‘There is no hurry about it,’ the old gentleman said, closing up a little and drawing back into his seat.
‘But, grandfather,’ said John, ‘I’ve been thinking of it myself. Percy is going to the University after he’s finished at Marlborough: but I can’t do that. I can’t wait till I’m a man before getting to work. I know I’m not like them. Mr. Cattley has taken us—oh, I don’t mean us: me—as far as I have any need to go.’
‘Why shouldn’t you say “us,” John?’
‘Because Elly is a girl. She is more different still. She says her aunt will never let her go on when she comes back. And, it is thought, Mr. Cattley will get a living: so that’s just how it is, grandfather. I’ve been thinking the very same. As I’ve got to make my own way, it’s far better that I should begin.’
‘Especially as the poor lad has no one behind him,’ said his grandmother, shaking her head.
‘I have you behind me,’ said John; ‘I’d like to know how a fellow could have anything better. And I’ve all the village behind me that know you and know me, though I’m not so much. What could I have more? I’ve only got to say I’m Mr. Sandford’s grandson, and, all this side of the county, everybody knows me. The Spencers have got greater relations, perhaps, but what could be better than that?’
He looked round upon them, first to one side, then to the other, with a glow of brightness and happy feeling in his cheerful young face. He was a good-looking boy, perhaps not strictly handsome, with mobile irregular features, honest well-opened eyes, with a laugh always in them, and brown hair that curled a little. He was not particularly tall for his age, neither was he short, but strong and well-knit. And he had the complexion of a girl, white and red, a little more brown perhaps than would have been becoming to a girl. But to John the brown was very becoming. He looked like a boy who was afraid of nothing, neither work, nor fatigue, nor poverty, nor even trouble, if that should have to be borne—but who was entirely confident that he never need be ashamed to look the world in the face, and that everything known of him, either of himself or those who had gone before him, was of a kind to conciliate friendship and spread goodwill all round.
The two old people looked at him, and then at each other. The grandfather gave his ‘tchick, tchick’ under his breath, as it were, the grandmother under her soft white knitting wrung her old hands. But an awe was upon them of his youth, of his confidence, of his happiness. They withdrew their eyes from him and from each other with a suddenness of alarm, as if they might betray themselves—and for a moment there was silence. They dared not venture to say anything, and he had said what he had to say. After a moment, however, he resumed. He noticed no hesitation, no tragic consultation of looks; for him everything was so simple, so plain.
‘Don’t you agree with me?’ he said.
‘Agree with him! Listen to the young ’un,’ said the old man at last, with a quaver in his voice. ‘But I’m glad you take it like this, my boy. We’re old folks, and we’re growing older every day. We’d like to live just to see you settled for yourself in the world. You’ve advantages, as you say, in the village maybe, and just a little way about, where our name is known, though we have not spent all our lives in this little place. But look you here, John. You mustn’t expect to be able to make your way in the village, nor perhaps near it. You mustn’t expect the old folks will last for ever. When you go out into the world, you’ll find there are very few that ever heard tell of your grandmother and me. You will have to be your own grandfather, so to speak,’ grandpapa said, with an unsteady little laugh.