“You naughty boy, to be so late; and now you have spoiled you father’s nap!” she said, pretending to scold him.
“Tut! tut! what nonsense you talk sometimes!” said Mr. Mayne, rather crossly, as he stood on the hearth-rug rubbing his eyes. “I was not asleep, I will take my oath of that; only I wish Dick could sometimes enter a room without making people jump;” by which Dick knew that his father was in one of his contrary moods, when he could be very cross,—very cross indeed!
CHAPTER III.
MR. MAYNE MAKES HIMSELF DISAGREEABLE.
The library at Longmead was a very pleasant room, and it was the custom of the family to retire thither on occasions when guests were not forthcoming, and Mr. Mayne could indulge in his favorite nap without fear of interruption.
A certain simplicity, not to say homeliness, of manners prevailed in the house. It was understood among them that the dining-room was far too gorgeous for anything but occasions of ceremony. Mrs. Mayne, indeed, had had the good taste to cover the satin couches with pretty, fresh-looking cretonne, and had had arranged hanging cupboards of old china until it had been transformed into a charming apartment, notwithstanding which the library was declared to be the family-room, where the usual masculine assortment of litter could be regarded with indulgent eyes, and where papers and pamphlets lay in delightful confusion.
Longmead was not a pretentious house—it was a moderate-sized residence, adapted to a gentleman of moderate means; but in summer no place could be more charming. The broad gravel walk before the house had a background of roses; hundreds of roses climbed up the railings or twined themselves about the steps: a tiny miniature lake, garnished with water-lilies, lay in the centre of the lawn; a group of old elm-trees was beside it; behind the house lay another lawn, and beyond were meadows where a few sheep were quietly grazing. Mr. Mayne, who found time hang a little heavily on his hands, prided himself a good deal on his poultry-yard and kitchen-garden. A great deal of his spare time was spent among his favorite Bantams and Dorkings, and in superintending his opinionated old gardener—on summer mornings he would be out among the dews in his old coat and planter’s hat, weeding among the gooseberry-bushes.
“It is the early bird that finds the worm,” he would say, when Dick sauntered into the breakfast-room later on; for, in common with the youth of his generation, he had a wholesome horror of early rising, which he averred was one of the barbarous usages of the dark ages in which his elders had been bred.