Thus he took his departure, and no one knew his destination.
It was five long years ere Mrs. Bryson heard from the master of Blackheath Hall. At that time she received a letter from him bearing the foreign postmark of London.
After giving minute directions concerning the plantation, the letter wound up with this singular postscript:
“My nephew—who will one day be my heir, presumably—together with his tutor, will be at Blackheath Hall for a short stay. I leave it to you to make their stay as pleasant as possible.”
Mrs. Bryson carried out her master’s wishes to the letter. When the English tutor and the little lad arrived the hospitable doors of Blackheath Hall were thrown open wide to welcome them.
During their short stay they saw but little of the tutor, for he kept to himself much of the time, rarely joining them save at meal times, and even then he had little to say, as though understanding intuitively that they would like to question him as to the identity of the lad—for they knew nothing whatever of the family history of their master, what relatives he had, or where they resided.
Some of the servants began to ply the lad with questions on the first day of his arrival when they had him alone, but they were effectually silenced by the boy replying:
“I will go and ask my tutor and find out for you, telling him that you wish to know.”
They stopped him short, covered with confusion. And after that experience, in which they were ignominiously prevented from satisfying their curiosity, they made no attempt to question the boy, and he rode the fat, sleek horses at a mad, breakneck gallop, bareback, down the lane, chased the young lambs over the meadow, and pulled ruthlessly the long, slender leaves of the tobacco plants to his heart’s content.
During the short time of his stay beneath that roof every one, from the housekeeper down, loved the gay, rollicking lad who was so full of life and spirit and boyish pranks; and they were sorry enough when the tutor announced that their stay at Blackheath Hall had come to an end, and sorrier still when they saw the lad, who had been the life of the house, ride away—and they always carried the memory in their hearts of how he turned and kissed his little hand to them when he reached the brow of the hill, ere he was lost completely to their sight.