Thus things went on for some years, and the country-side, as Willie Maitland predicted, partially forgot the story. The boy grew tall and strong, a favourite in society, and not unpopular among the rougher public of his own age and kind, who, indeed, were chiefly represented to Val by the Pringle boys. The Pringles continued to keep possession of the Hewan partly because the children liked it, partly because the father still cherished in his secret soul some hope of finding out the fraud which he believed was being perpetrated against his rights and his boy’s; and as the cottage was within easy reach of Edinburgh, some member of the family was almost always there. Sometimes it was the mother, with Violet and the little ones,—sometimes the boys alone, walking out in a dusty merry party, on a holiday, for any diversion that happened to be in season. They came for skating in winter, for fishing in spring and autumn; for the Esk above the Hewan was sweet, and free from all poisonous paper-mills. And as they were undoubtedly relations, though in a very distant degree, it was not within the possibilities of Scotch politeness to refuse the boys some share of the shooting; and it was in the company of Sandy and his stalwart brethren that young Val first fired a shot and missed a bird. Though Lord Eskside looked glum at the associations thus formed, and wondered more than ever what Sandy Pringle meant, it was impossible to keep his grandson from the company of the only boys within reach who were of his own class, or something approaching to it. He learnt all kinds of manly exercises from them or with them, and knew the way to the Hewan blindfold by night or day, as well as he knew the way to his own chamber—a result which the parents on either side were far from desiring, but seemed helpless to prevent.
One day in the early summer, when the boy was about twelve years old, he escaped, I don’t know how, from the tutor who had been brought from Oxford for him, and whose life Val did his best to make a burden. He got away quite early in the morning, and escaped into the woods, with a double sense of pleasure in the thought that this holiday was surreptitious, the conquest of his bow and his spear rather than lawful leisure granted by lawful authority. Val had had no breakfast, but he did not mind—he was free. He went away into the thickest of the woods and climbed a tree, and lay there among the branches in a cradle of boughs which he had long since found out, looking up at the breaks of blue sky through the leaves in the fresh early morning, before anything was astir but the birds. Val was great in birds, like most country boys. He listened to the universal twitter about him, amusing himself by identifying every separate note, till he tired of this tranquil pleasure. Then he looked out from his lofty retreat to count how many different kinds of trees he could see from that leafy throne; and then for a few minutes he lay back with his face to the sky, and watched the white airy puffs of cloud which floated slowly across the blue, with a dreamy enjoyment. But such meditative pleasures could not last very long. It was true he had the delightful thought that he had played truant, and had a whole day to himself, to fall back upon when he was tired, and this was always refreshing. But after a while it weighed heavy upon Val that he had nothing to do, and presently even the satisfaction of having stolen a march upon Mr Grinder scarcely bulked so large in his mind as the want of breakfast, which he saw no easy way of obtaining up here among the leaves. He did not venture to go to a gamekeeper’s cottage for a share of the children’s porridge, lest he should be led ignominiously back to Grinder and grammar. All at once a brilliant idea suggested itself—the Hewan! In a moment this notion was carried into practice; and Val, jumping down like a squirrel from his nest in the branches, stole up the brae under the deepest trees, through the ferns all wet with dew, to the little airy platform on which the sun was shining, where the windows had just been opened and the day begun. One little figure sat perched on the low earthen dyke looking down the course of the Esk over tower and tree, and showing from far like a blue flower in her bright-coloured frock. “It’s the flag,” said Val at first to himself, as he toiled upward through the high ferns, keeping carefully away from the path; then he corrected this first notion, and said, “It’s Sandy’s cricket-cap;” and then he added to himself with animation, “It’s Vi!”
It was Vi, grown older and a little bigger since the first time she came to the Hewan—a very stately, splendid, foolish, idle little person, full of laughter and gravity and baby fun and precocious wisdom. She was as fond of taking care of everybody as ever she had been, but she forgot herself oftener, being older, and was not perhaps quite so severe on peccadilloes as at six. She was a little alarmed when she saw the big thing struggling upward among the ferns, and wondered whether there might really be a bear or a wolf in the woods, as there used to be in ancient times. A lion it could not be, Violet reflected, for the weather was too cold in Scotland for lions. She did not like to run away, but she thanked Providence devoutly that none of “the children” were here, and wondered with a delightful thrill of excitement whether, if it should be a lion, it would do anything to her. Then there came a whistle which Violet knew, and looking down through the bushes with a pleasant sense of safety, she recognised the wayfarer. “Oh, is it you?” she cried, calling to him from the top of her fortress: “I thought it was a bear.” “Ay, it’s me. There are no bears nowadays. Who has come?” said Val, laconic and sans cérémonie, as is the use of children, as he panted upwards to the embankment, and putting his foot in a crevice swung himself up with the aid of a tree. “You will break your neck,” said little Vi, with great gravity; “how can you do such things, you foolish boys?—nobody has come but me.”
“Nobody but you!” said Val, with a whistle of surprise and half regret. Then he added with animation, “I’m awfully hungry; give us some breakfast, Vi. I have run off from Grinder, and I don’t mean to go home till night. You can’t think how jolly it is in the woods when there’s nobody to stop you, and you have everything your own way.”
“Oh, Val!” cried Violet, not knowing how to express the tumult of her feelings. She could not approve of such wickedness, but yet “playing truant” bore a glorious sound about it. She had heard the words from fraternal lips, mingled with sighs of envy. Sandy and the rest had never gone so far as to play truant that she knew of; but the words suggested endless rambles, woods and streams and wild flowers, and everything that stirs a child’s imagination; and it was the beginning of June when the woods are at their freshest, and Vi was all alone at the Hewan, hoping for nothing better than a story from old Jean Moffatt to beguile the endless summer day. Her eyes lighted up with excitement and curiosity. “Oh, Val! if they find you, what will they do to you?” she cried with awe; “and where will you go, and what will you play at?” she added, eager interest following close upon terror. There was not a soul visible about the Hewan in the morning sunshine. Old Jean had gone away to her own quarters on the other side of the house, after putting Violet’s breakfast upon the table in the little parlour—and was busy with her beloved Grumphy, out of sight and hearing. The innocent doors and windows stood wide open; the child, in her blue frock, musing on the dyke in childish dreaminess, had forgotten all about her breakfast. Absolute solitude, absolute stillness, infinitely more deep than that of the forest, which indeed was full of chatter and movement and inarticulate gay society, was about this silent sunny place. The bold brown boy, with his curls pushed off his forehead, his cheeks glowing, his dress stained with the moss and ferns and morning dew, and his young bosom panting with exertion, looked the very emblem of Adventure and outdoor enterprise—the young reiver born to carry peace and quiet away.
“I’m awfully hungry,” was Val’s only response. “Vi, have you had your breakfast? I think I could eat you.”
“To be sure I had forgotten my breakfast,” said Violet, tranquilly; “you are always so hungry, you boys. Come in, there’s sure to be plenty for both of us;” and she led the way in with a certain bustle of hospitality. There was a little coffee and a great deal of fresh milk on the table (for old Jean by this time had attained in a kind of vicarious way to the summit of earthly delight, and had, if not her own, yet Mrs Pringle’s cow to care for, and made her butter, and dispensed the milk to the children with a lavish hand)—with two little bantam’s eggs in a white napkin, and fresh scones, and fresh butter, and jam and marmalade in abundance. Val made a very rueful face at the bantam’s eggs.
“Is that the kind of things girls eat?” he said; “they’re only a mouthful. I should like a dozen.”
“You may have one,” said Vi, graciously. “It’s my own little white bantam, and they’re always saved for me; but if you’re so hungry, I’ll call Jean—or I’ll go myself, and see what’s in the larder——”
“That is best,” said Val; “it’s nice to be by ourselves, just you and me. Don’t call Jean; she might tell the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper would tell Harding, and somebody would be sent after me. You go to the larder, Vi; and I’ll tell you when you come back what we’ll do.”