Ay, many is the brave heart, now doing its work
and bearing its load in country curacies, London chambers, under the
Indian sun, and in Australian towns and clearings, which looks back with
fond and grateful memory to that School-house drawing-room, and dates
much of its highest and best training to the lessons learnt there.
Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder children, there were one
of the younger masters, young Brooke (who was now in the sixth, and
had succeeded to his brother's position and influence), and another
sixth-form boy, talking together before the fire. The master and young
Brooke, now a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years old,
and powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom, to his intense
glory, and then went on talking. The other did not notice them.
The hostess, after a few kind words, which led the boys at once and
insensibly to feel at their ease and to begin talking to one another,
left them with her own children while she finished a letter. The young
ones got on fast and well, Tom holding forth about a prodigious pony he
had been riding out hunting, and hearing stories of the winter glories
of the lakes, when tea came in, and immediately after the Doctor
himself.
How frank, and kind, and manly was his greeting to the party by the
fire! It did Tom's heart good to see him and young Brooke shake hands,
and look one another in the face; and he didn't fail to remark that
Brooke was nearly as tall and quite as broad as the Doctor.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239