Four Winds Farm Part 8

For the East-wind was evidently in a hurry. Her voice grew fainter as if she were flying away.

"Stop a moment," said the softest voice of all. "It's not fair of you to say we are spoiling the child--Sea-breezes and I--we're doing nothing of the kind. We never pet or comfort him save when he deserves it--we keep strictly to our compact. You and our icy sister have been free to interfere when you thought right. Do you hear, Gray-wings! do you he--ar?"

And far off, from the very top of the chimney, came Gray-wings's reply.

"All right--all right, but I haven't time to wait.

Good-night--go--od-ni--ght," and for once East-wind's voice sounded soft and musical.

Then the two gentle sisters went on murmuring together, and what they said was very pleasant to Gratian to hear.

"_I_ say," said Golden-wings--"_I_ say he has been a very good boy. He is doing credit to his training, little though he suspects how long he has been under our charge."

"He is awaking to that and to other things now," replied she whom the others called the Spirit of the Sea. "It is sad to think that some day our guardianship must come to an end."

"Well, don't think of it, then. _I_ never think of disagreeable things,"

replied the bright voice.

"But how can one help it? Think how tiny he was--the queer little red-faced solemn-eyed baby, when we first sang our lullabies to him, and how we looked forward to the time when he should hear more in our voices than any one but a G.o.dchild of ours _can_ hear. And now----"

"Now that time has come, and we must take care what we say--he may be awake at this very moment. But listen, sister--I think we must do something--you and I. Our sterner sisters are all very well in their places, but all work and no play is not _my_ idea of education. Now listen to my plan;" but here the murmuring grew so soft and vague that Gratian could no longer distinguish the syllables. He tried to strain his ears, but it was useless, and he grew sleepy through the trying to keep awake. The last sound he was conscious of was a flapping of wings and a murmured "Good-night, Gratian. Good-night, little G.o.dson--good-ni--ight," and then he fell asleep and slept till morning.

He would have forgotten it all perhaps, or remembered it only with the indistinctness of a dream that is past, had it not been for something unusual in the look of the little heap of clothes which lay on the chair beside his bed. They were so _very_ neatly folded--though Gratian prided himself rather on his own neat folding--and the shirt was so snow-white and smooth that the boy thought at first his mother had laid out a fresh one while he was asleep. But no--yesterday was Sunday.

Mrs. Conyfer would have thought another clean one on Monday very extravagant--besides, not even from her linen drawers, scented with lavender, could have come that delicious fragrance! Gratian snuffed and sniffed with ever-increasing satisfaction, as the words he had overheard in the night returned to his memory. And his stockings--they too were scented! What it was like I could not tell you, unless it be true, as old travellers say, that miles and miles away from the far-famed Spice Islands their fragrance may be perceived, wafted out to sea by the breeze. That, I think, may give you a faint idea of the perfume left by the South-wind on her G.o.dson's garments.

"So it's true--I wasn't dreaming," thought the boy. "I wonder what the plot was that I couldn't hear about. I shall know before long, I daresay."

At breakfast he noticed his mother looking at him curiously.

"What is it, mother?" he said; "is my hair not neat?"

"No, child. On the contrary, I was thinking how very tidy you look this morning. Your collar is so smooth and clean. Can it be the one you wore yesterday?"

"Yes, mother," he replied, "just look how nice it is. And hasn't it a nice scent?"

He got up as he spoke and stood beside her. She smoothed his collar with satisfaction.

"It is certainly very well starched and ironed," she said. "Madge is improving; I must tell her so. That new soap too has quite a pleasant smell about it--like new-mown hay. It's partly the lavender in the drawers, I daresay."

But Gratian smiled to himself--thinking he knew better!

"Gratian," said his mother, two mornings later, as he was starting for school, "I had a message from the master yesterday. He wants to see me about you, but he is very busy, and he says if father or I should be in the village to-day or to-morrow, he would take it kindly if we would look in. I must call at the mill for father to-day--he's too busy to go himself--so I think I'll go on to school, and then we can walk back together. So don't start home this afternoon till I come."

"No, mother, I won't," said Gratian. But he still hung about as if he had more to say.

"What is it?" asked his mother. "You're not afraid the master's going to give a bad account of you?"

"No, mother--not since I've cured myself of dreaming," he answered. "I was only wondering if I knew what it was he was going to ask you."

"Better wait and know for sure," said his mother. So Gratian set off.

But he found it impossible not to keep thinking and wondering about it to himself. Could it be anything about the Big House? Had Tony kept his promise, and told the master of the trick he had played, so that Gratian, and not he, should be chosen?

"He didn't seem to care about it much," thought Gratian, "not near so much as I should--oh, dear no! Still it wouldn't be very nice for him to have to tell against himself, whether he cared about it or not."

But as his mother had said, it was best to wait a while and know, instead of wasting time in fruitless guessing.

Tony seemed quite cheerful and merry, and little Dolly was as friendly as possible. After the morning lessons were over and the other children dispersed, the schoolmaster called Gratian in again.

"It is too cold now for you to eat your dinner in the playground, my boy," he said. "After you have run about a little, come in and find a warmer dining-room inside. But I have something else to say to you. I had a talk with Anthony Ferris yesterday."

Gratian felt himself growing red, but he did not speak.

"He told me of the trick he'd played you. A very unkind and silly trick it was, and so I said to him; but as he told it himself I won't punish him. He told me more, Gratian--of your finding his book and giving it back to him, when you might have done him an ill turn by keeping it."

"I did keep it all one day, sir," said Gratian humbly.

"Ah well, you did give it him in the end," said the master smiling. "I am pleased to see that you did the right thing in face of temptation.

And Tony feels it himself. He's an honest-hearted lad and a clever one.

He has done that piece of work I gave him well, and no doubt he stands as the head boy"--here the master stopped and seemed to be thinking over something. Then he went on again rather abruptly.

"That was all I wanted to say to you just now, I think. Tony is really grateful to you, and if he can show it, he will. Did your father or mother say anything about coming to see me?"

"Please, sir, mother's coming this afternoon. I'm to wait and go home with her."

"Ah well, that's all right."

But Gratian had plenty to think of while he ate his dinner. He was very much impressed by Tony's having really told.

"I wonder," he kept saying to himself, "I do wonder if perhaps----"

CHAPTER VII.

THE BIG HOUSE AND THE LADY

"The light of love, the purity of grace; The mind, the music breathing from her face; The heart, whose softness harmonised the whole."

Mrs. Conyfer was waiting for Gratian at the gate of the schoolhouse when he came out.

"We must make haste," she said; "I think it's going to rain."

Gratian looked up at the sky, and sniffed the cold evening air.

"Yes," he said, "I think it is."

"It's not so cold quite as it was when I came down," Mrs. Conyfer went on--the dwellers at Four Winds often spoke of "coming down," when they meant going to the village--"that's perhaps because the rain is coming.