asked why he was not in bed, and moaned on:
‘Don’t go.’ I was speechless with wonder at the night and the scene. They whispered; I saw their faces close together, and Heriot’s arms round her neck. ‘Oh, Heriot, my darling, my Walter,’ she said, crying, I knew by the sound of her voice.
‘Tell me you love me,’ said Heriot.
‘I do, I do, only don’t go,’ she answered.
‘Will you love me faithfully?’
‘I will; I do.’
‘Say, “I love you, Walter.”’
‘I love you, Walter.’
‘For ever.’
‘For ever. Oh! what a morning for me. Do you smell my honeysuckle? Oh, don’t go away from me, Walter. Do you love me so?’
‘I’d go through a regiment of sabres to get at you.’
‘But smell the night air; how sweet! oh, how sweet! No, not kiss me, if you are going to leave me; not kiss me, if you can be so cruel!’
‘Do you dream of me in your bed?’
‘Yes, every night.’
‘God bless the bed!’
‘Every night I dream of you. Oh! brave Heriot; dear, dear Walter, you did not betray me; my father struck you, and you let him for my sake. Every night I pray heaven to make you forgive him: I thought you would hate me. I cried till I was glad you could not see me. Look at those two little stars; no, they hurt me, I can’t look at them ever again. But no, you are not going; you want to frighten me. Do smell the flowers. Don’t make them poison to me. Oh, what a morning for me when you’re lost! And me, to look out on the night alone! No, no more kisses! Oh, yes, I will kiss you, dear.’
Heriot said, ‘Your mother was Irish, Julia.’
‘Yes. She would have loved you.’
‘I ‘ve Irish blood too. Give me her portrait. It ‘s the image of you.’
‘To take away? Walter! not to take it away?’
‘You darling! to keep me sure of you.’
‘Part with my mother’s portrait?’
‘Why, yes, if you love me one bit.’
‘But you are younger than me, Heriot.’
‘Then good-night, good-bye, Julia.’
‘Walter, I will fetch it.’
Heriot now told her I was below, and she looked down on me and called my name softly, sending kisses from her fingers while he gave the cause for our late return.
‘Some one must be sitting up for you—are we safe?’ she said.
Heriot laughed, and pressed for the portrait.
‘It is all I have. Why should you not have it? I want to be remembered.’
She sobbed as she said this and disappeared. Heriot still talked into her room. I thought I heard a noise of the garden-door opening. A man came out rushing at the ladder. I called in terror: ‘Mr. Boddy, stop, sir.’ He pushed me savagely aside, pitching his whole force against the ladder. Heriot pulled down Julia’s window; he fell with a heavy thump on the ground, and I heard a shriek above. He tried to spring to his feet, but dropped, supported himself on one of his hands, and cried:
‘All right; no harm done; how do you do, Mr. Boddy? I thought I’d try one of the attics, as we were late, not to disturb the house. I ‘m not hurt, I tell you,’ he cried as loud as he could.
The usher’s words were in a confusion of rage and inquiries. He commanded Heriot to stand on his legs, abused him, asked him what he meant by it, accused him of depravity, of crime, of disgraceful conduct, and attempted to pluck him from the spot.
‘Hands off me,’ said Heriot; ‘I can help myself. The youngster ‘ll help me, and we’ll go round to the front door. I hope, sir, you will behave like a gentleman; make no row here, Mr. Boddy, if you’ve any respect for people inside. We were upset by Mr. Salter’s carriage; it’s damaged my leg, I believe. Have the goodness, sir, to go in by your road, and we’ll go round and knock at the front door in the proper way. We shall have to disturb the house after all.’
Heriot insisted. I was astonished to see Boddy obey him and leave us, after my dear Heriot had hopped with his hand on my shoulder to the corner of the house fronting the road. While we were standing alone a light cart drove by. Heriot hailed it, and hopped up to the driver.
‘Take me to London, there’s a good fellow,’ he said; ‘I’m a gentleman; you needn’t look fixed. I’ll pay you well and thank you. But quick. Haul me up, up; here’s my hand. By jingo! this is pain.’
The man said, ‘Scamped it out of school, sir?’
Heriot replied: ‘Mum. Rely on me when I tell you I’m a gentleman.’
‘Well, if I pick up a gentleman, I can’t be doing a bad business,’ said the man, hauling him in tenderly.
Heriot sung to me in his sweet manner, ‘Good-bye, little Richie. Knock when five minutes are over. God bless you, dear little lad! Leg ‘ll get well by morning, never fear for me; and we’ll meet somehow; we’ll drink the Burgundy. No crying. Kiss your hand to me.’
I kissed my hand to him. I had no tears to shed; my chest kept heaving enormously. My friend was gone. I stood in the road straining to hear the last of the wheels after they had long been silent.
CHAPTER VI. A TALE OF A GOOSE
From that hour till the day Heriot’s aunt came to see me, I lived systematically out of myself in extreme flights of imagination, locking my doors up, as it were, all the faster for the extremest strokes of Mr. Rippenger’s rod. He remarked justly that I grew an impenetrably sullen boy, a constitutional rebel, a callous lump: and assured me that if my father would not pay for me, I at least should not escape my debts. The title of little impostor, transmitted from the master’s mouth to the school in designation of one who had come to him as a young prince, and for whom he had not received one penny’s indemnification, naturally caused me to have fights with several of the boys. Whereupon I was reported: I was prayed at to move my spirit, and flogged to exercise my flesh. The prayers I soon learnt to laugh to scorn. The floggings, after they were over, crowned me with delicious sensations of martyrdom. Even while the sting lasted I could say, it’s for Heriot and Julia! and it gave me a wonderful penetration into—the mournful ecstasy of love. Julia was sent away to a relative by the sea-side, because, one of the housemaids told me, she could not bear to hear of my being beaten. Mr. Rippenger summoned me to his private room to bid me inform him whether I had other relatives besides my father, such as grandfather, grandmother, uncles, or aunts, or a mother. I dare say Julia would have led me to break my word to my father by speaking of old Riversley, a place I half longed for since my father had grown so distant and dim to me; but confession to Mr. Rippenger seemed, as he said of Heriot’s behaviour to him, a gross breach of trust to my father; so I refused steadily to answer, and suffered the consequences now on my dear father’s behalf. Heriot’s aunt brought me a cake, and in a letter from him an extraordinary sum of money for a
