CHAPTER VII.

AN INTERRUPTION.

That somebody was Neal. Neal's mind was by far too composed a one to be ruffled by any sort of shock, and Neal's nerves were in first-rate order. It happened, however, that Neal was rather unpleasantly near to the front door at that moment, and the sudden sound, so sharp and long, did make him start.

When Neal removed the dinner things, he placed his plate and glasses in the pantry, and carried the tray with the other articles down to the kitchen. In going upstairs again he was called to by Watton, the upper woman-servant of the family, who was as old as Neal himself, and had lived with them for some years. She was in the apartment opening from the kitchen, a boarded room with a piece of square carpet in the middle. It was called the housekeeper's room, and was used as a sitting-room by the servants when their kitchen work was over for the day. The servants' entrance to the house was on this lower floor; steps ascending from it to the outer door in the back garden.

"Did you call me?" asked Neal, looking in.

Watton had her hands busy papering some jars of jam. She turned round at the question, displaying a sallow face with quick dark eyes, and pointed with her elbow to a note lying on the table before her.

"A note for Miss Sara, Neal. It came five minutes ago."

"Jessy might have brought it up," remarked Neal. "Letters should never be delayed below."

"Jessy has stepped out," explained Watton. "And I want to get to an end with this jam; Miss Bettina expected it was done and put away this morning."

Neal carried the note upstairs to his pantry, and there examined it. But beyond the fact that it was superscribed "Miss Sara Davenal," Neal could gather no information to gratify his curiosity. The handwriting was not familiar to him; the envelope displayed neither crest nor coat-of-arms. He held it up, but not the most scrutinising eye could detect anything through it; he gingerly tried the fastening of the envelope, but it would not come apart without violence. As he was thus engaged he heard the dining-room door open, and he peeped out of his pantry.

It was Miss Sara. She was going upstairs to the drawing-room. Neal heard her enter it; and after the lapse of a minute or two, he followed her, bearing the note on a silver waiter. She had shut herself in. Somehow that conference in the dining-room was making her nervous.

"Who brought it, Neal?" she carelessly asked, taking the note from the waiter.

"I am unable to say, miss. It came when I was waiting at dinner."

Neal retired, closed the drawing-room door, and descended to his pantry. There he began making preparations for washing his dinner glasses, rather noisy ones for Neal. He put some water into a wooden bowl, rinsed the glasses in it, and turned them down to dry. Having advanced thus far, it probably struck Neal that a trifling interlude of recreation might be acceptable.

He stole cautiously along as far as the dining-room door, and there came to a halt, bending down his head and ear. Neal could calculate his chances as well as any living spy. He could not be disturbed unawares by Miss Sara from the drawing-room or the servants from the kitchen; and his sense of hearing was so acute, partly by nature, partly by exercise, that no one could approach to open the dining-room door from the inside without his getting ample warning. Neal had not played his favourite part for long years to be discovered at last.

There he had remained, listening to anything in the dining-room there might be to hear, until aroused by that strange knock--so loud, long, and near, that it startled even him. A noiseless glide back to his pantry, a slight clatter there with spoons and forks, and Neal came forth to answer the summons, with a far fleeter foot than Neal in general allowed his stately self to put forth, for the knocker had begun again and was knocking perpetually.

"Is all the town dying!" muttered Neal.

He pulled open the door, and there burst in two fine lads, sending their ringing shout of laughter through the house, and nearly upsetting the man in their wild haste, as they sprang past him into the dining-room, and on Dr. Davenal. Sara, alarmed at the unusual noise, came running down.

"You rogues!" exclaimed the doctor. "What brings you here today?"

They were too excited to explain very lucidly. One day extra in a schoolboy's holidays, especially at the commencement, will turn young heads crazy. The usher who was to take charge of such of the boys whose homes lay this way, had received news that morning of the illness of a relative, and had to leave a day sooner: so they left also.

"Nothing loth, I'll answer for it," cried Dr. Davenal; and the boys laughed.

He placed them both before him, and looked first at one, then at the other, regarding what alteration six months had made. There was a general likeness between them, as regarded eyes, hair, and complexion, but none in features. Richard, the eldest, generally called Dick, was a good-tempered, saucy-looking boy, with a turned-up nose; Leopold had more delicate features, and seemed less strong.

"You have both grown," said the doctor; "but Leo's thin. How do your studies get on, Dick?"

"Oh--middling," acknowledged Dick, a remarkably candid lad. "Uncle Richard, I'm the best cricketer in the whole school. There's not one of the fellows can come up to me."

"The best what, Richard?" said Miss Bettina, bending her ear to the lad.

"Cricketer, Aunt Bett," repeated Richard.

"Good boy! good boy!" said Miss Bettina approvingly. "Resolve to be the best scholar always, and you _will_ be the best. You shall have a pot of fresh jam for tea, Dick."

Dick smothered his laughter. "I am not a good scholar at all, Aunt Bett. Leo is: but he's a muff at cricket."

"Not a good scholar!" repeated Miss Bettina, catching those words correctly. "Did you not tell me you were the best scholar?"

"No. I said I was the best cricketer," responded Dick.

"Oh," said Miss Bettina, her face resuming its severity. "_That_ will do you no good, Richard."

"Aren't you deafer than before, Aunt Bett?"

"Am I what?" asked Miss Bettina. "_Darker!_ I never was dark yet. Not one of all the Davenal family had a skin as fair as mine. What put that fancy into your head, Master Richard?"

"I said deafer, Aunt Bett," repeated Richard. "I am sure you are just as deaf again as you were at Christmas! Uncle Richard, we had a boat-race yesterday. I was second oar."

"I don't like those boat-races," hastily interrupted Caroline.

"Girls never do," said Mr. Richard, loftily. "As if they'd like to blister their hands with the oars! Look at mine."

He extended his right hand, palm upwards, triumphant in blisters. Dr. Davenal spoke.

"I don't like boat-racing for you boys, either, Dick."

"Oh, it was prime, Uncle Richard! One of the boats tipped over, and the fellows got a ducking."

"That's just it," said Dr. Davenal. "Boats 'tip' over when you inexperienced young gentlemen least expect it. It has led to loss of life sometimes, Dick."

"Any muff can scramble out of the water, Uncle Richard. Some of us fellows can swim like an otter."

"And some can't swim at all, I suppose. What did Dr. Keen say when he heard of the boatful going over?"

Richard Davenal raised his honest, wide-open eyes to his uncle, some surprise in their depths. "It didn't get to Keen's ears, Uncle Richard! He knew nothing of the boat-race; we had it out of bounds. As if Keen wouldn't have stopped it for us, if he had known. He thought we were off to the cricket-field."

"Well, you must be a nice lot of boys!" cried Dr. Davenal, quaintly. "Does he give a prize for honour? You'd get it, Dick, if he did."

Dick laughed. "It's the same at all schools, Uncle Richard. If we let the masters into the secret of all our fun, mighty little of it should we get."

"I think they ought to be let into the fun that consists in going on the water. There's danger in that."

"Not a bit of it, Uncle Richard. It was the jolliest splash! The chief trouble was getting the dry things to put on. They had been laid up in the boxes ready to come home with us, and we had to put out no end of stratagem to get at them."

"A jolly splash, was it! Were you one of the immersed ones, Dick?"

"Not I," returned Dick, throwing back his head. "As if we second-desk fellows couldn't manage a boat better than that! Leo was."

"How many of you were drowned, Leo?"

Leo opened his eyes as wide as Dick had previously done. "_Drowned_, Uncle Richard! Not one. We scrambled out as easy as fun. There's no fear of our getting drowned."

"No fear at all, as it seems to me," returned the doctor. "But there's danger of it, Leo."

Leo made no reply. Perhaps he scarcely defined the distinction of the words. Dr. Davenal remained silent for a minute, lost in thought; then he sat down, and held the two lads in front of him.

"Did either of you ever observe a white house, lying back on a hill, just as you pass the next station to this--Hildon?"

"I know it," cried out Richard. "It is old Low's."

"Old Low's, if you choose to call him so, but he is not as old as I am, Master Dick. Some people in that neighbourhood called him Squire Low. He is Lady Oswald's landlord. A few years ago, boys, I was sent for to his house; that very house upon the hill. Mr. Low's mother was living with him then, and I found she was taken ill. I went for several days in succession: sometimes I saw Mr. Low's sons, three nice lads, but daring as you two are, and about your present age. One afternoon,--listen, both of you,--I had no sooner got home from Mr. Low's, than I was surprised to see one of his men riding up here at a fierce rate. The railway was not opened then. I feared old Mrs. Low might be worse, and I hastened out to the man myself. He had come galloping all the way, and he asked me to gallop back as quickly"----

"Old Mrs. Low was dead!" cried quick Dick.

"No, sir, she was not dead. She was no worse than when I left her. Mr. Low's three sons had done just what you tell me you did yesterday. They went upon the river at Hildon in a rowing-boat, and the boat upset--tipped over, as you call it; and the poor boys had not found it so easy to scramble out as you, Leo, and your comrades did. One of them was out, the man said; he thought that the other two were not. So I mounted my own horse and hastened over."

"But what did they want with you, Uncle Richard? Were there no doctors near?"

"Yes. When I got there a doctor was over the lad: but Mr. Low had confidence in me, and in his distress he sent for me. It was the youngest who was saved--James."

"What! James Low, who goes about in that hand-chair."

"The very same, Dick. From that hour he has never had the proper use of his limbs. A species of rheumatic affection--we call it so for want of a better name--is upon him perpetually. When the illness and fever that supervened upon the accident were over, and which lasted some weeks, we found his strength did not return to him, and he has remained a confirmed invalid. And that was the result of one of those tips over which you deem so harmless."

"Will he never get well?" asked Leo.

"Never, I fear."

"And the two other boys, Uncle Richard? Did they scramble out at last?"

"No, Leo. They were drowned."

Leo remained silent; Dick also. Dr. Davenal resumed.

"Yes, they were drowned. I stood in the room where the coffins rested, side by side, the day before the funeral, Mr. Low with me. He told how generally obedient his poor boys were, save in that one particular, the going upon the water. He had had some contentions with them upon the point; he had a great dislike to the water for them--a dread of their venturing on it, for the river at Hildon is dangerous, and the boys were inexperienced. But they were daring-spirited boys who could see no danger in it, and--listen, Dick!--did not believe there was any. And they thought they'd just risk it for once, and they did so; and this was the result. I shall never forget their father's sobs as he told me this over the poor cold faces in the coffins."

The young Davenals had grown sober.

"My lads, I have told you this little incident--but I think you must have heard somewhat of it before, for it is known to all Hallingham just as well as it is to me--to prove to you that there _is_ danger connected with the water, more particularly for inexperienced boys. Where does the school get the boats?"

"We hire them," answered Dick. "There's a boat association in the place; poor men who keep boats, and hire them out to anybody who'll pay."

"They should be forbidden to hire them to schoolboys of your age. I think I shall drop a hint to Dr. Keen." Dick Davenal grew frightened. "For goodness sake don't do that, Uncle Richard! If the school knew it got to Keen through you, they'd send me and Leo to Coventry."

"I'll take care you don't get sent to Coventry through me, Dick. But I cannot let you run the liability of this danger."

"I don't think I'll go on the water again at school, Uncle Richard," said Leo, who had sat down, and was nursing his leg thoughtfully.

"I don't much think you will," said the doctor.

Leo continued to nurse his leg. Dick, who had little thought about him, had thrown his arms around Sara's waist, and was whispering to her. Both the lads loved Sara. When they had arrived little strangers from the West Indies, new to the doctor's house and its inmates, new to everything else, they had taken wonderfully to Sara, and she to them. You do not need to be told that they were the lads whom poor Richard Davenal was to have escorted over; and when they came they brought his effects with them.