“Ah! you are not good, like the old gentleman; his skipped seven times! He was so clever at it! I wish he was not ill,” said Nello, checking an incipient yawn. It was, perhaps, the first time any one had uttered such a wish. It had been taken for granted, even by his daughter, that the Squire’s illness was the most natural thing in the world.
“Did he really come and play with you? But old men are no better than children,” said Randolph. “I suppose he had nothing else to do.”
“It is very nice to have somebody to play with when you have nothing else to do,” said Nello, reflectively. “And he was clever. You—you don’t know even how to throw; you throw like a girl—like this. But this is how the old gentleman did,” cried Nello, suiting the action to the word, “and so do I.”
“Do you know nothing but these baby-games? I suppose you never played cricket?” said Randolph, with, though he was a man, a pleasurable sense of being thus able to humiliate the little creature beside him. Nello coloured to the roots of his hair.
“I do not like cricket. Must every one like the same things? It is too hot; and one cannot play by oneself,” the boy added with a sigh.
“You ought not to play by yourself, it is not good for you. Have you no one to play with, little boy?”
“Nobody,” said Nello, with emphasis; “not one person. There is Lily; but what does it matter about a girl? And sometimes Johnny Pen comes. He is not much good; he likes the green best, and all the village boys. Then they say I am too little;—and I don’t know them,” the boy added with a gleam of moisture in his eyes. The village boys had not been kind to Nello; they had laughed at him for a little foreigner, and made remarks about his hair, which was cut straight across his forehead. “I don’t want to know them.” This was said with vehemence; for Nello was sore at the want of appreciation which had been shown him. They did not care for him, but they made a great deal of Johnny Pen!
“You should go to school; that is where all boys should go. A boy should not be brought up like a little girl; he should learn to use his hands, and his fists even. Now, what should you do if there was a fight?”
“A fight?” Nello grew pale and then grew red. “If it was—some one else, I would walk away; but if it was me—if any one touched me, I should kill him!” cried the child, setting his little white teeth.
Randolph ought professionally to have improved the occasion; but he only laughed—that insulting laugh which is offensive to everybody, and specially exasperates a child. “How could you kill him? That is easier said than done, my boy.”