"What a fine boy your nephew is, Ma"am?"
"Ah! if he were only a good boy!" sighed Miss Murray.
William was then turned seventeen; but he looked about fourteen; the observation of Kate was therefore doubly insulting. I know not whether it was to show his resentment, that at tea he shuffled and kicked his feet under the table to such a degree, that his aunt, laying down her cup, solemnly inquired, "If he intended to break her heart, as he was ruining her furniture and endangering the shins of her guests?" To which delicate question, the only reply William deigned to give was a scowl over his tea-cup, and a sarcastic intimation at the close of the meal, that "tea was the greatest slop and most womanish stuff _he_ had ever tasted."
"Milk and water is decidedly more wholesome for children," mischievously said Kate.
William turned scarlet, stabbed her with a look, rose and left the room, slamming the door after him. Miss Murray produced her handkerchief, and looked pitiful.
"I appeal to you, Ma"am, is not mine a dreadful, a lamentable case! That boy, Ma"am, is the misery of my life; twice he has run away, and has had to be pursued and caught; each time offering the most desperate resistance."
"He is but a boy," good-humouredly observed Kate, "he will grow out of all this."
Miss Murray however, for a reason very different from that of Rachel, would not be comforted, and lamented the length of the holidays. Kate herself changed her opinion when she discovered on the following morning the manner in which the shoes of William had used her light grey silk.
She called him a little wretch; and, in her indignation, wondered what could tempt his aunt to have him pursued and brought back, when by absconding he had offered her so easy a method of getting rid of him altogether. I almost concurred in this opinion, and altogether looked upon William as a sort of young Christian savage.
So far as I could see, the gracious youth did not trouble his aunt much with his company. I seldom or ever went down to the sands without meeting him with his dog "Dash," a s.h.a.ggy-coated creature, as rough-looking as his master, who went whistling past me with superb indifference. I had met them thus one day, the youth climbing the cliffs, and the dog bounding on before him, and now and then turning round to utter a short joyous bark at his master, when, on returning homewards, I saw them again under altered circ.u.mstances. William sat on a rock at the base of the cliff, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and at his feet Dash lay dead. He had fallen from above, and been killed at once; his young master looked at him silently, and, as I approached, dashed away a furtive tear. I stood, unwilling to go on without having expressed sympathy or attempted consolation, and not knowing how to do either, I knelt on the sands and, caressing the poor dead dog, I hesitatingly observed--
"He was a very good dog, was he not?"
"There never was a better," replied William in a subdued voice.
"He seemed very clever."
"I could make him do anything. He"d dash in the roughest sea at a look, and if I only said "Dash!" he"d look into my face, p.r.i.c.k his ears, and be ready to fly off. Poor old Dash! he"ll never do the bidding of his master again."
And he stooped over him to hide his tears.
"Was he old?" I asked.
"Just turned five; the prime age, you know; at four they are too young, and at six they are aging: five is the age for a dog. That was why he was such a beauty; see what a coat he had, what a deep broad chest, and such a back! I"ll take a bet with any one, you can hear that dog"s bark for miles along the coast; that is to say, one could have heard it, for Dash"s barking is all ended and over now."
Thus poor William sat lamenting over his lost favourite, recording his virtues and some of his many exploits, when I said--
"I suppose you will bury him in Miss Murray"s garden?"
"No, that I shan"t," he replied indignantly, "he shall be buried where he fell, as they bury soldiers after battle."
So saying, he drew forth his knife, and began digging a deep and narrow grave at the base of the sea-washed cliff; he lined it softly with his handkerchief, saying as he did so--
"Won"t Abby have a precious hunt for it?"
Then he took Dash, gave him a last caress, gently laid him in his grave, covered him over with sand and earth, and marked the spot with a fragment of rock, on which he carved the day of the month and year.
"Won"t you put his name?" I asked.
"No. Dash answered and obeyed no one but me; his name is nothing to any one else, and I don"t want to know it."
We walked on. As a projecting rock was going to hide the spot from our view, William turned round to give it one last glance, then he looked at me wishfully, and said, "I had him from a pup, and I taught him all his tricks."
From that day William and I were friends. We met to talk of Dash at first, and afterwards of other things, for even the best of dogs must expect to be forgotten. William generously forgave me my s.e.x, and confided to me his troubles. His aunt, it seems, kindly intended him as a present to the Church, but William vowed no mortal power should induce him to turn a parson, and boldly declared for the sea, in a midshipman"s berth, against which his aunt, whose ideas of nautical life were summed up in grog and biscuit, entered a solemn protest.
As we very seldom visited Miss Murray, and as she never visited us, I only saw William when I met him out, and that was often, for we loved the same solitary haunts and wild scenes. In parting we told one another what places we were to visit on the morrow, and William no more knew he had asked me for a meeting, than I knew I had granted him one. We followed the retreating tide to gather sh.e.l.ls and sea-weeds, or ran hand in hand along the sands, laughing, because the keen breeze took away our breath, and the waves came dashing to our feet, covering us with spray. We climbed together the steepest cliffs for the mere love of danger, and risked our necks, ten times for one, by running down the same perilous path. When we felt tired, we sat down on some rock to rest, and William, drawing forth from his pocket "The Dangers of the Deep," made me low- spirited with dismal stories of lost or shipwrecked mariners. Friendships grow rapidly in youth, and by the close of William"s holidays we were as free and intimate as if we had been in familiar intercourse for years.
I had told Miss O"Reilly of Dash"s death and burial, and was beginning to state that William Murray was not quite so bad as he had appeared on our first interview, when she interrupted me with--
"Nonsense, child, the boy may have liked his dog; but what about it?"
Later, when I imparted to her the grievances of my friend, she treated them in the same careless, slighting way.
"Pooh! pooh!" she said, "does the little fellow think he knows his own mind? A midshipman! why the first breeze would whip him off the deck.
He"ll do a great deal better in the pulpit, so far as physical strength goes, but what sort of a preacher he will make is more than I can tell."
I was too much mortified by her tone and manner to renew the subject; but at the same time, and with the spirit of opposition of my years, I liked William all the better for being rather persecuted. Indeed, the aversion Kate had taken to my friend proved somewhat unfortunate, for, without intending any mystery, I forbore to mention his name to her; consequently she knew little or nothing of an intimacy which I have reason to believe she would have opposed from many motives, and to which her opposition would in the beginning have been a sufficient bar.
In spite of the ridicule with which Miss O"Reilly treated his pretensions to the sea, William Murray conquered his aunt"s opposition, and, in the course of the ensuing spring, went forth on his first voyage. He remained a year away, and came back about a week before we received the letter which led us to expect the return of Cornelius. Our joy on seeing one another again was great; absence had not cooled our friendship; not a day pa.s.sed but we met on the sands, and took long walks down the coast. I thought nothing of this until Miss O"Reilly said to me--
"William Murray is come back."
"Yes, I know," I replied, feeling that I turned crimson.
"And how do you know?" she asked, giving me an attentive look.
"I met him on the sands."
She did not ask me why I had not mentioned it to her sooner, but said quietly--
"That boy has grown very much."
The word "boy" relieved me greatly. Since William was only a boy, there could be no sort of harm or indiscretion in being so much with him, nor was there either any absolute necessity to mention the matter to Miss O"Reilly. So when, to quiet my antic.i.p.ations, she sent me out for a walk, I did not inform her that one of my motives for complying with her request was to impart the tidings to William Murray. As I saw him advancing towards me, I eagerly ran to meet him.
"Oh, William," I cried joyfully, "I am so glad, so happy."
"Then Mr. O"Reilly is come back?" he said, stopping short to look at me.
"No; but he is coming soon, quite soon. Is it not delightful?"
"Indeed it is," he replied cordially; "tell me all about it, Daisy."
We sat down on a ledge of rock facing the sea, and I told him all there was to tell. He heard me with a pleased smile on his kind, handsome face, which he kept turned towards mine, as he sat there in a listening att.i.tude. William was then between eighteen and nineteen. He was slight in figure, but above the middle height, and of a spirited bearing. His complexion, once too fair, had become embrowned by constant exposure, and spite of his light hair and blue eyes he looked sufficiently manly; his midshipman"s attire became him well, and the consciousness of having entered active life had freed his manner from much of its ungracious roughness. Of these changes I was conscious, but other change I saw not: William was to me what he had been since we had become friends--frank, ingenuous, and boyish in his kindness. I had often spoken to him of Cornelius, and I now closed my brief recital with the remark--
"Oh, William! I am so happy that I scarcely know what to do with myself."
He looked at me silently, began tracing figures in the sand with a slender wand which he held, then suddenly looked up again, and said, very earnestly--
"He is quite like a father to you, Daisy."
"More than a father," I replied, ardently, "for a father is bound to do for his child what, of his own free-will, Cornelius did for me. And then so kind! always giving me new playthings, or books, or things I liked."