The next day the family arrived. Dick was standing at the lodge, well pleased to be allowed to throw open the gates for the carriage to enter, and to receive a smile and nod from Sir John as he sat inside it with his wife and daughters.
The report that Mr Naylor was able to give of his charge was very satisfactory to the benevolent baronet, and he quite agreed with him that it would be well to let the boy have some education. There was an excellent village school in Denham, and a superior schoolmaster. So it was arranged for Dick to attend school every morning, and be in the garden in the afternoon. The schoolmaster also agreed to teach him Latin three evenings in the week.
"Sir John never does things by halves," remarked Mrs Naylor to her husband. "He'll be the making of that boy, you'll see."
"He'll help him to be the making of himself," replied Naylor. "Dick is a boy, if I mistake not, who will make good use of whatever advantages are held out to him."
Time went on. Dick learnt quickly, and pleased his master. He was a favourite with most people from his good humour and readiness to oblige. Sir John took great interest in his improvement; and his wife and daughter often stopped and spoke to the boy who had come to Denham Court under such peculiar circumstances.
But go where we will, happen to us what will in this world, trouble of some sort is sure to crop up, and Dick was not without his, even in his happy life at Denham Court. It seems strange that he could have an enemy, but so it was. There was a boy named George Bentham, who was employed in the gardens, and who from the first had looked upon the London lad with jealousy and dislike. He saw that he was a favourite with Sir John and with Mr Naylor, and being of a mean and selfish disposition, he took an aversion to him for this reason. To use his own expression, he liked to spite him. That is to say, he never lost an occasion of saying or doing anything that he thought would be disagreeable to him; and it is wonderful how much petty tyranny may be exercised by one boy over another when opportunities are sought. For instance, he would sometimes hide his garden tools to cause him to waste time in searching for them, and so bring on him Mr Naylor's displeasure. One day in autumn, when Dick had been industriously sweeping up the fallen leaves in one of the walks, and had gone to fetch a wheelbarrow to carry them away, he found that some one had, during his short absence, scattered the heaps which he had so carefully piled up at regular distances, so that his work had almost all to be done over again. He had been told to finish it by eleven o'clock, at which hour Lady Tralaway generally came to walk there, as being a sunny, sheltered spot. He did his very best to try and set it all right in time, but the leaves at the end of the walk were in a sadly untidy state when her ladyship appeared with one of her daughters. She remarked on the unswept state of the path, and asked Dick to have it cleared earlier another day; and she repeated her request to Mr Naylor a little later, when she met him in the greenhouse. This caused Mr Naylor to reprove Dick for idleness, and he seemed inclined to think that what he said about the leaves having been scattered was all an excuse, especially as Dick could not say who had done it, though in his secret heart he felt quite sure he knew.
Another ill-natured trick that was played on Dick by an unseen, though to him not an unknown hand, was when he one day left his slate for a few minutes on a seat just inside the lodge gate, on which was a difficult sum over which he had spent a long time the evening before, and had at last mastered, though with great difficulty. He had just started to go to school, slate and books in hand, when he remembered he had forgotten one of them, and ran back into the lodge to fetch it. He could not immediately find it, though he was not away from his slate for more than five or six minutes, and it stood precisely where he had left it when he returned. He snatched it up and ran off, but it was not till he had got near the school-house that he discovered the lower figures of the sum were all rubbed out carefully as with a sponge. He was sorely distressed, but could only tell the master of what had happened, and begged to be allowed to do it over again that evening. The master, accustomed to boys often making excuses at the expense of truth, reproved him for leaving his slate so carelessly about, and said he could not understand who would care to take the trouble to do such a thing as efface the figures just to get him into a scrape. Dick saw he was not believed, and it distressed him a good deal. Yet he could not tell his suspicions about George, for he had no proof that he had done it. He only knew that about that time he generally passed through the gate on his way back from breakfast, and he also knew that he would be quite ready to do him such a bit of mischief as this.
Old Walters did not forget his little friend, nor did Dick lose his warm, affectionate love for him. They exchanged letters from time to time, and the correspondence was very useful in keeping up in Dick's mind the remembrance of all Walters had taught him. Sir John kindly sent for the old man when he was in town to give a favourable report of the boy, and tell him that Mr Naylor was well satisfied with him, and believed he would one day make a first-rate gardener, for that his good taste was something quite unusual, and his general intelligence of no ordinary stamp.
"I should like him to be a great gardener some day," said Walters; "and still more, I should like him to be a good man, with the fear of God ever before him."
"I trust he will be both, my friend," said Sir John. "How are his parents going on?"