Mrs Crawley and the girls agreed with me, for the official directions saved them a world of trouble. They wanted to go down to Portsmouth in a body and see him off, but he begged them not.
“I had sooner say good-bye here, Mother,” he said, “if you don’t mind. There’s a detachment, and I shall have my men to look after, and if I am with you I shall be bothered. And, well, you know, parting is a melancholy sort of business, and it is better to get it over in private, don’t you think?”
Mrs Crawley saw wisdom in her son’s words, and yielded with a sigh, for she yearned to see the very last of him. Ah! we do not half value the love of our mothers until we miss it, and the opportunity for making any return is gone for ever. It seems such a matter of course, like the sun shining, which no one troubles to be grateful for. But if the sun went out.
Well, it was a painful business—a good deal worse than a visit to the dentist’s—that morning’s breakfast, with the table crowded with his favourite dainties, which he could not swallow. And then the final parting, when all the luggage was piled on the cab. It was a relief when it was over, and he found himself alone and trying to whistle. Even now, as he stowed the smaller articles in the carriage, he had a great lump in his throat.
The guard began shutting the doors, so he got in, and as he had fellow-passengers it was necessary to look indifferent, and as if he were accustomed to long journeys. The train moved out of the station and he found several things to distract his thoughts. Presently on the right they passed the Wimbledon Lawn-tennis Grounds, and he thought of a wonderful rally he had seen there between Renshaw and Lawson. Then further on they came to Sandown on the left, where a steeple-chase was in progress. The horses were approaching the water jump, and the travellers put down their newspapers and crowded to the window.
“Something in Tom Cannon’s colours leading; he’s over. That thing of Lord Marcus is pulling hard. By Jove he is down! No, he has picked him up again. Well ridden, sir!”
“Who is it up?”
“Why, Beresford himself. He will win, too, I think. Oh, hang it, I wish they would stop the train a moment!”
Everybody laughed at this, though it was provoking not to see them over the next fence; but the engine gave a derisive scream, and away they rushed to Farnborough.
“There’s Aldershot, and the Long Valley, and that Cocked Hat Wood. British generals would beat creation if they might only let their left rest on Cocked Hat Wood.”