The Weathercock Part 75

Trivial as Vane's discovery may seem, it was the result of long months and study of applied science, and certain dearly bought experiences, and though Mr Deering blamed himself for not having noticed the little addition which had thwarted all his plans and brought him to the verge of ruin, he frankly avowed over and over again that he was indebted to his old friend's nephew for his rescue from such a perilous strait.

He was off back to town that same day, and in a week the doctor, who was beginning to shake his head and feel doubtful whether he ought to expect matters to turn out so well, received a letter from the lawyer, to say that there would be no need to call upon him for the money for which he had been security.

"But I do not feel quite safe yet, Vane, my boy," he said, "and I shall not till I really see the great success. Who can feel safe over an affair which depends on the turning on or off of a tap."

But he need not have troubled himself, for he soon had ample surety that he was perfectly safe, and that he need never fear having to leave the Little Manor.

Meanwhile matters went on at the rectory in the same regular course, Mr Syme's pupils working pretty hard, and there being a cessation of the wordy warfare that used to take place with Distin, Macey, and Gilmore, and their encounters, in which Vane joined, bantering and being bantered unmercifully; but Distin was completely changed. The sharp bitterness seemed to have gone out of his nature, and he became quiet and subdued.

Vane treated him just the same as of old, but there was no warm display of friends.h.i.+p made, only on Distin's part a steady show of deference and respect till the day came when he was to leave Greythorpe rectory for Cambridge.

It was just at the last; the good-byes had been said, and the fly was waiting to take him to the station, when he asked Vane to walk on with him for a short distance, and bade the fly-man follow slowly.

Vane agreed readily enough, wondering the while what his old fellow-pupil would say, and he wondered still more as they walked on and on in silence.

Then Vane began to talk of the distance to Cambridge; the college life; and of how glad he would be to get there himself; starting topics till, to use his own expression, when describing the scene to his uncle, he felt "in a state of mental vacuum."

A complete silence had fallen upon them at last, when they were a couple of miles on the white chalky road, and the fly-man was wondering when his pa.s.senger was going to get in, as Vane looked at his watch.

"I say, Dis, old chap," he said, "you'll have to say good-bye if you mean to catch that train."

"Yes," cried Distin, hoa.r.s.ely, as he caught his companion's hand. "I had so much I wanted to say to you, about all I have felt during those past months, but I can't say it. Yes," he cried pa.s.sionately, "I must say this: I always hated you, Vane. I couldn't help it, but you killed the wretched feeling that day in the wood, and ever since I have fought with myself in silence, but so hard."

"Oh, I say," cried Vane; "there, there, don't say any more. I've forgotten all that."

"I must," cried Distin; "I know. I always have felt since that you cannot like me, and I have been so grateful to you for keeping silence about that miserable, disgraceful episode in my life--no, no, look me in the face, Vane."

"I won't. Look in your watch's face," cried Vane, merrily, "and don't talk any more such stuff, old chap. We quarrelled, say, and it was like a fight, and we shook hands, and it was all over."

"With you, perhaps, but not with me," said Distin. "I am different.

I'd have given anything to possess your frank, manly nature."

"Oh, I say, spare my blushes, old chap," cried Vane, laughing.

"Be serious a minute, Vane. It may be years before we meet again, but I must tell you now. You seem to have worked a change in me I can't understand, and I want you to promise me this--that you will write to me. I know you can never think of me as a friend, but--"

"Why can't I?" cried Vane, heartily. "I'll show you. Write? I should think I will, and bore you about all my new weatherc.o.c.k schemes. Dis, old chap, I'm such a dreamer that I've no time to see what people about me are like, and I've never seen you for what you really are till now we're going to say good-bye. I am glad you've talked to me like this."

Something very like a sob rose in Distin's throat as they stood, hand clasped in hand, but he was saved from breaking down.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the fly driver, "but we shan't never catch that train."

"Yes; half a sovereign for you, if you get me there," cried Distin, s.n.a.t.c.hing open the fly, and leaping in; "good-bye, old chap!" he cried as Vane banged the door and he gripped hands, as the latter ran beside the fly, "mind and write--soon--good-bye--good-bye."

And Vane stood alone in the dusty road looking after the fly till it disappeared.

"Well!" he cried, "poor old Dis! Who'd have thought he was such a good fellow underneath all that sour crust. I _am_ glad," and again as he walked slowly and thoughtfully back:--"I _am_ glad."

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

STAUNCH FRIENDS.

Time glided on, and it became Gilmore's turn to leave the rectory.

Other pupils came to take the places of the two who had gone, but Macey said the new fellows, did not belong, and could not be expected to cotton to the old inhabitants.

"And I don't want 'em to," he said one morning, as he was poring over a book in the rectory study, "for this is a weary world, Weatherc.o.c.k."

"Eh? What's the matter?" cried Vane, wonderingly, as he looked across the table at the top of Macey's head, which was resting against his closed fists, so that the lad's face was parallel with the table. "Got a headache?"

"Horrid. It's all ache inside. I don't believe I've got an ounce of brains. I say, it ought to weigh pounds, oughtn't it?"

"Here, what's wrong?" said Vane. "Let me help you."

"Wish you would, but it's of no good, old fellow. I shall never pa.s.s my great-go when I get to college."

"Why?"

"Because I shall never pa.s.s the little one. I say, do I look like a fool?"

He raised his piteous face as he spoke, and Vane burst into a roar of laughter.

"Ah, it's all very well to laugh. That's the way with you clever chaps.

I say, can't you invent a new kind of thing--a sort of patent oyster-knife to open stupid fellows' understanding? You should practice with it on me."

"Come round this side," said Vane, and Macey came dolefully round with the work on mathematics, over which he had been poring. "You don't want the oyster-knife."

"Oh, don't I, old fellow; you don't know."

"Yes, I do. You've got one; every fellow has, if he will only use it."

"Where abouts? What's it like--what is it?"

"Perseverance," said Vane. "Come on and let's grind this bit up."

They "ground" that bit up, and an hour after, Macey had a smile on his face. The "something attempted" was "something done."

"That's what I do like so in you, Vane," he cried.

"What?"

"You can do all sorts of things so well, and work so hard. Why you beat the busy bee all to bits, and are worth hives of them."

"Why?" said Vane, laughing.

"You never go about making a great buzz over your work, as much as to say: 'Hi! all of you look here and see what a busy bee I am,' and better still, old chap, you never sting."

"Ever hear anything of Mr Deering now, uncle?" said Vane, one morning, as he stood in his workshop, smiling over some of his models and schemes, the inventor being brought to his mind by the remark he had made when he was there, about even the attempts being educational.