Up to this time Bramwell had spent nearly all his waking hours in the study. Now and then he went into the yard, and there, concealed from observation, walked up and down for exercise. Once in a month, perhaps, he left the islet to buy something he needed. Otherwise he lived in the study from month's end to month's end, retiring to the bedroom to rest, when sleep overcame him, far in the night.
This was the last day of May. The sun had risen in a cloudless sky, and shone out of a heaven of nameless blue from dawn to dusk.
When Bramwell entered the cottage with his boy in his arms it was getting late in the afternoon. The Layards did not breakfast early, and Hetty and the boy had dinner at three o'clock. It was to assist at that indispensable function that Freddie had been recalled from the timber-yard. Bramwell had not thought of dinner until Mrs. Grainger had summoned Freddie to his. Then the father was seized with sudden panic at his own forgetfulness, and the possible peril to his son's life. He knew from books that young children should eat more frequently than grown-up people; but whether a child of his son's age should be fed every hour, or every two hours, or every half-hour, or every four, he could not decide. In the kitchen was an oil-stove which he had taught himself to manage. Mrs. Treleaven left everything ready for dinner on a small tray. All he had to do was to light his stove and wait half-an-hour, and dinner would be ready for him and the child. A tray stood on the kitchen table, and on the tray all things necessary for the meal, saving such as were awaiting the genial offices of the stove.
Mrs. Treleaven never carried that tray to the study. She had orders not to do so, lest she might reduce the papers on the table to irretrievable confusion.
There was the half-hour to wait, and Bramwell, having ascertained by inquiry that the boy was in no immediate danger of death from hunger, cast about him to find something to do which would fill up the time and interest Frank, who was hot and tired after his harassing labours in the yard.
"It is fine to-day," he thought, "but it will not be fine every day, all the year round. On the wet days, and in the winter, where are Frank and Freddie to play? In this room, of course." He went into the empty one next his own. "Here they will be under cover, and will not interfere with my work. I can look in on them now and then, and in case they want me I shall be near at hand."
"Frank," said he aloud to the child, "I shall make this room into a play-room for you."
"What's a play-room?" asked the boy. He had had no experience of any kind of life but that spent in poor lodgings.
"Where you and little Freddie can play if the weather is wet or cold."
"And may we bring in our steamboat?" asked the boy anxiously.