He always came home to Priory Leas for the summer intervals, when you may be sure there was great rejoicing—loudest on the part of Agnes, who was then his constant companion, as much so, at least, as she was allowed. Willie saw a good deal of Mona Shepherd also, who had long been set free from the oppressive charge of Janet, and was now under the care of a governess, a wise, elderly lady; and as she was a great friend of Mrs Macmichael, the two families were even more together now than they had been in former years.
Of course, while at college he had no time to work with his hands: all his labour there must be with his head; but when he came home he had plenty of time for both sorts. He spent a couple of hours before breakfast in the study of physiology; after breakfast, another hour or two either in the surgery, or in a part of the ruins which he had roughly fitted up for a laboratory with a bench, a few shelves, and a furnace. His father, however, did not favour his being in the latter for a long time together; for young experimenters are commonly careless, and will often neglect proper precautions—breathing, for instance, many gases they ought not to breathe. He was so careful over Agnes, however, that often he would not let her in at all; and when he did, he generally confined himself to her amusement. He would show her such lovely things!—for instance, liquids that changed from one gorgeous hue to another; bubbles that burst into flame, and ascended in rings of white revolving smoke; light so intense, that it seemed to darken the daylight. Sometimes Mona would be of the party, and nothing pleased Agnes or her better than such wonderful things as these; while Willie found it very amusing to hear Agnes, who was sharp enough to pick up not a few of the chemical names, dropping the big words from her lips as if she were on the most familiar terms with the things they signified—phosphuretted hydrogen, metaphosphoric acid, sesquiferrocyanide of iron, and such like.
Then he would give an hour to preparation for the studies of next term; after which, until their early dinner, he would work at his bench or turning-lathe, generally at something for his mother or grandmother; or he would do a little mason-work amongst the ruins, patching and strengthening, or even buttressing, where he thought there was most danger of further fall—for he had resolved that, if he could help it, not another stone should come to the ground.
In this, his first summer at home from college, he also fitted up a small forge—in a part of the ruins where there was a wide chimney, whose vent ran up a long way unbroken. Here he constructed a pair of great bellows, and set up an old anvil, which he bought for a trifle from Mr Willett; and here his father actually trusted him to shoe his horses; nor did he ever find a nail of Willie's driving require to be drawn before the shoe had to give place to a new one.
In the afternoon, he always read history, or tales, or poetry; and in the evening did whatever he felt inclined to do—which brings me to what occupied him the last hours of the daylight, for a good part of this first summer.
One lovely evening in June, he came upon Agnes, who was now eight years old, lying under the largest elm of a clump of great elms and Scotch firs at the bottom of the garden. They were the highest trees in all the neighbourhood, and his father was very fond of them. To look up into those elms in the summer time your eyes seemed to lose their way in a mist of leaves; whereas the firs had only great, bony, bare, gaunt arms, with a tuft of bristles here and there. But when a ray of the setting sun alighted upon one of these firs it shone like a flamingo. It seemed as if the surly old tree and the gracious sunset had some secret between them, which, as often as they met, broke out in ruddy flame.
Now Agnes was lying on the thin grass under this clump of trees, looking up into their mystery—and—what else do you think she was doing?—She was sucking her thumb—her custom always when she was thoughtful; and thoughtful she seemed now, for the tears were in her eyes.
"What is the matter with my pet?" said Willie.
But instead of jumping up and flinging her arms about him, she only looked at him, gave a little sigh, drew her thumb from her mouth, pointed with it up into the tree, and said, "I can't get up there! I wish I was a bird," and put her thumb in her mouth again.
"But if you were a bird, you wouldn't be a girl, you know, and you wouldn't like that," said Willie—"at least I shouldn't like it."