CHAPTER VII
"How full of briars is this working-day world!"
As You Like It.
It was Monday morning.
Buff was never quite his urbane self on Monday morning. Perhaps the lack of any other occupation on Sabbath made him overwork his imagination, for certainly in the clear cold light of Monday morning it was difficult to find the way (usually such an easy task) to his own dream-world with its cheery denizens—knights and pirates, aviators and dragons. It was desolating to have to sup porridge, that was only porridge and not some tasty stew of wild fowl fallen to his own gun, in a dining-room that was only a dining-room, not a Pirate's Barque or a Robber's Cave.
On Monday, too, he was apt to be more than usually oppressed by his conviction of the utter futility of going to school when he knew of at least fifty better ways of spending the precious hours. So he kicked the table-leg and mumbled when his father asked him questions about his lessons.
Ellen coming in with the letters seemed another messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. Time was when he had been Mercury to his family, but having fallen into the pernicious practice of concealing about his person any letters that took his fancy and forgetting about them till bed-time brought them to light, he was deposed. The memory rankled, and he gloomily watched the demure progress of Ellen as she took the letters to Elizabeth.
"Three for you, Father," said Elizabeth, sorting them out, "and three for me. The Indian letters are both here."
"Read them, will you?" said Mr. Seton, who disliked deciphering letters for himself.
"I'll just see if they're both well and read the letters afterwards if you don't mind. We'll make Buff late. Cheer up, old son" (to that unwilling scholar). "Life isn't all Saturdays. Monday mornings are bound to come. You should be glad to begin again. Why, the boys"—Walter and Alan were known as "the boys"—"wouldn't have thought of sitting like sick owls on Mondays: they were pleased to have a fine new day to do things in."
Buff was heard to ejaculate something that sounded like "Huch," and his sister ceased her bracing treatment and, sitting down beside him, cut his bread-and-butter into "fingers" to make it more interesting. She could sympathise with her sulky young brother, remembering vividly, as she did, her own childish troubles. Only, as she told Buff, coaxing him the while to drink his milk, it was Saturday afternoon she abhorred. It smelt, she said, of soft soap and of the end of things. Monday was cheery: things began again. Why, something delightful might happen almost any minute: there was no saying what dazzling adventures might lurk round any corner. The Saga of Monday as sung by Elizabeth helped down the milk, cheered the heart of Buff, and sent him off on his daily quest for knowledge in a more resigned spirit than five minutes before had seemed possible. Then Elizabeth gathered up the letters and went into the study, where she found her father brooding absorbed over the pots of bulbs that stood in the study windows. "The Roman hyacinths will be out before Christmas," he said, as he turned from his beloved growing things and settled down with a pleased smile to hear news of his sons.