Chapter II

A PEEP INTO AN EARTHLY PARADISE, AND A MEETING WITH EVE.

"HE is top of the school, and knows more than any of the other scholars, and all that I can teach him."

"That is good hearing," said Daniel Walthew, as the schoolmaster told this of Mark, then aged thirteen; but he was not equally gratified when he added, "The boy ought to go to a better place than this. Give him a chance, and you will be proud of him."

"I'm proud of him now. Top boy of Grimblethorpe school is good enough for me, and better than I could ever do."

Daniel Walthew went home rejoicing. His boy's education was completed to his own satisfaction, and there would be no more school fees to pay. Now he would take him in hand and guide his steps in the old rut.

But Daniel had planned what he could not carry out.

Mark had tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and hungered for more. There were no books at home that he did not know by heart. A weekly local newspaper was the only new literature that came within the door of the cottage. He had not even the companionship of his old schoolfellows; he was to share his father's occupations by day, and to be content with what sufficed to fill up the measure of his parents' days when working hours were over.

Mrs. Walthew doubted what the result would be, but did not say so. Mark felt his monotonous life unbearable, but had been too well trained to rebel. So he did as he was bid, and in a short time became silent, listless, careless about his food, and spiritless in everything, besides looking miserably ill.

His mother and father had little faith in doctors, except as persons who were all of one mind in having long bills. So Mrs. Walthew made herb tea of the kind drunk by three generations of Walthews, and the fourth took it from her hand, but grew no better. Then a doctor was called in. He knew the family history, and he said promptly enough, "Your boy needs no medicine such as I can give, Mr. Walthew."

Daniel looked cheerful on hearing this, and decided that advice without physic could not be very costly. He was grievously undeceived when he found that the advice of this doctor would cost a guinea, whereas the Grimblethorpe medical man only charged half-a-crown for a visit, and a bottle of medicine into the bargain.

"What your son wants is something to think about, work for mind as well as body, and young companions to work amongst. Give him change of scene, plenty of books, good teachers, bright companions, and you will save him. Here he will die, or lose his reason."

The doctor was a friend of Mr. Mitcheson's, and therefore to be trusted, and as the result of the combined advice of lawyer and doctor, Mark went to Claybury, and stayed there from Monday to Saturday in each week, whilst his father trod the old rut with only his wife to bear him company, and both sorely missing their boy's presence.

At first, Daniel Walthew had many misgivings as to the wisdom of the plan to which he had been brought to consent. Mark's feet had not taken kindly to the path which sufficed for his father, though he had never complained of it. But a new interest was created by the lad's very absence. He was terribly missed during the week; but how delightful it was to welcome him back on Saturdays, and to hear all he had to tell! So thought the mother.

But whilst Daniel rejoiced to see the hue of health coming back to his son's cheeks, and to hear the new glad ring in his voice, he was not so ready to listen, because with every week's work the lad's store of knowledge was increasing. He was getting new-fangled notions, and Grimblethorpe, which had been and still was his father's world, would never satisfy him when school days were over. "What next?" Daniel asked himself. But he was afraid to suggest an answer to the question.

Besides the wider school world, and world of books to which Mark had access now, there was another charmed circle into which he entered with bated breath. Mrs. Mitcheson did not forget the talk between her husband and herself about brightening the life of the solitary lad. She questioned her own sons about him. "How do you like young Walthew?" she asked.

"Oh, mother, he is most amusing," said Allan. "I do not mean in his talk, but he has such prim, quiet ways for a boy. He is going to be a model good boy, and as such most objectionable. He never blots his exercise-books, or leaves anything out of place, or tears a leaf, or speaks at a wrong time. He is hatefully goody-goody."

"You are too hard on him, Allan," interposed Fred, who was sixteen, and a couple of years his brother's senior. "You know how Mark has been brought up, mother, in such old-fashioned un-boylike ways—they are very good ways all the same. If I were half as careful and methodical, I should save myself many a lecture. But Mark is very clever, and his parents will be very proud of him one of these days. He is a year and a half younger than I am, but I shall have to work hard to hold my own against Mark."

"I wonder if Mr. Walthew really will be proud of the result of his son's school work. It is certain to interfere with his pet plan of tying the lad down to the same kind of life that he leads himself."

"Why, mother, Mr. Walthew could never expect Mark to go back to the old life at Grimblethorpe. To dig and delve, to sow and reap on that little holding, where two or three generations of miserly Walthews have gone on scraping and hoarding farthings, until they are as rich as —"

"Hush! Fred, your father would be displeased if he heard you talk in such a manner."

"No one can hear me but yourself, mother, or you may be sure I should not say a word."

"Tell me about Mark's manners, Fred. I have seen little of him. He is very shy, is he not?"

"Yes, but he has really nice manners. Old Mr. Walthew, though homely and countrified, had nothing coarse or uncouth about him."

"Then you think Mark will behave nicely if I ask him here?"

"No fear of that. Do ask him, mother. It will be a real kindness to him to bring him amongst younger children. He is so much too old for fourteen," said Fred.

Mark was accordingly invited to Mr. Mitcheson's, and there he entered on a new and hitherto undreamed-of life. Mrs. Mitcheson did the wisest and kindest thing possible by handing him over to the tender mercies of her younger children; for she had a very populous nursery, and Mark soon became an immense favourite with them all.

In the Walthews' home at Grimblethorpe there was hardly an article of furniture that had not done duty for two or three generations. This said much both for the makers and users thereof, but little for the good taste of either. Everything was hard, bare, and uncompromising, though exquisitely clean and orderly. Nothing ever seemed to wear out or get broken in Barbara's careful hands.

After Mark became familiar with the handsome table appointments, soft carpets, fine pictures, and furniture which combined beauty of form with comfort in use, he became painfully sensible of the bareness and ugliness of his home surroundings. How he longed to break those impossible animals in brown and white pottery which ornamented (?) the parlour mantelshelf—how he wished to remove the china mugs, with "A present from Blackshore" in gilt letters on their sides, from the rank of decorations to the crockery shelf in the cupboard!

Mark compared the hard Windsor chairs with printed patchwork covers, and the hearthrug made of scraps of cloth sewed on a canvas foundation, with the velvet-seated furniture, of which, at first, he had been almost afraid to make use at Mr. Mitcheson's. But there all the beautiful things were in constant use, and in his own home, the best, where all were ugly, might only be brought out on rare occasions.

In a general way, the Walthews used thick delft cups and saucers and two-pronged steel forks. The china tea service, really beautiful and dainty, seldom graced the board, and three-pronged forks were only seen on Sundays.

Yet Mark made no mistakes. He was too quietly observant for that, and Mrs. Mitcheson was greatly delighted with the manners of her young guest.

"He has been very nicely brought up," she said to her husband. "Who would guess, to see him at our table, that the very sight of many of its appliances was new to him but a month ago?"

"Poor fellow! I am not sure whether we are doing him a kindness," replied Mr. Mitcheson. "The father is bent on pinning his boy down to the same dreary life that he leads, and every day's absence from Grimblethorpe makes it less likely that he will submit to it."

The lawyer's children were boys with one exception. There were three—Fred, Allan, and Maurice—then the only girl, Dorothy, who was nearly twelve years old when Mark paid his first visit to the house.

After her came four little masculine steps, the very youngest being only a few months old.

Dorothy, or Dolly, was the darling of the household, alike the pet and tyrant of the boys. The elder ones were continually contriving pleasures for their sister, she as continually playing little mother to the smaller people in the nursery, each of whom in turn learned to trot after her as soon as they could trot independently, and to look for her help in every difficulty.

It was twelve-year-old Dolly who took possession of fourteen-year-old Mark, questioned him about his home, and pitied him with all her heart when she found that he had neither brother, sister, nor even a cousin within reach.

"You poor lonely boy!" she exclaimed. "You say there is only yourself at home, and no one ever comes to play at your house. What do you do with yourself on Saturday afternoons and Sundays?"

"I get lessons ready for Monday first of all. Sometimes I fetch things from the shop for mother, or help father in the garden when there is anything I can do. On Sundays I go to church once—there is only one service."

"And then, I suppose, you have somebody to talk to."

"Not often, except my father and mother. I used to have very little fresh to say to them, but now it is better, for we are not all seeing the same things the week through, and I can speak about school, and all that happens at Claybury between Monday and Saturday."

"Next time you are at home you will tell them about me," said Dolly, with childish frankness, and a little sagacious nod of the head.

Mark assented.

"What else? About the little ones, and how nice it is to be one of a lot of children—though they do bother you at times, you know," said Dolly.

"Oh yes. And I shall say how kind your mamma has been to me, and—"

But Mark checked himself, and his face flushed suddenly.

"And what?" persisted Dolly.

"You can guess what," replied Mark. "Think of all that I shall see new; of any kind words said to me, and then you will know for yourself."

"But if anyone says unkind words, what then?"

"I will keep them to myself. Repeating things helps me to remember them, and I would rather forget unkind words if I can."

"Now, if anybody vexes me, I always go straight to mamma, and tell her; or if she is not in, I tell Fred. I believe you were going to say something to me, only you stopped all in a minute. I saw you go quite red, too."

The observant little lady was right. Mark was going to say that he should tell his mother how beautiful everything was at Mr. Mitcheson's, and how different from his own home surroundings. But he felt that silence on this point would be best. Somehow, he shrank from drawing too exact a picture of the cottage at Grimblethorpe.

"Then have you no cousins at all?' persisted Dolly.

"No own cousins or near relatives."

"How horribly poor you must feel! Don't you want any?"

"I should be glad if I had brothers and sisters. There were two baby boys before me, but they died. If I could choose, I would have a brother and a sister."

"It's no good troubling now," said Dolly. "If any were to come, they would be no good for companions, so you would be as well without. Being a boy, you would not want to nurse a baby, like I always do. They are such darlings—at least ours are," claiming proprietary right in the nursery treasures. "Are not your father and mother sorry you have no cousins or anybody?"

"They grieved when the other children died, but I do not think they care about relatives. Father says the fewer people have the better; for if they are richer, they look down on you, and if they are poorer, they always want to borrow money from you."

Mark said this innocently enough, just repeating his father's words. But these made Dolly thoughtful, and she remained silent, puzzling over and trying to understand the difference between this boy's life and parents and her own.

The Mitchesons were strong in family affection, never disowning their kindred, but readily responding to all reasonable claims for help and sympathy one amongst another.

There were no loose links in their family chain; through evil report and good report, they clung together. They helped the weak, cheered the troubled, and, if misfortune pursued one of their number, the prosperous held out kind hands—not empty hands—and set him on his legs again.

Even if there were a black sheep amongst them, love flung a mantle over his faults, so that the world at large should not scoff at the sable fleece, which, maybe, grew whiter in time, as grey hairs replace black ones, with advancing years and better judgment.

Mark was a problem to Dolly which she could not solve.

She had heard people say that his father was rich; yet, she was sure he worked in the fields, and wore a coat on week days, like the cottagers round Claybury. There was no servant—Mark had accidentally told so much—and therefore his mother must sweep, scrub, and make fires, and cook, and wash up dishes; no wonder she did not want company. And they did not care for aunts and uncles and cousins! It must be all very horrid. But Mark was nice, and so Dolly magnanimously resolved that she would not "bother"—her favourite, though inelegant, expression—but would be as good as ever she could to the lonely boy. So she sent her problem to the winds, and said to Mark—

"I have seven brothers—three older, four younger than I am. One more does not make much difference; so I will have you to go amongst the big lot, and make it into four. Then I shall be exactly in the middle, and you will have eight of us belonging to you. There!"

And Dolly, having settled this matter to her own satisfaction, gave herself no further anxiety on the subject, but managed to give Mark something to talk about by initiating him into the mysteries of tennis, and laughing and making him laugh at his awkwardness.