“Nonsense, Ethel,” said Harry; “I don’t want it. Have I not all my pay and allowance for the whole time I was dead? And as to robbing Cocksmoor—”
“Yes, keep it, Ethel,” said her father; “do you think I would take it now, when if there were a thank-offering in the world.—And, by the bye, your Cocksmoor children must have something to remember this by—”
Every one could have envied Norman, for travelling to London with Harry, but that he must proceed to Oxford in two days, when Harry would return to them. The station-master, thinking he could not do enough for the returned mariner, put the two brothers into the coupe, as if they had been a bridal couple, and they were very glad of the privacy, having, as yet, hardly spoken to each other, when Harry’s attention was dispersed among so many.
Norman asked many questions about the mission work in the southern hemisphere, and ended by telling his brother of his design, which met with Harry’s hearty approbation.
“That’s right, old June. There’s nothing they want so much, as such as you. How glad my aunt will be! Perhaps you will see David! Oh, if you were to go out to the Loyalty group!”
“Very possibly I might,” said Norman.
“Tell them you are my brother, and how they will receive you! I can see the mop-heads they will dress in honour of you, and what a feast of pork and yams you will have to eat! But there is plenty of work among the Maoris for you—they want a clergyman terribly at the next village to my uncle’s place. I say, Norman, it will go hard if I don’t get a ship bound for the Pacific, and come and see you.”
“I shall reckon on you. That is, if I have not to stay to help my father.”
“To be sure,” exclaimed Harry; “I thought you would have stayed at home, and married little Miss Rivers!”
Thus broadly and boyishly did he plunge into that most tender subject, making his brother start and wince, as if he had touched a wound.