Girls New and Old

"Your reasons, lad?" said John Danvers.

He sprang to his feet, pushed aside his meal with a clatter, walked to the door, turned the key in it, and then strode up to where Maurice was, half sitting, half lounging.

"Now, out with your reasons, and be quick!" he said. "I don't want my bacon spoiled and my evening spoiled; I'll turn you out of this room, you young rascal, if you're not quick! Why am I to turn my life into an inferno? Now, be quick; out with your thought, lad!"

Mr. Danvers' last sentence was spoken with a certain softening of voice which encouraged Maurice to proceed.

"I'm desperate," he said, "and desperate people come to desperate resolves. It is for Cecil; she's the best girl in all the world, and the cleverest; but she's not half educated. She was at a school, not a tip-top school, but just a middling sort of place. I wish now she'd gone to a decent High School, but mother didn't like High Schools, and anyhow, there she is, nearly eighteen, with more talents than all the rest of us put together, but shut out of everything, because she hasn't got certificates, and all that sort of rot. Well, she's got a chance; an old lady, a friend of ours, wants to pay her expenses at Redgarth College. Perhaps you've heard of Redgarth, Mr. Danvers?"

"I have, and of Miss Forester," said John Danvers. "Women are being taken more and more out of their sphere day by day. Go on, boy – your ideas amuse me; so I'm to enter purgatory for the sake of a girl. Go on, pray!"

"No," said Maurice; "I wish I were the same age as you, sir, or you were the same age as me, and we'd fight this out, not for the sake of a girl in the ordinary sense of the word, but because of the best sister a fellow ever had, and we want to give her a chance – at least I do."

"And you propose to send me to a lunatic asylum?"

"Not quite; we wouldn't be as bad as that. You own the whole of this house, don't you?"

"What's that to you, you young dog?"

"Yes; but don't you?"

"Fact, Maurice Ross; I also own a digestive system, which is going to be put frightfully out of gear by this night's work."

"Oh, I wish you'd take the matter seriously. We boys want a bedroom, and any ramshackle sort of place to work in. I engage, on my honor, to keep the three younger lads in order. I know a bit of cooking, and we can manage our own meals, and we can pay you for every scrap of expenses you are put to, and you can have a bit of profit over and above."

"You can leave the profit out, young Ross."

"Well," said Maurice, "will you, or won't you? Will you make yourself beastly miserable for the sake of a brave girl? She can't help being a girl, but she can help being brave, and she is – oh, you don't know how plucky she is. It puts me to shame the way she works, and the way she denies herself. Do you know what she's got in the back of her head? To send me to Oxford by and by, to make a man of me, and to provide a comfortable home for the other boys when they are older and need it more. I couldn't ask a woman to put herself out to give Cecil this chance, but I thought a man might, if he were worth the name."

"Upon my word, you're pretty frank, you British schoolboy," said Danvers; but his eyes danced again, and he ceased to cast loving glances in the direction of his bacon.

"Will you, or won't you?" said Maurice; "that's just it? You needn't deliberate – you can say a frank 'yes' or 'no.' I don't pretend you'll like it – of course you won't; but maybe – Oh, I don't want to cant, but if there's anything in those words, 'It is more blessed – '"

"I know 'em; you needn't finish them," interrupted Danvers. "It's 'yes' or 'no,' then. What a queer world this is! Here am I, bullied by one of the boys in my class, a young ruffian who murders his Homer, and nearly turns my brain over his Virgil; he comes and beards me in my own private den, with the most astounding, outrageous, unheard-of proposal – and it's 'yes' or 'no' with the monkey. What will you do if I say 'no,' sir?"

"I'll be as I was before," answered Maurice; "but you won't, sir."

"I won't! Is that the way you take it?"

"No, sir; I see yielding in your face. I wouldn't have come to another master in the whole school."

"You needn't blarney me, Ross; blarney is the last straw. Now, you've stated the fact from your point of view. Allow me to tell you what this will mean to me. Lunacy, an asylum, in three months. Tell me to my face, is there a girl living who is worth that?"

"It won't be all that," said Maurice, with one of his slow smiles; "and Cecil is worth nearly that."

There was a look in Maurice's eyes just then, that made Danvers turn his head aside.

"Upon my word, there must be something in the girl," he said to himself. "What a lad this is, after all!"

Aloud he said, after a brief pause, "And suppose I agree?"

"Cecil will be perfectly happy and contented."

"But she doesn't know me, and I never laid eyes on her in my life."

"Oh, yes, you did! you must. She goes to church with us every Sunday."

"I never look at women when I can help it," said Danvers. "I keep my eyes on my book in church, and when your head master preaches, I shut them; no, I don't go to sleep, so you needn't wink, you dog! I can think better with my eyes shut."

"Well, at any rate," said Maurice, "Cecil knows about you; she knows we'd be safe with you."

Danvers uttered a deep groan.

"Oh, get out of this, Ross," he said; "don't let me see your face again until to-morrow at school, so out you go – quick – run – get out of my presence! A pretty nut you've given me to crack."

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. DANVERS ORDERS FURNITURE

WHEN Maurice had really left the house, John Danvers returned to his untidy, complex room, and threw open both windows.

"Stuffy," he muttered, sniffing as he spoke. "Let in plenty of air – nothing like air. Now, then, for my supper. Digestion will be all wrong to-night. Oh, good Heavens! what sin have I done, that this appalling dilemma should be presented to me? Won't think of it! Supper comes first, then all those themes. Never heard of a lad like Maurice Ross in all my life before – won't think of him. That passage in Cæsar which I read this morning is worth pondering over; meant to go to sleep on it to-night – will still. The cheek of that young beggar! won't think of him; I vow I won't! This bacon is destroyed; 'willful waste makes woeful want' – That's what comes of listening to cheeky – Won't revert to that dog."

John Danvers pushed up his red hair until it stood upright on his forehead. Then he sat plump down on the nearest chair, placed a thin hand on each knee, and gazed straight before him at all his books. He made an admirable scarecrow, sitting thus; and would have been the delight of every boy in his class, had they had the privilege of gazing at him. The bacon frizzled and burned on the pan, but he took no notice of it. Finally he put his supper away untasted, then lit his lamp, and sat down with thirty exercise books before him.

"As if this were not enough," he muttered. "For what sin am I so sorely punished? A girl wants to learn what she'd better not know, and I'm to go to Bedlam. If I were another man, I'd say 'no.' I always knew I was composite, and this proves it. I'm beastly weak; wish I weren't. Shouldn't think of it a second time, if I hadn't this abominable vein of good-nature running through me. That's the composite element which has destroyed my chance in life. For the sake of a girl – Faugh! If it were a boy indeed! I take an interest in those torturing young beggars in spite of myself, and Maurice Ross is my favorite, and he knows it, the dog! Well, I'll sleep it over. Hang it, though, I don't believe I'll sleep a wink!"

John Danvers ate no supper that night. He was quite unaware of this fact, however, himself; he also failed to correct any of the exercise books, and the boys who had made a sad hash of their Latin and Greek got off scot-free the next morning. Next day in school he avoided Maurice Ross' eye. In the afternoon he started off for a long walk by himself. It was a half-holiday, and he could do this with impunity. On his way back he called at Miss Marshall's house.

"Is Miss Ross in?" he asked of the landlady, who knew him well, for he was one of the characters of the place, and was known to be a woman-hater.

Miss Marshall ran upstairs, and came down with the information that Miss Ross was in.

"I'll see her for a moment, if she has no objection," said Danvers.

Miss Marshall led the way upstairs.

"How do you do?" said Danvers, when he found himself in the presence of the girl for whom he was to go to Bedlam.

Cecil was seated by her writing-table; there was perplexity on her face, dark rings under her eyes; her sweet mouth looked slightly fretful. The fact is, she was making up her mind to decline Mrs. Lavender's offer.

Danvers came in and stood in front of her.

"Won't you sit down, Mr. Danvers?" said Cecil, who of course knew the little man very well indeed by sight.

"No, thank you, madam; I prefer to stand."

Cecil stood also. She looked at the little classical master in some wonder.

"Fine young woman," he muttered to himself. "She'd make a capital milkmaid; education thrown away on her; women's brains are smaller than men's. Providence doesn't mean them to meddle in things too deep for them. I don't do it for her sake, not a bit of it; it's the lad, fine lad; life before him, life half over with me; old dog gives way to young dog; way of the world – way of the world."

"I wish you'd take a chair, Mr. Danvers," said poor Cecil, who thought that the little man with his red hair sticking up over his head, and his shining blue eyes, and his dogged mouth and jaw, must have taken leave of his senses.

"Not worth while, madam. I've come to say that, if you wish it, I'll house those boys, give them house-room, beds to sleep in, plenty to eat and drink. I'll take 'em for what you can afford; they'll be safe enough with me. I'm a dragon on boys, Miss Ross, a very dragon on boys. You'll be quit of 'em, I came to say it. You can fix up things with your brother Maurice; and they can come to-morrow if they like. Communicate with me through Maurice; he's a fine lad. Good-day to you, Miss Ross!"

Before Cecil had time to say a word, Danvers strode out of the room. He ran downstairs so quickly that someone might almost have propelled him from behind, and rushed out of the house as if he were shot.

"I have done it," he said, as soon as he had got into the street. He gasped as he spoke. "Good gracious!" he said; "what an awful thing it is to come face to face with a woman, and a young one, too! She's a fine girl, I don't deny it; good eyes, firm, nice mouth. She looked at me, all the same, as if she meant to eat me. Good Heavens! what a heat I'm in; this sort of thing will kill me if I have much more of it."

Danvers walked down the street; he held his head in the air, and his soft hat was well slouched back. Several people who knew him well met him, but he noticed no one. His bright, kindly blue eyes were fixed upon the kindly sky. In spite of himself, against his will, there was a glow of pure happiness at his heart. He would not acknowledge the happiness. He kept on muttering:

"John Danvers, you dog, you've let yourself in for a pretty mess! Fancy four boys, four devouring young monsters, careering over your house, rushing into your private den, shouting into your ear, dancing the devil's tattoo over your very bedroom. It's too awful to contemplate. I'll not think of it. I vow and declare I'll turn my thoughts to something else. What about that passage in Cæsar I construed last night? It's a fine thought and a comforting one. After all, there's nothing like going back to the fountain head of knowledge, and taking your ideas straight from the original well. Yes, Cæsar is good meat, nothing namby-pamby there. I mean to go on with my translation during the coming winter. What am I saying? What am I saying? What chance have I to translate anything? Bedlam without and Bedlam within will be my portion from this day forward. How blue the sky is, though! it's a fine evening. The breeze is pleasant, quite spring-like. Good Heavens! I did have a job when I stood face to face with that girl; but Maurice is a fine lad, and he's young, and he has his life before him. Shouldn't be surprised if he made a good Latin scholar yet. By the bye, didn't I see a Greek lexicon on that girl's table? Outrageous, monstrous, indecorous! A woman has no right to look into these mysteries. She's made for bread and butter and cheese and household drudgery. Some men may go to the length of considering her ornamental, but, thank Heaven! I have never so completely lost my senses. Well, I've done it, but not for the sake of a woman – no, Heaven forbid! Now, then, to complete the sacrifice."

Danvers suddenly hastened his steps; he turned abruptly into a little side street, and, stopping at the door of a second-hand warehouse, he entered in a hesitating manner. Apart from his books and boys, Danvers always exhibited nervous hesitation. The man in the shop, a person of the name of Franks, came up to greet him.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Danvers?" he asked.

Danvers frowned when his name was mentioned. He had not the faintest idea of the name of the owner of the shop, and nothing annoyed him more than the fact that every soul in Hazlewick seemed to know him perfectly well.

"Good-evening!" he said abruptly. "The fact is, I've called in to ask you to send in some furniture suitable for a dog's – I mean a boy's bedroom. There are four boys; the rascals – I mean the young fellows – are coming to stay with me. I want a room furnished – you'd better send a man round to look at it – the usual things, of course. Send in the furniture to-morrow. Good-evening!"

"But I beg your pardon, Mr. Danvers," said the perplexed shopman, "your order is a little vague; you have not told me what class of furniture you require."

Danvers took off his hat, and pushed up his red hair perfectly straight.

"Simple, very," he said; "no luxuries, a bed apiece, some basins and jugs; you know the sort of thing. I am in a hurry. I will wish you 'good-evening!'"

"We have got some nice iron bedsteads," began Mr. Franks, "neat and plain. I suppose carpets will be required. If you will have the goodness to step this way, sir – "

Here the shopman started, for Danvers had vanished.

"Well," he said, turning to one of his men, "if this aint a rum start! Here's our Mr. Danvers ordering in furniture, promiscuous like, and four young gentlemen are going to live with him. You tot up a tidy lot of things, Blake, and let me know what the sum total comes to; four boys, he says, and they are to be provided for simple. What does this mean?"

The assistant ran off with a laugh, and that evening a good-sized bill was entered against Mr. Danvers' name in Frank's book.

That good little man returned to his home, and after supper took out his account books. He looked carefully into his banking account, found that there stood to his credit about one hundred and fifty pounds in the local bank, wondered vaguely what all the furniture would cost, perceived that he could pay for it, and then dismissed the subject from his mind. He sat up late over his translation of Cæsar, and did excellent work. He forgot all about the boys, and slept soundly when he went to bed. On returning to his house the next day at noon, the circumstance of their speedy advent was brought painfully home to him, however. A large furniture van stood outside his modest door. Danvers kept no servant, and the men were getting impatient at having to pull the bell in vain; a crowd of small boys and girls were collected around the van, and several neighbors were poking their heads out of the adjacent windows. Danvers felt a sudden thrill run through him. He opened the door abruptly, and told the men to take the things upstairs.

"To what room, sir?" they asked.

"Any room," he answered.

He rushed into his private sanctum, and locked the door with violence. In this refuge he had a violent tussle with his temper. The tramping of strange feet was heard all over the hitherto silent house. The poor little man sat down on the nearest chair, and looked the very picture of abject misery. He was far too unhappy even to think of dinner. By and by, the sounds of alien feet died away. The men slammed the door behind them, and drove off in the now empty furniture van; the rabble of boys and girls melted out of sight. Danvers was beginning to breathe, when a somewhat timid ring was heard at the front door. His smoldering ire burst forth afresh; he strode to open it with his spectacles on the middle of his forehead. A stout, elderly woman was standing on the steps; she dropped a profound courtesy.

"Your business!" he said abruptly.

"If you please sir, I've come to offer for the situation."

"What do you mean?"

"Seeing as you're expecting company, sir, and it's known that the place is vacant – "

"There is no place vacant," interrupted Danvers; "you can go. I don't require your services."

He slammed the door rudely, and went back to his parlor.

The stout woman's appearance, however, had set him thinking; he saw a fresh woe ahead of him. He had taken steps to furnish a room for the boys, but who was to cook their breakfast, and dinner, and supper, and make their beds, and in short do the sort of things which women, in his opinion, were sent into the world for?

"It grows worse and worse," he muttered. "It simply resolves itself into this: I must not only have four boys driving me to Bedlam, but the she element must be introduced into my house – a charwoman! To this pass have I come. 'Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.'"

CHAPTER IX.

THE CLEARING OF THE WAY

"MAURICE," said Cecil, when her brother came in to tea that evening, "I have had a most astonishing visitor."

Maurice colored faintly. It darted through his mind that Danvers might have called, but he scarcely thought that fact possible.

"No less a person," continued Cecil, "than your eccentric master, Mr. Danvers. He came in here, and stood bolt upright on that spot on the carpet, and looked as fierce as ever he could at me, and addressed me as madam."

"Oh, nevermind!" said Maurice. "Danvers is the best old brick in existence. The fact is, I thought he might call. What did he say, Cecil? He came about something, of course?"

"I should rather think he did. Maurice, you wicked boy, there is a mystery at the back of this, and you are in it. Oh, you bad, bad, wicked boy, what does this mean?"

The other lads had not yet put in an appearance. Cecil and Maurice had the parlor to themselves.

Maurice came up close to his sister, and put one of his big schoolboy hands on her shoulder.

"Go on, Cecil," he remarked; "tell me what Danvers said."

"Why, this," said Cecil, "he told me that he would house you all. 'I'll give them house-room,' he said, – his language was so abrupt, Maurice, – 'beds to sleep in; plenty to eat and drink.' He repeated twice that he was a dragon on boys, and that I'd be quit of you; he said that I was to fix up things with you, and that you could all go to him to-morrow. Now, what does this mean?"

"Exactly what he said," replied Maurice, "and didn't I tell you he was a brick? Now it will be all right for you."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, of course, you can go to Redgarth."

"Maurice, did you know of this? Had you anything to do with it?"

"Had I anything to do with it?" repeated Maurice slowly. "Rather. Do you think old Danvers likes to have boys in his house, and that this sort of offer was spontaneous? No, I put the screw on. I scrooged him into a corner last night, and he had no help for it. He wriggled a good bit, I can tell you, Ceci, but I had him on toast, and kept him there until I knew he'd do what he did do. Now, it's all right, and you can go to Redgarth."

"But, Maurice, dear, I don't understand."

"Well, you will understand in a minute. I'll put it to you straight enough. You know we can't stay here, because of that blessed Mrs. Rogers and her sleep; and you can't stay here, because you are wanted at Redgarth. You are the future ornament of that place of learning, and they can't do without you another day, so we fellows have to put up somewhere, and Danvers' is the place. Danvers lives in a house six times too big for him. The house was left to him by his old uncle, the miser. Danvers is our classical master: he lives within a stone's-throw of the Grammar School. As he says, he is a dragon, and we could not be safer anywhere than with him. We can go to-morrow or the next day, or any day you fancy. We'll be in the very lap of learning in Danvers' house, and if we don't all turn out classical prodigies, it won't be his fault. Now, Cecil, I see yielding on your face. I'm not going to have it said that I bearded old Danvers in his den for nothing."

Cecil's heart was yielding already, but several questions were yet to be asked and answered. Would Mr. Danvers see to the health of her boys? Maurice assured her that her boys were in such a robust state of existence that no seeing to was necessary. Would he feed her boys, and make and mend for them? Maurice said that they must be great asses if they could not manage that for themselves.

"In short, we're going," he said; "you can heap up obstacles as much as you like in your own mind, Cecil; but we're going. Danvers has yielded; that's the main point. He'll like us after a bit; he doesn't think so, but I fancy we can do a good lot for the poor old chap. I know his ways, I always could manage him, and I mean to go on doing so. What about that letter you've got to write to Mrs. Lavender?"

"I have written it; it's there. I want you to post it when you go out."

"What have you said?"

"That I – Maurice, dear, I could not leave you."

"Where's the letter?" said Maurice.

"There," said Cecil, hesitation in her tone.

Maurice strode across the room, took the letter, and threw it into the flames.

"You write over again, the minute you've finished your tea, and tell her you're very much obliged, and accept like a good, grateful, little girl," he said. "That letter has got to get into the post to-night, and another to Miss Forester, asking her when she can have you, and your darling Molly might have a line also. Now, then, I'm ravenous. Oh, I say, cress and shrimps for tea!"

While Maurice had been making these rapid arrangements with regard to his own and Cecil's future, mysterious noises of a muffled character had been heard outside the door; the handle had been tried several times in vain, for Maurice had long ago taken the precaution to lock himself in with his sister. Now he abruptly turned the key.

"Come in, you fellows," he said; "grace first, and then fall to."

The three boys entered with a certain amount of demureness, but the sight of shrimps and water-cress was too much for their gravity. Cecil's face was very pale; she was feeling too excited to eat. The four boys rapidly cleared the board. When they had finished, Maurice looked at his sister and spoke.

"I have a bit of news for you, lads," he said.

"Oh, Maurice! perhaps we had better not tell them to-night," interrupted Cecil.

"Well, we did hear something through the keyhole," interrupted Jimmy, in a modest tone. "We took the keyhole turn about, so it was a little confusing. Perhaps you might as well finish, Maurice. I think I'm to go to a place called Redgarth, but I'm not quite sure."

"You shut up, you rascal!" said Maurice. "You know it's very dishonorable to listen through keyholes."

"Fudge!" said Jimmy; "we're all one family. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Now, am I to go to Redgarth? and where is Redgarth? and what am I to do when I get there? Is it a holiday resort, or a horrid place where they stuff you with books?"

"Don't take any notice of him, Cecil," said Maurice. "Now, it's just this, boys – we four fellows are going to give our sister, the best sister in all the world, a chance."

"Hip, hip, hurrah!" shouted Charlie.

"Oh, Charlie, for goodness' sake think of poor Mrs. Rogers!" interrupted Cecil.

"I can't be thinking of that old beggar forever," muttered Charlie.

"Shut up, or I'll box you!" cried Teddy.

"Well," continued Maurice, when the din had a little ceased, "we are going to give the best sister in the world a little chance."