“There ye go!” said the old man, talking to himself—“there ye go—away for ever! An’ the rain fallin’, and the mists a-gatherin’. There ye go! The way of all the chillun—a bit of sunshine, and then the mist and the rain! There ye go—and good-bye to ye! Ye wor a nice little chap—quiet, yet speerety-like—a nice little chap ye wor, an’ I’ll think o’ ye kindly, as if the good God had took ye,—just as if ye wor dead!”
CHAPTER VII
The next day Boy shut himself up in his own little bedroom and wrote a letter to Miss Leslie. He was a long time about it, and he took infinite pains to spell carefully. The result of his anxious thought and trouble was the following epistle:—
“My deer frend miss Letty
I am gowin to skool nex week you will bee sory to heer it is not a skool in England like Alister Macdonald it is in France ware I have never bin I am sory to tell you I do not like to go thare. Mother expecs me to speek French but I am sory to tell you I do not feel I shall speek very quikly the new langwige if you cood do enny thing to safe me from the skool in France I wood be glad I am afrade Mother will send me before you can cum my close are been packt and I am to bee put on boord a ship to the Captain who is to give me to the skool I am very sory and cannot help cryin if I cood run away wood you meet me enny ware I wood like to see you I think of deer Skotland and Alister and Majer Desmond, pleese give my luv and say I have to go to skool in France Alister will be very sory as he alwas sade he wood fite the french the plase is called Noirville (Boy wrote this very roundly and carefully) in Brittany and the master takes boys who are cheep mother says I am afrade I shal not see you deer miss Letty I am your lovin frend
Boy.”
This letter finished, and put in an envelope, Boy carefully addressed it in a very big round hand to Miss Leslie at her house in Hans Place, and then went down to his mother to ask for a penny stamp.
“Whom have you been writing to?” she demanded, with a touch of suspicion.
For one instant Boy was tempted to answer,—“To Alister McDonald,” but he resisted the temptation bravely. He had promised his dear Miss Letty never to tell a lie again after the fatal affair with the Major’s gun. So he answered frankly,—
“To Miss Letty.”