A Little Hero Part 2

"You are Brian and Jessie. I have heard about you often. Mother has your photographs. I cannot see if Jessie is as pretty as her picture; but how thin your legs are, Brian, like my _dhobees_. Uncle Hugh, do tell me why do _dhobees_ always have thin legs? Father doesn't know."

Uncle Hugh was one of those very discreet people who never attempt a reply to children's questions.

"Go into the house, Brian, and take your cousin to have some breakfast in the nursery. Is your mother up yet? Mind you both come down tidy in time for prayers."

"But please, Uncle Hugh, I never have breakfast in the nursery. Father and mother think I am old enough to eat with them. Maggie, _do_ tell him it is true. Must I really go with them? Can't I see grandmama or Aunt Annie, first? They are mother's own, her very own relations, you see. And she did send so many messages. I have said them over and over again to myself, not to forget. It is very important is it not, Uncle Hugh, to deliver your despatches?"

Alas for poor Jeff! His pleading was not heard. He had yet to learn the firm and obdurate nature of the starched gentleman with whiskers.

"Brian, obey me at once. Show your cousin the way upstairs."

And then Jeff, further constrained by old Maggie's hand, was marched away up two flight of stairs, through a long corridor and double baize doors, then down another narrower pa.s.sage into a large square room. It seemed to Jeff that there was a great deal of heavy furniture everywhere, and thick carpets, and an excess of light flooding the rooms. In India the sunshine was always excluded.

Breakfast was laid on the table in the nursery. There were steaming bowls of porridge and a large gla.s.s dish of marmalade set out. An odour of bacon also was perceptible.

"Isn't my governor a stiff one?" said Brian in a jeering way, as his cousin drew near the great coal fire and drew off his little worsted gloves--the gloves which mother had knitted.

"Is your governor a tyrant too?"

Jeff shook his head in a fierce negative.

"My governor never bullies his men, if you mean that, Brian. Don't you care about your father? I don't call him a very nice sort of a father, but then of course I needn't like him particularly, because he is only my uncle--only a sort of an uncle too--not a real one."

Brian was a very pretty-looking boy, with auburn hair and large innocent blue eyes. People said he had a heavenly expression, and interpreted a mind to match.

Jessie had pulled off her sun-bonnet, and the nurse, Nan, a big bony woman, was tying a pinafore about her. She could hardly hear the conversation of the two boys on the other side of the room, as Maggie and Nan were carrying on a lively exchange of question and answer.

"Cousin Jeff, I'm _quite_ sure you wouldn't like to have breakfast down-stairs. I did once when Nan was ill, and it was quite drefful,"

called out Jessie, nodding her head gravely at the recollection. "Papa won't let you drink if you have the least bit in your mouth, and he says everything that is nice isn't good for children. Kidneys and sausages, and herrings and bacon you're only allowed to smell down-stairs. Isn't our breakfast ready now, Nan? I am so hungry."

Then the children were bidden to sit down to the table, and Jeff tasted porridge for the first time. He did not care much about it, and watched Maggie devour it with no little astonishment.

"Did mother always eat it, Maggie?"

"Yes, my bairn; and it's fine stuff to make growing lads."

"Well, I'll _try_ and like it," said Jeff rather doubtfully, as he made a second valiant attempt to swallow two or three spoonfuls.

In the course of a very few days Jeff found out that his cousin Brian was not nearly so angelic as he looked. He bullied Jessie, who was a good-tempered little girl, and deceived his father and mother with a wonderful amount of success.

With grandmama, who was really a keen-sighted old lady, his plausible excuses and affectionate embraces did not meet with the same acceptance. Not that he really cared, for he was impatient of her slow ways, and did not feel sorry for her failing sight or feeble limbs; only, he liked the five shillings and half-sovereigns she occasionally bestowed, and thought that he might receive more if he pretended a dutiful behaviour.

Jeff really, however, fell in love with the old lady at first sight.

There are very few old people to be seen in India, and the dignity and pathos of her appearance touched a tender chord. He admired her fine white hair and handsome features, all furrowed with the countless little lines of time. And she wore such stiff brocades and silks, such beautiful old lace, and the funniest brooches, with pictures in them.

Her soft white hands touched him in a loving way, and she had a gentle voice something like the dear mother's.

Poor Jeff yearned for the tenderness and affection that seemed so far off. How long it would be before the hunger in his heart would be satisfied he dared not think. But grandmama was old and feeble, and he might not stay long in her sitting-room.

It seemed rather hard to Jeff that she was never allowed to have her own way--that her life was ruled for her. Aunt Annie would always come and fetch away the little boy after ten minutes, even when grandmama had sent for him.

But after some weeks, when it was found that the little boy could sit still and not tease with too many questions or too much talking, he was allowed to stay longer; sometimes to play draughts with or read to the old lady.

About Aunt Annie Jeff did not at once make up his mind. She was a tall woman, with a strong voice and handsome features, who always seemed busy and in a hurry.

Brian said she knew Latin and Greek, so Jeff decided she must be clever. She did not wear pretty clothes or soft laces like his mother.

Her dresses were very plain, of some harsh coa.r.s.e stuff and dull ugly colours; her manner was always a little abrupt, and she seemed to have no patience to listen to anything that children said. Jeff supposed that she was so wise that she could not profit by anything they might say.

Perhaps nothing in Scotland surprised Jeff more than to find how busy everyone was, and how much one could do here. Even ladies and rich people did things for themselves, and their amus.e.m.e.nts generally seemed to be like hard work. Young men walked or rode, or played tennis and cricket incessantly. There was no mid-day sleep; no lying in hammocks smoking and reading novels. It was never too hot to go out and do something, though to Jeff it often seemed too cold. By degrees, however, he became accustomed to the climate, and before the summer had fully arrived his fair delicate face took a new bloom that would have gladdened the heart of his mother. He had been more than a month at Loch Lossie when the following letter was posted to India.

LOCH LOSSIE, _May 10th_.

Dear darling Mother,--I am not nearly a hero yet. I have not got even really brave, but I mean to. I don't like lots of things here at all, and I get angry and quarrel with Brian, because he tells lies--or sort of lies--and is very unkind to Jessie. He pinches her where it won't show when she won't do what he wants. n.o.body ever believes that Brian does not tell truth. He seems so obedient, and he never asks questions or bothers people, and he is _so_ clever with his lessons. He always seems to know them with hardly looking. The Rev. Mr. M'Gregor, who is our tutor, you know, says Brian is very intelligent; a most promising pupil he calls him to Aunt Annie. I think Mr. M'Gregor flatters Aunt Annie, because he wants to stay our tutor. But I don't think Brian knows _deep down_ about the things what he learns. He never is tiresome wanting to see behind things, or to know _why_. You remember those questions always did come to me when I did lessons with you and father. Cousin Jessie is very pretty, and I know she has a very kind heart. She gave two shillings out of her money-box--all what she had saved in pennies--to a little beggar girl without any shoes that came to the door. Aunt Annie was angry about it, because she said, "No one need to beg or be poor."

Grandmama is a very nice person, but why does she never listen when I speak of father? I go and read to her sometimes when she is feeling well, and she says she likes my reading better than Brian's; he gabbles on so quick and never stops, because he wants to get it over.

Sometimes I stop altogether in the middle of a chapter and talk instead. We have very nice talks--we talk about you. Then grandmama always sighs and says how hard it is you are a soldier's wife, and are poor and are obliged to live in India. They seem to think a great deal about being rich here; but I think honour and glory is more, and I mean to be a soldier.

Aunt Annie does not seem to love her children much. She just kisses them in the morning and at night once on the cheek, _without any arms_, and she never goes to tuck them up.

It is funny, I think, but Jess and Brian don't seem to know it is queer. I call Uncle Hugh the bandbox man--to myself only, of course.

He is never untidy, or hot, or cold. He seems to get up out of bed tidy; because I saw him in his night-shirt one morning, and his hair was all straight and smooth.

Mine isn't now when I get up, because they don't cut it so short here, and it has got all curly. I will ask Maggie to cut off a bit for you to see.

Maggie has got such a nice brother. He says he remembers you when you were a little girl, and my eyes are like yours. He is the head-keeper now, and lets me go out fishing with him. He has got straight red hair, and oh, such a red beard! and he talks in such a queer way--they all do here; but I am beginning to understand. Maggie is going to live at Sandy's cottage soon. He had a wife, but she is dead, and there is no one to work and cook for him. But I shall see Maggie nearly every day, and Nan--that is Jessie's nurse--will mend my clothes.

The primroses have been quite lovely. It will be all withered when it has been through the Red Sea, and will have no smell, but I send you one all the same. Mother, you forgot to tell me what English flowers were like--they are beautiful.

I hope the major is quite well, and I do hope he doesn't get any fatter, because of his poor little horse. I wish he could see how thin Uncle Hugh is--sometimes I wonder I can't see through him. He walks up the steepest hills and over the heather without ever stopping.

Tell father I can ride quite as well as Brian, and Uncle Hugh says I have a good seat. It must be true, because he never praises anybody.

Oh, dear darling mother, my hand is quite tired, and I have taken two afternoons to write this letter. I wish I could see you and feel you, though I _don't in the least_ forget what you are like. I can't bear to look at your picture often, because it makes the tears come in my eyes, and you might not like me to cry. At night when I go to bed I shut my eyes very quick and very tight, and try not to remember anything in India. I generally go to sleep very quick. The next time I write perhaps I shall be nearly a hero. I am a long way off it yet.

It would be dreadful if I was not one before you come. A thousand kisses to you and father from your own loving little boy,

JEFF.

The letter did not stand so irreproachably spelt, but that is what it said and meant.

CHAPTER IV.

My poor little boy sadly missed many things that were joys or daily events at home in India. Yet he did not magnify their importance unduly, and remembered that he must not grieve the loving heart which probably ached with just as keen a longing as his own. This was heroism of a negative kind, I fancy.

At Loch Lossie they were not at all demonstrative people. They never kissed each other in the day-time, or walked arm in arm, or sat very near together.