“To think that this was once home to me,”—he thought—“to think of my grandmother—more than mother as she was to me—having died in privation, almost in want, after being mistress here for a good part of her long life. Yes; it would have been hard in any case, but that, we could have borne uncomplainingly, had we not been treated with such unnecessary rigour and cruelty. It is very bitter to remember. I have done well to bring the children up in ignorance of it all.”
But these thoughts were to some extent driven from his mind when he entered the chintz room, and saw Jerry. He had not expected to find the boy looking so ill—he was sitting up in bed eating his breakfast, but he was very pale and uneasy-looking, and when his father stooped to kiss him, he flung his arms round him, and clutched him convulsively.
“You’ve come to take me home, papa,” he cried; “I’ll be ready directly. Oh, I shall be so glad to go home!”
“My poor Jerry,” said Mr Waldron; “why you talk as if you had been away for years. But they’ve been very kind to you here?”
“Oh, very,” said the boy, in a tone of the deepest conviction; “but, papa, I wouldn’t sleep here alone another night for anything. I can’t tell you all now; but it was like what you told us about. I heard the sobbing and sighing, I did indeed.”
Mr Waldron started a little, but imperceptibly to Jerry.
“I shouldn’t have told it,” he said regretfully; “of course I would never have dreamt of doing so had I foreseen this. It was only natural, Jerry, that you should think you heard those sounds, when your mind was full of the story, and you were besides not well—excited and feverish probably.”
“Yes, that was what Miss Meredon said, and—”
“Does she know you were frightened?” interrupted Mr Waldron in surprise.
“Oh, yes; but I’ll tell you all at home. She tried to satisfy me, and she said one thing which almost did—that nobody ever hears these sounds except one of the family. But I’ve been thinking after all that can’t be, for you heard them and you aren’t one of the family, so why shouldn’t I?”