“I never interfere with what they write home,” said honest Mr. Swan.
“But you must in this case. If he sends home a complaining letter, his aunt will rush here next morning and take him away. I am his uncle, and I won’t permit that—and a family quarrel is what will follow, unless you will exercise your discretion. Keep him from writing, or keep him from grumbling. You will be the saving of the boy.”
“It is a great responsibility to undertake. I should not have undertaken it, had I known—— ”
“I am sure you have too serious a sense of the good that can be done, to shrink from responsibility,” said Randolph; “but, indeed, are we not all responsible for everything we touch? If you find him too much for you, write to me. Don’t write to what he calls ‘home.’ And do not let him be taken away without my authority. I have to protect him from injudicious kindness. A parcel of women—you know what harm they can do to a boy, petting and spoiling him. He will never be a man at all, if you don’t take him in hand.”
With these arguments, Randolph overcame the resistance of the schoolmaster, and with redoubled injunctions that it was himself that was to be communicated with, in case of anything happening to Nello, went away. He was in haste to get back for his train; and “No, no,” he said, “you need not call the boy—the fewer partings the better. I don’t want to upset him. Tell him I was obliged to hurry away.”
And it would be impossible to describe with what relief Randolph threw himself into the clumsy shandry, to go away. He had got the boy disposed of—for the moment at least—where no harm could happen to him, but also where he could do no harm. If his grandfather regained his consciousness, and, remembering that freak of his dotage, called again for the boy, it would be out of Mary’s power to spoil everything by humouring the old man, and reviving all those images which it would be much better to make an end of. And when the Squire’s life was over, how much easier to take all those measures which it was so advisable to take, without the little interloper about, whom foolish people would no doubt insist on calling the heir. The heir! Let him stay here, and get a little strength and manhood, to struggle for his rights, if he had any rights. More must be known of him than any one knew as yet, Randolph said to himself, before he, for one, would acknowledge him as the heir.
Nello was taken into Mrs. Swan’s parlour, and there had some bread and butter offered to him, which he accepted with great satisfaction. The bread was dry and the butter salt, but he was hungry, which made it very agreeable.
“You’ll have your tea with the rest at six,” said Mrs. Swan; “and now come I’ll show you where you are to sleep. What is that you’re carrying?”
“A basket,” said Nello, in the mildest tone; and she asked no further questions, but led him upstairs, not however to the little bedroom of which the child had been dreaming, where he could keep his new pet in safety, but to a long dormitory, containing about a dozen beds.
“This is yours, my little man, and you must be tidy and keep your things in order. There are no nurses here, and the boys are a bit rough; but you will soon get used to them. Put down your things here; this chair is yours, and that washing-stand, and—— ”