“Maybe her lad isn’t one for steady work,” said another. “It is work, I can tell you is this, as long as it lasts; from early morning to lock-up, never a moment to draw your breath, except school-hours; and holidays, and half-holidays without end. Then there’s the regular boating gents as come and go, not constant like the Eton gentlemen. They give a deal of trouble—they do; and as particular with their boats as if they were babies. I tell you what, missis, if you want him to have an easy place, I wouldn’t send him here.”
“He’s not one that’s afraid of work,” said the woman, “and it’s what he’s set his heart on. I wonder if you could tell me where this Mr Ross comes from?—if he’s west-country now, down Devonshire way?”
“Bless you, no!” said the old man, who was great in genealogies; “he’s from the north, he is—Scotland or thereabouts. His grandfather came with him when he first came to college—Lord something or other. About as like a lord as I am. But the nobility ain’t much to look at,” added this functionary, with whom familiarity had bred contempt. “They’re a poor lot them Scotch and Irish lords. Give me a good railway man, or that sort; they’re the ones for spending their money. Lord—I cannot think on the old un’s name.”
“Was it—Eskside?”
“You’re a nice sort of body to know about the haristocracy,” said the man; “in course it was Eskside. Now, missis, if you knowed, what was the good of coming asking me, taking a fellow in?”
“I didn’t know,” said the woman, humbly; “I only wanted to know. In my young days, long ago, I knew—a family of that name.”
“Ay, ay, in your young days! You were a handsome lass then, I’ll be bound,” said the old man, with a grin.
“Look here,” said one of the others—“here’s old Harry coming, if you like to speak to him about your lad. Speak up and don’t be frightened. He ain’t at all a bad sort, and if you tell him as the boy’s spry and handy, and don’t mind a hard day’s work—Speak up! only don’t say I told you.” And the benevolent adviser disappeared hastily, and began to pull about some old gigs which were ranged on the rafts, as if much too busily occupied to spare a word. The woman went up to the master with a heart beating so strongly that she could scarcely hear her own voice. On any other occasion she would have been shy and reluctant. Asking favours was not in her way—she did not know how to do it. She could not feign or compliment, or do anything to ingratiate herself with a patron. But her internal agitation was so strong that she was quite uplifted beyond all sense of the effort which would have been so trying to her on any other occasion. She went up to him sustained by her excitement, which at the same time blunted her feelings, and made her almost unaware of the very words she uttered.
“Master,” she said, going straight to the point, as the excited mind naturally does—“I have a boy that is very anxious for work. He is a good lad, and very kind to me. We’ve been tramping about the country—nothing better, for all my folks was in that way; but he don’t take after me and my folks. He thinks steady work is better, and to stay still in one place.”
“He is in the right of it there,” was the reply.