CHAPTER XIX.—DONALD TURNS VALET.
You might not care much for it, but to me it would be a delight to follow our friends on Ted's break as they rolled merrily out from town on the bright Monday morning succeeding their two days' stay at Oxford, and to keep with them all the way; not that anything momentous or wildly exciting happened on the trip, only that if it were possible to put all its charm onto paper, there is no question but you would enjoy it. Somebody has put it onto paper, however, and very successfully, too; so that I should advise you, in case a driving trip through the English Lake Country does not soon happen to come your way, to look between the covers of “The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton,” as soon as you grow a bit older, and see if you do not discover the charm of it for yourself. But whether we would or no, we have not the time just now to bowl quietly along in leisurely fashion through that lovely region of hills and lakes. Besides the party on the break are quite sufficient to themselves, while down at Nuneham there is a fellow who would be thankful enough for any advice that we could give him.
“What had I better do?” is the question that Ted is turning over and over in his mind, for the time has come for Ted to do something, and there are more difficulties confronting him than any one has an idea of. He has not even taken Harry Allyn fully into his confidence, so proud is this same foolish Ted. Besides, Harry Allyn, who, as you know, is in dead earnest about his “new leaf,” is up at Oxford delving away, midsummer though it is, at some back work that was sadly neglected in the spring term, and has actual need to be made up.
Finally Ted, who finds himself simply reasoning in a circle, decides to lay the whole matter before Donald; for Donald, boy that he is, has opinions of his own which he does not fear to express, and, what is more, Ted in desperation feels that he simply must turn to somebody. And so it comes about that at the close of an August afternoon, when Ted has the house to himself (Chris having taken the old keeper and his wife off for a drive), that he calls to Donald, who, coming up from a day's work in the kitchen garden, is on his way to put his tools away in the barn.
“Well, what is it, Mr. Harris?” leaving rake and hoe against the cottage shingles and slipping into the chair nearest the door, out of regard for Mrs. Hartley's clean-swept carpet.
“It's just this, Donald. I'm in a fix, and I want you to help me out.”
“A new fix, Mr. Harris?” with a long breath, as though he thought there had really been rather too much of that sort of thing already.