Sir Charles acted on his judgment, and in due course sent Mr. Ba.s.sett to a school at some distance, kept by a clergyman, who had the credit in that county of exercising sharp supervision and strict discipline.

Sir Charles made no secret of the boy's eccentricities. Mr. Beecher said he had one or two steady boys who a.s.sisted him in such cases.

Sir Charles thought that a very good idea; it was like putting a wild colt into the break with a steady horse.

He missed the boy sadly at first, but comforted himself with the conviction that he had parted with him for his good: that consoled him somewhat.

The younger children of Sir Charles and Lady Ba.s.sett were educated entirely by their mother, and taught as none but a loving lady can teach.

Compton, with whom we have to do, never knew the thorns with which the path of letters is apt to be strewn. A mistress of the great art of pleasing made knowledge from the first a primrose path to him.

Sparkling all over with intelligence, she impregnated her boy with it.

She made herself his favorite companion; she would not keep her distance. She stole and coaxed knowledge and goodness into his heart and mind with rare and loving cunning.

She taught him English and French and Latin on the Hamiltonian plan, and stored his young mind with history and biography, and read to him, and conversed with him on everything as they read it.

She taught him to speak the truth, and to be honorable and just.

She taught him to be polite, and even formal, rather than free-and-easy and rude. She taught him to be a man. He must not be what brave boys called a molly-coddle: like most womanly women, she had a veneration for man, and she gave him her own high idea of the manly character.

Natural ability, and habitual contact with a mind so attractive and so rich, gave this intelligent boy many good ideas beyond his age.

When he was six years old, Lady Ba.s.sett made him pa.s.s his word of honor that he would never go into the stable-yard; and even then he was far enough advanced to keep his word religiously.

In return for this she let him taste some sweets of liberty, and was not always after him. She was profound enough to see that without liberty a n.o.ble character cannot be formed; and she husbanded the curb.

One day he represented to her that, in the meadow next their lawn, were great stripes of yellow, which were possibly cowslips; of course they might be only b.u.t.tercups, but he hoped better things of them; he further reported that there was an iron gate between him and this paradise: he could get over it if not objectionable; but he thought it safest to ask her what she thought of the matter; was that iron gate intended to keep little boys from the cowslips, because, if so, it was a misfortune to which he must resign himself. Still, it _was_ a misfortune. All this, of course, in the simple language of boyhood.

Then Lady Ba.s.sett smiled, and said, "Suppose I were to lend you a key of that iron gate?"

"Oh, mamma!"

"I have a great mind to."

"Then you will, you will."

"Does that follow?"

"Yes: whenever you say you think you'll do something kind, or you have a great mind to do it, you know you always do it; and that is one thing I do like you for, mamma--you are better than your word."

"Better than my word? Where does the child learn these things?"

"La, mamma, papa says that often."

"Oh, that accounts for it. I like the phrase very much. I wish I could think I deserved it. At any rate, I will be as good as my word for once; you shall have a key of the gate."

The boy clapped his hands with delight. The key was sent for, and, meantime, she told him one reason why she had trusted him with it was because he had been as good as his word about the stable.

The key was brought, and she held it up half playfully, and said, "There, sir, I deliver you this upon conditions: you must only use it when the weather is quite dry, because the gra.s.s in the meadow is longer, and will be wet. Do you promise?"

"Yes, mamma."

"And you must always lock the gate when you come back, and bring the key to one place--let me see--the drawer in the hall table, the one with marble on it; for you know a place for every thing is our rule. On these conditions, I hereby deliver you this magic key, with the right of egress and ingress."

"Egress and ingress?"

"Egress and ingress."

"Is that foreign for cowslips, mamma--and oxlips?"

"Ha! ha! the child's head is full of cowslips. There is the dictionary; look out Egress, and afterward look out Ingress."

When he had added these two words to his little vocabulary, his mother asked him if he would be good enough to tell her why he did not care much about all the beautiful flowers in the garden, and was so excited about cowslips, which appeared to her a flower of no great beauty, and the smell rather sickly, begging his pardon.

This question posed him dreadfully: he looked at her in a sort of comic distress, and then sat gravely down all in a heap, about a yard off, to think.

Finally he turned to her with a wry face, and said, "Why _do_ I, mamma?"

She smiled deliciously. "No, no, sir," said she. "How can I get inside your little head and tell what is there? There must be a reason, I suppose; and you know you and I are never satisfied till we get at the reason of a thing. But there is no hurry, dear. I give you a week to find it out. Now, run and open the gate--stay, are there any cows in that field?"

"Sometimes, mamma; but they have no horns, you know."

"Upon your word?"

"Upon my honor. I am not fond of them with horns, myself."

"Then run away, darling. But you must come and hunt me up, and tell me how you enjoyed yourself, because that makes me happy, you know."

This is mawkish; but it will serve to show on what terms the woman and boy were.

On second thoughts, I recall that apology, and defy creation. "THE MAWKISH" is a branch of literature, a great and popular one, and I have neglected it savagely.

Master Compton opened the iron gate, and the world was all before him where to choose.

He chose one of those yellow stripes that had so attracted him. Horror!

it was all b.u.t.tercups and deil a cowslip.

Nevertheless, pursuing his researches, he found plenty of that delightful flower scattered about the meadow in thinner patches; and he gathered a double handful and dirtied his knees.

Returning, thus laden, from his first excursion, he was accosted by a fluty voice.

"Little boy!"

He looked up, and saw a girl standing on the lower bar of a little wooden gate painted white, looking over.