Gervase went home still with his head bent, but no longer thinking of the white pebbles and the brown. It is true that his accustomed eye caught a big one here and there, which had rolled to the side of the path, and which he felt with regret would have come in so finely for the right or the left-hand man! but his mind was fixed on his consigne, and he was saying to himself over and over the words Patty had taught him—that he wanted to go to see London, and all the fine things there; that he was tired (mortal tired) of staying always at home; that it was a shame he never was trusted nor allowed to do anything (and so it was a shame). He could not even think of the pleasure of going to London, of meeting Patty at the station, and all that was to follow, so absorbed were his thoughts with what he had to say in the meantime. And it would not have been surprising had Gervase been overwhelmed by the thought of making such a wild suggestion to his parents, who had kept him hitherto like a child under their constant supervision. But his simple mind was not troubled by any such reflection as this. Patty had told him what to say, and no feeling of the impossibility of the thing, or of the strange departure in it from all the rules which had guided his life, affected him. If it did not succeed, all he had to do was to tell her, and she would think of something else. Better heads than that of poor Gervase have found this a great relief among the problems of life. As for him, he was not aware of any problems; he had a thing to say, and the trouble was lest he should forget it or say it wrong. To think of anything further was not his share of the business. He, too, met his mother just as she returned from her drive, so that he had taken a considerable time to that exercise, walking up and down the path that led under the wall of the park, conning his lesson. An impulse came upon him to say it off then and there, and so free his mind from the responsibility; but he remembered in time that Patty had said it was to be kept till after dinner, when his father and mother were both present. He was rather frightened, however, when the carriage suddenly drove up, and he was called to the door. “Hallo! mamma,” he said, striding over a gorse bush that was in his way. Lady Piercey had jumped at the conclusion, as soon as she saw him, that there had been a meeting, as she said, “between those two.” She called out quickly to take him by surprise, “Hi! Gervase! have you met anybody on the road?”

Now, Gervase was not clever, as the reader knows; but just because he was a Softy, and his brains different from other people’s, he was better qualified to deal with such a question than a more intelligent youth might have been. “Met anybody on the road?” he said, gazing with his dull eyes and open mouth. “But I’ve not been on the road; I’ve only been up and down here.”

“Oh, you——! but here is just the same as the road. Who have you been talking to?” the mother cried.

“There was the man with the donkey from Carter’s Wells,” said Gervase; “but I never said a word to him, nor he didn’t to me.”

“Was that the only person you saw? Tell me the truth,” said Lady Piercey severely. Gervase put his head on one side, and seemed to reflect.

“If I’m to tell the dead truth,” he said, “but I don’t want to, mother, for you’ll scold like old boots——”

“Tell me this instant!” cried Lady Piercey, red already with the rage that was ready to burst forth.

“Well, then, there just was—the ratcatcher with his pockets full of ferrets coming up from——”

“Home!” cried the lady, more angry than words could say. “Oh, you fool!” she said, shaking her fist at her son, who stood laughing, his moist lips glistening—no very pleasant sight for a mother’s eye.

“I thought I was to tell you the truth,” he cried after them, as the carriage whirled away.

“Do you think it was the truth, Meg?” Lady Piercey demanded, in a gasp, when they had swept into the avenue. A feeling of relief came as her anger quieted down.

“Dear Aunt—do you think he could invent so quickly, without any time to prepare?”

“You mean he couldn’t because he’s not clever? Heaven knows! They’re as deep as the deep sea, and as cunning as——. But that ratcatcher is a man I will not have hanging, with those beasts in his pockets, about my house.”

The ratcatcher gave occasion for a good deal of talk that afternoon, both in Gervase’s presence and out of it; and by good luck he had been about, and Lady Piercey gave her orders as to his expulsion from the premises, whenever he should appear, with real satisfaction. “He’s not company for Gervase, and that every one knows,” she said at the dinner table, when old Sir Giles ventured to remonstrate on behalf of the ferrets and their owner.

“Mother always says that when it’s any fellow I like to have a chat with,” Gervase said.

“There’s no harm in old Jerry,” said Sir Giles. “A man shouldn’t be too squeamish, my lady. A good-natured word here and there is what’s wanted of a country squire.”

“But not taking pleasure in low company,” retorted Lady Piercey. “And I tell you again, I won’t have that old wretch and his beasts about my house.”

“But father knows it’s rare fun sometimes, ain’t it, father?” said the young man, kicking the old gentleman under the table. Fortunately, the kick touched only Sir Giles’ stick, and he was not displeased to take Gervase’s part for once against his wife.

“Hush, you young ass, can’t you? We don’t speak of these things before ladies,” he said.

This little confidential aside put Sir Giles in good humour. But when the family retired into the library, which was done by no means in the usual order—for Sir Giles himself in his chair, wheeled by Dunning, led the way—it was evident that an uneasy alarm in respect to Gervase was the leading sentiment in everybody’s mind. Sir Giles announced loudly that it was Dunning, and only Dunning, who should play with him to-night. “I’ve got to give the fellow his revenge,” he said. “I beat him black and blue last night. Eh, Dunning, didn’t I beat you black and blue? You’re not a bad player, but not just up to my strength.”

“No, Sir Giles,” answered the man, setting the table in haste, and keeping carefully between it and the heir of the house. Lady Piercey, on her side, employed Parsons and Margaret, both of whom were in attendance, in covering up all her silks. “Put them in the basket,” she said, “and take out one as I want it. That’s always the best way.” Thus defended, the parents kept a furtive watch upon the movements of their son, but with less alarm than before, while Lady Piercey kept on a running exhortation to Mrs. Osborne in an undertone. “Meg! get him to play something. Meg! why don’t you take him in hand! Meg! the boy’s sure to get into mischief for want of something to do.”

“Should you like a game of cribbage, Gervase?” said poor Margaret, unable to resist the urgency of this appeal.

“Cribbage is the old-fashionedest game; they don’t play it anywhere—even in the publics,” said Gervase. He had put himself in the favourite attitude of Englishmen, with his back to the fireplace; his coat-tails gathered over his arms in faithful adherence to custom, though the cause for any such unseemly custom was not there.

“Or bÉzique?” said Margaret; “or perhaps you’ll sing a song, Gervase, if I play it. Your mother would like to hear you sing: you haven’t sung her a song for years.”

“Do, Gervase, there’s a dear,” said Lady Piercey. “You used to sing ‘The north winds do blow, and we shall have snow,’ so pretty when you were quite a little thing.”

“I ain’t a little thing now, and I’m not going to sing,” said Gervase loudly. “I’m going to say something to father and mother. You can go away, Meg, if you don’t want to hear.”

“What is it?” cried Lady Piercey, sitting up more bolt-upright than usual, and taking off her spectacles to see him the better, and to cow him with the blaze of her angry eyes.

“This is what it is,” said Gervase. “It’s mortal dull at home, now that I’ve turned over a new leaf and don’t go out anywhere at night; and a fellow of my age wants a little diversion, and I can’t go on sitting in your pocket, mother, nor playing father’s game every night—and he don’t like losing, neither, and no more don’t I.”

This preamble was quite new, struck off out of his own head from Patty’s text. It was with a great elation and rising self-confidence that Gervase found it so. Perhaps they’d find out that he was not such a fool as he looked—once he had got free.

“Eh! what’s the lad saying? That’s true enough—that’s true enough,” Sir Giles said.

“Oh, hold your tongue, papa! You don’t know what he’s aiming at,” Lady Piercey said.

“And I’ve never seen a thing, nor gone any-place,” said Gervase. “Its d—— d hard upon me—it’s devilish hard. Oh,” he cried, “I can speak up when I like! It’s that dull nobody would stand it (and so it is).” He added his old parentheses, though he had dropped the original theme. “I mustn’t talk a moment with any person, but mother’s down upon me—even Jerry, the ratcatcher, that every one knows.”

“That’s true, my boy,” cried Sir Giles, “your mother’s too hard on you; that’s quite true.”

“Wait, you fool, till you know what he’s aiming at,” cried Lady Piercey, with her eyes on fire.

“And I can’t play your game, father, nor take you for a walk, but there’s a fright all round as if I was going to kill you; and old Dunning after me, looking like a stuck pig.”

Here was a chance for Lady Piercey to approve, too, at her husband’s expense; but she was magnanimous, and did not take it. “You’re well meaning enough, Gervase,” she said, “I don’t deny it; but you’re too strong, and you shake poor papa to bits.”

“Well, then,” said Gervase, raising his voice to talk her down, “it’s clear as there is nothing here for me to do; and it’s dreadful dull. Enough to kill a man of my age; and the short and the long of it is that I can’t go on like this any more.”

He had quite thrown Patty’s carefully prepared speech away, and yet it came breathing over him by turns, checking his natural eloquence. She had never meant him to utter that outcry of impatience, and Gervase would have ruined his own cause, and gone on to say, “I am going to be married,” but for the questions that were suddenly showered upon him, driving him back upon his lesson.

“You can’t go on like this? And how are you going on?” cried his mother. “Everything a man can desire, and the best home in England, and considered in every way!” She went on speaking, but her voice was crossed by old Sir Giles’ growl. “What do you want—what do you want?” cried the old man. “Dunning, be off to your supper, and take that woman with you. What do you want—what do you want, you young fool?”

“But I know what you want,” Lady Piercey cried, becoming audible at the end of this interruption; “you want what you shall never have as long as I live, unless it’s somebody of my choosing, and not of yours.”

“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Gervase, the moisture flying from his mouth; “I want to have a—— I want to get—— I want P——.” Then that long-conned speech of Patty’s flew suddenly, like a cobweb, into his mind, and stopped him on the edge of the abyss. He stopped and stared at them for a moment, his eyes roaming round the room, and then he burst into a loud laugh. “I want to go to London,” he said, “and see all the fine things there. I don’t know what mother’s got in her head—some of her whimseys—I’ve never been let go anywhere or do anything, and I want to go to London to look about and see all the grand things there.”

“To London?” said Sir Giles with surprise. Lady Piercey had been wound up to too great a pitch to go easily down again. She opened her mouth with a gasp like a fish, but no sound came therefrom.

“I’ve never been let go anywhere,” said Gervase, “and up and down from the Manor to the village ain’t enough. I want to go to London and see the fine sights there; I want to see the Queen and all that; I want to see a bit of life. There never was a gentleman like me that was kept so close and never let go to see anything. I’ve not been in London since I was a little kid, and it is a shame that I am never trusted (so it is), and it’s mortal dull here, especially at home, and not seeing anything; and I want to go to London and see a bit of life, and not be buried alive here.”

“My lady,” said Sir Giles, after the pause of awe which followed this long, consequent, and coherent speech, “there’s reason in what the lad says.”

“There’s something underneath,” cried Lady Piercey, “a deal more than what he says.”

“Mother always thinks that,” cried Gervase, with his big laugh; and there could not be any question that what he said was true.

“There’s some plan underneath it all,” repeated Lady Piercey, striking her hand on the table. “He hasn’t the sense to make up a thing like that, that has reason in it; there’s some deep-laid plan underneath it all.”

“Pooh, my lady! Poor lad!” said Sir Giles, shaking his head; “he hasn’t the sense to make up a plan at all. He just says what comes into his head, and what he says has reason in it, and more than that, I’m glad to hear him say it. And it gives me a bit of hope,” said poor old Sir Giles, his voice shaking a little, “that when he comes fully to man’s estate, the boy, poor lad, will be more like other boys, Mary Ann, God bless him! and, perhaps, for so little as we think it, a real comfort to you and me.”

The old gentleman leaned back in his chair, and raised with a feeble hand his handkerchief to his eyes. It was not difficult nowadays to make Sir Giles cry. The fierce old lady had no such emotion to subdue. She sat very upright, staring at her son, suspicious, thinking she saw behind him the pert little defiant countenance under the parasol which she had met on the road. But she did not see how they could have met or communicated with each other, and she could not, on the spur of the moment, make out what connection there could be between his desire to go to London, and Patty of the Seven Thorns. Margaret stood behind her uncle’s chair, patting him softly on the shoulder to soothe him and assure him of sympathy. She looked over Sir Giles’ head at the boy who, he was able to flatter himself, might be like other boys when he came to man’s estate. How strangely can love and weakness be deceived! Gervase stood there against the mantelpiece, his foot caught up awkwardly in his hand, his slouching shoulders supported against the shelf, his big, loose bulk filling the place. Man’s estate! The poor Softy was eight-and-twenty and well grown, though he slouched and distorted himself. But still the father, and even the suspicious, less-persuadable mother, saw in him a boy, not beyond the season of growth—never beyond that of hope.

Fortunately for Gervase, he had not time to go on in his flush of triumph and success, for another moment of that elation might have broken down all precautions and betrayed the plan which his mother felt, but could not divine, underneath. In the meantime, however, it was bedtime, and neither Sir Giles nor my lady could bear any more. Lady Piercey sent off Parsons, and discussed the question with her niece in her bedroom for a full hour after. “There’s something underneath, I know there is,” Lady Piercey said, nodding her head in her big nightcap. “But I don’t see what she can have to do with it, for she would never want to send him away. And then, on the other hand, Meg, it would be the best thing in the world to send him away. There’s nothing like absence for blowing a thing like that out of a boy’s head. If there was a man we could trust to go with him,—but all alone, by himself, in a big place like London, and among so many temptations! Oh, Meg, Meg, I wish I knew what was the right thing to do!”

“He is very innocent, Aunt; he would not understand the temptation,” said Margaret.

“Oh, I’m not of that opinion at all,” cried Lady Piercey. “A man always understands that, however silly he may be; and sometimes, the sillier he is, the more he understands. But one nail knocks out another,” she added thoughtfully. Though Lady Piercey was not a woman of the world, but only a very rustic person, she was yet cynic enough for the remorseless calculation that a little backsliding, of which so many people were guilty, would be better than a dreadful marriage which would bring down the family, and corrupt the very race—which was her point of view.

Gervase roamed about the house in high excitement, immensely pleased with himself, while this colloquy was going on. Had he met even Dunning or Parsons, whom he did not love, the possibility was that he might have revealed his meaning to them in sheer elation of spirits. But neither of these persons came in his way, and in this early household most of the other servants were already in bed. Margaret, however, met him as usual when she came out of Lady Piercey’s room with her candle in her hand.

“What’s she been saying to you, Meg?” he asked, but burst out laughing before she could reply. “It’s such a joke,” he said, holding his sides, “such a joke, if you only knew! and I’ve half a mind to tell you, Meg, for you’re a good sort.”

“Don’t tell me anything, Gervase, for Heaven’s sake, that I can’t tell them. For, of course, I shall do so directly,” Margaret cried.

“Wouldn’t you just like to know?” he said, and laughed again, and chucked her under the chin in convulsions of hilarity. She stood at the door of the room, escaping hastily from the possible confidence and the familiarity, and, trembling, saw him slide down the banisters to the half-lighted hall below, with a childish chuckle of triumph. A slip upon that swift descent, and all might have been over—the commotion and the exultation, the trouble and the fear. But Gervase came back again beaming, and kissed his hand to her as he disappeared into his own room. He felt that he had gained the day.