"Ah, daughter, I've had a long, long night; and I'll be glad of my cup of tea. But you're main early, ain't you, dearie? I don't feel the sun upon my face yet!"
How difficult it is for Phil to hold his tongue, as he crosses the cottage floor and stands for a moment by Dame Christy's bedside, looking at her with a whole world of pity in his bonny eyes.
This is by no means the first time that he has been in this humble home; but never has he come as the silent smiling visitor he is to-day.
He puts his bundle on the bed by the old woman's side, looks wistfully at the bandaged eyes, and then creeps slowly and softly across the room and runs out into the sunlight—down the lane.
With tired arms swinging from a sense of relief, with bright curls tossing, and dusty feet plodding over the ground, Phil enters the corn field, and runs—into the outstretched arms of Jane, the housemaid.
And this is the greeting she gives him—
"Well, you are a naughty boy, Master Phil! Nurse is in a rare taking, thinking you've gone and drownded yourself or got a sunstroke or something. You deserve to be kept in bed all day, you bad child! And I wish your pa was at home to whip you as well."
Poor little Phil trudges back by the side of the scolding maid, feeling sobered and crestfallen. It has come upon him like a rough awakening from a sweet sleep that what he has done may look like naughtiness in the eyes of others.
Would they understand if he told them all about it?
But, then, if he told, it would spoil it all—for "gentlemen did kind things, but never talked about them." Those were the very words father had said. Father must know. He had been a gentleman all his life.