"I shall read books," he said.

"Where will you get them?" asked Estelle. "Besides, after long days working out of doors, you'll be much too tired to read books, or go on with your studies. I know, because I've tried it."

"Quies was the G.o.d of rest in ancient Rome," proceeded Mr. Churchouse, "but he was no G.o.d for youth. The elderly turned their weary bodies to his shrine and decorated his altars--not the young. But for you, Abel, there are radiant G.o.ddesses, and their names are Stimula and Strenua. To them you must pay suit and service, and your motto should be 'Able and Willing.'"

"Of course," cried Estelle; "but instead of that, you ask to be let alone, to turn slowly and surely into a ploughboy! Why, the harm is already beginning! And you may be quite sure that n.o.body who cares for you is going to see you turn into a ploughboy."

They produced some lunch presently and Abel enjoyed the good fare. For a time they pressed him no more, but when the meal was taken, let him show them places of interest. While Estelle visited the farm with him and heard all about his work, Mr. Churchouse discussed the boy with his master. Nothing could then be settled, and it was understood that Abel should stop at Knapp until the farmer heard more concerning him.

Estelle advanced the good cause very substantially, however, and felt sanguine of the future; for alone with her, Abel confessed that farming gave him no pleasure and that his ambition was set on higher things.

"I shall be an engineer some day," he said. "Presently I shall go where there is machinery, and begin at the bottom and work up to the top. I know a lot more about it than you might think, as it is."

"I know you do," she said. "And there's nothing your mother would like better than engineering for you. Besides, a boy begins that when he's young, and I believe you ought to be in the shops soon."

"I shall be soon. Very likely the next thing you hear about me will be that I have disappeared again. Then I shall turn up in a works somewhere. Because you needn't think I'm going to be a ploughboy. I shouldn't get level with my father by being a ploughboy."

"Your father would be delighted for you to get level with him and know as much as he does," she answered, pretending to mistake his meaning.

"If you said you wanted to know as much about machinery and machines in general as he does, then he would very soon set to work to help you on."

Abel considered.

"I won't take any help from him; but I'll do this--to suit myself, not him. I'd do it so as I could be near mother and could look after her.

Because, when Mister Churchouse dies, I'll have to look after her."

"You needn't be anxious about your mother, Abel. She's got plenty of friends."

"Her friends don't count if they're his friends, because you can't be my mother's friend and his friend, too. But I'll go into the spinning Mill, and be like anybody else, and work for wages--just the same wages as any other boy going in. That won't be thanking him for anything."

Estelle could hardly hide her satisfaction at this unexpected concession. She dared not show her pleasure for fear that Abel would see it and draw back.

"Then you could live with mother and Mister Churchouse," she said. "It would be tremendously interesting for you. I wonder if you would begin with Roberts at the lathes, or Cogle at the engines?"

"I don't know. Before I ran away, Nicholas Roberts wanted somebody to help him turning. I've turned sometimes. I'd begin like that and rise to better things."

She was careful not to mention his father again.

"I believe Mister Roberts would like to have you in his shop very much.

Sarah, his wife, hopes that her son will be a lathe-worker some day, but he's too young to go yet."

"He'll never be any good at machinery," declared Abel. "I know him. He's all for the sea."

They took their leave presently, after Ernest had heard the boy's offer.

He, too, was careful, but applauded the suggestion and a.s.sured Abel he would be very welcome at his old home.

"I like you, you know; in fact, as a rule, we have got on very well together. I believe you'll make an engineer some day if you remember the Roman G.o.ddesses. To be ambitious is the most hopeful thing we can wish for youth. Always be ambitious--that's the first essential for success."

But the old man surprised Estelle by failing to share her delight at Abel's decision. She for her part felt that the grand difficulty was pa.s.sed, and that once in his father's Mill, the boy must sooner or later come to reason, if only by the round of self-interest; but Mr.

Churchouse reminded her that another had to be reckoned with.

"A most delicate situation would be created in that case," he said. "Of course I can't pretend to say how Raymond will regard it. He may see it with your eyes. He sees so many things with your eyes--more and more, in fact--that I hope he will; but you mustn't be very disappointed if he does not. This cannot look to him as it does to you, or even to me. His point of view may reject Abel's suggestion altogether for various reasons; and Sabina, too, will very likely feel it couldn't happen without awakening a great many painful memories."

"She advised us to consult Abel and hear what he thought."

"We have. We return with the great man's ultimatum. But I'm afraid it doesn't follow that his ultimatum will be accepted. Even if Sabina felt she could endure such an arrangement, it is doubtful in the extreme whether Raymond will. Indeed I'll go so far as to prophesy that he won't."

Estelle saw that she had been over-sanguine.

"There's one bright side, however," he continued. "We have got something definite out of the boy and should now be able to help him largely in spite of himself. Every day he lives, he'll become more impressed with the necessity for knowledge, and if, for the moment, he declines any alternative, he'll soon come round to one. He knows already that he can't stop at Knapp, so this great and perilous adventure of the automobile has been successful--though how successful we cannot tell yet."

He knew, however, before the day was done, for Sabina felt very definitely on the subject. Yet her att.i.tude was curious: she held it not necessary to express an opinion.

Mr. Churchouse came home very cold, and while she attended to his needs, brought him hot drink and lighted a fire, Sabina listened.

"The boy is exceedingly well," he said. "I never saw his eye so bright, or his skin so clear and brown. But a farmer he won't be for anybody. Of course, one never thought he would."

When she had heard Abel's idea, she answered without delay.

"It's a thousand pities he's set his heart on that, because it won't happen. What I think doesn't matter, of course, but for once you'll find his father is of a mind with me. He'll not suffer such an arrangement for a moment. It's bringing the trouble too near. He doesn't want his skeleton walking out of the cupboard into the Mill, and whatever happens, that won't."

She was right enough, for when Raymond heard all that Estelle could tell him, he decided instantly against any such arrangement.

"Impossible," he said. "One needn't trouble even to argue about it. But that he would like to be an engineer is quite healthy. He shall be; and he shall begin at the beginning and have every advantage possible--not his way, but mine. I argue ultimate success from this. It eases my mind."

"All the same, if you don't do anything, he'll only run away again,"

said Estelle, who was disappointed.

"He won't run far. Let him stop where he is for a few months, till he's heartily sick of it and ready to listen to sense. Then perhaps I'll go over and see him myself. You've done great things, Estelle. I feel more sanguine than I have ever felt about him. I wish I could do what he wants; but that's impossible his way. However, I'll do it in my own.

Sense is beginning in him, and that is the great and hopeful discovery you've made."

"I'm ever so glad you're pleased about it," she said. "He loved the motor car much better than the sight of us. Yet he was glad to see us too. He's really a very human boy, you know, Ray."

CHAPTER XV

CRITICISM

Upon a Sunday afternoon, Sarah Roberts and her husband were drinking tea at 'The Seven Stars.' They sat in Nelly Legg's private room, and by some accident all took rather a gloomy view of life.

As for Nelly, she had been recently weighed, and despite drastic new treatment, was found to have put on two pounds in a month.

"Lord knows where it'll end," she said. "You can't go on getting heavier and heavier for ever more. Even a vegetable marrow, and such like things, reach their limit; and if they can it's hard that a creature with an immortal soul have got to go growing larger and larger, to her own misery and her husband's grief. To be smothered with your own fat is a proper cruel end I call it; and I haven't deserved it; and it shakes my faith in an all-wise G.o.d, to feel myself turning into a useless mountain of flesh. Worse than useless in fact, because them that can't work themselves are certain sure to make work for others. Which I do."

"I never knew anything so aggravating, I'm sure," a.s.sented Nicholas; "but so far as I can see, if life don't fret you from within, it frets you from without. It can't leave you alone to go on your way in a dignified manner. It's always intruding, so to speak. In fact, life comes between us and our living, if you understand me, and sometimes for my part I can look on to the end of it with a lot of resignation."