'Poor beggar! he is awake now, and pulling himself together with a vengeance. This looks well; now for the grind.'
And Michael went down to the schoolroom and gave Cyril's class their divinity lesson with as much coolness and gravity as though his whole life had been spent in teaching boys.
Dr. Ross winced slightly as he gave him Cyril's message after breakfast, but he said, a moment afterwards: 'I intended sending for him; but I am glad he has saved me the trouble—only I wish it were over, Mike.'
Michael shrugged his shoulders with a look of sympathy. He had no time to say more; he must take Cyril's place in the schoolroom again, in spite of all Booty's shivering solicitations for a walk this fine morning. 'Booty, old fellow,' he observed, as he noticed the little animal's manifest disappointment, 'you and I are not sent into the world to please ourselves; there are "still lame dogs to help over stiles," and a few burdens to shift on our own shoulders. If our head ache, what of that, Booty? It will be the same a hundred years hence. Now for Greek verbs and general discord, so right about face!' And if Booty did not understand this harangue, he certainly acted up to the spirit of it, for he pattered cheerfully after his master to the schoolroom, and curled himself up into a compact brown ball at his feet, to doze away the morning in doggish dreams.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ross made a feint of reading his letters; but he found as he laid them down that their contents were hopelessly involved. Was it Rawlinson, for example, whom an anxious mother was confiding to his care? 'He had the measles last holidays, and has been very delicate ever since, and now this severe cold——' Nonsense! It was not Rawlinson, it was Jackson minor, and he was all right and had eaten an excellent breakfast; but he thought Major Sowerby's letter ought to be answered at once. He never allowed parents to break his rules; it was such nonsense sending for Charlie home, just because an uncle had come from India. He must write and remonstrate; the boy must wait until the term was over—it would only be a fortnight. And then he read the letter again with growing displeasure, and found that Captain MacDonald was the name of the erring parent.
'I will settle all that,' he remarked, as he plunged his pen rather savagely into the inkstand; and then a tap at the door made him start, and a huge blot was the result. Of course it was Cyril, who was standing at the door looking at him.
'Are you disengaged, Dr. Ross?'
'Yes—yes. Come in, my dear fellow, and shut the door.'
And then Dr. Ross jumped up from his seat and grasped the young man's hand; but his first thought was, What would Audrey say when she saw him? Could one night have effected such a change? There was a wanness, a heaviness of aspect, that made him look ten years older. Somehow Dr. Ross found it necessary to take off his spectacles and wipe them before he commenced the conversation.
'My poor boy, what am I to say to you?'