Chapter Ten.
It was Saturday afternoon and a holiday with the schoolboys, of course. It was a holiday to them all, for Mrs Inglis and Violet were out of doors too, sitting on the gallery in the sunshine, and Davie was coming home. He was at the moment crossing the bridge at a great pace, and so eager to be among them, that instead of going soberly round by the gate, as he was accustomed to do, he took Jem’s fashion and swung himself first over the side of the bridge, and then over the fence into the garden. They might well look surprised, and all the more so that it was high water, and he had to scramble along the unsteady fence and through the willows before he could get to the grass dry shod.
“Well done, Davie! you are growing young again,” said Jem.
David sat down on the steps at his mother’s feet laughing and breathless.
“Is it a half holiday?” asked his mother.
“Yes; Frank came to the bank and begged Mr Caldwell to let me go out in the boat with him and his brother this afternoon.”
“And he was willing to let you go, I suppose?”
“Yes; he was not quite sure about the boat, and he said I must come first and ask you, mamma.”
“A long walk and a short sail. It won’t pay, Davie,” said Jem. “You would not have cared, would you, mamma?”
“But I must have come at any rate to change my clothes. We shall very likely get wet.”