"You haven't been to the school yet, have you?" asked Sonia.
"Not yet. But I was thinking of it when you spoke. I remember walking along here with Jim one afternoon in autumn. It was Raney's first term. We tramped through the forest and up the hill till we came in sight of the milestone round the next corner. I recollect there was a figure seated on it, swinging his legs; and as we got nearer, we saw it was Raney. We'd thrashed him that term as many times as school rules permitted, and here he was calmly defying two monitors of his own house by dawdling a good two miles out of bounds. Poor boy!—there were tears shining on his eyelashes. Yes, he knew it was out of bounds, but it was the only place hereabouts where you could smell the English Channel, and sometimes, if you were lucky, you'd see smoke from a passing ship, and that gladdened the heart of him. I remember him saying it, with a brogue that he'd heard in his cradle and hardly since. Then without warning he became a sardonic little spitfire, oozing insubordination at every pore and drawling in hideous hybrid American. 'Guess I'm up against another of your everlasting rules, Loring.'"
"What did you say?" asked Sonia.
"I left it to Jim. They seemed to understand each other, and Jim never lost his temper, though I must say Raney was the most consummate little fiend in his first term that I've ever met. All Jim ever said was, 'Lonely little devil!' He certainly looked it, sitting on the milestone."
We walked on, turning over old memories, until we were out of the sweet, heavy pine forest, and the road curved sharply and ran downhill to Crowley.
As we rounded the corner a giant St. Bernard turned his head lazily in our direction, gathered himself together as though for a spring and raced towards us.
II
"It's a great noise ye're making, Jumbo," said a voice, and I saw that as once before there was a figure on the milestone. "Quiet, sir! Where are your manners?"
The attitude, voice and very tone of dejection were as I remembered them once, and once only, sixteen years before, when—as now—O'Rane had wandered forth to hide his misery from the world.
"I shan't tell him yet," I whispered to Sonia, instinctively stopping short.