“Yes; but I think that is generally a fine name for doing nothing. Now, I shall have some capital, and I’m big and strong, and can make my way. Cherry, don’t you think I should have been allowed to go?”
“Yes, Bob, I think you would; but you are too young to start off at once on your own resources.”
“Well, I could go to the agricultural college for a year, and there are men out there who take fellows and give them a start. You can talk it over with Uncle Cheriton, and if you agree, I don’t care for the others.”
“Does Nettie know about it?”
“Yes,” said Bob; “she wouldn’t speak to me for a week, she was so sorry. But she came round, and says she shall come out and join me. Of course she won’t—she’ll get married.”
They had reached a little bridge which crossed a stream, on either side of which lay the swampy piece of ground which they had come to inspect. Looking forward, was the wide panorama of heathery hills, known to them with life-long knowledge; looking back, the wide, white house, in its group of fir-trees, with the park stretching away towards the lake. All the woods were tinted with light spring green, and the air was full of the song of numberless birds, and with that cawing of the rooks, which Cheriton had once said at Seville was to him like the sound of the waves to a person born by the sea.
“Of course,” said Bob, “if one went a hundred thousand miles, one would never forget this old place.”
“No,” said Cheriton; “nor, I sometimes fancy, if one went a longer journey still!”
“But I hate it as it is now, and I shall come back when you’re Lord Chancellor, and Jack, Head Master of Eton.”
“Well, Bob,” said Cherry, “wherever we may any of us go, or whatever we may be, I think we cannot be really parted, while we remember the old place, and all that belongs to it.”