A Trying Patient, etc

Front matter

THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. Library Editions of Stories by the Best Authors, many Illustrated. Crown 8vo., cloth extra 3-r. 6d. each. By F. M. ALLEN. Green as Grass. By DUTTON COOK. Paul Foster's Daughter. By V. CECIL COTES. Two Girls on a Barge. By MATT CRIM. Adventures of a Fair Rebel. By GRANT ALLEN. Strange Stories. For Maimie's Sake. Philistia. The Devils Die. Babylon. This Mortal Coil. The Beckoning Hand The Tents of S hem. In all Shades, [ter. The Great Taboo. Dumaresq's Daugh- Blood Royal. The Duchess of Powysland. By B. M. CROKER. Pretty Miss Neville. I Diana Barrington. A Bird of Passage. | Proper Pride. By WILLIAM CYPLES. Hearts of Gold. By EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD. Phra the Phœnician. By ALAN ST. AUBYN. A Fellow of Trinity. | The Junior Dean. By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. Red Spider. | Eve. By ALPHONSE DAUDET.

The Evangelist ; or, Port Salvation. By ERASMUS DAWSON. The Fountain of Youth. By JAMES DE MILLE. A Castle in Spain. By J. LEITH DERWENT. Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers. By DICK DONOVAN. Tracked to Doom. I Man from Manchester By A. CANON DOYLE. The Firm of Girdlestone. By WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE. My Little Girl. i Ten Years' Tenant. Case of Mr. Lucraft. j Ready-Money Mor- This Son of Vulcan. tiboy. TheGoldenButterfly. With Harp _ Crown. By Celia's Arbour. 'Twas in Trafalgar's Monks of Thelema. Bay. The Seamy Side. Chaplain of the Fleet By MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES. Archie Lovell. By G. MANVILLE FENN. The New Mistress. By WALTER BESANT. All Sorts and Condi- Uncle Jack. tions of Men. Children of Gibeon. The Captains' Room. Herr Paulus. By PERCY FITZGERALD. Fatal Zero. All in aGardenFair. The BellofSt.

Paul's. The World Went To Call Her Mine. By R. E. FRANCILLON. Queen Cophetua. I One by One. A Real Queen. | King or Knave ? Prefaced by SIR H. BARTLE FRERE. Pandurang Han. By EDWARD GARRETT. The Capel Girls. By CHARLES GIBBON. Robin Gray. I Of High Degree. The Golden Shaft. j Loving a Dream. The Flower of the Forest. Very Well Then. The Holy Rose. For Faith & Freedom St. Katherine's by Dorothy Forster. the Tower. Verbena Camellia Armorei of Lyonesse Stephanotis. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. Shadow of the Sworu I Annan Water. A Child of Nature. Matt. The Martyrdom of , The New Abelard. Madeline. Foxglove Manor. God and the Man. Master of the Mine. Love Me for Ever. The Heir of Linne. By ERNEST GLANVILLE. The Lost Heiress. | The Fossicker. By E. J. GOODMAN. The Fate of Herbert Wayne. By CECIL GRIFFITH.

Chapter I. The Journey

The morning train is starting from the London terminus to the English Lakes. It is very crowded, as is always the case in summer-time, for that district is, of all others in England, the most attractive to the lovers of nature. Its size is small as compared with picturesque districts in other parts of the world ; but every portion of it is beautiful. It has been the home of some of the greatest of English poets, who have described it in many a verse ; and it is no wonder that the toil worn Londoners — many of whom are for eleven months ' in city pent ' — should choose it for the scene of their well-earned holiday. Most of the passengers are holiday-makers. In the first-class carriages the passengers are providing themselves with books, and flowers, and fruit for the journey, or laying in stores of picture papers for their gaily dressed children ; in the second-class they, for the most part, content themselves with the literature they have brought with them instead of patronizing the bookstalls ; in the third-class a few newspapers are bought ; but the thought of the unwonted pleasures that are awaiting them is generally sufficient for their inmates.

Each of these poor folks has a bag or parcel containing articles of food, since they have no money to throw away upon the comparatively dear refreshments that are to be procured at the stations. Everyone, however, is in the highest spirits — a possession, thank Heaven, quite independent of riches or poverty — and especially the young folks. In the South of England there are no lakes, unless ponds can be called so, and few hills that can by any stretch of the imagination be called mountains ; and it was to the sight of these last that they were chiefly looking forward. What most of them expected to see were pyramids coming to a point, as mountains are depicted in the geography books, to denote the proportion of their relative size. But, with a few exceptions, such as the famous Sugar -Loaf Mountain and the Jung Frau, Nature does not produce these things ; the top of a high mountain is as difficult to see from below as it is to reach by climbing.

The train is about to start, and the carriage doors are crowded with those who are taking leave of their friends and wishing them a happy holiday. We must all be left behind by those who are nearest and dearest to us some day, and to many of us, alas ! it happens, even in this life, many times. With the poor this is especially so. If there is money enough to send Jack and Jane for ' an outing,' there is not enough for Margaret and Mark also ; and if father can spare time from his work for a day or two's holiday, mother has to stop at home and see after the house and those who are left in it. The worst kind of partings are those when Jack and Mark are forced to go beyond seas to get (heir living, and when their mother fears, though she hides her fears and her tears as well as she can, that she may never see them again.

But the good-byes of which we are now speaking were very cheery ones. ' Mind you enjoy yourselves, my dears, and don't trouble to write unless you get bad weather;' and then, after some affectionate reply to the considerate speech, ' Oh, we shall get on well enough at home, and all the better for knowing you are so happy.' A sentiment which, perhaps a little feigned (in order to make things pleasant for the runaways), is truer than the speaker herself (a mother, we may be sure) is aware of ; for people who find their own happiness in the happiness of others are the happiest people in the world. There is one exception, however, to all this throng of pleasure-seekers and their relatives. A boy of eleven years old, very dark, and somewhat spare and delicate-looking for an English boy, is shyly making his way through the crowd about the door of a third-class railway carriage. ' Here's a young one hasn't found his seat,' says one of the mothers kindly. ' Your friends are not in this carriage, I think, my lad.' 'I have no friends — at least, not in the train,' he answers, a little huskily. ' What, going all by yourself so far ?

Well, I dare say somebody will meet you at Windermere whose face you will be glad to see.' The boy answered nothing; but he flushed to his forehead, and into his eyes there came a glistening look. ' Jack,' she continued, noting his embarrassment, and turning to a lad of his own age who sat in the carriage, ' you make friends with this young fellow, and see that he wants nothing on the road ; you have luncheon enough for two in your basket.' At the same time she stooped forward, and whispered in her son's ear, ' I don't think the poor boy has got any friends ; leastways, not a mother, as you have.' Jack, a thick-set, good-natured-looking fellow, who if put in the railway scales would have weighed down two such boys as the young stranger, answered cheerfully, ' All right, mother,' and then the train, with a snort of impatience, began to glide smoothly out of the station.

Jack himself was taking the journey alone (although he had friends at both ends of it, which makes a deal of difference), so that he had plenty of opportunity, while their fellow-travellers were engaged upon their own concerns, to make acquaintance with his new neighbour. He looked him over with kindly superiority, as some big St. Bernard regards a poodle he meets with in the street, and then put a few personal questions — a method used by boys (as it was of old by Socrates) for getting at the root of things. ' My name is John Harness : what is your name ?' ' Andrew Parkes.' ' What makes you so precious black in the face ?' ' It is the Indian sun. I have only just come from Calcutta.' The other regarded him with amazement, not unmixed with admiration. He had never met with anyone of his own age who had been so far before, except an Australian boy — nicknamed Topsy Turvy, from living in the under-world — and he was of the same colour as other people. ' And how long have you been in India ?' ' All my life.

I was born there.' It came into Jack Harness's mind, still occupied with the other's blackness, to inquire whether his father had been also of the same remarkable hue ; but he thought perhaps it might hurt his feelings. ' And what did you do in Calcutta ?' ' I was at school there.' Then, as if expecting the question that would probably come next, he added, in a lower tone, ' I had no home.' ' Poor little beggar !' murmured Jack to himself. He looked at him so tenderly — wondering whether he had lived in the open air when not at school — that the other was encouraged to go on. ' My mother died years ago, and I have ever since been among strangers.' ' But your father : you don't mean to say your father deserted you ?' ' Deserted me ! He is the kindest of fathers ; but I could not live where he lived.

He is in service with one of the native princes, his Highness the Rajah of Seringabadad.' Jack Harness gave such a long and sustained whistle that some people put their heads out of the next carriage windows, under the impression that the engine had given warning of some obstruc tion on the road. It was Jack's way of expressing astonishment. To be connected with the Rajah of Seringabadad seemed to him a magnificent an nouncement, but with drawbacks. ' Servant to a black king !' he reflected (he always reflected aloud). ' I shouldn't like that, if I were him.' (Jack should have said ' he,' and not ' him '; but surprise is often too much for grammar.) ' My father is not the rajah's servant,' returned Andrew, with a spot of colour in his cheeks ; ' he is the lieutenant of his body-guard. He is the handsomest man, as he is the best and bravest, in all India.

His uniform is crimson and white and gold. His horse is as black as a coal, and as full of fire.' Jack felt the position of himself and friend had become reversed ; he could not but regard with respect a boy with a father of this description. Jack's own father was a most worthy man, but he had never seen him on horseback — and didn't want to see him, because he loved him. Mr. Harness had once, on a Bank Holiday, driven the family in a ' four-wheel ' out into the country ; but the expe dition had not been successful, and yet it had been a quiet horse, too. ' Did your father use to ride into Calcutta and call at the school ?' inquired Jack, making a picture in his mind of this gorgeous performance, and of the sensation it would make at his school. ' Oh dear no ; he lived a thousand miles away.

Once mother and I went to see him. He took us over the rajah's treasury, and there were rubies and sapphires and diamonds. His palace was of white marble.' Jack had read of such things, but only in the ' Arabian Nights.' ' I say, you are not humbugging me, young fellow, are you ?' he exclaimed sharply. The other looked up, amazed in his turn. ' Do you mean am I telling you lies about my father?' THE SCHOLAR OF SILVER SCAR His annoyance was so genuine that Jack felt a little ashamed of himself for suspecting his new friend of drawing the long-bow. 'I didn't mean lies exactly,' he replied apolo getically ; ' I thought, coming from India, you know, you might be given to indulging in a little Eastern — what do you call it? — Eastern imagery. Have a bit of cold sausage ?' But Andrew shook his head with an offended air, and, being next the window, occupied himself in looking at the country as it whirled past them.

The train was an express one, and going at forty miles an hour. Presently, the silence growing irksome to Jack, who was really interested in his companion, he inquired rather peevishly what on earth he saw in a few fields and trees to attract his attention so much. ' It is their greenness,' replied the other gravely. ' In India there is hardly anything that is green and fresh.' Jack, who was a joker in a small way, had it upon the tip of his tongue to say that when things ■ — or, at all events, some things — got green in England, they were thought anything but fresh ; but there was something in his companion's simplicity that restrained him. Besides, there is no fun in chaffing a boy when there is no other boy to enjoy it ; it is a game that cannot be played by less than three. 'The air, too, is so beautiful here,' continued the unconscious Andrew. ' In India it is warm, like air from a stove.' ' Then upon the whole you are not sorry to get away from it ?' ' I am sorry to be separated from my father, whom I shall not see for two years, when he gets leave of absence ; but I like England better than India.' ' And have you no friends in England ?' 'No.' This answer was given in so curt a tone that most persons would have thought it significant.

But Jack, who was not particular about his own tones sometimes, only thought his companion was a little snappish, or perhaps tired of his questions. 'It must be a queer thing,' he reflected (aloud as usual), 'to be without a relative.' ' I did not say I was without a relative,' said Andrew bitterly. ' I have a cousin in London. I have been staying with him since I came to England. He has not, however, been kind to me.' This surprised Harness, who, as simple in his way as Parkes in his — though he knew, of course, more about life in England — thought kin was bound to be kind. ' Well, he must have some good about him, or he would not be sending you for a holiday to Lakeland.' ' He is not sending me. And I am not going for a holiday. I am going to school.' ' So am I,' said Harness, with momentary de spondency. ' We're in the same boat.

And what school are you going to ?' ' To Silverscar.' 'By Jove!' said Harness, for though not famous for his classical attainments, it was his habit to invoke that heathen divinity. ' By Jove ! why, that's my school.' Nothing that Parkes had said, not even about the rajah's body-guard, had interested him so much as this news, for nothing does interest boys and girls (and, I have heard it whispered, even men and women) so much as a matter that affects them selves. ' And how on earth came you in India to know anything about Silverscar ?' ' I am not sure,' said Andrew ; ' but I think that mother came from somewhere in the Lake country, and that made father choose it.' Then he added, with a little trepidation in his tone, 'Is it a nice school ?' ' There is no such thing as a nice school,' said Harness scornfully ; ' only some schools are nastier than others.

Silverscar House ain't a palace of white marble, and there are no rubies and diamonds about, I promise you.' 'I don't expect that,' said Andrew humbly. Their positions had come round to where they started from. He was the new boy, and Jack was the old one. ' Well, that's fortunate. They keep one's nose to the grindstone at lesson-time, I promise you.' Andrew rubbed his nose as though it were already in that unpleasant position — he did not understand all English phrases. ' But when we're out of school,' continued Har ness, ' it's not so bad. In the summer there's boating and plenty of sports.' ' Not tiger-hunting ?' ' No, you silly ! we have no tigers in England. The public games that are held all through the summer in the Lake country are called " sports." Wrestling, and the trail, and guide races.

They are the best fun in all the world. The hunting, of course, is in winter time; then we go on foot after the hill fox, and hunt the foul mart and the sweet mart ; and there's skating upon the lakes by moonlight. Yes,' concluded Harness, with the air of one who makes a handsome admission, ' school would be a pleasant place enough for a fellow if it wasn't for the lessons and the school masters.' ' But is not Mr. Hannier a nice man ?' 'We generally call him old Hammer,' observed Harness dryly, ' when we are talking about him among ourselves. Oh yes, there are worse men than he about; and Mother Shipton, she's a really good sort, she is.' ' But she is not your mother,' objected Andrew. ' Well, you ave green ! If there was nothing else green in India, there was you till you came away. Of course she isn't. She's Mrs. Shepton, old Ham mer's sister, who keeps his house for him.

Ain't she down upon you with the mustard plasters if you have a sore throat, and specially if you have not got one, but are only shamming ill ! Perhaps her rhubarb and magnesia aren't nasty either, nor yet her pills. Why do pills make you shiver down the small of your back, I wonder? If they don't do it in India, it must be because it's too hot to shiver.' ' They do,' said Parkes, with a shudder of remi niscence. ' Bah ! It makes me queer,' said Harness, ' even to talk about them. Let us have a bit of pork sausage. There's garlic in it enough to take the taste out of anything ;' and the two boys fell to upon the contents of good Mrs. Harness's basket with a will. 'If this was a smoking-carriage,' said Harness, with a lordly air, when he had devoured what must have gone some way to making up a whole pig, and washed it down with a bottle of ginger-beer, ' I should smoke.' ' A hookah ?' inquired Andrew.

Harness looked at him suspiciously, thinking that Parkes was making fun of him — a thing he richly deserved for giving himself such grown-up airs — but a moment's examination of the other's face convinced him of his innocence. 'No, not a hookah,' he replied, considerably abashed ; to say truth, he had never even tried a pipe ; he sometimes indulged himself with smoking a bit of cane, the effect of which had not been very satisfactory; it had made his head go round and caused him to feel very sick. On the last occasion he had been caught in the act by old Hammer, who had said, ' Since you are so fond of cane, Harness,' etc., etc. Indeed, the whole incident had been a painful one, and the subject (including Harness himself) too tender to be alluded to for some time by any of his schoolfellows ; only he had wished to impress Parkes, who was not cogni zant of these things, with the sense of his manliness and superiority, and somehow the attempt had been a failure.

It always is so when we try to impose upon other people by appearing older and wiser than we are. Nothing ever comes of it — not even smoke. Under this consciousness of failure, Harness took out of his basket a story-book : he didn't much care for reading, but even literature is better than a sense of mortification ; and for some time he held his tongue. Parkes, who had no book, turned his attention to the scenery, which had strangely altered. The train had now reached the manufacturing district. The trees and fields had lost their verdure; a canopy of smoke hung everywhere ; the roads were apparently made of small coal. The people seemed to be all chimney-sweepers, and, indeed, there were chimneys enough, and very high ones, to give occupation to a great many persons in that line. Andrew had been accustomed to scenery of a brown colour, ' a good durable drab,' but this was the first time he had beheld ' the Black Country.' A huge furnace would now and then open its ponderous doors with a clang and a roar and shoot forth a tongue of flame, as if hi scorn ; but with that exception everything was of the same smoky hue.

The monotony of the landscape began to pall upon him, and presently he fell asleep. When he awoke, the train was moving gently down an incline, through fields with huge crags in them (' boulders,' they are called), looking as though they had dropped from the skies. The divisions of these fields were no longer hedges, but walls with large loose stones, with holes under them here and there for dogs and sheep to go through; on all sides were green swelling hillocks ('howes'), generally plumed with trees. The landscape had been changed as though by the hand of an enchanter from a land of slag and coke and smoke and steam to Arcadia. Andrew became dreamily conscious of there being some excitement among his fellow passengers. ' What's the matter ?' he whispered to his com panion. ' Awake at last, are you ?' was the reply. ' Some fellows when they couldn't sleep themselves would have disturbed you ; but I'm so jolly good-natured.

There's nothing the matter, only most of these people have never seen a mountain. You are going to have your first look at the fells.' As he spoke, he pointed to the window. The train had just reached a point where suddenly the great circle of Cumberland mountains leapt into view. Rank behind rank they stood — the lesser ones with green and rounded tops, the higher filling up the horizon with their gray heads in the skies : a sublime spectacle which produced that murmurous applause among the spectators which is elsewhere evoked only by fireworks on a grand scale. Beneath them, so close that the tram seemed almost to glide into it, lay a long, winding lake, with wooded shores and islands covered with foliage — a scene of which, if you saw it in a picture, you would say, ' This is too beautiful to be true !' To Andrew Parkes, used to Calcutta and the river Hooghly, it seemed like a dream of Paradise. 'What is it?' the boy inquired, with hushed delight. 'What's what?' replied the other indifferently. 'Oh, that?— that's Windermere.'

Chapter II. The Arrival

At the station the boys found Mr. Hanmer, who had come, of course, upon Andrew's account only. Harness ' knew his way about ' in more senses than one. He was not so good at book-learning as his friends could have wished ; but he was not an idler, and had a very sensible head on his shoulders. He was one of those boys who could have been trusted to find his way alone to any place on the Continent of Europe, though he would have come back without much profit in the way of ' accent ' from foreign travel. ' Old Hammer,' as Jack irreverently called him, was very unlike the idea Andrew had formed of a schoolmaster. He had no spectacles, nor even a white cravat. He wore a well-worn suit of gray, and a soft hat, very thick-nailed boots, and looked like a farmer. ' Well, my boy, how are you ?' said he to Parkes.

His voice was gruff, and he spoke with a strong North Country ' burr '; but he held out his large ungloved hand cordially enough. The contrast between his thick-set frame and that of his slim, delicate-looking pupil from India was remarkable. He looked like a lion (a little out of condition) making friends with an Italian greyhound. ' You have had a long journey. I hope you left your father well ?' ' Yes, thank you, sir.' ' When did you see him last ?' ' Thirteen months ago, sir.' ' Umph !' said the schoolmaster It was but an interjection ; yet the manner of uttering it seemed somehow to express, ' That is a bad job !' and to sympathize generally with the boy's unfortunate condition. ' My father gave me this for you, sir,' said Andrew, placing in the other's hand a large letter, looking as if it had enclosures in it.

As he did so, his eyes dwelt upon the handwriting as one who parts with something dear to him. 'Is there anything in it you wish to see?' inquired the schoolmaster, ' or will it keep till we get home ?' ' There is nothing for me in it, sir,' said Andrew, with a little blush ; ' but if you don't mind, when you have quite done with it, I should like to have the envelope.' ' So you shall, my lad,' said old Hammer, looking at him curiously, with half-closed eyes. ' Pick out your luggage, boys, and come along to the car.' The car of the Lake country is like a pew for four on wheels, generally with a covering over it, because it rains there three days out of four. On this occasion, however, it was gloriously fine weather, and the canopy was only for the accommodation of the boxes. Most boys when they first go to school have their minds full of the reception they are likely to meet with ; they are wondering whether they shall like the other boys — or, what is of more consequence, whether the other boys will like them — and thinking of the treatment they are about to experience.

But Parkes had no conception of what English school-life was likely to be, and was too much accustomed to be with strangers to feel much dread of them. Better — or worse — than all, was that he had no home-sickness to contend against, for he knew not what home was. He therefore gave his attention to things about him in a manner that struck his schoolmaster, who did not quite understand the reason of it, very much. ' Your young friend seems to be a good plucked one,' he observed to Harness, in a low tone. ' Oh yes, he's plucky enough ; but, then, he don't know, you know, sir. He's very green. I mean,' said Jack, correcting himself hastily, ' most un common ignorant.' ' Ah, you think that, do you ?' said old Hammer dryly. The notion of Master Harness declaiming against ignorance tickled him ; also, having a keen eye for character, he suspected that Andrew Parkes had about three times the wits possessed by Master Harness.

They had now reached a tongue of land project ing into the lake, on the other side of which was a ferry-house. Harness, who, though not dis tinguished as a conversationalist, liked to exercise his lungs, made a trumpet of his hollowed hands and bellowed, 'Boat, boat !' While the great boat was slowly being oared towards them, Mr. Ilanmor told Parkes the story of the ferry. ' One night in winter time, a party of men were sitting in yonder inn, drinking and making merry. It was terrible weather, and the lake that you see now so calm and peaceful was ploughed by the fierce wind into a sea. In a pause of the gale, the words "Boat, boat!" were heard from the other side. It seemed impossible that in such a night and at such an hour anyone could wish to cross. "It is the crier of Claefe!"said one of the men.

There was a superstition that in a quarry under the hill there dwelt some malevolent being so called, who amused himself on stormy nights with crying "Boat!" and luring the poor ferry-men to their destruction. ' It was necessary, however, if the call was genuine, that it should be obeyed, for the ferry was a Government one, bound to work night and day for the accommodation of the public. So the men crowded out into the darkness, and hearing the cry repeated again and again, helped the man with his boat and saw him off, but never beheld him return. The ferry-boat was found next morning bottom upwards.' ' Is that a true story ?' inquired Andrew. ' No, my lad, it is not,' said old Hammer, pleased with the directness of the boy's inquiry. ' It is one of the thousand and one stories of superstition that the ignorant like to believe in, though they affright them.