Wayfaring Men. Lyall Edna

suppose he is a very charitable man,” said Lady Tresidder.

      “Oh, yes, extremely charitable, and very well thought of. For myself, I frankly own I don’t like the way in which he mixes up speculation and philanthropy, and I’m not at all sure that he was always a good adviser to poor Denmead. But he’ll be kind enough to Ralph I’ve no doubt. The boy is his godson, and Denmead was one of his oldest friends. By the bye he was to be at the Rectory by five o’clock, and the boy ought to be there to receive him. They had better be landing, and Mabel can drive him to Whinhaven in the pony chaise.”

      He began to make vigorous signals to the occupants of the boat, who somewhat reluctantly came ashore and slowly mounted the rising ground to the house.

      “Come in and have some tea while they are putting in Ranger,” said Lady Tresidder, kindly. “Sir John thinks you ought to be at the Rectory when your guardian arrives, and Mab will like a drive with you.”

      Ralph grew grave at the thought of a return to the desolate Rectory with its darkened windows and awful stillness; he sighed as he followed comfortable motherly Lady Tresidder into the drawing-room where flowers and well-used books and a cosy tea-table, and some needle work, just put aside, gave a curiously homelike air to the whole place.

      “Come and sit by me,” said his hostess in that friendly voice which more than anything helped him to forget his troubles. And perhaps it was the thought of the hard future confronting him which made Lady Tresidder glance so often at the little fellow who had outgrown the stage for petting, and who in spite of his smallness was really thirteen, innocent and ignorant of the world, and with a touch of the chivalrous gentleness of manner that had characterised his father, but in other respects just a high spirited, enthusiastic, hungry boy.

      His honest brown eyes grew less wistful as he waded blissfully through the huge slice of Buzzard cake with which Mabel had provided him, but he found the goodbyes hard to say, all the harder because of the kindness he received. It was only afterwards, as they drove up the steep hill in the park, and turned for a last look at the river, that he could remember without a choking in his throat, Lady Tresidder’s motherly kiss, and Sir John’s kindly farewell and cheery words about future visits, and the half sovereign with which he had “tipped” him.

      There had been no particular reason why the Tresidders should have been so good to him. Sir John was not the Squire of Whinhaven, indeed Westbrook Hall was not even in his father’s parish: but they had been practically Ralph’s only friends ever since he could remember and some of his happiest hours had been spent with Mab, who being many years his senior and a country girl of the best sort, had been able to teach him to ride and drive, to fish, to row, and to care for animals as devotedly as she herself did.

      Mab had a frank, hail fellow well met manner which contrasted rather curiously with her beautiful womanly face and delicately chiselled features; the world in general considered her somewhat off-hand and brusque, but she had in her the makings of a very noble woman, and the boy owed much to her companionship. They were very silent as they drove through the park, but it was the comfortable silence of friends who have perfect confidence in each other. Ralph seemed to be looking with wistful eyes at every familiar turn of the road; his eyes rested lingeringly on the grey walls of the house down below, and the gleaming silvery river, and the old hawthorn bushes, and the fine old chestnut trees.

      “Mab,” he said at length, “may we stop for a minute, and just see the bullfinches? Look, there is one of them out of the nest and trying to fly; the cat will get hold of it.”

      “Why, to be sure,” said Mab. “Will you care to take it with you to London? It is fledged and I think you could rear it. Would you like it?”

      “Rather!” said Ralph emphatically. “And I have a cage at home that would do for it.”

      So the young bullfinch was carefully placed in a covered basket, and half an hour later Mabel Tresidder put down the two forlorn young things at the door of Whinhaven Rectory wondering how they would prosper in life.

      A severe-looking old housekeeper came out at the sound of the wheels.

      “So you’ve come back, Master Ralph,” she said looking him over critically to see that he was clean and presentable. “That’s a good job, for Sir Matthew has been here ten minutes or more, and the lawyer from London with him. Are you coming in, Miss?” she added glancing with no great favour at Miss Tresidder, and calling to mind how often in past days she had led Ralph through bush and through brier to the great detriment of his clothes.

      “No, I will not come in,” said Mab, “and this is not my real good-bye to you, Ralph, for I shall stay and speak to you to-morrow morning after the service.”

      She waved her hand to him, and drove swiftly off, while old Mrs. Grice muttered something uncomplimentary about “new-fangled” ways, and not liking females at a funeral.

      Ralph, meanwhile, had carefully hidden away the basket containing the bullfinch, and now stood in the little hall with a heavy heart. The quiet of the house was terrible, and the low murmur of strange voices in the study accentuated the misery and desolateness, which seemed to grow more and more oppressive every moment.

      “For goodness sake!” exclaimed old Mrs. Grice, “don’t stand there staring at nothing, like a tragedy actor, but go in and make yourself agreeable to the gentlemen; wait a bit, wait a bit, your hair’s all rumpled up, not seen a brush since the morning, I’ll be bound.”

      Ralph, made meek by his misery, obediently turned into the room to the right of the door, his own special sanctum where he had worked and played ever since he could remember, and having brushed his wavy brown hair into a state of immaculate order went slowly back once more to the silent little hall which was not even enlivened now by the presence of old Mrs. Grice. Nothing was to be heard save the ticking of the clock and the low murmur of voices from the adjoining room, not a creature was there to take compassion on the shy desolate boy. He looked up at the black representation of Lord John Harsick and Katharine his wife, which hung upon the wall above the old oak chest, and the tears started to his eyes as he remembered how he had helped his father to mount this rubbing from a brass, some two or three years before. The stately old couple stood there holding each others’ hands, he fancied that they looked down on him with a sort of pity because he was left so utterly alone. He stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the study, dreading to enter, but at length impelled to move by a worse fear.

      “If they come out and catch me here they’ll think I’m eavesdropping!” he thought to himself, and therewith manfully turned the handle, and walked in.

      The study was in reality the drawing-room of the Rectory, a pretty room with a verandah and French windows opening on to it, and upon one side of the fireplace there was a cosy little recess where the Rector had been wont to keep his choicest flowers, and where the light from a little western window fell upon the marble bust of a sweet-faced woman—the mother whom Ralph could remember just in a vague dreamy fashion. Seated now at his father’s writing-table was an old gentleman with a kindly, astute face, and remarkably thick white hair. Standing with his back to the fireplace was a middle-aged man whom Ralph at once recognised from the photographs he had seen as his godfather, Sir Matthew Mactavish.

      He looked up anxiously into the shrewd Scottish face, with its reddish hair just touched with grey, its keen steel-coloured eyes, its somewhat wrinkled forehead and ready smile. It was a powerful and an attractive face, but with something about it curiously different to the faces to which Ralph had been accustomed; the genial country squires, and the country parsons had nothing in common with this brisk, managing man of the world.

      “Well, my boy,” he said with a kindly greeting, “I’m glad to see you. You’ll not remember me for you were but a little fellow when I was last here. Let me see, they call you Raphe, don’t they?”

      “Not Raphe, but Ralph,” said the boy, and into his mind there darted the recollection of a scene that had once been funny but now seemed pathetic, of a discussion upon his name between his father and two old antiquaries, and of how one of them had patted him on the head with the gruff-voiced