H. Musgrave

“ Then Jeff got very red, and burst out passionately:
"You must have known only boys who were liars. Did you not speak the truth yourself when you were young?"
Brian pulled at his jacket to modify his speech. Jeff wrenched it away.
"Don't touch me, Brian; I shall say what I like; and I know you don't always speak the truth. Uncle Hugh, don't you know it is only cowards who make false promises? Can't you trust me? No one who is brave—really brave—or who tries to be brave—would tell a lie." ”

“ She paused a minute and a little sob broke from her.
"Jeff, Uncle Hugh has been telling me about you the past few days. It has been a great happiness—a great comfort to know that you are so brave and truthful. There are faults, my darling, still; but I think, my own, that you will be a hero some day." She smiled upon him with indescribable content. "I have no fears for you. You will bear what is given you to bear patiently. You will not grieve your father—you will remember that—" Her voice failed.
"Oh, mother, stay with me. I can never be great or good without you—things are so hard. ”

“ You will never kiss me, never touch me—and when—I am a real hero—your voice will not praise me. Take me with you, mother, mother!" Then Jeff fell back unconscious, and was carried out of the room by Uncle Hugh, who was sobbing like a child. The angel of death did not tarry. In the morning Jeff knew that his sweet mother had said her last "good-night."
Years have gone by, and Jeff Scott is a man now. He is reckoned a real hero in these days, one whose name has been a household word. He is a soldier like all the men of his race—a right gallant soldier who wears a V.C. upon his broad breast. ”

“ It is so hard to be a man—for a boy to be a man—to be really brave—oh, so very hard! I wish I might cry, you know, but now you have asked me not to—I cannot—I will not."
The mother rose up quickly and paced the room backwards and forwards, with hands clasped and eyes bent on the floor. The little boy remained quite still where she had left him.
"Jeff, not to-morrow, but the day after is when you are to go. Your father will take you down to Bombay and see the steamer. We have so short a time together, you and I, and, dearest, I can never say all the things that are in my heart. ”

“ Uncle Hugh was one of those very discreet people who never attempt a reply to children's questions.
"Go into the house, Brian, and take your cousin to have some breakfast in the nursery. Is your mother up yet? Mind you both come down tidy in time for prayers."
"But please, Uncle Hugh, I never have breakfast in the nursery. Father and mother think I am old enough to eat with them. Maggie, do tell him it is true. Must I really go with them? Can't I see grandmama or Aunt Annie, first? They are mother's own, her very own relations, you see. ”

“ Tell father I can ride quite as well as Brian, and Uncle Hugh says I have a good seat. It must be true, because he never praises anybody.
Oh, dear darling mother, my hand is quite tired, and I have taken two afternoons to write this letter. I wish I could see you and feel you, though I don't in the least forget what you are like. I can't bear to look at your picture often, because it makes the tears come in my eyes, and you might not like me to cry. At night when I go to bed I shut my eyes very quick and very tight, and try not to remember anything in India. ”

“ Jeff was now ten years old, for nearly two years have gone by since he came to England. He has grown very much, and is a tall muscular boy, with a bright smiling face; only when he is alone or unconscious of observation he is sometimes subdued, and there is a yearning wistful look in his big brown eyes that seems to declare he is not quite happy.
"You have news from India to-day, Geoffry," said Uncle Hugh one morning rather stiffly as he met the boy coming down the stairs with a letter in his hand. "Your Aunt Annie has also had a letter from your mother." ”

“ She loses no opportunity of proclaiming her kinship to young Captain Scott. But Jeff only spends a short time occasionally in Scotland; most of his leave is generally passed with his father.
The deep strong affection between father and son seems to become a closer bond as the years rolls on. They speak sometimes of the dead mother, and even now Jeff's voice hushes and his steady eyes are misty at the mention of her name or the recalling of her words. He loves her with a love that time has no power to weaken; he has kept all her sayings faithfully in his heart ”

“ Perchance the aspect of such a stripling moved her womanly heart to a special throb of sympathy, he looked so young to have achieved such deeds of valour.
But the applause of the world in general will never sound attractively in Jeff's ears; society will never claim him as one of her pet lions.
At Loch Lossie they speak of him with respectful admiration, and Aunt Annie no longer holds out any opinions against such a distinguished young man. ”

“ She must know all these things of course, but then she might have forgotten.
"Well, my little man, and what do you think of London town?" said Captain Clark approaching Jeff and waving his hand towards a distant cloud of smoke.
"Is that London?" said Jeff with an air of deep disappointment. "Oh, how dirty it looks! it's nothing half as grand as Bombay."
A tall thin gentleman with whiskers beginning to turn gray had walked past Jeff twice, casting a scrutinizing glance towards him. The little boy had noticed the stranger because he was so oddly stiff and very stern looking. ”

“ On a fine April morning, with a deep blue sky and an easterly wind, the great steamer went up the Thames and was berthed in her dock. Naturally there was a great deal of stir and much excitement amongst the passengers, many of whom had not been home to their native country for long years. Most of the travellers had friends to meet them and were anxiously on the look-out. Those who had not were attending to their luggage. Very few were passive spectators of the busy scene. Jeff was greatly amused by all the bustle and agitation. ”

“ Your grandmama knows my trouble, and she has written to ask me to send you to her. You will live with them all at Loch Lossie till some day we can come home." The pretty lady sighed and pushed her soft brown hair away from her forehead.
"Two or three years, Jeff, my darling, will pass soon—to you and me. I shall hope to hear that you are growing strong and well, and that you are mother's own brave lad, waiting patiently till she is able to meet you again. Be a man—do not grieve me now, my own little lad, by any tears. ”

“ Mr. Colquhoun looked at his own son, and never doubted his innocence.
"No, my boy, but I found a pocket-knife in the skiff and a coil of gut, with two fish. I know you have both knives exactly alike, and probably only one of you can tell me to which it belongs. Geoffry, have you your knife in your pocket?"
Silence, and no movement on Jeff's part. In a moment Jeff looked up, and in his steady brown eyes there was something which Uncle Hugh could not read. ”

“ He had been more than a month at Loch Lossie when the following letter was posted to India.
LOCH LOSSIE, May 10th.
Dear darling Mother,—I am not nearly a hero yet. I have not got even really brave, but I mean to. I don't like lots of things here at all, and I get angry and quarrel with Brian, because he tells lies—or sort of lies—and is very unkind to Jessie. He pinches her where it won't show when she won't do what he wants. Nobody ever believes that Brian does not tell truth. He seems so obedient, and he never asks questions or bothers people, and he is so clever with his lessons. ”

“ She did not wear pretty clothes or soft laces like his mother. Her dresses were very plain, of some harsh coarse stuff and dull ugly colours; her manner was always a little abrupt, and she seemed to have no patience to listen to anything that children said. Jeff supposed that she was so wise that she could not profit by anything they might say.
Perhaps nothing in Scotland surprised Jeff more than to find how busy everyone was, and how much one could do here. Even ladies and rich people did things for themselves, and their amusements generally seemed to be like hard work. ”

“ Then grandmama always sighs and says how hard it is you are a soldier's wife, and are poor and are obliged to live in India. They seem to think a great deal about being rich here; but I think honour and glory is more, and I mean to be a soldier.
Aunt Annie does not seem to love her children much. She just kisses them in the morning and at night once on the cheek, without any arms, and she never goes to tuck them up.
It is funny, I think, but Jess and Brian don't seem to know it is queer. I call Uncle Hugh the bandbox man—to myself only, of course. He is never untidy, or hot, or cold. ”

“ All the anticipations of convalescence in Scotland, and a reconciliation at Loch Lossie, were at an end. He remembered his wife's last injunction, "Be sure you bring Mary down here at once, and don't have any excuses."
Alas! poor Mary would never travel any more to her old home. Her days of rest were at hand.
Uncle Hugh was very gentle and considerate towards Jeff that night and during the ensuing days that dragged so slowly. The boy could hardly be persuaded to leave the house for half an hour, and always hurried back with feverish impatience after the shortest absence. ”

“ M'Gregor flatters Aunt Annie, because he wants to stay our tutor. But I don't think Brian knows deep down about the things what he learns. He never is tiresome wanting to see behind things, or to know why. You remember those questions always did come to me when I did lessons with you and father. Cousin Jessie is very pretty, and I know she has a very kind heart. She gave two shillings out of her money-box—all what she had saved in pennies—to a little beggar girl without any shoes that came to the door. Aunt Annie was angry about it, because she said, "No one need to beg or be poor." ”

“ When he lay in his berth at night time—above the creaking and groaning of machinery, above the din inevitable on a steamer—he heard a gentle voice bless him as on that last evening at home:
"God be with you, my own little lad. Be brave till I see you again. I shall be so proud to feel that my boy is a real hero."
On the way to Bombay Jeff had asked his father what a real hero was. Then he had been told that a hero was "one full of courage and great patience, and dauntless before difficulties ”

“ We allow sailors to spin yarns and only believe as much as we like." Jeff was much better satisfied to feel that a hero was not an impossible being, and that these rough and ready, hard swearing, rollicking men were not in reality the stuff out of which was moulded true heroism, endurance, and nobility. ”

“ In after days he wondered much why an attitude of hostility was always tacitly assumed towards his father.
"My father's people have always been brave soldiers. Two of his brothers were killed in the mutiny; they were heroes, I think. They were called Geoffry and Roger."
The little boy made up his mind that he should never like the new uncle. The disparaging accent on his father's name was an insult.
Mr. Colquhoun had married Jeff's aunt, his mother's eldest sister, and lived at Loch Lossie with grandmama, under whose roof Jeff was to be. ”

“ She could hardly hear the conversation of the two boys on the other side of the room, as Maggie and Nan were carrying on a lively exchange of question and answer.
"Cousin Jeff, I'm quite sure you wouldn't like to have breakfast down-stairs. I did once when Nan was ill, and it was quite drefful," called out Jessie, nodding her head gravely at the recollection. "Papa won't let you drink if you have the least bit in your mouth, and he says everything that is nice isn't good for children. Kidneys and sausages, and herrings and bacon you're only allowed to smell down-stairs. ”

“ But his mother certainly thought more about keeping him cool and comfortable than about his good looks. His hair would have made soft and pretty curls all over his head if allowed to grow longer. Jeff had no black nurse, like most little boys have in India. An old Scotchwoman called Maggie, who had left her northern home with Jeff's mother when she was married, did everything for the little boy that was required. She certainly had a great deal of mending to do, for Jeff was active and restless, and tore his clothes and wore holes in his stockings very often. ”

“ Grandmama is a very nice person, but why does she never listen when I speak of father? I go and read to her sometimes when she is feeling well, and she says she likes my reading better than Brian's; he gabbles on so quick and never stops, because he wants to get it over. ”