The Adventures of Don Lavington | Page 5

all, and be as we was."
"I wish we could," cried the little woman, whose eyes seemed to say that her lips were not telling the truth.
"So do I," cried Jem, tossing off his third cup of tea; and then to his little wife's astonishment he took a thick slice of bread and butter in each hand, clapped them together as if they were cymbals, rose from the table and put on his hat.
"Where are you going, Jem?"
"Out."
"What for?"
"To eat my bread and butter down on the quay."
"But why, Jem?"
"'Cause there's peace and quietness there."
Bang! Went the door, and little Mrs Wimble stood gazing at it angrily for a few moments before sitting down and having what she called "a good cry," after which she rose, wiped her eyes, and put away the tea things without partaking of any herself.
"Poor Jem!" she said softly; "I'm afraid I'm very unkind to him sometimes."
Just at that moment Jem was sitting on an empty cask, eating his bread and butter, and watching a boat manned by blue-jackets going off to the sloop of war lying out toward the channel, and flying her colours in the evening breeze.
"Poor little Sally!" he said to himself. "We don't seem to get on somehow, and I'm afraid I'm a bit rough to her; but knives and scissors! What a temper she have got."
Meanwhile, in anything but a pleasant frame of mind, Don had gone home to find that the tea was ready, and that he was being treated as a laggard.
"Come, Lindon," said his uncle quietly, "you have kept us waiting some time."
The lad glanced quickly round the well-furnished room, bright with curiosities brought in many a voyage from the west, and with the poison of Mike's words still at work, he wondered how much of what he saw rightfully belonged to him.
The next moment his eyes lit on the soft sweet troubled face of his mother, full of appeal and reproach, and it seemed to Don that his uncle had been upsetting her by an account of his delinquencies.
"It's top bad, and I don't deserve it," he said to himself. "Everything seems to go wrong now. Well, what are you looking at?" he added, to himself, as he took his seat and stared across at his cousin, the playmate of many years, whose quiet little womanly face seemed to repeat her father's grave, reproachful look, but who, as it were, snatched her eyes away as soon as she met his gaze.
"They all hate me," thought Don, who was in that unhappy stage of a boy's life when help is so much needed to keep him from turning down one of the dark side lanes of the great main route.
"Been for a walk, Don?" said his mother with a tender look.
"No, mother, I only stopped back in the yard a little while."
His uncle set down his cup sharply.
"You have not been keeping that scoundrel Bannock?" he cried.
"No, sir; I've been talking to Jem."
"Ho!" ejaculated the old merchant. "That's better. But you might have come straight home."
Don's eyes encountered his Cousin Kitty's just then, as she gave her head a shake to throw back the brown curls which clustered about her white forehead.
She turned her gaze upon her plate, and he could see that she was frowning.
"Yes," thought Don, "they all dislike me, and I'm only a worry and trouble to my mother. I wish I was far away--anywhere."
He went on with his tea moodily and in silence, paying no heed to the reproachful glances of his mother's eyes, which seemed to him to say, and with some reason, "Don't be sulky, Don, my boy; try and behave as I could wish."
"It's of no use to try," he said to himself; and the meal passed off very silently, and with a cold chill on every one present.
"I'm very sorry, Laura," said her brother, as soon as Don had left the room; "and I don't know what to do for the best. I hate finding fault and scolding, but if the boy is in the wrong I must chide."
"Try and be patient with him, Josiah," said Mrs Lavington pleadingly. "He is very young yet."
"Patient? I'm afraid I have been too patient. That scoundrel at the yard has unsettled him with his wild tales of the sea; and if I allowed it, Don would make him quite a companion."
"But, Josiah--"
"There, don't look like that, my dear. I promised you I would play a father's part to the boy, and I will; but you must not expect me to be a weak indulgent father, and spoil him with foolish lenity. There, enough for one day. I daresay we shall get all right in time."
"Oh, yes," cried Mrs Lavington, earnestly. "He's a true-hearted, brave boy; don't try to crush him down."
"Crush him, nonsense!"