Roses at Collingwood upon his return; and thorns. Thorns supplied, not by the foster-father or the foster-mother, but by the boys, who, once they had extracted full particulars of Bobbie’s adventure, made from these facts ammunition for gay badinage that, well aimed, gave them great content. In school, the game was played furtively. A slip of paper would be passed along the forms of the fourth standard class bearing the inquiry of a seeker after knowledge, “Who pinched the cornet?” this would be varied by rough sketches executed by Master Nutler of a lad running, with the words underneath, “Hold him!” When Bobbie strolled out of school at dinner time there would come an affected cry of alarm, “He’s off again!” Robert Lancaster took all of this with stolidity and in a manner differing from that which he would have exhibited a month previously. It seemed that the failure of his expedition had tamed him; certainly his stay in the hospital and at the convalescent home had given him reticence. He applied himself to his lessons. After a few weeks the other boys declined to be led any longer by Master Nutler, because there seemed little sport in rallying a man who showed no signs of annoyance, and Bobbie Lancaster presently found—excepting for an occasional reminder—that the Brenchley escapade had gone out of memory. Miss Nutler on one of the rare occasions when they met, expressed her regret at the consequences of their disagreement, hinting that, so far as she was concerned, the past could be shut out from memory.
“It was my eldest brother put me up to it,” said Miss Nutler apologetically. “You know what a one he is.”
“I do,” remarked Master Lancaster.
“I should never ’ave thought of it if it hadn’t been for him,” declared Miss Nutler. “A better hearted girl than me you wouldn’t find in a day’s march.”
“Dessay!”
“In fact,” went on the young person, waxing enthusiastic, “I’m too good-hearted for this world. I’m a fool to meself. And that’s why I gave way when he told me to pretend you’d hurt me. See?”
“I see.”
“And so long as you say there’s no ill-will and so long as you agree to forgive and forget, so to speak, why there’s no reason, as you remarked just now, why we shouldn’t be capital friends.”
“I never said no such thing,” said the boy.
p. 91“Didn’t you?” said Miss Nutler wonderingly. “Words to that effect, then.”
“No! Not words to that effect, neither.”
“You’re back in the band, aren’t you?”
“I am back in the band.”
“All the girls in our cottage rave about your cornet playing.”
“Straight?” He could not help smiling at this generous compliment.
“As if I should tell a lie,” said Miss Nutler. “Why, they’re always talking about you. How you’ve growed and how you’ve improved in your manner and—there! I tell you. I get quite jealous sometimes.”
“What call have you to be jealous?”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” said the young woman self-reproachfully. “Now I’ve been and let the cat out of the bag. That’s me all the world over. I never meant you to see that I was—hem—fond of you.”
“Put all ideas of that out of your red young crumpet,” he advised steadily, “as soon as ever you like.”
“Is there somebody else?” asked Miss Nutler, flushing.
“Since you ask the question—yes.”
“Does she live ’ere at the Homes?”
“She does not live ’ere at the Homes.”
“If she did,” said Miss Nutler fiercely, “I’d pay her out, the cat. And you’re a double-faced boy, you are. I wouldn’t be seen talking to you for fifty thousand pounds.”
“I guessed that was the amount.”
Miss Nutler walked off aflame with annoyance, turning as she reached the gate and making a face not pretty, in order that Bobbie might understand the true state of her feelings. That evening one of the Nutler family handed Bobbie a note on which was written, “Dear sir, referring to our meeting, I beg to inform you that all is over between us. Yours obed’tly, Louisa Nutler.—P.S. A reply by bearer will oblige.” Bobbie tore the note into many pieces, threw them over the messenger, and going indoors penned a careful note to Mrs. Bell, of Pimlico Walk. This contained an account of his progress; contained also five words, “Give my love to Trixie,” which note, reaching the Walk the next morning, made so much sunshine for the industrious young lady that she proceeded to scrub the stairs from top to basement in order to prevent herself from becoming light-headed.
There was indeed progress to report. The Fourth Standard being carried by assault, his brain had now to wrestle in the large schoolroom with dogged enemies of youth.
By the help of an assistant master, whose stock of enthusiasm had not been quite exhausted by lads of the Nutler brand, Bobbie showed excellent fight, and if it sometimes happened that he was worsted, the defeats were but temporary. Winter came, and with it football matches. An eminent three-quarter (who was also a trombone) having retired from the team during the off season in order to take up duties at Kneller Hall, Bobbie, in games with private schools, found himself selected for the position. The drill-sergeant took interest in the lad, and on the boarded-over swimming-bath, instructed him carefully at five o’clock each evening in the art of vaulting. All this helped to make a solid youth of Robert Lancaster, and he found himself wishful for manhood.
The Sister at the infirmary beyond the western gates, having to take a p. 92month’s holiday, a friend of hers came to act as substitute, and this friend proving to be Sister Margaret, Bobbie found an additional incentive for correct behaviour because Sister Margaret, when going down at any time the broad gravelled road between the cottages, always selected him for one of her cheerful bows, causing Bobbie’s cap to fly off in acknowledgment and making him flush with gratification. Sister Margaret told him that Myddleton West had gone to Ireland for one of the daily journals, and together they read his letters in that journal. It seemed clear that Sister Margaret continued to have no objection to talking about Myddleton West, for she made the boy describe several times over the morning when he had called at his rooms in Fetter Lane; at each repetition Bobbie managed to find (or to invent) some additional incident that made the young woman’s bright eyes become brighter with interest. When the regular Sister returned, Sister Margaret had to leave, and Bobbie walked with her to the station to carry her portmanteau, giving much good advice on the way with view of doing a good turn for his friend. Apparently his arguments made some impression on Sister Margaret, for when, as the train went off, he shouted, “Give my kind respects to him, Miss, when you write. And tell him he ain’t forgotten,” it looked as though the young woman’s bright eyes became suddenly wet.
The seasons passed. The fourteenth birthday came so near that it was quite possible to reckon the interval by number of days. For some months Robert Lancaster had been a half-timer; he desired now to say good-bye definitely to school, and to go into the workshops, because this would be a conspicuous milestone marking his journey. The Coastguard and the Coastguard’s daughter, and the long Customs’ officer came to see him on one of the later days, and he showed them with pride the tailor’s shop, the bootmaker’s shop, the carpenter’s shop, and the engineer’s shop, and Coastguard and himself (whilst the tall daughter went with the representative of her Majesty’s Customs to take tea at the hotel opposite the gates) talked over questions of trades, and their various advantages. They weighed them separately; when the young couple returned, Coastguard with a look of wisdom that judges of Appeal try to assume and cannot, delivered his decision. Bobbie, interested in this, saw the long Customs’ officer snatch a kiss from Coastguard’s daughter with no feeling of jealousy, and, indeed, with diversion.
“Nothing like helping yourself,” remarked Bobbie, amused.
“Do give over, John,” said Coastguard’s daughter reprovingly. “You never know when to stop.”
“These youngsters,” said Bobbie to Coastguard paternally, “they will carry on, won’t they? Same now as it was in our young day.”
“Dang the boy’s eyes,” said Coastguard, “if he don’t notice everything.”
“It makes anyone,” said Bobbie, “when you see a couple young enough to know better a kissin’ each other.”
“You’re supposed not to notice such things at your age,” said the angel reprovingly.
“Ah,” said the boy, acutely, “supposed not.”
“Reckon you’ll be the next one we shall hear of getting engaged.”
“Many a true word spoke in jest,” said the boy. “And you think,” turning with seriousness to the Coastguard, “you think I can’t do better than go in for learning that?”
p. 93“Sure of it, my boy.”
Therefore to the engineer’s shop went Bobbie, because the Coastguard had pointed out to him that some of the knowledge to be gained there could not fail some day to be valuable. Not that he intended to become an engineer. Decision as to his first occupation on leaving the Home had already been taken, being preserved as a secret which he proposed not to disclose until the appropriate moment came. At the tables in the engineer’s shop he worked, and learned under direction, after some failures, how to use a lathe without pinching his fingers. The lads worked in extra garments of aprons and paper caps; their task made them so grimy that they felt sure no one could tell them from adults; the wash that came after a day in the workshop seemed to put them back ten years. An increased feeling of maturity came to Bobbie when, on being selected to play “The Lost Chord,” as a cornet solo at a concert in the neighbourhood which the Home’s band attended, a local paper called him by a fascinating misprint Mister Robert Lancaster, intending to say Master, but allowing the i’s to have it. He walked rigidly upright for several weeks after this and spoke to no boy under the age of thirteen.
“You fancy yourself,” remarked sarcastically the boys whom he ignored.
“I do,” he replied, frankly.
It became his keen endeavour at this period to reach at least four feet six in height. He had special reasons for this ambition, and days occurred when, in his impatience, he measured himse............