Squire Norman had a clerical friend whose rectory of Carstone lay
some thirty miles from Normanstand. Thirty miles is not a great
distance for railway travel; but it is a long drive. The days had
not come, nor were they ever likely to come, for the making of a
railway between the two places. For a good many years the two men
had met in renewal of their old University days. Squire Norman and
Dr. An Wolf had been chums at Trinity, Cambridge, and the boyish
friendship had ripened and lasted. When Harold An Wolf had put in
his novitiate in a teeming Midland manufacturing town, it was
Norman's influence which obtained the rectorship for his friend. It
was not often that they could meet, for An Wolf's work, which, though
not very exacting, had to be done single-handed, kept him to his
post. Besides, he was a good scholar and eked out a small income by
preparing a few pupils for public school. An occasional mid-week
visit to Normanstand in the slack time of school work on the Doctor's
part, and now and again a drive by Norman over to the rectory,
returning the next day, had been for a good many years the measure of
their meeting. Then An Wolf's marriage and the birth of a son had
kept him closer to home. Mrs. An Wolf had been killed in a railway
accident a couple of years after her only child had been born; and at
the time Norman had gone over to render any assistance in his power
to the afflicted man, and to give him what was under the
circumstances his best gift, sympathy. After an interval of a few
years the Squire's courtship and marriage, at which his old friend
had assisted, had confined his activities to a narrower circle. The
last time they had met was when An Wolf had come over to Norcester to
aid in the burial of his friend's wife. In the process of years,
however, the shadow over Norman's life had begun to soften; when his
baby had grown to be something of a companion, they met again.
Norman, 'who had never since his wife's death been able to tear
himself, even for a night, away from Normanstand and Stephen, wrote
to his old friend asking him to come to him. An Wolf gladly
promised, and for a week of growing expectation the Squire looked
forward to their meeting. Each found the other somewhat changed, in
all but their old affection.
An Wolf was delighted with the little Stephen. Her dainty beauty
seemed to charm him; and the child, seeming to realise what pleasure
she was giving, exercised all her little winning ways. The rector,
who knew more of children than did his, friend, told her as she sat
on his knee of a very interesting person: his own son. The child
listened, interested at first, then enraptured. She asked all kinds
of questions; and the father's eyes brightened as he gladly answered
the pretty sympathetic child, already deep in his heart for her
father's sake. He told her about the boy who was so big and strong,
and who could run and leap and swim and play cricket and football
better than any other boy with whom he played. When, warmed himself
by the keen interest of the little girl, and seeing her beautiful
black eyes beginning to glow, he too woke to the glory of the time;
and all the treasured moments of the father's lonely heart gave out
their store. And the other father, thrilled with delight because of
his baby's joy with, underlying all, an added pleasure that the
little Stephen's interest was in sports that were for boys, looked on
approvingly, now and again asking questions himself in furtherance of
the child's wishes.
All the afternoon they sat in the garden, close to the stream that
came out of the rock, and An Wolf told father's tales of his only
son. Of the great cricket match with Castra Puerorum when he had
made a hundred not out. Of the school races when he had won so many
prizes. Of the swimming match in the Islam River when, after he had
won the race and had dressed himself, he went into the water in his
clothes to help some children who had upset a boat. How when Widow
Norton's only son could not be found, he dived into the deep hole of
the intake of the milldam of the great Carstone mills where Wingate
the farrier had been drowned. And how, after diving twice without
success, he had insisted on going down the third time though people
had tried to hold him back; and how he had brought up in his arms the
child all white and so near death that they had to put him in the
ashes of the baker's oven before he could be brought back to life.
When her nurse came to take her to bed, she slid down from her
father's knee and coming over to Dr. An Wolf, gravely held out her
hand and said: 'Good-bye!' Then she kissed him and said:
'Thank you so much, Mr. Harold's daddy. Won't you come soon again,
and tell us more?' Then she jumped again upon her father's knee and
hugged him round the neck and kissed him, and whispered in his ear:
'Daddy, please make Mr. Harold's daddy when he comes again, bring
Harold with him!'
After all it is natural for women to put the essence of the letter in
the postscript!
Two weeks afterwards Dr. An Wolf came again and brought Harold with
him. The time had gone heavily with little Stephen when she knew
that Harold was coming with his father. Stephen had been all afire
to see the big boy whose feats had so much interested her, and for a
whole week had flooded Mrs. Jarrold with questions which she was
unable to answer. At last the time came and she went out to the hall
door with her father to welcome the guests. At the top of the great
granite steps, down which in time of bad weather the white awning
ran, she stood holding her father's hand and waving a welcome.
'Good morning, Harold! Good morning, Mr. Harold's daddy!'
The meeting was a great pleasure to both the children, and resulted
in an immediate friendship. The small girl at once conceived a great
admiration for the big, strong boy nearly twice her age and more than
twice her size. At her time of life the convenances are not, and
love is a thing to be spoken out at once and in the open. Mrs.
Jarrold, from the moment she set eyes on him, liked the big kindly-
faced boy who treated her like a lady, and who stood awkwardly
blushing and silent in the middle of the nursery listening to the
tiny child's proffers of affection. For whatever kind of love it is
that boys are capable of, Harold had fallen into it. 'Calf-love' is
a thing habitually treated with contempt. It may be ridiculous; but
all the same it is a serious reality--to the calf.
Harold's new-found affection was as deep as his nature. An only
child who had in his memory nothing of a mother's love, his naturally
affectionate nature had in his childish days found no means of
expression. A man child can hardly pour out his full heart to a man,
even a father or a comrade; and this child had not, in a way, the
consolations of other children. His father's secondary occupation of
teaching brought other boys to the house and necessitated a domestic
routine which had to be exact. There was no place for little girls
in a boys' school; and though many of Dr. An Wolf's friends who were
mothers made much of the pretty, quiet boy, and took him to play with
their children, he never seemed to get really intimate with them.
The equality of companionship was wanting. Boys he knew, and with
them he could hold his own and yet be on affectionate terms. But
girls were strange to him, and in their presence he was shy. With
this lack of understanding of the other sex, grew up a sort of awe of
it. His opportunities of this kind of study were so few that the
view never could become rectified.
And so it was that from his boyhood up to his twelfth year, Harold's
knowledge of girlhood never increased nor did his awe diminish. When
his father had told him all about his visit to Normanstand and of the
invitation which had been extended to him there came first awe, then
doubt, then expectation. Between Harold and his father there was
love and trust and sympathy. The father's married love so soon cut
short found expression towards his child; and between them there had
never been even the shadow of a cloud. When his father told him how
pretty the little Stephen was, how dainty, how sweet, he began to
picture her in his mind's eye and to be bashfully excited over
meeting her.
His first glimpse of Stephen was, he felt, one that he never could
forget. She had made up her mind that she would let Harold see what
she could do. Harold could fly kites and swim and play cricket; she
could not do any of these, but she could ride. Harold should see her
pony, and see her riding him all by herself. And there would be
another pony for Harold, a big, big, big one--she had spoken about
its size herself to Topham, the stud-groom. She had coaxed her daddy
into promising that after lunch she should take Harold riding. To
this end she had made ready early. She had insisted on putting on
the red riding habit which Daddy had given her for her birthday, and
now she stood on the top of the steps all glorious in hunting pink,
with the habit held over her arms, with the tiny hunting-hoots all
shiny underneath. She had no hat on, and her beautiful hair of
golden red shone in its glory. But even it was almost outshone by
the joyous flush on her cheeks as she stood waving the little hand
that did not hold Daddy's. She was certainly a picture to dream of!
Her father's eyes lost nothing of her dainty beauty. He was so proud
of her that he almost forgot to wish that she had been a boy. The
pleasure he felt in her appearance was increased by the fact that her
dress was his own idea.
During luncheon Stephen was fairly silent; she usually chattered all
through as freely as a bird sings. Stephen was silent because the
occasion was important. Besides, Daddy wasn't all alone, and
therefore had not to be cheered up. Also--this in postscript form--
Harold was silent! In her present frame of mind Harold could do no
wrong, and what Harold did was right. She was unconsciously learning
already a lesson from his presence.
That evening when going to bed she came to say good-night to Daddy.
After she had kissed him she also kissed 'old Mr. Harold,' as she now
called him, and as a matter of course kissed Harold also. He
coloured up at once. It was the first time a girl had ever kissed
him.
The next day from early morning until bed-time was one long joy to
Stephen, and there were few things of interest that Harold had not
been shown; there were few of the little secrets which had not been
shared with him as they went about hand in hand. Like all manly boys
Harold was good to little children and patient with them. He was
content to follow Stephen about and obey all her behests. He had
fallen in love with her to the very bottom of his boyish heart.
When the guests were going, Stephen stood with her father on the
steps to see them off. When the carriage had swept behind the
farthest point in the long avenue, and when Harold's cap waving from
the window could no longer be seen, Squire Norman turned to go in,
but paused in obedience to the unconscious restraint of Stephen's
hand. He waited patiently till with a long sigh she turned to him
and they went in together.
That night before she went to bed Stephen came and sat on her
father's knee, and after sundry pattings and kissings whispered in
his ear:
'Daddy, wouldn't it be nice if Harold could come here altogether?
Couldn't you ask him to? And old Mr. Harold could come too. Oh, I
wish he was here!'
