“But may we go right away like this?” I said, as I saw we were now far from the grounds.
“Oh yes, to-day. He’s very strict at other times, and we have to get leave when we want to go out, but this is free day, and I want to show you everything because you’re new. Nobody showed me anything. I had to find it all out, and I was so jolly miserable at first that I made up my mind to run away and go back home.”
“But you did not?” I said eagerly, for, though I felt better now in the interest of meeting fresh people and learning something about the place, I could fully appreciate his words.
“No, I didn’t,” he said thoughtfully. “You see, I knew I must come to school, and if I ran away from this one, if I hadn’t been sent back, I should have been sent back to another one, and there would have been whackings at home, and they would have hurt my mother, who always hated to see me have it, though I always deserved it: father said so. Then there would have been whackings here, and they’d have hurt me, so I made up my mind to stay.”
“That was wise,” I said, laughing.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, wrinkling up his face; “the cane only hurts you outside, and it soon goes off, but being miserable hurts you inside, and lasts ever so long. I say, don’t you be miserable about coming away from home. You’ll soon get over it, and there’s lots of things to see. Look there,” he cried, stopping at the edge of the road, “you can see the sea here. The doctor will give us leave to go some day, and we shall bathe. There it is. Don’t look far off, does it? but it’s six miles. But we’ve got a bathing pool, too. See those woods?”
“Yes,” I said, as I gazed over the beautiful expanse of hill and dale, with a valley sweeping right away to the glittering sea.
“Those are the General’s, where the pheasants are, and if you look between those fir-trees you can just get a peep of the hammer pond where the big eels are.”
“Yes, I can see the water shining in the sun,” I said eagerly.
“Yes, that’s it; and those fields where you see the tall poles dotted over in threes and fours are—I say, did you ever see hops?”