"No," said his father, "it can't be done. I ought to have fetched you away sooner, only I shirked a duty. Open the little gate, I see the big ones are padlocked. Push, it's stiff."
They walked up the long red drive, John's mind busy over the questions he wished to ask his father and he began to lag behind considering them.
"This will be your home," repeated Mr. Brown quietly, "and it's a marvellous thing how life has arranged itself. The turn of Fortune's wheel, we may say. Walk quicker, John."
When they stood before the great front door, Mr. Brown became retrospective again.
"We played here together," he said—, "down these very steps, along these very paths. It is strange how life has fallen out—how my boy will be——" He put out his hand and pulled the bell vigorously, then turned his back to the house and surveyed the garden.
"Is it a school?" whispered John. But before his father could reply the door had rolled back and a man-servant stood looking at them.
Mr. Brown walked in, put his hat on a table, motioned to John, and opened a door at one side of the wide hall.
"It's me—Brown," he said as he entered the room. "I've brought the boy."
John followed very quickly, being curious now. His father stood half-way across the room, looking hesitating and apologetic.
A man of sixty or so, with a red, merry-looking face, and an unmistakable sea-captain air, glanced up from a paper he was reading.