On the following day I took him down to Tredennis. The boy was interested and excited, and asked many questions of a very unsophisticated kind.
"Why do people stare at me so?" he said, turning round from the window of the carriage, in Bristol, where he stood devouring the crowd with hungry eyes. I could not explain to him. He thought it was because of his foreign look, and was much disgusted. "I made them dress me like an Englishman," he said, surveying himself. To be English, that was his aim.
I found that his father had inculcated this idea in him thoroughly, and had impressed upon him the dignity of the position. It was, I was told afterward, the one argument that never failed to make him attentive in his lessons.
It was not till he was driving away from Truro into the country that he found leisure to think of his father and brother, and wonder what they would be doing. I had the greatest difficulty in explaining that the hours of the day were different, and that it was early morning there.
"No," he said, "it is impossible; I feel like the evening—Martin can not be feeling like the morning."
He was rather disappointed as we got further and further into the lovely country. "I have lived among trees all my life," he said. "I want to live among people now, in cities, and hear what they say and do what they do. I love them." And he waved his hand to the lights of the town in the valley below us, as a sign of farewell.
At last we drove into the dark gates of Tredennis, and drew up before the house.
Arthur came out to meet us. "Where is Edward?" he said.
The boy sprang out to meet him, and would have kissed him; but Arthur just grasped his hand, retaining it for a moment, and then let him go. The boy kept close to him, examining him attentively, when we got inside the house, with restless, affectionate glances.
"What makes you so pale?" he said.