Patient Lilian was struggling to teach Bobby a Scripture lesson, for his form-master had decreed that the names of the books of the Old Testament must be repeated without a slip immediately after prayers on the ensuing Monday morning. Poor Bobby had neither a retentive memory nor a great disposition to learn. He fidgeted, and kicked the leg of the table, and said it was 'a jolly shame for old Peters to give a fellow Sunday prep.' He hopelessly confused Ezra and Esther, floundered at Ecclesiastes, and the minor prophets filled him with despair.
'Oh, Bobby, do try again,' entreated Lilian. 'Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk.'
'It's no use, Lil,' said the despondent Bobby. 'I may as well make up my mind to take a caning and spare myself the trouble.'
'Lilian dear, are you busy?' said Aunt Helen, putting her head round the door. 'I thought you might have taken this jar of beef-tea to old Ephraim. I hear he is not so well again, and he was not in church this morning.'
'Oh, Auntie, let me take it!' cried Peggy, glad of any excuse to interrupt the study of her Collect and Catechism.
'Be careful not to spill it, then, and be sure to bring back the basket. And while you are there, I have no doubt he would be pleased if you read to him for a little. He is getting so blind now, poor old man! and it is dull for him, living all alone,' said Aunt Helen, who liked to teach the children to help their neighbours.
Old Ephraim was a quaint and original character. He had come to Gorswen from the North country, and had been shepherd for forty years at the Abbey. He was past work now, and lived in one of the village almshouses, subsisting partly on the parish dole and partly on private charity; for though Mr. Vaughan might practise rigid economy in his own private expenses, he had never a grudging hand towards the poor.
The little low whitewashed cottage was a humble enough place, but it looked cheerful this Sunday afternoon, with the sunlight streaming in through the tiny window, and a few early white roses shedding their sweet perfume in the small garden in front.
Peggy found the old man seated in his elbow-chair by the fireside, his head enveloped in a huge flat oat-cake, tied on with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, so that he resembled some new species of mushroom.
'Why, Ephraim!' she cried, stopping short in amazement; 'whatever is the matter? And what have you got on your head?'