Not a bit of it. He was rusting for want of exercise. Of course, he could go. Grants had always been good neighbours, and they would always find Hiram Riles ready to do a favour. The boy would go over every night as long as he was needed. For, be it said, it was one of the whims of Riles’ nature that he entertained no aversion to the Grants.
So it came about that Wilfred spent many of his evenings at the Grant farm. The companionship of the Grant boys, the parental kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Grant, the ready wit of Susy, which spared neither herself nor her acquaintances, were a relevation to the boy, who had always associated farm life with grim labour, hard words and sour dispositions. At nine at night the farm company gathered about the kitchen table, where were onions from the garden and buttermilk from the dairy; and as they ate, the exploits of the day were re-enacted, and the best of cheer and fellowship prevailed. And when the simple meal was over, and the “old folks” had gone upstairs, the young people engaged in harmless pastimes and amusements for another hour. Miss Vane was the soul of kindness and courtesy to the orphan boy, and although she joined in all the pleasantries of the evening she had through all a deeper purpose than mere pastime, and she seldom failed to have a few serious words with Wilfred before he started on his walk through the dew-laden grass to the Riles’ farm. And the lad was responding to her interest and her confidence. A new spirit seemed to have been born in him, his slouchy habits gave way to an air of brisk alertness, and his speech, although not yet refined, had a tone of seriousness and responsibility unknown in the past.
In conversation Myrtle seized every opportunity to quote to the boy from the masters of literature such selections as his awakening intellect could appreciate, and she had the satisfaction at length of finding his interest excited, not only in the selections themselves, but in the authors of them. She now knew that she had attained her first purpose; she had made his world wider than the boundaries of a little farming community; she had raised him to the point where his mental eye fastened on something beyond his horizon of the past. She had wakened the desire for knowledge; all other things were now possible.
Walking up the path from the pasture field one evening—the self-same path she had walked with Burton in that spring that seemed so many years ago—the light night wind stirred in the tops of the willows growing by the little stream. Against the background of the faintly coloured west distances took on an enchanted perspective, and the little limbs a few feet above their heads could easily be seen as forest monsters stretching into the lowering sky. They paused and sat on a grassy bank, watching the dusk gather through the lattice-work of leaves, and as they sat the girl repeated softly—
“I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.
“It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.”
“I have heard old men choke on that last line, Wilfred,” she added, but was hardly prepared for his answer,—
“Yes, but they started ’igh up and grew down. Hi started low down and ham—am, Hi mean—growing up. For me, Hi’m closer to ’even to-night than w’en Hi was a boy—a little boy—for Hi’m a boy yet. Hi’m close to ’even w’en Hi’m close to you,” declared the lad, his face flushed with a light she could not see in the darkness.
She laughed lightly, all unguessing the streams of passion of which his sincerity should have made her aware. From an equal she could not have accepted the remark without misgiving, but from Wilfred—the idea was so unique that it did not even occur to her.
“Oo wrote that?” the boy demanded, after a silence.
“Thomas Hood,” was the answer. “But the night is growing chilly. Let us go to the house. I have a little volume of Hood’s I will lend you—if you will read it.”