“Where did you get them?”
“Up in the town, sir. There’s a Bakery there sir as I never see the like of, Mr. Tim. Why, what with the cakes and rolls and puddin’s and what-not, I fairly lost me eyes, sir! You should stroll up to the town, like, Mr. Tim. It’s a neat little place, sure enough—”
His young master checked him gently, reminding him with a little wave of his hand, that he could not be expected to be interested in all that.
“But the rolls, Peterson. You might see that I have them for breakfast every morning.” So saying, he lit a cigarette, and walked out through the open window into his garden to meditate; leaving Peterson to meditate in his turn on this absolutely novel way of acting that Mr. Tim had adopted. Why, he could hardly believe that this formal and taciturn gentleman was Mr. Tim at all, and the old man who remembered the days, not long since, when he had connived in all sorts of pranks and waggery; when he had, many’s the time, been called in as judge and counsel as to how his young master should get himself out of this and that “scrape,” when in fact, Mr. Tim never dreamed of doing anything without Peterson’s opinion—remembering those jolly days when he had been honored with Mr. Tim’s perfect confidence, Peterson felt wounded. Then he glanced through the window. Mr. Tim, who had been promenading back and forth, leaning on a stick, in keeping with his extraordinary notion that blighted love always left one a semi-invalid, had now allowed himself to sink wearily onto a stone bench. On second thought, Peterson did not feel wounded; he felt rather like shaking dear Mr. Tim.
“Say what you like, that’s no way to go on, now. Life’s too easy for him, and that’s the truth, though I don’t say I wouldn’t hate to see it hard for him. But to take on so, just because a young lady was pleased to make up her mind not to have him! ’Tisn’t every young feller has the leisure to sit and mope himself into the vapors over a chip in his heart, that’ll be whole again in three months.” Then Peterson grinned. After all, such absurdities had not been entirely absent from his own youth; and he could not find it in his heart to censure Mr. Tim severely for any of his eccentricities. In his opinion this young man whom he had systematically spoiled since his childhood was not to be judged by common standards. Things that one might call faults in other young gentlemen, became merely “peculiarities” in the case of Mr. Tim. And it was not Peterson alone who inclined to shameless leniency with young Mr. Sheridan. His friends always managed to explain why it was perfectly all right for Tim to do things he oughtn’t to do, and leave undone all the things he ought to do; at college his teachers were forever giving him one more chance, and at home his grumpy uncle scolded him and pampered him, and feebly allowed his usually sharp old wits to be completely fuddled by Tim’s airy arguments.
“Somehow or other you’ll manage to persuade all your devoted friends and wellwishers to help you to the dogs,” Major Sheridan had once remarked acidly; and as proof of the truth of this, as the Major himself pointed out, the old man, notwithstanding many threats of disinheritance, had left every sou of his fortune to his nephew, simply because, while his common sense told him that the best thing in the world for the young man would be to leave him nothing at all, like Peterson he couldn’t quite bear the thought of Tim’s lacking anything.
At the age of twenty-seven, then, Timothy Sheridan possessed of an honorable name, health, wealth, good looks, and a very fair measure of intelligence, could consider himself sufficiently unencumbered by duties and responsibilities to indulge in the luxury of doing nothing whatever. But somebody has said that no one can be thoroughly happy without finding something to be unhappy about; and the truth of the matter is that Mr. Sheridan was exceedingly gratified to discover that his heart was broken; though it need hardly be said that this was the last thing in the world he would ever have admitted. It was such a refreshingly new experience. His only fear was that he was not getting out of it all that some people claimed to feel. He checked up all his symptoms to make sure that he had the real disease. Sleeplessness, loss of appetite, a longing for solitude—yes, he was quite sure that he had all these symptoms, and the satisfactory conclusion was that his heart was broken. He might really consider the matter settled. Now, what is the next thing to be done? Under the circumstances one should make no effort. One simply shunned society, amused oneself with solitary walks perhaps, looked on sceptically from afar at the insipid lives of other human beings, and made sweet melancholy a constant companion. But how long did one keep this up? The very fact that he could ask himself such a crudely practical question, made him feel rather uncomfortable; how could he even imagine the possibility of wanting to do anything else?
He leaned back, and looked about him with an indifferent eye. From where he sat, he could see beyond the wall that enclosed the garden—a wall seven or eight feet high, its cracked plaster laced together by the strong black tendrils of the ivy-vine. If he turned his head he could see the whole length of Sheridan Lane. All the trees on Sheridan Lane had turned yellow, and the leaves strewing its cobblestones, looked like golden coins—the generous largess scattered in the progress of jovial King Autumn. Above the mass of frost-nipped foliage rose the rounded belfry of the old church, and underneath lay the double rows of pretty gardens all glowing with their asters and chrysanthemums.
Then, if he looked in front of him he saw those wine-tinted hills, rising beyond the gentle basin of the valley meadows, where the sun was melting the early morning frost, and scattering the light mists. Two men with leggins laced up to their sturdy knees, and carrying guns and game bags, were striding across the field, followed by their dogs. A glint of interest sparkled up in Mr. Sheridan’s listless eyes.
“By Jove, I’ll bet there’s shooting here. I wonder if Peterson had the sense to pack my guns. I’ll wire Phil to-night—” then he checked himself hastily. Such diversions were premature to say the least. But as he resumed his seat on the bench, his attention was attracted by another object. On the wall was something which had not been there when he had last looked in the direction of Sheridan Lane. Calmly planted on its broad flat top, with a pair of slender black-stockinged legs swinging, calmly polishing off a monstrous scarlet apple on the front of a bright green sweater, sat a perfectly strange specimen of the condemned human race; and, what was more, it was unmistakably feminine. It was, in short, a girl of about fourteen years of age, though apparently not very tall for her years, with a dense mop of curly, reddish hair, a pair of uncommonly bright, and observant eyes, and the beaming hospitable smile of one who has the rare faculty of making herself thoroughly at home in any circumstances. Even Mr. Sheridan’s cold and unmistakably hostile stare did not seem to make her feel that she was not welcome, or that she ought to offer any explanation for her presence. She looked at her apple, polished it some more, and at length fastened her sharp little teeth in its red cheek, biting off what seemed to be at least one half of the entire fruit.