“I should cook your suppers, and mend your clothes, and make the fire.”
“Ah!” said the boy with a little contempt; “bread and milk would do, you know, or when we shot a deer we’d just put him before the fire and roast him. We shouldn’t want much cooking; and the skin would do for clothes.”
“You would not be at all comfortable like that,” said Lucy gravely, shocked by the savagery of the idea; “even Robinson Crusoe had to sew the skins together and make them into a coat; and how could you have milk,” she added, “without some one to milk the cow?”
“I will tell you something that is very strange,” said Jock: “Aunty Ford never read ‘Robinson Crusoe;’ but she knows Christian off by heart, and all about Mary and Christiana and the children. And she knows the history of Joseph, and David, and Goliath; so you can not say she is quite ignorant; and she makes me tell her quantities of things.”
“You should not mix up your stories,” said Lucy; “the Bible is not like other books. About Joseph and David and those other--” (Lucy had almost said gentlemen, which seemed the most respectful expression; but she paused, reflecting with a little horror that this was too modern and common a title for Bible personages). “They are for Sunday,” she went on, more severely, to hide her own confusion; “they are not like ‘Robinson Crusoe’ or the ‘Genii in the Bottle;’ you ought not to mix them up.”
“It is Christian that is the _most_ Sunday,” said Jock; “she explains it to me, and all what it means, about the House Beautiful and the ladies that lived there. There is a Punch, Lucy! and there’s Cousin Philip; never mind him, but run, run, and let us have a good look at the Punch.”
“I mustn’t run,” said Lucy, holding him back, “and I can not stand and look at Punch. If Mrs. Stone were to see me she never would let me come out with you any more.”
“Oh, run, run!” cried the little boy, straining at her hand like a hound in a leash. He had dragged her half across the street when Cousin Philip came up. This was the only other relative with whom Mr. Trevor had kept up any intercourse. He was the young man to whom the old school-master had made over his school, and he, too, like Lucy, was taking advantage of the half holiday. In Farafield, where young men were scarce, Philip Rainy had already made what his friends called a very good impression. He was not, it was true (to his eternal confusion and regret) a University man; but neither was he a certified school-master. He had greatly raised the numbers of old John Trevor’s school, and he occupied a kind of debatable position on the borders of gentility, partly because of his connection with the enriched family perhaps, but partly because his appearance and manners were good, and his aspirations were lofty from a social point of view. He had begun with a determination, to resist steadily all claims upon him from below, and to assert courageously a right to stand upon the dais of Farafield society; and though there may be many discouragements in the path of a young man thus situated, it is astonishing how soon a steady resolution of this kind begins to tell. He had been five years in old John Trevor’s school, and already many people accredited him with a B.A. to his name. Philip told no fibs on that or any subject that concerned his position. “When it was necessary,” as he said, he was perfectly frank on the subject; but there are so few occasions on which it is necessary to be explanatory, a modest man does not thrust himself before the notice of the world; and he was making his way--he was making an impression. Though he had been brought up a Dissenter like his uncle, he had soon seen the entire incompatibility of Sectarianism with society, and he had now the gratification of hearing himself described as a sound if moderate churchman. And he was now permanently upon the list of men who were asked to the dinner-parties at the rectory, when single men were wanted to balance a superabundance of ladies, an emergency continually recurring in a country town. This of itself speaks volumes. Philip Rainy was making his way.