always had them should seem so indifferent to their privileges, writing it down upon the secret tablets of my resolve, that when I grew up things should be very different with me.
My cousin and I sat side by side at the breakfast-table in a vehement impulse of boyish affection, so completely taken up with each other that I for one never remember noticing any one else during the progress of the meal, except when once I caught a wistful look from my aunt, and heard her saying, in a rather sorrowful low voice, to my mother,—
"I am very thankful to see our boys take to each other; it is quite a load off my mind that Aleck should be with you instead of being left at school."
"Won't Aleck come too?" I asked my mother, when she summoned me to our usual Bible-reading after breakfast.
"Not whilst his own mamma is here," was the answer; and I was obliged to rest content. But the moment I had put away my Bible, I flew off in search of him, eagerly explaining that we were to do what we liked for the whole of the morning, and sketching out a plan for our amusement such as I thought would be pleasant to him:—
"First, we must go over the whole house—you've only seen a little bit of it yet—and the kitchen-garden and the stables, and then down the Zig-zag to old George's, and we'll get him to go out with us in the boat. It's smooth enough to sail the 'Fair Alice'—that's a little yacht of mine that old George gave me."
Aleck's face brightened. "May you go out in a boat when you like?" he asked, eagerly. "Oh, how de-light-ful!"
How we careered over the house that morning, visiting every nook and corner of it, from the "leads" on the roof; accessible only by a ladder and trap-door, to the most hidden repositories in the housekeeper's domain! The servants good naturedly remarked I had gone crazy. Presently I bade Aleck shut his eyes, and submit to my guidance blindfold, whilst I led him to the only room he had not been in. We passed through several passages, and then I went forward, tapped at a door, and finding I might come in, fetched Aleck, still with eyes shut.
"There now, you may look," I exclaimed, watching in a satisfied manner the astonishment with which he opened his eyes to find himself in the study, and his confusion on seeing my father seated at the library table near the window, surrounded by books and papers.
"Oh, uncle," he exclaimed, "I did not know I was in your room!"
"And are very much startled at finding yourself there," said my father, finishing his sentence for him. "What shall we do with the culprit, Willie? Prosecute him according to the utmost rigour of the law, and sentence him to a year's imprisonment at Braycombe, with hard labour, under Mr. Glengelly and old George!"
"I think that would be a very good punishment," I answered, "only I should like it to be more than a year."
"See what a cruel fellow your cousin is," said my father, getting up from his chair, and proceeding to take Aleck round the room, showing him various curiosities with which I was familiar; then he sat down again, and keeping Aleck at his side, told him that so long as he remained at Braycombe he was to feel as much at home, and as welcome to the study as I was, and that he was to try and trust him as he could his own father, until we all had the joy of welcoming his parents home again.
"Famous chats we get here sometimes, eh, Willie?" he concluded, appealing to me.
"Rather!" I answered emphatically, seating myself on the arm of his chair, and looking over his shoulder. "Papa, shall you have time to play with us this afternoon. It's a whole holiday. I want you to very much."
"I fear not, Willie. I must be away all the morning. Peter the Great will be at the door to carry me off in another minute, and I must keep the afternoon for your uncle and aunt. To-morrow afternoon I will give you an hour, only I stipulate you must have mercy upon your old father, and not expect him to climb trees like a squirrel, or run like a hare."
"You know you're not an old father, papa," I said; "and, Aleck, papa can run quite fast—faster than anybody else I ever saw, and he climbs better than anybody else. He's been up the tree I showed you in the avenue."
"Whatever papa's qualifications may be," my father observed, "the end of the matter just at present is, that Rickson is coming round with the horses, and I cannot keep his imperial majesty waiting."
"What does uncle do?" inquired my cousin after we had been to the door and had seen my father mount and ride away on Peter the Great.
"Papa! oh, he does quantities of things," I replied, somewhat vaguely.
"What kind of things?"
I proceeded to enumerate them promiscuously:—
"Why, he's a magistrate, and tries cases at Elmworth, and sends people to prison; and he goes to a hospital twice every week at Elmworth, and he goes to see poor people—we often have some from the hospital down here; and he always has quantities of letters; and he reads to mamma; and, do you know, he once wrote a book—"
I paused, not so much because I had exhausted the list of my father's employments, as because I had named that achievement which of all others filled me with the deepest awe and reverence. I could remember how, when I was four years old, my mother had lifted me up to see a volume on the counter of the great bookseller's shop at Elmworth, and had let me spell through the name "Grant" on the title-page. I felt as if I had risen in life, and looked upon books in general with a feeling of personal friendship, as from one behind the scenes, from that day; whilst, personally, I was much elated by the thought of what a very wonderful and extraordinary man my father was. I was rather glad when Aleck told me that he did not think his papa had ever written a book;—it made me feel a little bit superior to him.
After going to the stables to see my pony, we proceeded to the Zig-zag, chattering fast the whole way. I was full of plans and projects, and anxious at once to interest my cousin in every one of them.
"You see," I explained, "there are quantities of things that we haven't been able to do, because there's been only George and me; and he's always had it to say that there were only us two, and that he was old and I young, but he can't say that now."
"He doesn't seem so very old," remarked Aleck.
"I don't think he is," I answered, "but he's taught me to call him old George since I have been a baby; everybody else calls him Groves or Mr. Groves. Now there's one thing I want very much to begin, and that is digging a hole right through the earth to come out at the other side, where, you know, we should find ourselves standing on our heads! George has always kept putting off beginning. But haven't you heard of many people beginning to do something great when they were boys?"
"Yes," answered Aleck, musingly; "I have a book about wonderful boys, and one of them cut out a lion in butter, and another drew a picture upon a stump of a tree; but I don't think we should be able to dig so very far down—we should have to stop at last."
This unprejudiced opinion of my cousin's, adverse as it was to my favourite scheme, was rather disappointing, but we were now engaged in the excitement of descending the Zig-zag, so I had not leisure to think much about it.
"Isn't it a jolly way down?" I exclaimed. "Papa says it's two hundred feet to that piece of rock down below."
"It's not steeper than our hills at home," said Aleck; "only we have not the sea near us—oh, how I wish we had!"
Aleck was quite as good a scrambler as I was, so we were not long in reaching the lodge, where old George seemed to be on the watch for us, and welcomed us both with his wonted heartiness.
"Master told me you'd be coming down, young gentlemen, as he rode by, and that you were to go out as much as you liked in the boat; and so I've been telling my good wife she must keep the look-out for the gate. Ralph's coming along presently, and will be down at the Cove most as soon as we shall."
George wanted Aleck to go into the lodge and see certain objects of interest, which, to use his own words, he "set great store by." But I was too eager to allow of this, and insisted upon our setting out at once for the Cove. "I want to show him the greatest treasure I have of all my treasures," I exclaimed.
"Is that the 'Fair Alice' you were telling me of?" asked Aleck.
"Yes; you'll see her presently,"