many barrows a day as any one in our gang.’
‘Then I may tell your sister you rejoice in the change?’
‘Why, it’s work one does not get deadly sick of, as if there was no making one’s self do it,’ said Leonard, eagerly; ‘it is work! and besides, here is sunshine and sea. I can get a sight of that every day; and now and then I can get a look into the bay, and Weymouth—looking like the old time.’ That was his first sorrowful intonation; but the next had the freshness of his age, ‘And there are thistles!’
‘Thistles?’
‘I thought you cared for thistles; for Miss May showed me one at Coombe; but it was not like what they are here—the spikes pointing out and pointing in along the edges of the leaves, and the scales lapping over so wonderfully in the bud.’
‘Picciola!’ said the Doctor to himself; and aloud, ‘Then you have time to enjoy them?’
‘When we are at work at a distance, dinner is brought out, and there is an hour and a half of rest; and on Sunday we may walk about the yards. You should have seen one of our gang, when I got him to look at the chevaux de frise round a bud, how he owned it was a regular patent invention; it just answered to Paley’s illustration.’
‘What, the watch?’ said the Doctor, seeing that the argument had been far from trite to his young friend. ‘So you read Paley?’
‘I read all such books as I could get up there,’ he answered; ‘they gave one something to think about.’
‘Have you no time for reading here?’
‘Oh, no! I am too sleepy to read except on school days and Sundays,’ he said, as if this were a great achievement.
‘And your acquaintance—is he a reader of Paley too?’
‘I believe the chaplain set him on it. He is a clerk, like me, and not much older. He is a regular Londoner, and can hardly stand the work; but he won’t give in if he can help it, or we might not be together.’
Much the Doctor longed to ask what sort of a friend this might be, but the warder’s presence forbade him; and he could only ask what they saw of each other.
‘We were near one another in school at Pentonville, and knew each other’s faces quite well, so that we were right glad to be put into the same gang. We may walk about the yard together on Sunday evening too.’
The Doctor had other questions on his lips that he again restrained, and only asked whether the Sundays were comfortable days.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Leonard, eagerly; but then he too recollected the official, and merely said something commonplace about excellent sermons, adding, ‘And the singing is admirable. Poor Averil would envy such a choir as we have! We sing so many of the old Bankside hymns.’
‘To make your resemblance to Dante’s hill of penitence complete, as Ethel says,’ returned the Doctor.
‘I should like it to be a hill of purification!’ said Leonard, understanding him better than he had expected.
‘It will, I think,’ said the Doctor, ‘to one at least. I am comforted to see you so brave. I longed to come sooner, but—’
‘I am glad you did not.’
‘How?’ But he did not pursue the question, catching from look and gesture, that Leonard could hardly have then met him with self-possession; and as the first bulletin of recovery is often the first disclosure of the severity of an illness, so the Doctor was more impressed by the prisoner’s evident satisfaction in his change of circumstances, than he would have been by mere patient resignation; and he let the conversation be led away to Aubrey’s prospects, in which Leonard took full and eager interest.
‘Tell Aubrey I am working at fortifications too,’ he said, smiling.
‘He could not go to Cambridge without you.’
‘I don’t like to believe that,’ said Leonard, gravely; ‘it is carrying the damage I have done further: but it can’t be. He always was fond of mathematics, and of soldiering. How is it at the old mill?’ he added, suddenly.
‘It is sold.’
‘Sold?’ and his eyes were intently fixed on the Doctor.
‘Yes, he is said to have been much in debt long before; but it was managed quietly—not advertised in the county papers. He went to London, and arranged it all. I saw great renovations going on at the mill, when I went to see old Hardy.’
‘Good old Hardy! how is he?’
‘Much broken. He never got over the shock; and as long as that fellow stayed at the mill, he would not let me attend him.’
‘Ha!’ exclaimed Leonard, but caught himself up.
A message came that Mr. Ernescliffe feared to miss the boat; and the Doctor could only give one tender grasp and murmured blessing, and hurry away, so much agitated that he could hardly join in Hector’s civilities to the officials, and all the evening seemed quite struck down and overwhelmed by the sight of the bright brave boy, and his patience in his dreary lot.
After this, at all the three months’ intervals at which Leonard might be seen, a visit was contrived to him, either by Dr. May or Mr. Wilmot; and Aubrey devoted his first leave of absence to staying at Maplewood, that Hector might take him to his friend; but he came home expatiating so much on the red hair of the infant hope of Maplewood, and the fuss that Blanche made about this new possession, that Ethel detected an unavowed shade of disappointment. Light and whitewash, abundant fare, garments sufficient, but eminently unbecoming, were less impressive than dungeons, rags, and bread and water; when, moreover, the prisoner claimed no pity, but rather congratulation on his badge of merit, improved Sunday dinner, and promotion to the carpenter’s shop, so as absolutely to excite a sense of wasted commiseration and uninteresting prosperity. Conversation constrained both
