George Manville Fenn

“ Cook reached the bank with the child in her arms just at the same moment as the man, who leaped off the barge, carrying Ned, whose eyes were closed and head drooping over the man’s shoulder.
“Oh, my poor darling boy!” wailed Cook. “He’s dead—he’s dead!”
“Not he, missus,” cried the bargeman. “I hooked him out too sharp. Here, hold up, young master. Don’t you cry, little missy; he’s on’y swallowed more water than’s good for him. ”

“ No motives can make a lie anything but a lie, and a lie is always a cowardly thing, whether we try to shield ourselves with it or others.
“But the kindness which prompted it, the courage that bore the punishment so bravely, the silence that has made a false heroism out of it—these are fine qualities, Haggart, and I hope you will carry them with you through life.” ”

“ Only Haggart turned his head, and looked again at the fourth-form boys, and as if they were under a spell, the grey eyes, full of terrified entreaty, were lifted to his. He tried to forget the look. He wished he could make that foolish chap understand that a caning was nothing, after all! All fellows worth their salt got caned at school. Well, after all, he had to take his chance with the others, but he wished he would not keep looking across at him in that beastly way, as if he had the keeping of his conscience!
“Well?” said the Doctor. ”

“ What would poor Mamma do?”
“Die?” he said confusedly. “Why—what? Here,” he cried, as recollection came back with a rush, “oh, Tizzy, don’t say you’ve lost the kite!”
“Lost the kite!” cried Cook, furiously now. “Oh, you wicked, wicked boy! What will your Mar say?”
“As she was precious glad I was a-comin’ by,” said the man, grinning. “There: don’t scold the youngster, missus. It was all an accident, wasn’t it, squire? But, I say, next time you climb a tree don’t you trust them poplars, for they’re as brittle as sere-wood. There: you’re all right now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Ned. ”

“ But alas! how short-lived are some of our pleasures! That fine twine was badly made, or one part was damaged, for, just when poor Tizzy’s little arm was being jerked by the kite in its efforts to escape and fly higher, the string parted about half-way, and the kite learned that, like many animated creatures, it could not fly alone, for it went off before the wind, falling and falling most pitifully, with Ned going at full speed after the flying string which trailed over the grass. ”

“ It does not take long to make a kite, if you know how, have the right things for the purpose, and Cook is in a good temper. But then, cooks are not always amiable, and that’s a puzzle; for disagreeable people are generally yellow and stringy, while pleasant folk are pink-and-white and plump, and Mrs Lester’s Cook at “Lombardy” was extremely plump, so much so that Ned Lester used to laugh at her and say she was fat, whereupon Cook retorted by saying good-humouredly: “All right, Master Ned, so I am; but you can’t have too much of a good thing.” ”

“ He wished he could have had the light of the Doctor’s clear mind upon it, but, of course, that was impossible.
“If he is waxy, he’s always just,” he found himself saying out loud; and then, just before he went to sleep, “but, at any rate, I can bear it better.”
There is no need to dwell upon the weeks that followed. Haggart took his punishment bravely enough, but that time was always, in after-life, a hideous memory to him. To be unloved, untrusted, solitary, and despised, to be coldly disbelieved or contemptuously contradicted, was so very hard to bear! ”

“ Five minutes later the young folk were in the play-room and Ned was covering the framework of his simply-made kite with white paper, Tizzy helping and getting her little fingers pasty the while. Then a loop was made on the centre lath; the wet kite was found to balance well; wings were made, and a long string with a marble tied in the thumb of a glove attached to the end for a tail; the ball of new string taken off the top of the drawers, and the happy couple went off in high glee to fly the kite. ”

“ By the time Miss Ware, who was a kind-hearted, sensible, pleasant woman, came to tell Fellowes how sorry she was for him and his disappointment, the worst had gone by, and the boy was resigned to what could not be helped.
“Well, after all, one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” she said, smiling down on the two boys; “poor Tom has been looking forward to spending his holidays all alone with us, and now he will have a friend with him. Try to look on the bright side, Bertie, and to remember how much worse it would have been if there had been no boy to stay with you.” ”

“ At last Bertie Fellowes thrust his Mother’s letter into his friend’s hand.
“Read it,” he sobbed.
So Shivers made himself master of Mrs Fellowes’ letter and understood the cause of the boy’s outburst of grief.
“Old fellow,” he said at last, “don’t fret over it. It might be worse. Why, you might be like me, with your Father and Mother thousands of miles away. When Aggie is better, you’ll be able to go home—and it’ll help your Mother if she thinks you are almost as happy as if you were at home. It must be worse for her—she has cried ever so over this letter—see, it’s all tear-blots.” ”

“ Little Kirl had only begun to keep the goats this summer, and he thought when one has become a real live goat-herd one is in a fair way to become a man. How all the other little boys in the village must envy him—poor things, not yet promoted to manhood! ”

“ Oh, I’ll tell you what it is, you fellows: if I couldn’t go home for the holidays—especially Christmas—I think I’d just sit down and die.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” said Shivers; “you’d hate it and you’d get ever so homesick and miserable, but you wouldn’t die over it. You’d just get through somehow, and hope something would happen before next year, or that some kind fairy or other would—”
“Bosh! there are no fairies nowadays,” said Fellowes. “See here, Shivers: I’ll write home and ask my Mother if she won’t invite you to come back with me for the holidays.” ”

“ I shouldered, my rifle and turned in the direction from which the sounds proceeded.
Descending a steep cliff, I found myself in a narrow canon through which a mountain stream, swollen by the melting snow, rushed with considerable rapidity. The first object that caught my eye was a woman carrying a child and struggling through the foaming torrent. Then I observed, some little distance to the rear, but following with incredible rapidity, an enormous black bear. He measured at least nine feet from his nose to the tip of his tail, and was broad in proportion. ”

“ Bless you, you dear little chap, you shall not leave him; you shall bring him along and we’ll all enjoy ourselves together. What’s his name?—Bertie Fellowes. Bertie, my man, you are not very old yet, so I’m going to teach you a lesson as well as ever I can—it is that kindness is never wasted in this world. ”

“ Jem therefore felt his life of incessant labour and deprivation no hardship: he was as happy and merry as the day was long. But the misfortune that had now fallen upon the brave little man was so severe and unexpected, he did not know how to bear it. The thought of the dear, suffering Mother waiting patiently for the medicine which would relieve her, and of the anxious, careworn Father, who would look so vainly along the forest track for his return, was too much for his affectionate little heart ”

“ Cook had a most fiery temper when she was busy, and when that morning Ned went with Tizzy—so called because she was christened Lizzie—and found Cook in her private premises—the back kitchen—peeling onions, with a piece of bread stuck at the end of the knife to keep the onion-juice from making her cry, and asked her to make him a small basin of paste, her kitchen majesty uttered a loud snort.
“Which I just shan’t,” she cried; “and if your Mar was at home you wouldn’t dare to ask. I never did see such a tiresome, worriting boy as you are, Master Ned. You’re always wanting something when I’m busy ”

“ The doctor’s sleepy assistant, who hastily answered Woodpecker’s loud rap on the door, rubbed his eyes and stared, but he had a wholesome awe of such a visitor, and, making up the medicine, delivered it to Jem with unusual speed.
The second Indian had disappeared on the way to the doctor’s, and the two strangely-matched companions immediately set out on their return journey through the forest, which was rapidly traversed by Woodpecker, and by four o’clock in the morning he set Jem down on the threshold of his Father’s door.
“Will you not stay and see how Mother is? ”

“ Oh, it isn’t all jam in the Royal Navy! You haven’t left school when you go there, and the gunroom isn’t always just exactly paradise, you know! And if your seniors try to make it hot for you, why—they can! ”

“ Well, people can come so far without muddying their boots. Now, our garden abuts almost on the railway-platform, so I propose sweeping a path straight across from the road, putting up a gate at each end, and saving people five hundred yards of quagmire, and a good five minutes in time, and a lot of swear-words, and my charge for all these improvements will be one penny! ”

“ He was some years older than I, and I daresay he soon forgot the little fellow who used secretly to look up to him and worship him. But now I must tell you why he became my hero. One day a party of boys had arranged to walk to a place four miles distant, where there was to be a meet of the hounds. I wanted very much to go; I joined the party as they set out on their expedition. There were six boys, all older than myself, one of them being the handsome, clever fellow whom even then I thought superior to all the rest. ”

“ I will take every boy’s separate answer, and, after that, the whole school will be kept in the playground until the end of the term, unless the guilty boy will take the punishment on himself.”
Haggart’s face was very anxious as he, too, leant forth to see the fourth-form fellows, but all he could catch a sight of was a smooth, fair head that had drooped very low.
The Doctor, with a disappointed face, turned to the senior class. “It seems hardly necessary to go through the form,” he said. “I think I can count on my senior boys. You, Crawley? You, Brown? You, Haggart?” ”

“ As they silently gazed down upon him his heart seemed to stand still, and his next impulse was to cry out, but he had learned to keep his wits about him, and remember that even an Indian has a certain respect for a manly spirit. ”

“ Mrs Gray now lives in a pretty flat in South Kensington with her faithful old Dolly, surrounded by many of her former luxuries, but she is happiest in the possession of such a brave and noble son. Bernard’s future is assured, for he showed all the qualities that command success in his last experiment. ”

“ I had some trouble to keep up with the others, for you must remember I was a very small boy then, and once, in jumping a ditch, I gave my ankle a little twist which made it still more difficult to go along fast. ”