The Crofton Boys Part 4

Still he had no idea that this was any concern of his, till he saw something that made him start.

"Why, there's Phil!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

"This is Shaw's mill, and there is Shaw; which is all I have to do with," said the coachman, as he pulled up.

Hugh was soon down, with his uncle and Phil, and one of the men from the mill to help. His aunt was at the window too; so that altogether Hugh forgot to thank his companions for his safe seat. He would have forgotten his box, but for the coachman. One thing more he also forgot.

"I say, young master," said the driver, "remember the coachman. Where's your sixpence?"

"Oh, my sixpence!" cried Hugh, throwing down what he held, to feel in his curious inner pocket, which was empty.

"Lest you find a hole in your pocket, here is a sixpence for you," cried the right-hand pa.s.senger, tossing him his own sixpence. "Thank you for teaching us the secret of such a curious pocket."

The coachman was impatient, got his money, and drove off, leaving Hugh to make out why he had been tickled, and how his money had changed hands. With a very red face, he declared it was too bad of the man: but the man was out of his hearing, and could never know how angry he was.

"A pretty story this is for our usher to have against you, to begin with," was Phil's consolation. "Every boy will know it before you show yourself; and you will never hear the last of it, I can tell you."

"Your usher!" exclaimed Hugh, bewildered.

"Yes, our usher. That was he on the box, beside coachee. Did not you find out that much in all these eight-and-twenty miles?"

"How should I? He never told me."

Hugh could hardly speak to his uncle and aunt, he was so taken up with trying to remember what he had said, in the usher's hearing, of the usher himself, and everybody at Crofton.

CHAPTER FOUR.

MICHAELMAS-DAY OVER.

Mrs Shaw ordered dinner presently; and while it was being served, she desired Phil to brush his brother's clothes, as they were dusty from his ride. All the while he was brus.h.i.+ng (which, he did very roughly), and all the first part of dinner-time, Phil continued to tease Hugh about what he had said on the top of the coach. Mrs Shaw spoke of the imprudence of talking freely before strangers; and Hugh could have told her that he did not need such a lecture at the very time that he found the same thing by his experience. He did wish Phil would stop. If anybody should ask him a question, he could not answer without crying.

Then he remembered how his mother expected him to bear things; and he almost wished he was at home with her now, after all his longing to be away. This thought nearly made him cry again; so he tried to dwell on how his mother would expect him to bear things: but neither of them had thought that morning, beside his box, that the first trial would come from Phil. This again made him so nearly cry that his uncle observed his twitching face, and, without noticing him, said that he, for his part, did not want to see little boys wise before they had time to learn; and that the most silent companion he had ever been shut up with in a coach was certainly the least agreeable: and he went on to relate an adventure which has happened to more persons than one. He had found the gentleman in the corner, with the s.h.a.ggy coat, to be a bear--a tame bear, which had to take the quickest mode of conveyance, in order to be at a distant fair in good time. Mr Shaw spun out his story, so that Hugh quite recovered himself, and laughed as much as anybody at his uncle having formed a bad opinion of Bruin in the early twilight, for his incivility in not bowing to the pa.s.senger who left the coach.

After dinner, Phil thought it time to be off to Crofton. He had missed something by coming away at all to-day; and he was not going to run the chance of losing the top of the cla.s.s by not having time to do his Sall.u.s.t properly. Mrs Shaw said they must have some of her plums before they went, and a gla.s.s of wine; and Mr Shaw ordered the gig, saying he would drive them, and thus no time would be lost, though he hoped Phil would not mind being at the bottom of every cla.s.s for once to help his brother, seeing how soon a diligent boy might work his way up again. Phil replied that that was not so easy as people might think, when there was one like Joe Cape determined to keep him down, if he could once get him down.

"I hope you will find time to help Hugh up from the bottom, in a cla.s.s or two," said Mr Shaw. "You will not be too busy about your own affairs to look to his, I suppose."

"Where is the use of my meddling?" said Phil. "He can't rise for years to come. Besides--"

"Why can't I rise?" exclaimed Hugh, with glowing cheeks.

"That is right, Hugh," said his uncle. "Let n.o.body prophesy for you till you show what you can do."

"Why, uncle, he is nearly two years younger than any boy in the school; and--"

"And there is little Page above you in algebra. He is about two years younger than you, Phil, if I remember right."

Hugh could not help clapping his hands at the prospect this held out to him. Phil took the act for triumphing over him, and went on to say, very insultingly, that a little fellow who had been brought up among the girls all his life, and had learned of n.o.body but Miss Harold, could not be expected to cut any figure among boys. Hugh looked so grieved for a moment, and then suddenly so relieved, that his kind uncle wondered what was in his mind. He took the boy between his knees and asked him.

Hugh loved his uncle already, as if he had always known him. He put his arms round his neck, and whispered in his ear what he was thinking of;-- his mother's saying that G.o.d could and would, if He was sought, put the spirit of a man into the feeblest child.

"True!--quite true! I am very glad you know that, my boy. That will help you to learn at Crofton, though it is better than anything they can teach you in their school-room."

Mrs Shaw and Phil looked curious; but Mr Shaw did not repeat a word of what Hugh had said. He put the boy away from his knees, because he heard the gig coming round.

Mrs Shaw told Hugh that she hoped he would spend some of his Sundays with his uncle and her; and his uncle added that he must come on holidays as well as Sundays,--there was so much to see about the mill.

Phil was amused, and somewhat pleased, to find how exactly Hugh remembered his description of the place and neighbourhood. He recognised the duck-pond under the hedge by the road-side, with the very finest blackberries growing above it, just out of reach. The church he knew, of course, and the row of chestnuts, whose leaves were just beginning to fall; and the high wall dividing the orchard from the playground. That must have been the wall on which Mr Tooke's little boy used to be placed to frighten him. It did not look so very high as Hugh had fancied it. One thing which he had never seen or heard of was the bell, under its little roof on the ridge of Mr Tooke's great house.

Was it to call in the boys to school, or for an alarm? His uncle told him it might serve the one purpose in the day, and the other by night; and that almost every large farm thereabouts had such a bell on the top of the house.

The sun was near its setting when they came in sight of the Crofton house. A long range of windows glittered in the yellow light, and Phil said that the lower row all belonged to the school-room;--that whole row.

In the midst of his explanations Phil stopped, and his manner grew more rough than ever--with a sort of shyness in it too. It was because some of the boys were within hearing, leaning over the pales which separated the playground from the road.

"I say; hollo there!" cried one. "Is that Prater you have got with you?"

"Prater the second," cried another. "He could not have had his name if there had not been Prater the first."

"There! There's a sc.r.a.pe you have got me into already!" muttered Phil.

"Be a man, Phil, and bear your own share," said Mr Shaw; "and no spite, because your words come back to you!"

The talk at the palings still went on, as the gig rolled quietly in the sandy by-road.

"Prater!" poor Hugh exclaimed. "What a name!"

"Yes; that is you," said his uncle. "You know now what your nick-name will be. Every boy has one or another: and yours might have been worse, because you might have done many a worse thing to earn it."

"But the usher, uncle?"

"What of him?"

"He should not have told about me."

"Don't call him 'Prater the third,' however. Bear your own share, as I said to Phil, and don't meddle with another's."

Perhaps Mr Shaw hoped that through one of the boys the usher would get a new nick-name for his ill-nature in telling tales of a little boy, before he was so much as seen by his companions. He certainly put it into their heads, whether they would make use of it or not.

Mr Tooke was out, taking his evening ride; but Mr Shaw would not drive off till he had seen Mrs Watson, and introduced his younger nephew to her, observing to her that he was but a little fellow to come among such a number of rough boys. Mrs Watson smiled kindly at Hugh, and said she was glad he had a brother in the school, to prevent his feeling lonely at first. It would not take many days, she hoped, to make him feel quite at home. Mr Shaw slipped half-a-crown into Hugh's hand, and whispered to him to try to keep it safe in his inner pocket Hugh ran after him to the door, to tell him he had five s.h.i.+llings already--safe in his box: but his uncle would not take back the half-crown. He thought that, in course of time, Hugh would want all the money he had.

Mrs Watson desired Phil to show his brother where he was to sleep, and to help him to put by his clothes. Phil was in a hurry to get to his Sall.u.s.t; so that he was not sorry when Mrs Watson herself came up to see that the boy's clothes were laid properly in the deep drawer in which Hugh was to keep his things. Phil then slipped away.

"Dear me!" said Mrs Watson, turning over one of Hugh's new collars, "we must have something different from this. These collars tied with a black ribbon are never tidy. They are always over one shoulder or the other."

"My sisters made them; and they worked so hard to get them done!" said Hugh.

"Very well--very right: only it is a pity they are not of a better make.

Every Sunday at church, I shall see your collar awry--and every time you go to your aunt's, she will think we do not make you neat. I must see about that. Here are good stockings, however--properly stout. My dear, are these all the shoes you have got?"