Johnny obeyed, and ate with relish.

"There!" said he; "now I am ready for anything."

"Don't get up yet. I'll go and order a horse for you."

When Lord Fordham came back from doing so, he found his patient really fast asleep, and with a little colour coming into the pale cheeks. He stole back, bade that the pony should wait, went on writing his letter, and waited till one hour, two, three hours had pa.s.sed, and at last the sleeper woke, greatly disgusted, willing to accept the bath which Lord Fordham advised him to take, and which made him quite himself again.

"You'll let me go now," he said. "I can walk as well as ever."

"You will be of more use now, if you ride," said Lord Fordham. "There, I hear our luncheon coming in. You must eat while the pony is coming round."

"If it won't lose time--thank you," said Johnny, recovered enough now to know how hungry he was, "But I ought not to have stayed away. My aunt has no one but me."

"And you can really help her?" said Lord Fordham, with some experience of his brother's uselessness.

"Not well, of course," said Johnny; "but it is better than n.o.body; and Armine is so patient and so good, that I'm the more afraid. Is not it a very bad sign," he added, confidentially; for he was quite won by the youth's kind, considerate way, and evident liking and sympathy.

"I don't know," faltered Lord Fordham. "My brother Walter was like that!

Is this the little fellow who is Cecil's f.a.g?"

"Yes; Jock asked him to take him, because he was sure never to bully him or lick him when he wouldn't do things."

This not very lucid description rejoiced Lord Fordham.

"I am glad of that," he said. "But I hope the little boy will get over this. My mother had a very excellent account of Dr. Medlicott's skill; and you know an illness from a misadventure is not like anything const.i.tutional."

"No; but Armine is always delicate, and my aunt has had to take care of him."

"Do you live with them?"

"O no; I have lots of people at home. I only came with them because I had had these measles at Eton; and my aunt is--well, the very jolliest woman that ever was."

Lord Fordham smiled.

"Yes, indeed she is. I don't mean only kind and good-natured. But if you just knew her! The whole world and everything else have just been something new and glorious ever since I knew her. I seem to myself to have lived in a dark hole till she made it all light."

"Ah! I understand that you would do anything for her."

"_That_ I would, if there was anything I could do," said Johnny, hastily finishing his meal.

"Well, you've done something to-day."

"That--oh, that was nothing. I shouldn't have made such a fool of myself if I hadn't been seedy before. I hear the pony," he added. "Excuse me."

And, with a murmured grace, he rose. Then, recollecting himself, "No end of thanks. I don't know how to thank you enough."

"Don't; I've done nothing," said Lord Fordham, wringing his hand. "I only hope--"

The words stuck in his throat, and with a sigh he watched the lad ride off.

CHAPTER XXI. -- AN ACT OF INDEPENDENCE.

Soldier now and servant true; Earth behind and heaven in view.

Isaac Williams.

Marmaduke Alwyn Evelyn, Viscount Fordham, was the fourth bearer of that t.i.tle within ten years. His father had not lived to wear it, and his two elder brothers had both died in early youth. His precarious existence seemed to be only held on a tenure of constant precaution, and if his mother ventured to hope that it might be otherwise with the two youngest of the family, it was because they were of a shorter, st.u.r.dier, more compact form and less transparent complexion than their elders, and altogether seemed of a different const.i.tution.

More delicate from the first than the two brothers who had gone before him, Lord Fordham had never been at school, had studied irregularly, and had never been from under his mother's wing till this summer, when she was detained by the slow decay of his grandmother. Languor and listlessness had beset the youth, and he had been ordered mountain air, and thus it was that Mrs. Evelyn had despatched both her sons to Switzerland, under the attendance of a highly recommended physician, a young man bright and attractive, who had over-worked himself at an hospital, and needed thorough relaxation. Rightly considering Lucas Brownlow as the cause of most of Cecil's Eton follies, she had given her eldest son a private hint to elude joining forces with the family, and he was the most docile and obedient of sons. Yet was it the perversity of human nature that made him infinitely more animated and interested in John Brownlow's race and the distressed travellers on the Schwarenbach than he had been since--no one could tell when?

Perhaps it was the novelty of being left alone and comparatively unwatched. Certain it was that he ate enough to rejoice the heart of his devoted and tyrannical attendant Reeves; and that he walked about in much anxiety all the afternoon, continually using his telescope to look up the mountain wherever a bit of the track was visible through the pine woods.

In due time Cecil rode back the pony which John had taken up. The alacrity with which the long lank bending figure stepped to meet him was something unwonted, but the boy himself was downcast and depressed.

"I'm afraid you've nothing good to tell."

Cecil shook his head, and after some more seconds broke out--

"It's awful!"

"What is?"

"Brownlow's pain. I never saw anything like it!"

"Rheumatism? If that is from the exposure, I hope it will not last long."

"No. They've sent for some opiates to Leukerbad, and the doctor says that is sure to put him to sleep."

"Medlicott stays there?"

"Yes. He says if little Armine is any way fit, he must move him away to-morrow at all risks from the night-cold up there, and he wants Reeves to see about men to carry him, that is if--if to-night does not--"

Cecil could not finish.

"Then it is as bad as we heard?"

"Quite," said Cecil, "or worse. That dear little chap, just fancy!" and his eyes filled with tears. "He tried to thank me for having been good to him--as if I had."

"He was your f.a.g?"

"Yes; Skipjack asked me to choose him because he's that sort of little fellow that won't give into anything that goes against his conscience, and if one of those fellows had him that say lower boys have no business with consciences, he might be licked within an inch of his life and he'd never give in. He did let himself be put under a pump once at some beastly hole in the country, for not choosing to use bad language, and he has never been so strong since."

"Mother would be glad that at least you allowed him the use of his conscience."