Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/643

 "We degenerate," said Brown-Smith. "The Hampden of five is a trimmer at five and twenty. The infant Cromwell grows up to vote at the order of a Caucus."

The boy walked on, and Brown-Smith followed him, recalling a certain experience of his own, when he too had, at the premature age of five, rushed to face the world. He recalled the fact that that determination had endured for some ten minutes, and he looked for the same rapid cooling of heroic intent in this case. The boy in front, however, held steadily on for a mile. By this time he had set down the puppy, who frisked irresponsibly at his heels. The poet began to find his long paletot oppressive, and disembarrassing himself of it, threw it over his arm. What thoughts filled the child's mind beyond the rooted sense of injustice and resolve it would be difficult to tell, but he pegged away at his best pace, looking neither to left nor right, for a full hour. Brown-Smith admired his energy and determination, but began to hope that they would be of brief duration. On a sudden, the puppy, after a frantic burst of high spirits, lay down panting in the road, and refused to be allured or commanded further. In the end, the child took him up again; but, in spite of anger and resolve, he was already growing weary, and when he had covered another hundred yards, he sat down upon a bank by the roadside to rest. The poet smilingly approached him and sat down.

"That's a nice little dog you have there," he said, by way of opening the conversation. The child looked shy, and returned no answer. "Do you think he would make friends with me? Let us see? He's tired, I fancy."

Brown-Smith's voice was naturally gentle, and his face was friendly and inviting. The child and the puppy, with the intuition natural to their several states and ages, trusted and believed in him at once.

"And where are we going to, my little man?" The boy hung his head at this query, and answered nothing. "Aren't we rather a long way from home? Do you know, it strikes me that if we go much further we shall lose ourselves. Don't you think we'd better be going back again?" No answer still. The boy fondled the head of the pup as he lay in Brown-Smith's lap, and looked up once at his strange companion. "Don't you think," asked Brown