The consequence of this timely tuition had been that George had grown up, not a boisterous, over bearing prig, showing off his learning at every available chance, and making himself detestable, and everybody else miserable, by his conceited air, but a modest, quiet scholar, with plenty of hidden fire and ambition, and not presuming on his talents to scorn his humble origin, or be ashamed of his home and parents—on the contrary, connecting them with all his dearest hopes of success and advancement in the world.
They, good souls, were quite bewildered by the sudden blaze of their son’s celebrity. They hardly seemed to understand what it all meant, but had a vague sort of idea that they were implicated in “Garge’s” achievements. They would sit and listen to him as he read to them, as if they were at an exhibition at which they had paid for admission, and it is not too much to say “Garge” was, in their eyes, almost as dreadful a personage as the lord of the manor himself.
Among his fellow-villagers George was, as the reader will have gathered, somewhat of a hero, and not a little of a favourite. This distinction he owed to a talent for music, which had at a very early age displayed itself, and had been heartily encouraged by the rector. In this pursuit, which he followed as his only recreation, he had made such progress that, while yet a boy, he became voluntary organist at the church, and as such had won the hearts of the neighbours.
They didn’t know much about music, but they knew the organ sounded beautiful on Sundays, and that “Garge” played it. And so it was a real trouble to them now that he was about to leave Muggerbridge.
You may imagine the state of excitement into which this unexpected visit threw simple Mr and Mrs Reader. The good lady was too much taken aback even to offer her customary welcome, and as for the gamekeeper, he sat stock still in his chair, with his eyes on his son, like a hound that waits the signal for action.
“We are rather an invasion, I’m afraid,” said the curate, squeezing himself into the little kitchen between a clothes-horse and a dresser.
“Not at all,” said George, looking very bewildered.
“Perhaps you’ll wonder why we’ve come?” added the curate, turning to the gamekeeper.
“Maybe you’ve missed something, and thinks one of us has got it,” was the cheerful suggestion.
The curate laughed, and the deputation laughed, and George laughed, and George’s mother laughed, which made things much easier for all parties.