Never, during the three years that they had been school-fellows, had the countenances of the two boys showed such a contrast of expression as when they met in the playground a few minutes after Walter had alighted at the gate, on his return from the pleasant sojourn at his home. He was flushed with health and happiness, and ran up, with a boyish shout of mirth, to greet his friend. Poor Sidney, pale and choking with the effort to restrain his tears, could only grasp the proffered hand in silence, and turn away his head, unable to look up,—almost unable to bear the pent-up grief that throbbed at his heart, and tightened his chest with a sense of suffocation.
“Why, Sid, what’s this? Dear old fellow, what’s the matter?” was Walter’s astonished inquiry, when a boy near whispered in his ear the brief words,—
“His father’s dead!”
That explained all; and Walter, twining his arm round his friend, led him away to a quiet spot, where they could weep together. The greater grief so completely absorbed Sidney on his first meeting with Walter, that it was not until the next day that any mention was made between them of how this bereavement would affect the future. Young and prosperous as Walter was, he knew well enough how sad it would be for his friend to lose the advantages of education just at the time when his studies would be needed to fit him for some pursuit in life.
Meanwhile, as Sidney’s aunt had not been able to send the money for the poor lad to go so long a journey as from West Cornwall to Liverpool, to attend his father’s funeral, there was no immediate hurry at the school in preparing for the youth’s departure. Walter, therefore, had time to carry out a plan which his affection suggested. He wrote an urgent letter to his father, filled with praises of Sidney, and accounts of all the help which his cleverness and conduct had afforded to him (Walter), and earnestly pleading that he might have the gratification of paying for a year or more schooling for his orphan friend, adding, as a concluding argument,—
“You know, papa, that I have forty pounds that aunt Margaret put in the savings bank for me, to do as I like with; and how could I spend it better, or so well, as in helping a good clever fellow like Sidney? It would be a real treat to me—the best I could have; and you promised to increase my pocket-money: you needn’t; I can screw myself down famously, if you’ll only give it to help Sid, who’s always been helping me, I can tell you.”
Walter was too earnest, it seemed, to pick and choose his words. He meant to have corrected and rewritten his letter, but there was no time; so he sent it, faults and all. And his father, in reading it, felt the heart-throb that beat in his boy’s generous words; and though a man not at all demonstrative, he was observed to be taken as if with a sudden cold in his head, to judge by the vigorous use of his pocket handkerchief; but all he said was conveyed in a single nautical phrase,—“The youngster is on the right tack.”
The day after, the principal of the Mount’s Bay School received an intimation that Sidney was to continue his studies there as long as he proved diligent; but the name of his patron was not to be told him. So, to the lad’s great satisfaction, he was informed that a friend who had known his father would, for the present, help him. Walter knew the truth, but though he felt the intense joy that a good action always yields to the doer even more than to the receiver, he was careful to obey his father, and keep the secret.
If Sidney was studious before, he redoubled his diligence now, and in the year made such great progress, that a Dutch gentleman, who visited the school, offered him a situation in his office at Rotterdam; and as Sidney knew that a residence abroad would be a great improvement to him, and also was eager to enter upon some mode of earning his own living, he wished earnestly to take the offer. At no time during their now four years of mutual school-life and friendship would Walter have heard with patience of Sidney leaving. But a parting now came.
Walter’s father had become an invalid, and was ordered to a warmer climate. The family removed to Florence, in Italy, and, of course, Walter went with them; his greatest grief being that Sidney could not accompany them.