I couldn’t help my face working as I looked from one to the other.
“Cheer up, my lad,” cried the General, as my mother pressed my hand, for I had sunk down beside her on the seat.
“Of course he will,” cried my uncle; “soldiers cheer up directly. I say, Frank, the Doctor gave you a splendid character, but it wasn’t wanted. Your popularity staggers me.”
“But I haven’t seen poor old Senna,” I cried.
“Seen whom?” said my uncle, laughing.
“Poor old Tom Mercer,” I cried, when a hand from the back knocked my cap over my eyes, and a familiar voice shouted,—
“’Bye, Frankie. Hooray! ’ray! ’ray! ’ray!”
There was Tom Mercer’s face looking at us over the hood at the back, for he had darted out from the hedge as the carriage passed the corner half a mile from the school, climbed up behind, and was holding on with one hand as he clutched at me with the other.
Then quickly—nay, more quickly than it has taken me to tell it—he let go and dropped down into the road, where I could see him standing waving his cap till a curve hid him from sight; and I once more sank into my place too low-spirited to think, for my happy school-days were at an end, and there before me in the dim distance, toward which I was being hurried fast as two good mares could trot, was the great gateway of a fresh life, through which lay the road to be followed in my progress to become a soldier and a man.