"Goin' to see workman, goin' to see workman! Oh, my Jove, my Jove! Goin' to see workman makin' lovely, lovely faces all for me—every bit!"
"Hold your noise," said Jasper, roughly; "and go, if you're going."
Carlton had given up expecting him, divining at last that Musk knew of their one interview, and would never let them have another. So once more Georgie surprised him at his work; but this time he had to hail his friend; for now Carlton was making up for lost time, and at the moment, up on a scaffolding, was all absorbed in the exciting task of fitting the finished voussoirs over the wooden centre which supported the arch until the keystone should complete it. And the keystone was actually in one hand, a trowel full of mortar in the other, when the first sound of Georgie's voice drove all else from his mind.
"I say, I say, I say!" he ran up shouting. "Workman, workman!"
But now the workman was only collecting himself, and thanking God with quivering lips, before he could trust himself upon his ladder.
"So here you are at last," he said, swinging the child off his legs without endearment. Yet all his being yearned towards the merry independent little boy. The straight strong legs seemed browner and rounder already. It might have been the same holland pinafore; it was the same sailor hat.
"Yes, here I are," said Georgie, "and I wish you would make lovely, lovely faces out of bwick."
"Not run away again, I hope?"
"No, 'cos I came by my own self."
Carlton asked no more questions. Any minute the child might be missed and sent for; every moment was precious meanwhile. It was a heavenly day in early June, the elms in full leaf at last against the blue, the churchyard dappled with light and shade, the fresh sandstone yellow as gold where the sun caught it fairly. And in the sunlight stood its own incarnation—sturdy champion of the golden age—laughing child of June.