—"THAT CAD SAWYER."
"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell."
Old Rhyme.
And grandmother of course kept her promise. That evening she read it aloud.
"They were Ryeburn boys—Ryeburn boys to their very heart's core—Jack and his younger brother Carlo, as somehow he had got to be called in the nursery, before he could say his own name plainly."
"That's uncle Charlton, who died when he was only about fifteen," whispered Sylvia to Ralph and Molly; "you see grandmother's written it out like a regular story—not saying 'your uncle this' or 'your uncle that,' every minute. Isn't it nice?"
Grandmother stopped to see what all the whispering was about.
"We beg your pardon, grandmother, we'll be quite quiet now," said the three apologetically.
"They had been at school at Ryeburn since they were quite little fellows, and they thought that nowhere in the world was there a place to be compared with it. Holidays at home were very delightful, no doubt, but school-days were delightful too. But for the sayings of good-byes to the dear people left at home—father and mother, big sister and little one, I think Jack and Carlo started for their return journey to school at the end of the midsummer holidays very nearly as cheerfully as they had set off for home eight weeks previously, when these same delightful holidays had begun. Jack had not very many more half-years to look forward to: he was to be a soldier, and before long must leave Ryeburn in preparation for what was before him, for he was fifteen past. Carlo was only thirteen and small of his age. He had known what it was to be homesick, even at Ryeburn, more than three years ago, when he had first come there. But with a big brother—above all a big brother like Jack, great strong fellow that he was, with the kindest of hearts for anything small or weak—little Carlo's preliminary troubles were soon over. And now at thirteen he was very nearly, in his way, as great a man at Ryeburn as Jack himself. Jack was by no means the cleverest boy at the school, far from it, but he did his book work fairly well, and above all honestly. He was honesty itself in everything, scorned crooked ways, or whatever he considered meanness, with the exaggerated scorn of a very young and untried character, and, like most boys of his age, was inclined, once he took up a prejudice, to carry it to all lengths.
"There was but one cloud over their return to school this special autumn that I am telling you of, and that was the absence of a favourite master—one of the younger ones—who, an unexpected piece of good luck having fallen to his share, had left Ryeburn the end of the last half.