Lucian the dreamer

ppointments are laid. He had set out in life with a choice selection

une to lose his wife, and the enjoyment of the fit things of a country living was necessarily limited to him for some time. He was not greatly taxed by his pastoral duties, for his flock, from the earl downwards, loved that type of parson who knows how to keep his place, and only insists on his professional prestige on Sundays and the appointed days, and he had no great inclination to occupy himself in other directions. As the bitterness of his great sorrow slipped away fr

revived an ancient taste for arch?ology, and the two made long excursions to the ruined abbeys, priories, castles, and hermitages in their neighbourhood. Miss Pepperdine, to whom Lucian invariably applied for large supplies of sandwiches on these occasions, had an uncomfortable suspicion that the boy would have been better employed with a copy-book or a slate, but she had great faith in the vicar, and acknowledged that her nephew never got into mischief, though he had certainly set his room on fire one night by a bad habit of reading in bed. She had b

walked into the vicar’s study one morning to find him in a state of mild excit

aid, ‘you will see my daughter.

some subtle change. He knew nothing whatever of girls—they had never come{54

glad to see h

ave not seen her for nearly a year, and it is two y

riend to devote himself to him. He had become very fond of the vicar; they got on together excellently; it was not pleasant to think that

is full of life and fun—a real ray of sunshine in a house.’ He sighed heavily and looked at a portrait of his wife. ‘Yes,’ he cont

scholar, and could not understand how a man who could make the Greek grammar so interesting could feel any interest in a girl, even though that girl happened to be his own daughter. For women like his aunts, and Mrs. Trippett, and the housekeeper at the castle, Lucian had a great liking; they were all useful in one way or another, either to get good things to

ades. They were mostly of the practical-joke order, and seemed to afford Mr. Chilverstone huge amusement—Lucian wondered how he could be so silly. He endeavoured to be as polite as possible, but he declin

-deaf and needed no conversational effort on the part of a friend, and when he spoke himself he talked of intelligent subjects, such as rheumatism, backache, and the best cure for stone in the bladder. Lucian thought him a highly intelligent man, and presented him with a screw of tobacco purchased at the village shop—it was a tacit thankoffering to the gods that the old man had avoided the subject of girls. His spirits impr

tten on the fire in order to warm it. The infatuated father, who had not had an opportunity of retailing these stories for some time, and who believed that he was interesting his listener, continued to pour forth story after story, each more feeble and ridiculous than the last, until Lucian could have shrieked with the agony which was tearing his soul to pieces. He pleaded a bad headache at last and tried to slip away—Mr. Chilverstone detained him in order to

swore freely and fluently until he had exhausted that eloquent vocabulary which one may pick up in Naples and Venice and in the purlieus of Hatton Garden, and when he had finished he began it all over again and repeated it with as much fervour as one sho

read a hundred instances—this was one more. Of course, the Sprats creature would oust him from his place—nothing would ever be as it had been. All was desolate, and

purchases of cattle; he was restless and at times excited, and Miss Keziah looked at his tongue and felt his forehead and made him swallow a dose of a certain home-made medicine by which she set great store. On the third day the suppressed excitement within

helian coaxing, ‘would you like to h

’t know as I ever did hear that langu

expletives, delivered with native force and energy, making use

ng to murder somebody—you look that fierce. It’s a queer sort o’

uage in the world when you want

over the hedge and I’ll show you,’ cried a ringing and very

sight of something feminine behind the hedgerow; the next instant a remarkably nimble girl cam

see ’ee once again, missie. They did tell me you was coming from them fu

erstone. ‘How’s your rheumatics, as one might call ’e

g a decided desire to talk, ‘and a deal better in summer, allus providing the Lord don

about her with a knowing air. ‘Seem pretty well dried up, don’t they?’ She looked

ave a very long and very ready one when it was swearing at poor old

Lucian—he was telling me how they swear in Eye-talian. Not but what it didn’t sound ver

nk he would.’ She turned on the boy with a sudden twist

an, yes,’

am?’ she asked, w

r, and the shadow of a s

musingly, ‘I think

ther and stared as only s

aps without knowing it, recognised the boy’s beauty and hated him for it in a healthy fashion. He was too much of a picture; his clothes were too neat; his collar too clean; his hands too white; he was altogether

air sandy and anything but tidy;{60} there was nothing beautiful in her face but a pair of brown eyes of a singularly clear and honest sort. As for her attire, it was not in that order which an exacting governess might have required: she wore a blue serge frock in which she had evidently been climbing trees or scrambling through hedgerows, a battered straw hat wherein she or somebody

to know? What would you think if I told you that you’d look nice if you had a barrel-organ and a mo

ighed re

he ans

ven’t been to your lessons for two days

nt any lessons to-d

ce. ‘What do they do with little boy

had much opportunity of making acquaintance, he would have seen that Spra

ing peaceabl

oming at all,’

that,{61} won’t we, Boggles?’ she exc

ape her. Lucian expostulated and beseeched; Sprats, shouting and laughing, made for a gap in the hedgerow; Boggles, hugely delighted, following in th

y!’ cried Lucian

ster Lucian,’ counselled Boggles. ‘Miss M

shouted Lucian, half mad

e other side with a wide ditch of water at its foot: Boggles, staring over the hedge with all his eyes, beheld captor and captive, an inextricable mass of legs and arms, turn a