“Why, here you are,” cried Josh.
“Ah, boys,” he said, sadly. “But you, Will, ought not you to be in bed?”
“Bed?” cried the boy, scornfully. “What for? Josh lent me a suit of his clothes, and I’m quite dry now.”
“Oh, yes,” said Manners; “so am I, but I feel as if I could make a handkerchief precious wet by blubbering like a great, weak girl.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” cried Will. “Think how we’ve all been saved. Father’s in the best of heart, and he says as soon as he’s well that he’ll set to and build the whole place up bigger and better than it was before.”
“Yes,” said Josh, “I heard him; and he said, too, that he could do it with a better heart in his thankfulness that not a life was lost.”
“Ah, yes,” said Manners, sadly, “that’s quite right, boys; but when you came I wasn’t thinking about that, but about my own loss.”
“Oh,” said Will. “You mean about the place being so spoiled?”
“No, I don’t,” said the artist, gruffly. “I was thinking about my pictures—twelve canvases, a whole year’s work, washed right away, dead, as it were, and buried under some heap of stones. Ah, boys, they were only so much painted cloth, and I’m afraid they were very bad, but it was all so much work that was somehow very dear to me, and—bah! Never say die! I’ll begin again like your father, and build up something fresh.”
For some days Will paced about the devastated scene, looking white and strange—like one who had a burden on his mind.