upon Groves, who was just about to be pensioned off through some failure in health, coming to settle with his wife at the lodge, promising him the charge of our boats, so that he might have a taste of his old occupation. His daughter-in-law, widow of his only son, who had been drowned, obtained the situation of schoolmistress, and lived near to the old couple with Ralph, her only son, a lad some few years my senior, who was employed about the place under his grandfather's supervision, and helped in rowing when we went out upon the water.
A friendship firm and tender had grown up between myself and the old seaman, I accepting him as a grown-up play-fellow, and revealing to him in detail all the many plans continually suggesting themselves to my fertile imagination, and finding in him an ever ready sympathy, and, when possible, active co-operation in my schemes.
From which digression, explanatory of the relationship subsisting between old George—as he had taught me from infancy to call him, Mr. Groves, as he was more properly designated by the neighbourhood—and myself, I must return to the bright June morning upon which, after my usual fashion, I descended the Zig-zag, running, scrambling, sliding, with Frisk scampering and capering at my side, making wild snaps at pieces of cake which I broke off for him from time to time, and held up as high as I could reach, that he might have to jump for them.
We were not long in gaining the lodge, which, by the carriage drive, was nearly three-quarters of a mile from the house. I produced a series of knocks upon the door, like those of a London postman, though, as old George was wont to remark,—
"What's the use, Master Willie, of knocking like that; you never stop to hear me say 'Come in,' but just burst open the door and drive in like a gust of wind promiscuous." But, in self-defence, I must explain that my defective manners in this particular were entirely due to my old friend himself, who, from earliest infancy, had trained me in all manner of impertinent familiarities. It was traditional that I cried to go to him whilst I was still in arms; that I made attacks of an aggravated character upon his brass buttons before I could walk alone; and I could just remember experiments upon his white beard, as trying doubtless to him as they were interesting to myself, conducted with philosophical determination on my part, in order to ascertain whether it came off by pulling or not! In all of which proceedings my friend greatly encouraged me, so that the blame of my failure in the laws of etiquette lay at his door.
Only Mrs. Groves was in the cottage when I rushed in eagerly upon the morning in question. She was busy in culinary mysteries, but assured me her master would be soon in, and, in the meantime, I was to make myself at home; which I did at once.
"And your dear ma, how's she?" inquired the good lady presently, settling a cover on a saucepan in a decisive manner, and sitting down during a pause in her operations. "I saw her drive by yesterday; and Susan told me she'd been at the school. A blessed time children have of it these days, going to school; it's very different to what it was in my time."
"Then you didn't go to school?" I asked, being privately of opinion that she was rather fortunate as a child.
"Oh yes, sir, I went to school, but not like the schooling children has now-a-days, with a high-born lady like your ma going herself to see them;—our old dame, she teached us all she knew—to read, and mark, and learn,—"
"And inwardly digest?" I suggested, as Mrs. Groves hesitated in her enumeration of accomplishments.
But there was not time to satisfy me concerning this branch of her education, for old George appearing at the moment, I flew to meet him, and we strolled down to the water's edge together.
"I've been longing to see you," I exclaimed. "It's about Aleck, my cousin Aleck, I wanted to tell you. He's coming, and uncle and aunt Gordon, on Thursday week; that's only just a fortnight, you know."
Aleck was my only boy cousin, and ever since there had been a notion of his coming to Braycombe, I had been thinking and dreaming of him incessantly. My aunt Gordon had been in very delicate health, and the doctors ordered foreign air and constant change for the summer months, and a winter in some warm climate. There had been some hesitation as to how my cousin, their only child, should be disposed of. He was not very strong, and school life, it was feared, might be too great an ordeal for another year; so my parents had written, offering that he should spend that time at Braycombe, and share my tutor's instructions. The decisive answer from my uncle had only just arrived, and I was in a tumult of joy and excitement that it was in favour of my cousin's coming to stay with us, and that the actual day of our visitors' arrival had been fixed.
George listened with every appearance of interest to my communication.
"I'm glad your cousin's coming, Master Willie, as you're pleased," he said.
"But aren't you glad, too, for your own sake?" I asked. "It will be so nice having him to play with us."
"Oh, I'll be pleased to see him, never fear for that," responded George. "I knew his father when he was but a little fellow like yourself."
"Mamma calls me her big boy," I threw in, disapprovingly. "But what do you think Aleck will be like?"
"Well, sir, I should expect very much such another young craft as yourself; or, now I come to think of it, perhaps a year older or so."
"Not a year," I replied; "ten months and a half. I asked mamma his birth-day. Do you think he'll be as tall as me? because papa and mamma say I'm tall for my age."
"His father stood six feet one the day he came of age. I daresay his son will take after him," said George.
"And be as tall as that?" I inquired, feeling rather anxious, until reassured, at the transformation of my cousin in prospect into a young giant.
I suppose that few children had ever seen less of other children than I had up to this time. There were but three gentlemen's houses in our neighbourhood: the Rectory, where lived the elderly clergyman and his wife, who had never had a family; the Elms, a country seat, where Sir John and Lady Cosington and two grown-up daughters resided; and Willowbank, another country place, occupied by a young married couple, with one little baby. Elmworth, our nearest town, was seven miles off; and this distance almost entirely precluded intercourse with any of the families there.
In consequence of this, I had been completely without companions of my own age up to this time. In books I had read much of children's amusements with their companions; and although the perfect happiness of my own home left nothing really to be wished for, if ever a wish did occur to me for anything I had not, it was for a play-fellow and companion somewhere about my own age; and now, when this wish of mine was really on the eve of being realized, I was filled with vague dreams and anticipations of all the delight which it was to bring to me. When George and I had mutually agreed that my cousin Aleck—allowing for the difference of age—might be reasonably expected to be somewhat taller than myself, we sat down on the beach, and began to discuss certain plans of mine for giving him a suitable welcome.
Dim ideas, the result of "Illustrated London News'" pictures, were floating in my mind—bouquets, triumphal arches, addresses, and so forth—even although I wound up by saying—
"Of course, not like that exactly; only something—something rather grand."
OLD GEORGE AND WILLIE.
Old George, however, kindly and wisely pulled my schemes down, and laid them affectionately in the dust:—
"You see, Master Willie, anything written, even in your best hand, wouldn't come up to what you will say in the first five minutes by word of mouth; and then the school banners, though very suitable for a feast—and I'm sure my Susan would be right pleased to look them up for
