Harry Milvaine: or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy. Stables Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ afraid,” returned Mrs Milvaine mildly, “I have received assistance from you.”

      Harry’s governess came in a week. It was surely a sad look-out for her, if she was to be hated and beaten and bitten.

      She was not a prim, angular, starchy, “tawsey”-looking old maid by any means. At most she had seen but nineteen summers; fresh in face, blue-eyed, dimpled, and with beautiful hair.

      Harry soon took to her.

      “I sha’n’t beat you,” he said, “as long as you’re good.”

      The attic was cleared of cobwebs and rubbish, and turned into a schoolroom, and studies at regular hours of the day commenced forthwith.

      Harry determined to make his own terms with his “guv’niss.” He would be good, and learn his lessons, and do his sums, and write his copy and all that, if she would read out of a book to him every day, and describe to him a scene in some far-off land.

      She promised.

      Before commencing lessons of a forenoon, Miss Campbell read a portion of one of the Gospels to him, and then she prayed. Miss Campbell was one of those girls who are not ashamed to pray, not ashamed to ask mercy, help and guidance from Him from whom all blessings flow. Before leaving school Miss Campbell took the Book again, but now no other portion would he allow her to read except the Revelations. There was a charm about these that never, never palled upon the child.

      But always in the evenings “Guvie” had to devote herself to a different kind of literature, and the books now were usually tales of adventure by land and at sea.

      Miss Campbell did try her wee pupil with “Sandford and Merton.” I am sorry to say he would have none of it. The “Arabian Nights” pleased better, but he could not quite understand them.

      For Sunday reading nothing delighted Harry better than Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” I am happy in being able to put this on record, and boys who have not read the work, have a real treat in store for them.

      So Miss Campbell and her pupil got on very well together indeed; and many a delightful walk, ay, and run too, they had in the forest. They were a trio-now, because Eily always made one of the number. She went to school as well as Harry, and if she did not learn anything, at all events she lay still and listened, and that is more than every dog would have done.

      Harry introduced his “Guvie,” as he called her, to his pet toad, which she pretended to admire, but was secretly somewhat afraid of.

      “John told me, Guvie,” he said one day, “that toadie would go to sleep all winter, so I’m going to put a biscuit in his box for his breakfast when he wakes, then we won’t go near him till spring-time comes.”

      They say the child is the father of the man. I believe there is much truth in the statement, so that, in describing Harry’s character as a young boy, I am saving myself the trouble of doing so when he is very much older, and mingling in wilder life.

      He was impulsive then and brave, fond to some extent of mischief of a mild, kind nature, but he was tender-hearted. One day in the forest he came to the foot of a great Scotch fir-tree.

      “There is an old nest up there, Guvie. I’m off up.”

      She would have held him, but he was far beyond her reach ere she could do so. He stopped when about ten feet above her.

      “I knew, Guvie,” he cried, with a roguish smile on his countenance, “that you would try to catch me if you could. Now come, Guvie, catch me now, if you can.”

      “Oh! do come down, Harry dear,” the poor girl exclaimed. “You frighten me nearly to death.”

      “Don’t die, Guvie dear, there’s a good Guvie; I’m only going to the top of the tree, to the very top you know, no farther, to pull down the old nest, else the nasty lazy magpie will lay in it again next year, and not build a new one at all.”

      “Do, Harry, come down,” cried Miss Campbell, “and I’ll give you anything.”

      “No, no, Guvie; papa always says, ‘Do your duty, Harold boy, always do your duty.’ I’m going to do what papa bids me. Good-bye, Guvie, I’ll soon be back.”

      And away he went. It seemed, several times ere he reached the top, that he would be back far sooner than even he himself expected, for little branches often gave way with a crack that sent a thrill of horror through Miss Campbell’s heart.

      “Oh! what if he should fall and be killed,” she thought.

      But presently Harry was high high up on the very point of the tree. He proceeded at once to throw down the great nest of sticks and grass and clay; no very easy task, as he had to work with one hand, while he held on with the other.

      But he finished at last, and the nest lay at Miss Campbell’s feet.

      The wind blew high to-day, and the tree swayed and swayed about, just like a ship’s mast at sea.

      “Oh! Miss Guvie, do try to come up,” cried the boy, looking down. “It is so nice; and I can see all over the country. Wouldn’t I like to be a sailor. Do come up.”

      But Miss Campbell only cried, “Do come down.”

      When he did obey her at last, she could contain herself no longer. Down she must sit on a bank of withered pine-needles and give vent to sobs and tears.

      Then the boy’s heart melted for her, and he went and threw his arms around her and kissed her, and said:

      “Oh! Guvie dear, don’t cry, and Harry will never, never be quite so naughty again. Don’t cry, dear, and when Harry grows a big man, he will fight for you and then marry you.”

      She was pacified at last, and they started for home.

      “I’ll keep firm hold of your hand,” said Harry, “and then you won’t cry any more, and nothing can hurt you.”

      “We’ll both want brushing, won’t we, Harry?” she said, smiling.

      It was true. For Harry’s jacket was altogether green, with the mould from the tree, and he had transferred a goodly portion of it to her velveteen jacket, while hugging her.

      “Ha!” laughed Harry; “we are both foresters now, Guvie. What fun! All green, green, green.”

      But Harry had given his governess a terrible fright, and she tried to make him promise that he would not climb trees again.

      The boy held his wise, wee head to one side for a few seconds and considered.

      “That wouldn’t do, Guvie,” he said. “But when I go up a tree you shall come with me. There now!”

      “But, dear child, I cannot climb trees.”

      “You could a beech?” quoth Harry.

      “Well, I might a beech, a little way.”

      “If you don’t climb a beech, I shall go a mile high up into a fir,” said the young rascal.

      So poor Miss Campbell had to consent, and in the depth of the forest where many lordly beeches grew, “Guvie” took lessons in climbing.

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