It certainly would seem a very unceremonious proceeding to escort a little party across the great, wide sea, and then follow the fortunes of some of the group, to the utter exclusion of others; so if you please we will just take a look right away at the snug little English cottage to which Chris Hartley hurried the same April morning that he reluctantly took leave of Marie-Celeste at the steamer. The cottage itself is just such a dear little place as you find nowhere else save in England. It is straw-thatched, and thatch and walls alike are mellow with the same soft grav of time and weather. The cottage stands close to the river Thames, on the outskirts of the town of Nuneham. In front is an even hawthorn hedge, that reaches round to the back as well, and encloses a quaint little kitchen garden. Beyond the hedge lies a pasture meadow, where a flock of sheep are grazing, and encircling the meadow another hedge, less closely clipped, and so making bold to riot here and there in a snowy wealth of hawthorn blossom, A fine Alderney cow, with coat as well cared for as the gray mare's in the stable, is also enjoying the sweet grass of the meadow, and the shining milk, pans ranged beneath the kitchen window bear witness to the generous service she renders. Within the little cottage all is as prim and dainty and neat as without, for the sweet-faced old housewife gives as close heed to the household as the “gudeman” of the house to the flock and the cow and the hedgerows. And this was the home to which Chris had come—to the grandparents who had cared for his orphaned boyhood, and whom he never would have left but for the more certain prospect of well-paid work across the water. And now five years have gone by, and having grown strong and manly, meantime, through his contact with the world, Chris is back on his first home visit, and you may be sure he has not come empty-handed. For the grandfather there is a new wallet with twenty five-pound notes laid between its leather-scented covers, and for the grandmother a labor-saving gift that will never cease to be a marvel—a wonder-working churn that turns Bess's milk to butter in just twelve seconds over a minute. And best of all, Chris himself is just the same thoughtful fellow he left them, and at once settles down to a general supervision of the farm, that leaves the old man free to smoke his brier-wood pipe and read the news from morning till night, if he cares to.
“You are spoiling us, Chris,” old Mrs. Hartley would say every time Chris chanced to be within hearing distance, when she brought the golden butter to the surface from the depths of the uncanny churn; and Chris as invariably remarking, “There is no fear of that, granny dear,” would look as pleased and surprised as though she had not known she could count upon every word of his answer. And now, you see, you have an idea of the quiet, eventless life Chris led on this home visit until one evening in the latter part of June, when something happened. The lane that ran past the meadow and up to the Hartley cottage branched out from the road that led directly to Nuneham from Oxford, and in fine weather there was much driving out that way, so that toward evening Chris would sometimes take a seat on a low gate-post that marked the entrance to the lane and watch the people as they passed. There were always more or less college men among them, driving in stylish drags behind spirited horses or in shabby livery turn-outs, according to their station in life, or rather the condition of their pocket-books. And so it chanced that Chris noticed on this particular June evening—as, in fact, no one could help noticing—a very merry party who rolled by in a dog-cart. They were far too merry, in fact, and so noisy that teams in front of them were glad to make way for them, and those they met most desirous to give them a wide berth. It was evident, however, that the young fellow who held the reins knew perfectly well what he was about, and how to handle his horses, so that no danger was actually to be feared in that direction. But what was true at five o'clock in the afternoon was not true a few hours later, and any one who had seen the same party turn their faces toward home, after a rollicking supper and no end of good cheer at Holly-tree Inn, would have prophesied disaster before they reached it. Wondering if they would make their return trip in safety, Chris himself happened to favor them with his last waking thought, ere he fell asleep in his little room under the eaves—a cosey little room that still was bright even at ten o'clock with the glow of the long English twilight. It was this last conscious thought, no doubt, that made him quick to waken two hours later, when a low, penetrating “Helloa there!” broke the stillness. Springing to the window, he was able to discern two or three men supporting some heavy burden and standing in front of the cottage.
“Be as still as possible, please,” he said in a loud whisper, mindful of the old people; “I will be down in a moment,” and instantly recalling the party he had seen drive past to Nuneham, there seemed no need to ask who they were or what had happened.
But expeditious as Chris had been, Mrs. Hartley, in gray wrapper and frilled night-cap, was at the door before him.
“Some mishap on the road, Chris,” she said, her hand trembling on the bolt.
“Yes, sure, granny; but you'd best let me open the door.”
“We've had an ugly accident,” said one of the men, as the light from within fell upon them; and then as Chris held the door wide open they pressed into the little sitting-room with their gruesome burden.
“Put him here,” Chris directed, clearing the way toward a low box-lounge. “He may be badly hurt,” he added, but speaking roughly, as though even his pity could scarce conceal his disgust that men should ever allow themselves to get into such a sorry plight.
“We couldn't tell out there in the dark,” answered the only one in the party who seemed to have his wits about him. The other two had at once made their way to the nearest chairs, and with steps so unsteady that Chris wondered how they had been able to lend any aid whatsoever.
“Was he unconscious when you got to him?” he asked, unfastening the clothing at the injured man's throat.
“Yes; he hasn't seemed to know anything from the first. It looks almost as though he might be dying, doesn't it?” and the young fellow stood gazing helplessly down at his friend, the very picture of despair.
“No; I don't think it's as bad as that. You've been run away with, of course,” for the whole party were covered with mud and dirt from head to foot, and there was evidence of two or three ugly cuts and bruises among them.
“Yes,” said the other; “it was a clean upset, and Ted here was driving, so that the reins got tangled about him, and he was dragged full a hundred yards or so. If the horses hadn't succeeded in breaking away from the trap the moment that it went over, I should have been killed surely, for it fell on top of me in some way, and as it was, I could scarcely get from under it;” and the young fellow's blanched face grew a shade whiter as he realized how narrow had been his escape. Meanwhile, with a little maid to hold the light, Mrs. Hartley searched through a tiny corner cupboard for a flask that had been carefully stowed away behind some larger bottles, and then poured a generous share of its contents into a glass held in readiness in the little maid's other hand.
“You give it to him, Chris,” she said, not daring to trust her shaking hands; and raising the poor fellow's head, Chris pressed the glass to his lips. As he swallowed the brandy his eyes opened for a moment, but there was no sign of returning consciousness.
“Now, the next thing,” said Chris, “is to get a doctor, and I'll have to drive into Nuneham for him. Do you suppose one of your friends there can help me harness?” but one of the friends was already asleep, and the attitude of the other showed that no assistance was to be looked for in that direction.
“What's to be done with them, mother?” asked old Mr. Hartley, who, enveloped in an old-fashioned, large-patterned dressing-gown, had arrived rather tardily upon the scene, and had stood for several seconds glaring down at the two disgraceful specimens.
“Martha is making the guest-room ready,” replied Mrs. Hartley, showing she was not too old to think ahead in an emergency, and yet drawing a deep sigh with the next breath at the thought of that best spare-room being put to so ignoble a service. Chris had himself been thinking it was rather a serious question to know how to dispose of them, and was glad to have Mrs. Hartley herself suggest the way.
“Thank goodness you've got your senses left,” said Chris, turning to the young fellow, who really seemed anxious to render every possible service; “and if we get them into the room there you can put them to bed, can't you? while I go for the doctor;” and in a voice scarcely audible from mortification the young fellow replied that he thought he could; so after some difficulty in making them understand the move impending, the two men were successfully landed in the best spare-room.
“You'll need this,” said Chris, pushing a clothes-brush and a whisk-broom on to a chair, “and you'll find plenty of water on the stand yonder;” then he came out and closed the door, to the infinite and audible relief of the serving-maid Martha. Indeed but for the all too serious side of the whole affair, it would have been amusing to watch that little maid. So great was her horror, either by education or intuition, of the state of inebriety, that the moment she surmised that at least two of these midnight visitors were bordering on the same, she could conceive of no means strong enough to express her disapproval. Every time she had come anywhere near them she had gathered her skirts about her as though in fear of actual contamination, and with her pretty head high in the air, as she moved away, would look askance over her shoulder as though not at all sure even then of being at a safe distance. Indeed, Chris himself could not quite suppress a smile as he saw the relief expressed in every line of Martha's face at the click of the closing door.
“How did it happen, mother?” asked Mr. Hartley, after a long interval in which no word had been spoken.
“I have not heard yet, Peter; but I don't believe we had better talk. He seems to be growing uneasy. Oh, I do wish Chris would come!”
“Now, don't you get flustered, mother—don't get flustered,” bending over the freshly lighted fire and spreading his hands to its blaze.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hartley had taken her station at the side of the senseless fellow on the couch and, her old face tense with anxiety, was rubbing the ice-cold hands.
“And now the doctor, Chris, as quick as ever you can,” she said gravely; and Chris, realizing the need for haste, was out of the house before she had finished the sentence, and the gray mare made better time that night into Nuneham than for many a year before.
“You've done splendid, so far. 'Tain't likely a strong-looking fellow like that's going to go under easy.”
“There's no tellin', Peter—there's no tellin'; strength don't count for much if one's head is hurt past mending.”
Just then the door of the spare-room opened, and the young man, closing it gently after him, was just in time to hear the last words.
“Oh, you don't think it's so bad as that?” he said in an almost agonized whisper, as he came to the side of the couch.
“There's no tellin',” repeated Mrs. Hartley very seriously; and then as she looked up and saw, now that dust and grime and the stains from two or three slight cuts were removed, that the face above was a good face, after all, her heart went out in sympathy, and she added gently, “but we'll hope for the best, dear—we'll hope for the best. Chris must come with the doctor very soon now whereupon, for some reason or other, the poor fellow broke down utterly, and sinking into the nearest chair, buried his face in his hands.
“The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” said Mr. Hartley solemnly, turning over the back-log of the fire and shaking his head gravely from side to side.
“I doubt if that's what the young man's needing just now, father,” remarked Mrs. Hartley dryly; and although evidently resenting the implied reproof, Mr. Hartley wisely determined to keep his own counsel; and for many minutes thereafter the heavy breathing of the men asleep in the next room and the crackling of the wood upon the andirons were the only sounds that broke the silence. Now and then Martha came in with a cloth freshly wet with cold water from the well—for Mrs. Hartley suspected some form of injury to the brain—and then slipped as noiselessly out again. At last the sound of wheels in the lane without, and then for the first time the young man raised his face from his hands and hurried to meet the doctor. As they came in together he was apparently explaining just how the accident had happened, and the doctor's face looked grave with apprehension.
“What is your friend's name?” he asked as he reached the lounge.
“Theodore—-Morris,” after a second's hesitation. Convinced that he had not given an honest answer, the doctor looked keenly into his face a moment; “and yours?” he added.
“Allyn, sir,” returning his glance as keenly, and then not another word was spoken, while the doctor carefully looked his patient over. Close beside him stood Mrs. Hartley, trying to read his conclusions in advance, and Martha stood just beyond, eager to render the slightest service, while Chris, with steady hand, held the light now high, now low, according to the signal from the doctor.
“It is a case, doubtless, of concussion of the brain,” he said at last; “just how serious I cannot at once determine, but, first thing, Mrs. Hartley, we must get this poor fellow to bed.”
“It will have to be in my little spare-bedroom, then, doctor; my best room is already appropriated. Bring clean linen from the chest quickly, Martha;” and hurrying into the little room, mistress and maid soon had everything in readiness for the unexpected guest.
Tenderly and carefully they lifted and then carried the unconscious man, and as they laid him gently down in the cool bed he drew a long, deep breath, as though in some vague way appreciative of a grateful change. Then one thing and another was done at the doctor's bidding, until at last there was need of nothing further, and old Mrs. Hartley, first sending the little maid to her room above stairs, crept off to bed, more utterly worn out and exhausted than for many a weary day. Chris threw himself on the living-room lounge, and was soon fast asleep, and the doctor, sitting near the bed, and where he could closely watch his patient, motioned young Allyn to draw a chair close to his side.
“Now, my friend,” he said, “I want you to tell me the real name of your friend here, for I am convinced you have not done so, and then I want you to give me a true account of this whole deplorable affair. It will not disturb him in the least if you keep your voice carefully lowered.”
Young Allyn did not answer for several seconds. He sat leaning way forward in the chair he had drawn to the doctor's side, his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his tightly clasped hands. He was evidently thinking hard, and it was easy to read the play of intense emotion on his face.
“Dr. Arnold,” he said finally, as though he had slowly thought his way out to a decision, “my friend's name is Theodore Harris, but it is the first time he has ever been mixed up in anything of this sort, and should he get over it, I wanted to spare him the mortification of its being known if I could. Do you think he is so much hurt that his family—that his brother—ought to be sent for?”
“We can't tell about that to-night. The opiate I have given him will account for this heavy sleep. Everything will depend upon how he comes out of it in the morning.”
“And if it does prove not as serious as you feared”—trying to steady a voice that trembled in spite of him—“what then?”
“Two or three weeks of careful nursing.”
“Will they let us stay here, do you think?”
“They'll have to for a while. It would be out of the question to move him.”
“Oh, but it's a crying shame, this whole business!” and young Allyn, leaning back in his chair, looked the picture of anger and chagrin.
“You seem like a self-respecting fellow,” said the doctor, scrutinizing him closely; “perhaps it is your first time, too.”
“Yes, it does happen to be but, as though there was little or no credit in that, there is some excuse for Ted—he is younger than I and easily led; but for me there is none whatever.”
“You ought to know,” said the doctor dryly. “And your friends in the room yonder, are they at all responsible for this first time of yours and young Harris's? Come, Mr. Allyn, don't wait for me to question you. If you are as anxious as you claim to hush this affair up, you must make a clean breast of things with me. I can, of course, be of service to you in the matter.”
“Really, Dr. Arnold, there is not much to tell beyond what you already know. We belong up at Oxford, of course, and Harris here has plenty of money and plenty of friends—not always the best, I am sorry to say. The two men in the other room there are known around town as jolly good fellows; neither of them are college men, but they have dogged Harris's footsteps ever since they came to know him, a year or so ago, and have done all in their power to drag him down. To-night they have come pretty near making an end of both of us. I've warned Harris against them time and again, but when they planned this afternoon to drive up to Nuneham in Harris's trap for a champagne supper, I took to the scheme, and I hadn't the moral courage to decline myself or to persuade Ted to do so.”
“How do you and Harris happen to be in Oxford anyway, now that the term is over?” queried the doctor.
“We thought we were having too good a time to go home.”
“And you have found out your mistake?”
“Yes, sir;” and the pain and mortification on young Allyn's face assured the doctor that the lesson of the hour was being well taken to heart.
“Where does Harris live, Mr. Allyn?”
“We both live at Windsor, sir; Harris has a younger brother, but no father or mother; and if Ted only gets over this, he need never know anything about it. We were going to start on a long driving trip to-morrow; so we're not expected up at Windsor, and Ted's the kind of fellow, Dr. Arnold, that if he found out that people knew about a scrape like this, I believe he'd grow perfectly reckless, and there wouldn't be any such thing as saving him;” and there was such suppressed earnestness in the young fellow's voice that no one could have doubted his sincerity for a moment.
“But the accident to-night, just how did that happen?”
“I think—yes, I'm sure—Ted had taken a little too much; but we would have gotten home all right but for”—nodding in the direction of Mrs. Hartley's best room. “There was no doing anything with them, and finally one of them tried to get the reins from Ted, and then the horses, that need to be carefully handled at best, broke into a clean run. Where they are now, land knows!”
“Mr. Allyn,” said Dr. Arnold, after several minutes of suspense, “if Mr. Harris's condition proves not to be serious I will do what I can to shield you both.”
“Oh, don't bother about me,” as though he honestly felt he was not worth it.
“Yes, I will bother about you, for since you told me you live at Windsor, I begin to suspect you are Canon Allyn's son.”
“The more's the pity, Dr. Arnold.”
“The more's the reason for my doing all in my power to give both of you another chance But we won't talk any more. Now wrap yourself in that comforter Chris has laid in the chair for you, and try and get a little sleep.”
All this while poor wayward Ted, whose name you must have guessed almost from the first, was lying wholly oblivious to everything about him, muttering now and then a few delirious, incoherent words, and yet by degrees subsiding into a gentle, regular breathing that the professional ear was quick to detect, and that was full of good omen for the waking in the morning.
A whole chapter just with grown-up people, and not a very pleasant chapter at that! For one, I had a deal rather be with certain little friends of ours up at Windsor, but we cannot go yet a while; and having seen the little Berkshire cottage turned inside out, as it were, there is nothing for it but to wait and see it put to rights again. Besides, when all is said, Ted is Harold's brother, so that, scapegrace or no, we ought not to deliberately turn our backs, at a time too when matters have reached a crisis, and one wonders how they will go with him. But fortunately they went far better than even the doctor dared to hope, and with the morning came consciousness, and all the dazed bewilderment as well, of one who finds himself in wholly new surroundings, with no idea whatever of how he came there. Everybody was early astir in the cottage, and quite ready to forget the anxiety and excitement of the night in the doctor's glad assurance that the young gentleman certainly was not “done for.” As for the other young gentlemen, who had been allowed to sleep off their indisposition in Mrs. Hartley's best room, it was agreed between the doctor and Harry Allyn that the sooner they took their departure the better. Breakfast for two was therefore first made ready, and the young fellows, who had gotten up and dressed—somewhat against their will, it must be confessed—finally took their seats at the places set for them. Martha, who had no notion of waiting on such sorry customers, was careful to place everything within arm's reach on the table and then to disappear, and the meal was eaten in silence, with no one in the room save the doctor, who kept pacing up and down in a manner that was intended to expedite their departure. The two fellows seemed to realize that they were considered responsible for the whole unhappy affair; indeed, the doctor had told them so pretty plainly, and they were themselves rather anxious to be off and away from such an accusing and uncomfortable atmosphere.
“I suppose the old lady ought to be paid something,” said one of them, pushing back his chair.
“You can't very well pay for such trouble as you have given,” said the doctor curtly. “It might not be out of the way though for you to thank Mrs. Hartley for the night's shelter and your breakfast,” but Mrs. Hartley was nowhere to be found—indeed, to all appearances the cottage was quite deserted; and, accompanied by the doctor, they made their way out of the house and down the lane. Not a word was spoken until they reached the road, and then Dr. Arnold, stopping squarely in front of them, said: “I have one thing to say to you two fellows, and that is this—that you are not to tell a living soul of last night's adventure. You have deliberately set about to entrap and disgrace two men vastly your superiors, but so far as in me lies I am going to do all in my power to free them from your clutches and save them from the scandal of this thing, and if I hear of its becoming known through you I'll—”
“There isn't any use in your threatening us like that,” interrupted the older, his heavy face glowing angrily. “We'll tell as much or as little as we like.”
“Hadden,” said the doctor sternly, “I know more of your history than you think. You were mixed up in a more shameful scrape than this not long ago up at Nuneham, and if you and your friend here do not keep close-mouthed about this whole affair, I will tell some of the Oxford officials just what I know as sure as my name is Joseph Arnold. Does that alter the case any?”
“Yes, rather,” drawled the other with cool effrontery; and knowing he had scotched his man, the doctor turned on his heel, and the two men started off in the direction of the Nuneham station, neither sadder nor wiser, it is to be feared, for the lesson of the night's experience. No sooner had these two unwelcome guests vanished from the precincts of the little cottage than Mrs. Hartley reappeared from some mysterious corner and Martha from another, and preparations were at once put forward for the most inviting breakfast the little house could command. Notwithstanding the wretched company in which they had been found, Mrs. Hartley was confident that her remaining guests were surely “gentlemen;” and as, in addition to this, no one through all the countryside was as widely loved and honored as Dr. Arnold, was not there occasion for elaborate preparation? All this, of course, involved considerable delay, which Chris and the doctor would have gladly foregone; but it gave Harry Allyn a sorely coveted opportunity for an early talk with Mrs. Hartley.
“Is your mistress in the kitchen?” he asked of Martha, who was arranging some sweet peas in a celery glass as a decoration for the table.
“Yes, Mr. Allyn,” very respectfully, for in the mind of the little maid, as in the mind of all the others, there was the conviction that this Mr. Allyn had very little in common with the company in which he had been found. “Shall I call her for you?” she added.
“Would there be any harm in my going in there?” as though he were entreating a favor of a queen.
“Not a bit in the world, Mr. Allyn;” and thus reassured Harry at once made his way into the sunny and spotless little kitchen.
Mrs. Hartley was so preoccupied in giving the final stirring to a golden mixture in a great yellow bowl that she did not hear Harry as he came toward her, and so gave a little start when he spoke.
“Martha told me it would be all right,” he explained.
“Oh, yes, certainly,” quickly recovering herself, “you'll excuse me if I go right on.”
“You never can know, Mrs. Hartley,” he said, taking his stand at the end of the table, and leaning a little wearily against the wall at his back, “how mortified I am about what has happened, and how sorry that we should have put you to all this trouble; and the bother of it is, Mrs. Hartley, it isn't over yet. The doctor says Ted will not be able to get about for two or three weeks at least. Do you think”—a world of entreaty in his voice—“you can ever manage to keep him as long as that?”
“Yes—I think—I can,” but very slowly and thoughtfully, as though half afraid of promising more than she could perform.
“It will be a great care for you, Mrs. Hartley.”
“There's no denying that, Mr. Allyn; I doubt if I could get along with it but for Chris being home this summer. Has Mr. Harris any folks?”
“No father or mother, only a younger brother, and I want him never to know about last night's business if I can help it.”
“I am glad you're ashamed of it, Mr. Allyn. It's the best sort of a sign, sir.”
“Ashamed!” sighed Harry; and Mrs. Hartley, looking at the white face, with the great dark circles under eyes that during the night had known no wink of sleep, felt sorry in her heart of hearts that she had uttered a single word that would seem to imply reproof.
“Of course you will let us pay you liberally for the expense we shall put you to, but I cannot bear to speak of money in connection with something that can never be paid for at all, in any true sense.”
“The board will not come amiss,” and then, straightening herself up a little, “though we have no need of being beholden to anybody.”
“That is very evident, Mrs. Hartley, and makes it all the kinder for you to take us in. Does Mr. Hartley know,” he asked after a pause, “that Ted ought not to be moved? Will he be willing that he should stay?” for Harry stood in considerable awe of the master of the house, who, it could not be denied, was conducting himself through this whole affair with no little austerity of deportment.
“Never you fear,” answered Mrs. Hartley, with a significant smile that was very becoming to the dear old face; “I think I can manage Mr. Hartley.”
By this time the contents of the yellow bowl were not only in the oven, but sending out of it the most savory of odors; and a few moments later the little household sat down to such a delicious breakfast as the doctor and Harry repeatedly declared they never before had eaten; so that Mrs. Hartley sat proud and radiant behind the plated coffee-urn, and Martha passed the Sally Lunn with indescribable complacency. Indeed, there was reaction on every side from the night of anxiety and foreboding. Even Mr. Hartley could not hold out against the general atmosphere of good cheer, and falling into a friendly discussion with the doctor, forgot to wear for a while a certain uncompromising look, intended to impress Mr. Allyn with the simple enormity of his transgression. But happily Harry Allyn needed no such impressing. It was impossible for any one to regard this adventure in any graver light than he, and yet, strange to say, he was happier than he had been for many a day. It had taken a pretty terrible experience to bring him to his senses; perhaps nothing less terrible would have answered; but he saw plainly enough now what a down-hill road he and Ted had been travelling, and with the realization came the decision to “right about face,” and with the decision an old-time sensation began to assert itself, and there lay the secret of the happiness. It is an intangible, uplifting something, that sensation that men call self-respect, and when they lose it they seem to lose the capacity for any happiness worth the name, and when they cannot be persuaded to make an effort to get it back again, there seems to be little enough that they're good for. Harry, however, with grateful heart found himself ready for the effort, and, fully aware at last of how much he had been risking, was resolved that regain his self-respect he would, let it cost what it might. He only hoped, from the bottom of his heart, that Ted would come to see matters in the same honest light, and be ready to make the same effort.
Soon after breakfast the doctor took his departure, and then Harry had a quiet little talk with Ted.
“You're not to speak a word, old man,” he said, as he stood beside the bed; “the doctor says so; but there are one or two things he is willing I should say to you. In the first place, Ted, we've had a very narrow escape, and we've no one to blame but ourselves. And the truth is, Ted, we've been a pair of incomparable fools, you and I, and if we don't take this lesson to heart, there's no hope for either of us. In the second place, we can't be too thankful we've fallen into the hands of these good people here. You couldn't be better cared for anywhere, and the best of it is, no one need know where you are, and they need never hear of this disgraceful adventure up at Windsor. Indeed, for the sake of shielding you, I have told the Hartleys that your name is Morris, and it rests with you to tell them your right name some day if you choose; hut the doctor knows the truth about things—he had to know.” A look of inexpressible relief had been stealing over Ted's face, and he started to make some reply, but Harry shook his head in most determined fashion, and was off before the words could get themselves into line. Ted found, too, that his brain responded very slowly to any sort of demand upon it, and was willing enough to be spared the exertion.
A little later Harry set off for Oxford, to bring certain necessities for Ted and himself down to Nuneham, for he meant to take up his abode at the inn, so that he would be near the Hartleys, and be able to render every possible service to them and to Ted. Before he started, however, he underwent quite an ordeal. Feeling he had no right to assume that Ted would stay until he had that permission from Mr. Hartley personally, he sought him out, where he was at work in a corner of the meadow, and the result, as he had anticipated, was a very plain talk—so unsparingly and pointedly plain that Harry winced a good deal in the process, and once or twice came near resenting a mode of procedure that seemed very much akin to knocking a fellow when he's down. But, after all, what did he not deserve, and as Mr. Hartley said, among other things, that he was not the man to turn a body out of his house, and that Mr. Morris was welcome to stay, he felt he ought to be able to bear with the rest, no matter how humiliating and, in a measure, unmerited. Mrs. Hartley, standing in the kitchen door, imagined from Harry's flushed face, as well as from life-long acquaintance with Mr. Hartley's temperament, that he had been pretty severely dealt with, and so said as he passed, “My gude man's a gude man, though,” Mr. Allyn and Harry, amused at the loyalty to her husband and kindliness to him combined in the speech, had the grace to answer, “Indeed I believe you, Mrs. Hartley.”
And now,” as Albert would say, here we are, for a comfort, back at Windsor, and just in time, too, for there is something special on hand. And somebody else is just in time as well—somebody who was not expected, and who, I fear, is not wanted. Marie-Celeste, seated in the library window, and busy in transferring some great luscious strawberries from a plate on the seat beside her to a basket in her lap, is the first to discover a familiar little figure turning in at the gate. “Bother!” she exclaims, her pretty face all of a scowl.
“What's the matter?” asks Harold, who is on his knees on the floor, trying to make some very stiff wrapping-paper accommodate itself to the edges and corners of a generous box of luncheon, and is: quite too preoccupied to look up.
“Bother enough! Who do you suppose is coming up the path as large as life? Albert, if you please, and he's all alone, and that means that Margaret has left him at the corner, and that he has come to spend the day.”
“Bother I say too,” exclaims Harold; “we can't send him home, and with Aunt Lou up in London, there's no one to leave him with here, and of course we can't take him. Oh, why did he happen to come to-day!”
But the truth of it was that Albert had not happened to come at all. His visit had been deliberately planned for precisely this hour. Could any one suppose for a moment, that he could hear all the beautiful plans fora Knight-of-the-Garter day discussed in his presence, and never make an effort to have a hand in it? To be sure, the children had tried to keep the date a close-guarded secret, but Albert had got wind of it, all the same; and here he was, bright and fresh as the day itself, marching up the path, his little blue sacque folded carefully over one arm, and an inviting luncheon hamper swinging from the other. Fortunately, considering the ungracious mood of the two children in the library, his first encounter chanced to be with Donald, who, arrayed in the white and blue of his summer sailor-suit, was bending over the pansy bed, gathering a few “beauties” into a bunch for Marie-Celeste; and so absorbed in his task was he that he did not hear Albert's tread upon the walk. “Why, where did you come from?” he said, looking up surprised.
“Of course you knowed where I tum from, Donald,” Albert replied in his literal fashion; “but where do you s'pose I'm doin'?”
“To London Town,” laughed Donald, to whom it had not occurred to regard Albert's arrival as likely to interfere with the day's programme.
“No; I'm doin' on your Knight-of-de-Garter party.”
“Well, that's cool,” whispered Marie-Celeste, concealed by the curtain, and yet near enough to hear all that was said through the open window.
“Who asked you?” queried Donald.
“Dat's de only trouble, Donald; dey didn't ask me,” his little face growing sorely worried as he spoke; “but I guess it was a mistake, don't you?”
“I shouldn't wonder,” for the little fellow's aggrieved look was really piteous to see; “but how did you get permission to go, Albert?”
“Oh, I jus' told mamma you were all doin', and I jus' begged and begged till she said I could do too; and, Donald, I didn't zackly tell her I wasn't invited, 'cause I knowed it must be a mistake.”
“Bless his heart!” whispered Harold, who was also listening by this time under screen of the curtain.
“The cunning thing!” said Marie-Celeste; and so it was easy to see that two hard hearts were slowly but surely relenting.
“Perhaps dey tought I was too little, but I'm not, Donald, really; I can walk all day an' carry my own coat an' basket. Besides, I don't believe Harold will ever have anudder Knight-of-de-Garter day, do you?”
“No; now's your chance, I guess,” said Donald kindly, slipping a great purple and yellow pansy into one of the buttonholes of Albert's little frilled shirt as he spoke.
“Where are de children, anyway?” asked Albert, wonderfully reassured by Donald's courteous reception; “won't you fin' dem for me, please, Donald, and tell dem I won't be a badder, nor ask queshuns, and I'll jus' eat my own lunch and—”
At this the hard hearts relented altogether, and Harold rushed out and gave Albert a toss in the air that was very threatening to the eggs in the luncheon basket; and as soon as he was on terra firma again Marie-Celeste gave him a good hard hug, and both begged his pardon half a dozen times over for ever assuming for a moment that he was “too little,” and intimated that they felt very small indeed themselves to think they had been so unfeeling as to plan not to include him in the expedition. And so matters were beautifully adjusted, and the Knight-of-the-Garter party set out with Harold Harris, student and devoted admirer of the grand old knighthood, filling the important role of interpreter and guide. And where did they go first but to the castle, preferring to save until the last, because the best, the choir of St. George's, where the banners of the knights are hung and where the knights are duly installed. On the way Harold held forth, Marie-Celeste and Donald walking one on either side of him, and Albert, determined not to miss a word, trotting along at a sort of sidewise angle just in front, and yet careful to keep well out of the way, too, for fear of the remotest chance of “boddering.”
“Now to begin,” said Harold, “you know a knight at first was just a young man who had proved himself strong enough and brave enough to wear armor and be a soldier, and after that there came to be orders of knights. You remember I told you the other day what an order was, and how the Order of the Knights of the Garter happened to be started.” Yes, they remembered that, but no one remembered that poor little Albert had not been present on that occasion, and so knew nothing whatever about it; but Albert, so very thankful in his heart that he had been allowed to come at all, did not dare to make mention of the same.
“Where are we going first?” asked Marie-Celeste, who, unlike poor Albert, felt herself at perfect liberty to ask every question that occurred to her.
“To the Banqueting Hall, because it has more to do with the knights than any other room in the castle.”
“Oh, yes, that's where they have the Garter and the Cross of St. George woven even into the pattern of the carpet! And what about St. George—who was he?”