Sarah's School Friend Part 11

'Why?' inquired Sarah quickly, as the colour mounted to her forehead, for she expected that Horatia was going to say that she did not like people who made such a display of wealth.

'Because I sha'n't be contented to be just middlingly well off after this, and I never wanted to be rich before; but your father can do everything he likes,' she cried enthusiastically.

'Oh no, he can't,' retorted Sarah.

'What can't he do?' demanded Horatia.

Sarah paused for a moment. She could not very well say what was in her mind, which was that he could not make himself a gentleman, so she said instead, 'He can't buy people's affection, for one thing.'

Horatia gave Sarah one of her quick, quizzical glances, but only replied, 'I don't know so much about that. There's cupboard-love, at any rate; but never mind, let's go and listen to this opera. It's a lovely way of spending the evening,' she added, for Sarah's face had taken on its disdainful expression again.

So the two sat down at the gramophone to listen to Tetrazzini singing in the opera, and Mrs Clay went off to her husband's study to take advantage of his being in a good humour to spend the hour with the husband she worshipped, although she feared him, and had none too happy a life with him.

Mr Clay was smoking a short clay-pipe. If Sarah had been there she probably would have said that another thing that he could not do was to enjoy refined things, or give himself refined tastes, for one of Mark Clay's greatest enjoyments was to smoke his short clay-pipe and the rankest of rank tobacco, though he only did so in private.

'She's a nice young lady, Mark, this friend o' Sarah's, isn't she?' Mrs Clay hazarded.

'Yes, she's a grand la.s.s, is yon. She's always got a joke ready to crack with you, and doesn't give herself no airs; and she might, for I find they're a very high family--two dukes in it, and other t.i.tles as well,'

said Mr Clay.

'Oh, I don't care about 'er t.i.tles; she's a dear young lady in 'erself, an' I'm sure Sarah'll only learn good from 'er,' said Mrs Clay.

'I wish Sarah'd learn not to give herself airs; you'd think she was a duke's granddaughter and not the other. I'm sure she looks at me sometimes as much as to say, "I'm a princess, and you're only a common man," and treats me as if I was the dirt under her feet, instead of being her father, to whom she owes everything,' said Mr Clay, with an aggrieved air.

'She's not good-lookin',' said Mrs Clay, who alluded to Horatia and was trying to put a word in indirectly for her daughter.

'No, she isn't, there's no denying that; but I'd sooner have her opposite me at table, for all her plain looks, than I would our Sally.'

'I wouldn't go so far as that. I'm sure w'en the two came in to-night, an' our girl lookin' so straight an' 'andsome, I felt proud o' 'er; but the other is a dear young lady, an' keeps us all lively,' she said, repeating her one remark about Horatia that she was a dear young lady.

'And if you'll believe me, George,' she wrote to her son two days later, 'your father's a different man since that little girl has been here, as polite to the servants since he spoke sharp to Sykes and the little lady stared at him so surprised like; and so kind to me I hardly know myself.

Not that I'm not very grateful to him, and know a man like him must have his worries, and can't always be even-tempered.'

But much had happened during these two days. Sarah had planned these two days, and, indeed, all the visit, as a succession of excursions in the motor, picnics, tennis-parties (for the Clays knew every one for miles round), and rides, and the next morning, accordingly, she said to Horatia, 'I thought we might go to the lakes for lunch to-day; we might start directly after breakfast, and get back for dinner in the evening.'

'Oh, haven't you seen the lakes?' asked Horatia in rather a disappointed tone.

'Yes, of course; but they are always worth going to see,' replied Sarah.

'But if you don't care to see them, or would rather go anywhere else, or do anything else, you have only to say so, and of course we'll do that.'

Horatia's face brightened. 'Do you really mean that? May I do what I like just for the first day or two?' she inquired eagerly.

'Of course you may do what you like to-day and every day while you are here. I would much rather you did. I'm tired of doing what I like; and, besides, it will save me a lot of bother, because I did not want to go to the lakes at all, and I was going to please you.'

'And I should have gone to please you,' cried Horatia, 'so we should both have wasted a day; but I'm afraid you won't care for my plan. I want to go and see your mills.'

'You mean my father's,' said Sarah hastily; but, though her face fell a little, she continued, 'We shall have to ask his leave. I'll ask mother to 'phone to him.'

But this plan of Horatia's was not destined to be carried out, for a message came back to say that Mr Clay would rather they came another day, as he was busy that day, and could not take them over himself.

'Then just let's go down the town and see the outsides of the mills. No; not in the motor,' for Sarah had her hand on the bell to ring for it.

'How, then? Do you want to ride?' inquired Sarah in surprise.

'No; I want to go on Shank's mare, and poke into ginnels. I want to go up a ginnel,' she declared.

'But a ginnel is only a narrow pa.s.sage. The chauffeur told you so, don't you remember? You've often been up a pa.s.sage, I suppose?'

'Yes; but not when it's called a ginnel. I want to say I've been up one, and I can't bring it in unless I say, "I went up a ginnel at Ousebank,"'

explained Horatia.

Sarah laughed. 'You are funny, Horatia,' she said. However, to please her friend she put on her hat, and the two went off to Ousebank; and whom should they meet but Uncle Howroyd, who stopped quite naturally to speak to his niece and her friend.

'And what are you two la.s.ses doing in Ousebank alone and on foot?' he inquired.

'We've come to go up a ginnel,' said Horatia, her eyes twinkling.

Mr William Howroyd's twinkled in response. 'Eh, what, are you a Yorkshire la.s.sie, then, that you talk so pat about ginnels? And what particular one do you want to go up--the ginnel against my mill?' he inquired.

'Oh, have you got a mill, and can I come and see it?' cried Horatia eagerly.

'Why, of course I've got a mill. Didn't Sarah tell you? Surely you weren't coming to Ousebank without coming to see me?' he inquired reproachfully. Then, seeing that Sarah coloured and looked rather ashamed, he half-guessed the truth, and turned quickly to another subject, and said, 'Come along, then, both of you.--This is not the grandest mill in Ousebank, Miss Cunningham, nor the largest. My brother Clay's is much bigger; but it's the oldest, and I like it best.'

'Oh, please, say Horatia,' she cried, as the three turned towards Howroyd's Mill.

'Horatia! Any relation to the great Nelson?' he inquired, looking kindly down on the eager young face smiling up at him.

'Yes; that's why I am called it; but I like Macaulay's Horatius best, so I pretend I am named after him.'

'What!

Then out spake brave Horatius...

And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his G.o.ds?

Isn't that how it goes?' he asked.

'Not quite; you've left out three lines; but that's the man I mean,' she replied. 'But I forgot. Perhaps I ought not to have asked to go over your mill? Perhaps you are busy, and don't want us, like Mr Clay?'

'No, I'm not so busy as he is, and I have always time for Sarah, as she knows,' he replied; 'though I don't know that a warm summer morning is the time to go over a mill and into hot rooms.'

'Oh, please, don't discourage me! I've longed to see a mill, and now I am really going to.'

Sarah privately thought Horatia rather childish, but she did not say anything; and Mr Howroyd, who did whatever he did thoroughly, took them over his mill.

'Now, I am going to show you the whole process of making a blanket out of sacks of woollen rags or wool as it comes off the sheep's back,' he announced.

'I hope you are not going to make a lesson of it, Uncle Howroyd,'

protested Sarah.