Four Winds Farm Part 6

"Tony's put out this morning," said Dolly in a low voice to Gratian, "and I can't help being sorry too. He's lost his exercise-book that he was to copy out clear--and the master said it'd have to do with getting the prize. Tony's in a great taking."

"How did he lose it?" asked Gratian with a rather queer feeling, as he wondered what Dolly would say if she knew that at that very moment the lost book was safely hidden away at the bottom of his satchel, which he took care not to leave within Tony's reach.

"He doesn't know," said Dolly dolefully. "He's sure he had it when we left school last night. We were looking for it all evening, and then he thought maybe it'd be here after all. But it isn't."

Then the bell rang for lessons to begin, and Gratian saw no more of Tony, who was at the other side of the schoolroom in a higher cla.s.s, and though Dolly was in the same as himself, she was some places off, so that there was no chance of any talking or whispering.

Gratian's lessons were well learnt and understood. It was not long before he found himself higher in his cla.s.s than he had almost ever done before, and he caught the master's eye looking at him with approval, and a smile of encouragement on his face. Why was it he could not meet it with a brightly answering smile as he would have done the day before?

Why did he turn away, his cheeks tingling again as if the wind had been slapping them, here inside the sheltered schoolroom?

The master felt a little disappointed.

"He will never do really well if he is so foolishly shy and bashful," he said to himself, when Gratian turned away as if ashamed to be grateful for the few kind words the teacher said to him at the end of the morning's lessons; and the boy, in a corner of the playground by himself when the other children had run home for their dinner, felt nearly, if not quite, as unhappy as the day before.

"I don't see why I should mind about Tony," he was thinking as he sat there. "He's a naughty, unkind boy, and he deserves to be punished. If it hadn't been for _her_ helping me, I wouldn't have known my lessons a bit this morning, and the master would have thought I was never going to try. I just hope Tony will lose his place and the prize and everything.

Oh, how cold it is!" for round the wall, _through_ it indeed, it almost seemed, came sneaking a sharp little gust of air, so cold, so cutting, that Gratian actually s.h.i.+vered and shook, and the smarting in his face began again. "I feel cold even in my bones," he said to himself.

Just then voices reached his ear. The door of the schoolhouse opened and the master appeared, showing out a lady, who had evidently come to speak to him about something. She was a very pleasant-looking lady, and Gratian's eyes rested with satisfaction on her pretty dress and graceful figure.

"Then you will not forget about it? You will let me know in a few days what you think?" Gratian heard her say.

"Certainly, madam," replied the schoolmaster. "I have already one or two in my mind who, I think, may be suitable. But I should like to think it over and to ask the parents' consent."

"Of course--of course. Good-bye then for the present, and thank you,"

said the lady, and then she went out at the little garden-gate and the schoolmaster returned into his house.

"I wonder what they were talking about," thought Gratian. But he soon forgot about it again--his mind was too full of its own affairs.

Tony looked vexed and unhappy that afternoon, and Dolly's rosy face bore traces of tears. She overtook Gratian on his way home in the evening, and began again talking about the lost book.

"It's so vexing for Tony, isn't it?" she said, "and do you know, Gratian, it's even more vexing than we thought. Did you see a lady at the school to-day? Do you know who she was?"

Gratian shook his head.

"She's the lady from the Big House down the road, that's been shut up so long. It isn't her house, but she's the sister or the cousin of the gentleman it belongs to, and he's lent it to her because the doctors said the air hereabouts would be good for her little boy. He's ill someway, he can scarcely walk. And she came to the school to-day to ask master if one of the boys--his best boy, she said--might go sometimes to play with her little boy and read to him a little. And Tony was sure of being the top of the cla.s.s if only he had finished copying out those exercises--he'd put right all the faults the master had marked, and it only wanted copying. But now he's no chance; the other boys have theirs nearly done."

"How do you know about what the lady said?" Gratian asked.

"The master told mother. He met her in the village just before afternoon lessons, and asked her if she'd let Tony go, if so be as he was head of his cla.s.s."

"And would he like to go, d'ye think, Dolly?" asked Gratian.

"He'd like to be head of his cla.s.s, anyway," the sister replied. "I don't know as father can let him go, for we're very busy at the mill, and Tony's big enough to help when he's not at school. But he'd not like to see Ben or that conceited Robert put before him. If it were you now, Gratian, I don't think he'd mind so much."

Gratian's heart beat fast at her words. Visions of the pleasure of going to see the pretty lady and her boy, of hearing her soft voice speaking to him, and of seeing the inside of the Big House, which had always been a subject of curiosity to the children of the village, rose temptingly before him. But they soon faded.

"Me!" he exclaimed, "I'd have no chance--even failing Tony."

"I don't know," said Dolly. "You're never a naughty boy, and you can read very nice when you like. Master always seems to think you read next best to Tony. I shouldn't wonder if he sent you, if he's vexed with Tony. And he will be that, for he told him to do out that writing so very neatly. I think it was to be shown to the gentlemen that come to see the school sometimes. But I musn't go any farther with you, Gratian.

It'll be dark before I get home. I'm afraid Tony must have dropped the book out here, and that it blew away. Good-night, Gratian."

"Good-night, Dolly," he replied. And then after a little hesitation he added, "I wish--I wish Tony hadn't lost his book."

"Thank you, Gratian," said the little girl as she ran off.

Gratian stood and looked after her with a queer mixture of feelings. It was true, as he had said to Dolly, he did wish Tony had not lost his book, but almost more he wished _he_ had not found it. But just now, standing there in the softly fading light, with the evening breeze--no longer the sharp blast of the morning--gently fanning his cheeks, looking after little Dolly as she ran home, and thinking of Tony's sunburnt troubled face, the angry feelings seemed to grow fainter, till the wish to see his schoolfellow punished for his mischievous trick died away altogether. And once he had got to this, it was a quick step to still better things.

"I _will_, I _will_," he shouted out aloud, though there was no one--_was_ there no one?--to hear. And as he sprang forward to rush after Dolly and overtake her, it seemed to him that he was half-lifted from his feet, and at the same moment another waft of the breeze he had been feeling, though still softer and with a scent as of spring flowers about it, blew into his face.

"Are you kissing me, kind wind?" he said laughing, and in answer, as it were, he felt himself blown along almost as swiftly as the night before.

At this rate it did not take him long to gain ground on the miller's daughter.

"Dolly, Dolly," he called out when he saw himself within a few paces of her. "Stop, do stop. I have something for you--something to say to you."

Dolly turned round in astonishment.

"Gratian!" she exclaimed, "have you been running after me all this time?

I would have waited for you if I'd known."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Look here, Dolly," and he held out to her the poor copy-book which he had already taken out of his satchel.]

"Never mind. I ran very fast," said Gratian. "Look here, Dolly," and he held out to her the poor copy-book which he had already taken out of his satchel. "This is what I ran after you for; give it to Tony, and----"

"Tony's lost exercise-book!" cried Dolly. "Oh Gratian, how glad he will be. Where did you find it? _How_ good of you! Did you find it just now, since you said good-night to me?"

Gratian's face grew red, but it was too dark for Dolly to see.

"No," he said, "I found it before. But--but--Tony had done me a bad turn, Dolly, and it wasn't easy--not all at once--to do him a good one instead. But I've done it now, and you may tell him what I say. I'm quite in earnest, and I'm glad I've done it. Tell him I hope he'll be the head of his cla.s.s now, anyway, and----"

"Gratian," said Dolly, catching hold of his arm as she spoke, "I don't know what the trick was that Tony played you, or tried to play you. But I know he's terrible fond of tricks, though I don't think he's got a bad heart. And it was too bad of him to play it on you, it was--you that never does ill turns to none of us."

"I've been near it this time, though," said Gratian, feeling, now that the temptation was over, the comfort of confessing the worst. "I was very mad with Tony, and I didn't like bringing myself to give back his book. I don't want you to think me better than I am, Dolly."

"But I do think you very good all the same, I do," said the little girl earnestly, "and I'll tell Tony so. And you shan't have any more tricks played you by him--he's not so bad as that. Thank you very much, Gratian. If he gets the prize, it'll be all through you."

"And about going to the Big House," added Gratian, rather sadly. "He'll be the one for that now. I think that's far before getting a prize. It was thinking of that made me feel I _must_ give him his book. I'd give a good deal, I know, to be the one to go the Big House."

"Would you?" said Dolly, a little surprised, for it was not very often Gratian spoke so eagerly about anything. "I don't know that I'd care so much about it. And to be sure you might have been the one if you hadn't helped Tony now! But I don't know that it would be much fun after all--just amusing a little boy that's ill."

"You didn't see the lady, Dolly, but _I_ did," said Gratian. "She's not like any one I ever saw before--she's so beautiful. Her hair's a little the colour of yours, I think, but her skin's like--like cream, and her eyes are as kind as forget-me-nots."

"Was she finely dressed?" asked Dolly, becoming interested.

"Yes--at least I think so. Her dress was very soft, and a nice sort of s.h.i.+ny way when she moved, and she spoke so prettily. And oh, Dolly, it'd be terribly nice to see the Big House. Fancy, I've heard tell there are beautiful pictures there."

"Pictures--big ones in gold frames, do you mean?" Dolly inquired.

"I don't know about gold frames. I've never seen any. But pictures of all sorts of things--of places far away, I daresay, where the sky is so blue and the big sea--like what the master tells us sometimes in our geography. Oh, I'd like more than anything to see pictures, Dolly."