We sat down in the shade, and conversation flagged. Presently steps approached, pacing slowly along the wooden platform.
It was the vicar.
He looked a little conscious, and no doubt read the enquiry in my eyes.
"It is too hot," he said, "to drive to Becklington before tea," and the three of us sat silently down together.
At last a porter came, and looked up and down the line.
Apparently he saw no obstruction, for he proceeded to lower the signal.
We rose and paced to and fro, with valorously concealed agitation.
A trap dashed along the white road, and some one ran, breathlessly, up the stairs.
He seemed a little surprised at the trio which awaited him.
"I thought you had two cases in Bonnor," I observed, with a piercing glance.
The doctor looked away, but did not reply, and I forbore to press the point.
Far down the line shone a cloudlet of white smoke and the gleam of bra.s.s through the dust.
"Becklington, Harrowley, Borcombe and Hoxford train," roared the porter, apparently as a reminder to the station-master, for there were no pa.s.sengers.
We stood, a nervous group, in the shadow of the waiting-room.
"Poor boy--poor little chap," said the vicar at last. "We must cheer him up--G.o.d bless him."
Youth is not careless of grief, but G.o.d has made it the master of sorrow, and Tommy"s eyes were bright, as he jumped onto the platform.
He smiled complacently into our anxious faces--so genuine a smile that our poor carved ones relaxed into reality.
"I"ve got a ripping chameleon," he observed cheerfully.
VII
IN WHICH MADGE WHISTLES IN A WOOD
Through the still boughs the sunlight fell, as it seemed to me, in little molten streams, and I pushed back my chair still deeper into the shadow of the elm.
Even there it was not cool, but at any rate the contrast to the glaring close-cropped lawn was welcome.
I stared up through the listless, delicate leaves into a sky of Mediterranean blue. Surely, it was the hottest day of summer--of memory.
The flowers with which my little garden is so profusely peopled hung languorously above the borders, and the hum of a binder in the neighbouring wheat field seemed an invitation to siesta.
Down sunny paths, I dropped into oblivion.
A touch awoke me, but my eyes were held tight beneath a pair of cool hands.
"Good gracious," I gasped. "Bless my----"
Tommy laughed and sauntered into view.
"You were making a beastly row," he observed, frankly. "I thought it was a thunderstorm."
I looked at him with envious eyes.
His sole attire consisted of a striped blazer and a pair of knickerbockers. He was crowned in a battered wide-awake hat, and from this to the tips of his brown toes he looked buoyant and cool despite the tan on his chest and legs.
He deposited the rest of his garments and a towel upon the gra.s.s, and sprawled contentedly beside them.
"It was so jolly hot that I didn"t bother about dressing," he observed, lazily.
Then he sat up quickly.
"I say; you don"t mind, do you? it"s awful slack of me to come round here like this."
"Not a bit," said I, as my thoughts fled back to the days when I also was lean and springy, and blissfully contemptuous of changes in the weather.
Ah, well-a-day--well-a-day!
Linger the dreams of the golden days-- They were bright, though they fled so soon, Rosy they gleamed in the early rays Of the sun, that dispelled them at noon.
The joys of reminiscence are mellow, but at times they may become a little soporific--I awoke with a start.
"Whoo--ee."
It was a whistle, low and penetrating, and would seem to have risen from the wood beyond the stream.
I noticed that Tommy was alert and listening.
"Whoo--ee."
Again it rose, with something of caution in its tone, but a spice of daring in the higher note of its conclusion.
I watched Tommy, idly, with half-closed eyes.
He was performing a rapid toilet.
Presently he looked up at me from his shoe-laces.
"I taught her that whistle," he observed, complacently.