“Because she is keeping faith with a dead rascal. Expects to meet him somewhere in heaven by-and-by! Lord, if ever a liar and scamp deserves to wear a crown of gold and sing ‘Hallelujah,’ then Harry Raikes is a real live angel and no mistake!”
“Upon my word!” said Fitz slowly, “I think it’s liars and scoundrels generally who consider that they’re the very people fitted for gold crowns in heaven. Now I don’t expect a gold crown. I don’t consider myself worth an angel’s feather, let alone a pair of angel’s wings. But I have a pious uncle—old as Methuselah—who goes to church three times a day and slangs all his neighbours who don’t—and will you believe me, he has an idea that God is thoroughly well pleased with him for that. What a blasphemous old beggar it is!”
He laughed, and in his enjoyment allowed the Major to win the game at billiards. Then putting up his cue he mixed a mild glass of whisky and water and drank it off.
“I’ll go to bed now, Dick,” he said; “I don’t stay up as late as I used to!”
“We’re getting on, Fitz, that’s why,” replied Desmond. “We’re getting on, that’s what it is.”
“Yes, that’s what it is,” returned Fitz cheerily. “But I really don’t mind. Getting on means getting out—getting out of this world into a better. Good night, old chap!”
“Good night!”
And the two worthy fellows went to their respective rooms and slept the sleep of the just. But there were two other people in the house who could not sleep at all that night—these were Miss Letty and Boy. Miss Letty was grieving for Boy, and Boy was grieving for himself. What was she to do about Boy? Miss Leslie thought. What was he to do about himself? Boy thought. Miss Letty felt that if she could only get Boy away from his home surroundings, and place him at a good English preparatory school, she would perhaps be the saving of him. Boy felt that if he could only run away somewhere on one of those ambitious expeditions which Alister McDonald was always telling him about, he might, to put it grandly, make a career. But the world was broad and wide, and he was very small and young. Difficulties bristled in his path, and he had not the heart nor the strength to face them even in thought. The spark of an aspiring intelligence was within him, but the influences were all against its kindling up into a useful or brilliant flame.
The next day saw him again at play with Alister, and the two boys went out on Loch Katrine together in a boat to fish for trout. They were not very skilled fishermen, and there was a good deal more splashing about with the line, and patting the water with the oars than anything else. They stayed wobbling about on the friendly lake till sunset,—and then as they saw the majestic king of the sky descend into the west, glorious in panoply of gold and crimson, with fleecy white clouds rolling themselves into a great canopy for his head, and a wide stretch of crimson spreading beneath him like a carpet for his march downward, both the children were suddenly overcome by a sense of awe, and watched the brilliant colours of the heavens, and the purple shadows of the mountains reflected on the water, in silence for many minutes.
“I say, Boy, what are you going to be?” asked Alister, after a long pause.