The Crofton Boys | Page 3

to school with Philip by-and-by; but the idea of having to wait--to do his lessons with Miss Harold every day till he should be ten years old, made him roll himself on the parlour carpet in despair.
Philip was between eleven and twelve. He was happy at school: and he liked to talk all about it at home. These holidays, Hugh made a better listener than even his sisters; and he was a more amusing one--he knew so little about the country. He asked every question that could be imagined about the playground at the Crofton school, and the boys' doings out of school; and then, when Philip fancied he must know all about what was done, out came some odd remark which showed what wrong notions he had formed of a country life. Hugh had not learned half that he wanted to know, and his little head was full of wonder and mysterious notions, when the holidays came to an end, and Philip had to go away. From that day Hugh was heard to talk less of Spain, and the sea, and desert islands, and more of the Crofton boys; and his play with little Harry was all of being at school. At his lessons, meantime, he did not improve at all.
One very warm day, at the end of August, five weeks after Philip had returned to school, Miss Harold had stayed full ten minutes after twelve o'clock to hear Hugh say one line of the multiplication-table over and over again, to cure him of saying that four times seven is fifty-six; but all in vain: and Mrs. Proctor had begged her not to spend any more time to-day upon it.
Miss Harold went away, the girls took their sewing, and sat down at their mother's work-table, while Hugh was placed before her, with his hands behind his back, and desired to look his mother full in the face, to begin again with "four times one is four," and go through the line, taking care what he was about. He did so; but before he came to four times seven, he sighed, fidgetted, looked up at the corners of the room, off into the work-basket, out into the street, and always, as if by a spell, finished with "four times seven is fifty-six." Jane looked up amazed--Agnes looked down ashamed; his mother looked with severity in his face. He began the line a fourth time, when, at the third figure, he started as if he had been shot. It was only a knock at the door that he had heard; a treble knock, which startled nobody else, though, from the parlour door being open, it sounded pretty loud.
Mrs. Proctor spread a handkerchief over the stockings in her work-basket; Jane put back a stray curl which had fallen over her face; Agnes lifted up her head with a sigh, as if relieved that the multiplication-table must stop for this time; and Hugh gazed into the passage, through the open door, when he heard a man's step there. The maid announced Mr. Tooke, of Crofton; and Mr. Tooke walked in.
Mrs. Proctor had actually to push Hugh to one side,--so directly did he stand in the way between her and her visitor. He stood, with his hands still behind his back, gazing up at Mr. Tooke, with his face hotter than the multiplication-table had ever made it, and his eyes staring quite as earnestly as they had ever done to find Robinson Crusoe's island in the map.
"Go, child," said Mrs. Proctor: but this was not enough. Mr. Tooke himself had to pass him under his left arm before he could shake hands with Mrs. Proctor. Hugh was now covered with shame at this hint that he was in the way; but yet he did not leave the room. He stole to the window, and flung himself down on two chairs, as if looking into the street from behind the blind; but he saw nothing that passed out of doors, so eager was his hope of hearing something of the Crofton boys,--their trap-ball, and their Saturday walk with the usher. Not a word of this kind did he hear. As soon as Mr. Tooke had agreed to stay to dinner, his sisters were desired to carry their work elsewhere,--to the leads, if they liked; and he was told that he might go to play. He had hoped he might be overlooked in the window; and unwillingly did he put down first one leg and then the other from the chairs, and saunter out of the room. He did not choose to go near his sisters, to be told how stupidly he had stood in the gentleman's way; so, when he saw that they were placing their stools on the leads, he went up into the