“You’ll be a bit lonely at first, so you will; but you’ll get used to it, and it won’t be so long to holiday time, and then you’ll see mamma again.”
I wished she wouldn’t. She misunderstood me. I wasn’t thinking about the holidays at all. The fact was, I was thinking about my boots and hat in the bag, and wondering when I should put them on.
Bother it! Why should I mind her or her remarks? Some other new chap might get in at the next station, and I couldn’t change before him. I’d better get myself up to form now, and so be ready.
So, to the old lady’s surprise, I proceeded to take off my shoes and put on the thick tan boots in their place. She watched me in mingled admiration and surprise—no doubt the fresh yellow was very imposing, and made me look as if I was shod in gold. But the High Street at Low Heath would presently be sparkling with a hundred pairs of such boots, so what mattered an old lady’s temporary astonishment? It was the same about the hat—indeed worse. For at the sight of that particularly sporting adornment, she threw up her hands and exclaimed,—
“What a funny little fellow, to be sure!”
I tried to look grave, and as if I had not heard her, but I felt very conscious of the hat all the same, and only hoped another new boy would get in presently, so that she might see that a thing might be the fashion and yet she not know it.
I was a good deal perplexed about the lavender gloves. Of course, I had not to wear these until call-over that afternoon, or possibly next morning. But I might as well try them on now. And the difficulty was that it was very difficult to button the six buttons all the way up without baring my arm half-way at least to the elbow. I made a feeble attempt, but it presented so many difficulties, and evidently so seriously perturbed my companion, that I abandoned the attempt, resolving to try them on under the bedclothes that night.
At the first station a youth of about my own age, with a hat-box and bag, got into the carriage. Was he, I wondered, a Low Heath chap? Evidently not. He wore a straw hat, and boots of the ordinary colour, and — Whew! what a lucky thing I had not forgotten it! He wore his white collar inside the velvet of his great-coat. And so should I have continued to do, had not the sight of him called Tempest’s injunction to wear it outside to my memory. I availed myself of the next tunnel to rectify this serious omission, and had the satisfaction, when we emerged into daylight, of noticing that neither of my fellow-travellers appeared to pay much heed to the change. They both stared at me now and then; but the boy evidently grew tired of that, and curled himself up in a corner of the carriage and read a Boy’s Own Paper.
I presently followed his example, and what with reading, and speculating on my coming entry into Low Heath, and an occasional thought for the little home at Fallowfield, the time went quickly by.
“Is this Low Heath station?” inquired I, as the train began to slacken speed.