Bob Hopley’s present was a red and orange silk kerchief, which he wore proudly on Sundays, and Cook’s was in a small box prepared by my mother—a cap with wonderful flowers and ribbons, which obtained for Tom Mercer and me endless little supper snacks as tokens of the woman’s delight and gratitude.
So, as time sped on, I had grown so accustomed to the life at “Old Browne’s,” that I felt little objection, as I have said, to returning after the Christmas holidays; though the weather was bad and there was a long while to wait before there could be much pleasure in out-door sports. But the spring came at last with its pear and apple blossom, the hops began to run up the poles, May and June succeeded, and glided on so that I could hardly believe it when the midsummer holidays came without my feeling that I had advanced much in the past six months.
I suppose I had, for I had worked hard, and the letter I bore home from the Doctor quite satisfied my mother who afterwards informed me in confidence that my uncle was greatly pleased.
Six weeks’ holidays were before me, but, before they were at an end, I was beginning to get weary, and longing for the day to come when my new things were brought home ready to try on, pack up, and return to school.
To my studies and interviews with the masters?
Oh, no! nothing of the kind; but to where there were woods and ponds, and the General’s cob for my riding lessons, and the cricket-field.
I’m afraid my mother must have thought me careless and unloving. I hope I was not, in my eagerness to get back to Tom Mercer, who made my school life most interesting by his quaintness. For I was always ready to enter into his projects, some of which were as amusing as they were new.
I had seen little of my uncle when I was home last, but he wrote to me twice—stern, military-toned letters, each of which was quite a despatch in itself. In these he laid down the law to me, giving me the best of advice, but it was all very Spartan-like. He insisted above all things upon my recollecting that I was to be a soldier, and that a soldier was always a gentleman and a man of honour, and each time he finished his letter in these words,—
“Never tell a lie, Frank; never do a dirty action; keep yourself smart and clean; and, by the way, I send you a sovereign to spend in trash.”
“Only wish I had such an uncle,” Tom Mercer used to say. “My father would send me money if he could spare it, but he says his patients won’t pay. They’re civil enough when they’re ill, but when he has wound up their clocks, and set them going again, they’re as disagreeable as can be if he wants his bill.”