have to do with mines if I could do as I liked."

"And go down into a deep hole and use a pick all your life, eh?"

"No," replied Will; "I should try to rise above doing that. Most of our miners here work with their arms, and they seem to do that always; but here and there one of them works with his head as well, and he gets to be captain of a mine, or an adventurer."

"Ah!" said Mr Temple sternly. "Why, what an idle, discontented dog you must be, sir! I don't wonder at your aunt scolding you so that all the people in the village can hear. Why don't you attend to your work as a fisher lad, and be content with your position?"

"I do attend to my work, sir," said Will firmly; "but I can't feel content with my station."

"Why not, sir? Why, you are well fed and clothed; and if you wait long enough you will perhaps succeed to your uncle's property when he dies, and have a boat or two and a set of nets of your own."

Will flushed up and rose from his chair.

"You have no business to speak to me, sir, like that," he said warmly; "and I am not so mean and contemptible as to be looking forward to getting my poor old uncle's property when he dies."

"Well done, Will!" cried d.i.c.k enthusiastically.

"Silence, sir!" cried Mr Temple sternly. "How dare you speak like that! And so, sir, you are so unselfish as to wish to be quite independent, and to wish to get your living yourself free of everybody?"

"Yes, sir," said Will coldly; and he felt that Mr Temple was the most unpleasant, sneering man he had ever seen, and not a bit like d.i.c.k.

"Like to discover a copper mine with an abundance of easily got ore?"

"Yes, sir," said Will quickly. "I should, very much."

"I suppose you would," said Mr Temple. "Are you going to do it?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," said Will respectfully; but he was longing for the interview to come to an end. "The place has been too well searched over, sir."