Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 11

"Oh, you'll like it after a while," he said, with antic.i.p.ative wisdom, "but I shall be left to play with Tom. I want you to miss me. It is too horrid."

"I shall miss you; indeed, I shall. I suppose I am only a girl, but I won't forget what you did when that boy was rude. I used to think once you were like a girl and just afraid. I never yet thanked you," and she leaned over and laid a hand for a moment on his. "I believe you wouldn't be afraid now to do what I dared you to do."

He laughed. There had been many such dares. "Which dare was it, Leila?"

"Oh, to go at night-at night to the Indian graves. I tried it once and got half way-"

"And was scalped all the way back, I suppose."

"I was, John. Try it yourself."

"I did, a month after I came."

"Oh! and you never told me."

"No, why should I?"

It had not had for him the quality of bodily peril. It was somehow far less alarming. He had started with fear, but was of no mind to confess. They rode on in silence, until at last she said. "I hope you won't fight that boy again."

"Oh," he said, "I didn't mind it so very much."

She was hinting that he would again be beaten. "But I minded, John. I hated it."

He would say no more. He had now had, as concerned Tom, three advisers. He kept his own counsel, with the not unusual reticence of a boy. He did not wish to be pitied on account of what he did not consider defeat, and wanted no one to discuss it. He was better pleased when a week later the English groom talked to him after the boxing-lesson. "That fellow, Tom, told me about your slapping him. He said that he didn't want to lick you if you hadn't hit him."

"It's not a thing I want to talk about, Sam. I had to hit him and I didn't know how; that's all. Put on the gloves again."

"There, that'll do, sir. You're light on your pins, and he's sort of slow. If you ever have to fight him, just remember that and keep cool and keep moving."

The young boxing-tutor was silently of opinion that John Penhallow would not be satisfied until he had faced Tom again. John made believe, as we say, that he had no such desire. He had, however, long been caressed and flattered into the belief that he was important, and was, in his uncle's army phrase, to be obeyed and respected accordingly by inferiors. His whole life now for many months had, however, contributed experiences contradictory to his tacitly accepted boy-views. Sometimes in youth the mental development and conceptions of what seem desirable in life appear to make abrupt advances without apparent bodily changes. More wholesomely and more rarely at the plastic age characteristics strengthen and mind and body both gather virile capacity. When John Penhallow met his cousin on his first arrival, he was in enterprise, vigour, general good sense and normal relation to life, really far younger than Leila. In knowledge, mind and imagination, he was far in advance. In these months he had pa.s.sed her in the race of life. He felt it, but in many ways was also dimly aware that Leila was less expressively free in word and action, sometimes to his surprise liking to be alone at the age when rare moods of mild melancholy trouble the time of rapid female florescence. There was still between them acceptance of equality, with on his part a certain growth of respectful consideration, on hers a gentle perception of his gain in manliness and of deference to his experience of a world of which she knew as yet nothing, but with some occasional resentment when the dominating man in the boy came to the surface. When his aunt praised his manners, Leila said, "He isn't always so very gentle." When his uncle laughed at his awkward horsemans.h.i.+p, she defended him, reminding her uncle, to his amus.e.m.e.nt, of her own early mishaps.

CHAPTER V

John's intimacy with the Squire prospered. Leila had been a gay comrade, but not as yet so interested as to tempt him to discussion of the confusing politics of the day. "She has not as yet a seeking mind," said the rector, who in the confessional of the evening pipe saw more and more plainly that this was a divided house. The Squire could not talk politics with Ann, his wife. She held a changeless belief in regard to slavery, a conviction of its value to owner and owned too positive to be tempted into discussing it with people who knew so little of it and did not agree with her. James Penhallow, like thousands in that day of grim self-questioning, had been forced to reconsider opinions long held, and was reaching conclusions which he learned by degrees made argument with the simplicity of his wife's political creed more and more undesirable. Leila was too young to be interested. The rector was intensely anti-slavery and saw but one side of the ominous questions which were bewildering the largest minds. The increasing interest in his nephew was, therefore, a source of real relief to the uncle. Meanwhile, the financial difficulties of the period demanded constant thought of the affairs of the mills and took him away at times to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. Thus the summer ran on to an end. Buchanan and Breckenridge had been nominated and the Republicans had accepted Fremont and Dayton.

Birthdays were always pleasantly remembered at Grey Pine, and on September 20th, when John, aged sixteen, came down to breakfast, as he took his seat Ann came behind him and said as she kissed him, "You are sixteen to-day; here is my present."

The boy flushed with pleasure as he received a pair of silver spurs. "Oh! thank you, Aunt Ann," he cried as he rose.

"And here is mine," said Leila, and laughing asked with both hands behind her back, "Which hand, John?"

"Oh! both-both."

"No."

"Then the one nearest the heart." Some quick reflection pa.s.sed through Ann Penhallow's mind of this being like an older man's humour.

Leila gave him a riding-whip. He had a moment's return of the grown-up courtesies he had been taught, and bowed as he thanked her, saying, "Now, I suppose, I am your knight, Aunt Ann."

"And mine," said Leila.

"I do not divide with any one," said Mrs. Ann. "Where is your present, James?"

He had kept his secret. "Come and see," he cried. He led them to the porch. "That is mine, John." A thorough-bred horse stood at the door, saddled and bridled. Ann thought the gift extravagant, but held her tongue.

"Oh, Uncle Jim," said John. His heart was too full for the words he wanted to say. "For me-for me." He knew what the gift meant.

"You must name him," said Leila. "I rode him once, John. He has no name.

Uncle Jim said he should have no name until he had an owner. Now I know."

John stood patting the horse's neck. "Wasn't his mother a Virginia mare, James?" said Ann.

"Yes."

"Oh, then call him Dixy."

For a moment the Squire was of a mind to object, but said gaily, "By all means, Ann, call him Dixy if you like, and now breakfast, please." Here they heard Dixy's pedigree at length.

"Above all, Jack, remember that Dixy is of gentle birth; make friends with him. He may misbehave; never, sir, lose your temper with him. Be wary of use of whip or spur."

There was more of it, until Mrs. Ann said, "Your coffee will be cold. It is one of your uncle's horse-sermons."

John laughed. How delightful it all was! "May I ride today with you, uncle?"

"Yes, I want to introduce you to-Dixy-yes-"

"And may I ride with you?" asked Leila.

"No, my dear," said the aunt, "I want you at home. There is the raspberry jam and currant jelly and tomato figs."

"Gracious, Leila, we shall not have a ride for a week."

"Oh, not that bad, John," said Mrs. Ann, "only two days and-and Sunday. After that you may have her, and I shall be glad to be rid of her. She eats as much as she preserves."

"Oh! Aunt Ann."

A few days went by, and as it rained in the afternoon there was no riding, but there was the swimming-pool, and for rain John now cared very little. On his way he met a half dozen village lads. They swam, and hatched (it was John's device) a bit of mischief involving Billy, who was fond of watching their sports when he was tired of doing ch.o.r.es about the stable. John heard of it later. The likelihood of unpleasant results from their mischief was discussed as they walked homeward. There were in all five boys from the village, with whom by this time John had formed democratic intimacies and moderate likings which would have shocked his mother. He had had no quarrels since long ago he had resented Tom McGregor's rudeness to Leila and had suffered the humiliation of defeat in his brief battle with the bigger boy. The easy victor, Tom, had half forgotten or ignored it, as boys do. Now as they considered an unpleasant situation, Joe Grace, the son of the Baptist preacher, broke the silence. He announced what was the general conclusion, halting for emphasis as he spoke.

"I say, fellows, there will be an awful row."

"That's so," said William, the butcher's son.

"Anyhow," remarked Ashton, whose father was a foreman at the mills, "it was great fun; didn't think Billy could run like that."

It will be observed that the young gentleman of ten months ago had become comfortably democratic in his a.s.sociations and had shed much of his too-fine manners as the herding instincts of the boy made the society of comrades desirable when Leila's company was not attainable.

"Oh!" he said, "Billy can run, but I had none of the fun." Then he asked anxiously, "Did Billy get as far as the house?"

"You bet," said Baynton, the son of the carpenter, "I saw him, heard him shout to the Squire. Guess it's all over town by this time."

"Anyhow it was you, John, set it up," said a timid little boy, the child of the blacksmith.