Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/393

Charles Dickens] you must be sick of the subject." And he gave a sort of laugh.

"The army?"

"I never can fancy anything else, never; and I know my father wouldn't mind, though it isn't much in his line. And once in it I'd make my pay do, and never ask him for a farthing. I'd get to India if I could. But of course it can't be—I know that well enough—but it is hard lines."

"It is indeed. Couldn't we save?"

"Save, out of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, and with seven mouths to feed! Do you suppose I'd ask such a thing? With mother wearing herself out, as it is, and poor Cilla who ought to be having port wine and good things all day long, they say, mid the little ones to be looked after too! No, I'm not such a selfish beast as that; I have never told anybody but you. But somehow," he said, turning to her with a brighter face, "one can't help telling you. everything, old Polly."

"What does papa mean you to do?"

"Hasn't mother told you? I couldn't bear to write about it, but I dare say it'll be all right when I'm used to the idea. Mr. Bagshawe has offered me a place in his office under old Hobbs. Forty pounds a year to begin with, and a rise if I behave myself."

"An attorney's clerk!" cried Mary, her colour rising. "Oh! Harry, I hope not!"

There was a long pause. Mary broke it by saying with renewed cheerfulness: "After all, Harry dear, God knows best, if we could only think so. You'll be a good man, and a gentleman too, whatever you are. I know that."

Harry muttered something, and then broke out with: "The injustice of the thing is what makes me frantic. To see that fellow Langley, for instance, throwing away sums on his horses and carriages, and balls and stuff, when a quarter of the money would set us all up for life. And that old twaddle, Lowther, pocketing his nine hundred pounds a year for the living, and just giving my father two hundred pounds for doing all his work. I've no patience."

"Has Dr. Lowther been heard of lately?" said Mary, trying to lead away from the subject.

"Sent my father a cheque, as usual, for the almshouse dinner on Christmas Day, and the school feast and all that, and hoped we would accept all the compliments of the season, stupid old bloke."

Mary laughed irreverently at her brother's mention of the rector, who, though nominally resident, yet suffering from a variety of nervous complaints, really spent almost one half of the year at Ventnor and the other at Malvern; and even when at Farley, seldom emerged from his comfortable rectory.

"But mamma said that Dr. Lowther was really much worse," she remarked.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and laughed, and at that moment, as they reached the top of a long hill, Mary uttered a joyful exclamation as the lights of Farley twinkled out in the broad green valley below.

The descent was rapid, and in about a quarter of an hour they passed over a picturesque old-fashioned bridge, and entered the straggling, irregular village street. The "Blue Anchor" stood with hospitable open door; then came the blacksmith's open shed, casting its red warmth and light out into the chilly evening; further on, the village shop, the centre of gossip and business in Farley. Cottages stood on either side of the road, some detached, some in blocks of two or three together. Harry drew rein at last before a little garden gate leading to a white-washed cottage not much above the labourers' dwellings by which it was surrounded; but it was home; the home of Mary's heart.

In a moment, she was at the open door—in the little passage—in the small square parlour—fond arms were round her, eager hands were freeing her from her cloak and shawl, all the dear voices were talking at once, and nobody listening to anybody! And when the first buzz of welcome subsided, it was more delightful still: when Mary had taken off her bonnet in the little room which she shared with Cilla, and had come down again to the sitting-room, and when Harry had returned from putting up the gig, and when Mr. Mackworth had come in from his parish work, and had added his affectionate greeting to that of the rest, then Mary gaily insisted on resuming old habits and performing all her old home duties—to try, as she said, to fancy that she had never been away. She lighted the candles, trimmed the fire, helped to spread the supper table, and afterwards to clear it away, and finally sat down, between her father and mother, and with Cilla, and Harry, and the two younger boys, close by, and talked and listened, enjoying the full tide of home talk.

The first interruption came when her boxes came, which was not until late, Dobson's progress, never rapid, having been further delayed by the number of Christmas hampers he had had to deliver.