“Ay, lad; and I’ve got to teach you how to carry it. This is your first day on the hill, mind, and a rough one it is.”
Archie soon got his leggings on, and his shot-belt and shooting-cap and everything else, in true sportsman fashion.
“What!” he said at the hall door, when he met Mr Walton, “am I to have my tutor with me to-day?”
He put strong emphasis on the last word.
“You know, Mr Walton, that I am ten to-day. I suppose I am conceited, but I almost feel a man.”
His tutor laughed, but by no means offensively.
“My dear Archie, I am going to the hill; but don’t imagine I’m going as your tutor, or to look after you. Oh, no! I want to go as your friend.”
This certainly put a different complexion on the matter.
Archie considered for a moment, then replied, with charming condescension:
“Oh, yes, of course, Mr Walton! You are welcome, I’m sure, to come as a friend.”