RAYLEIGH.
WITH that visit to Lavender Terrace, Gus' old life came to an end. The next morning Edith and her grandfather saw him into the train for Rayleigh.
Mr. Mouncey, the energetic young vicar of Rayleigh, would meet him at the other end of his journey. Edith had no fear for him, since he was going to Mr. Mouncey; yet the boy had already won for himself such a place in her heart that she felt parting with him.
"We shall come to Rayleigh in the spring, I hope," she said, "so I shall see you then, Gus."
The boy smiled his sweet, winsome smile, but tears rose suddenly in his eyes. He was leaving this kind friend, he was leaving behind every one he had ever known, and going to a place of which he knew nothing, and his heart sank within him at the thought.
"Look here, young sir," said the colonel sharply, "mind you do your duty where you are going. You attend to what Mr. Mouncey says, and he will make a man of you."
Make a man of him! What sort of a man? Gus wondered, as Miss Edith's form receded from his view, and he knew that the train was bearing him out of London. A gentleman—such a gentleman as his father had wished him to be? That was what Gus desired to become.
Rayleigh was a long, straggling village, with few houses that were not the dwellings of working people. A deep, still river ran through the place, and supplied the need of its chief industry, the large paper mill that stood upon its banks.
Most of those who dwelt in the small brick cottages were engaged in the mill. The long lines of these cottages were not picturesque, but the village could boast the beauty of a fine old church, with an ivy-mantled tower. Close to the church was the vicarage, a large square house, once the home of a numerous family; but the former vicar had removed to another living, and his successor, being young and unmarried, seemed out of place in the big house. But he was a warm-hearted, genial man, and soon gathered plenty of life about himself.
Within a stone's throw of the vicarage was his cottage home for orphan lads, a veritable home, where, under the care of a good-natured, motherly widow, the boys lived a free and happy life. The vicar showed them a kindness which fell little short of that of a father. The boys had well-nigh the run of the vicarage. They dug and tended the garden, which was one of the best in the neighbourhood, and were rewarded with the finest of the fruit and vegetables.