“If I could, I’d come with you now. But Frances and I can’t leave the Mater to-night. You see, Jim, don’t you?”
“Dear lad, I’d not have you come.”
“But you will have me—ever so often. Whether you like it or not. I’ve holidays now. See, Jim! I’ll come to-morrow, in the afternoon quite early. Will you look out for me?”
“Will I not?”
“Then good-bye now. Because of Frances and the Mater, you know. Don’t mope to-night, there’s a good fellow. I’ll come to-morrow, and won’t I wake you up! Shake hands again! Now I’m off. Good-bye, brother Jim!”
The swift pony and his rider vanished. Jim Morland stood where they had left him, and his head sunk in his hands. Who shall despise him if, in his overwrought condition, he sobbed for very happiness?
“And to think I nearly missed him! Ah, if I’d gone along of Harry! Thank God I didn’t.... I’d never go now. I’d never do aught to make him feel shame of me. I’ll care for him always—ay, and for Missy too!... He called me ‘brother Jim’, God bless him!”
Jim went on through the darkness. At the smithy he found that Elizabeth had returned, made up his fire, and laid his table. Jim wandered about, too happy to eat. He was no longer alone in the world: he had a small brother, who was coming to see him to-morrow, and on many morrows. (Jim hardly paused to wonder how Austin had contrived to overcome his mother’s objections.) At last the lad dragged a chair to the blazing fire in the kitchen. His dog crouched at his feet. His great black tom-cat purred at his elbow. His fiddle invited a song of thanksgiving to which his heart piped its cheerful chorus.
CHAPTER IX.
FRANCES FALTERS.
On the following day Austin paid his promised visit to Rowdon Smithy. There was no deceit in the boy, and he proclaimed his intention openly at home. The contest on the subject between himself and his mother was sharp and brief: Austin gained the day. Mrs. Morland had no idea how to enforce her commands, for she had at her disposal no means of coercion. Had it been possible to send her son to school, she would have taken this step immediately; but her husband’s objections stood in the way. There were no near relatives to whose charge she might, for a time, have consigned the little rebel, save the Scotch cousin with whom Austin had spent the last Easter holidays; and this cousin had gone to Australia to take up sheep-farming, in hopes of making a fortune, marrying, and settling down as an antipodean millionaire. Meanwhile, he was making short work of his patrimony; and Mrs. Morland did not exactly see her way to employ him as jailer.