The Mighty Atom | Page 9

as happy as the day is long. You'll find plenty of boys to fight with,--and to conquer!--fighting is the rule of this world, my boy, and to those who fight well, so is conquering. And it's a good thing to begin practising the business early,--practice makes perfect. Tell your father,--and tell this professor who is coming to take my place, that it is your own wish to go to a public school,--Eton, Harrow, Winchester,--any of them can turn out men."
Lionel looked pained and puzzled.
"Yes,--I will ask,"--he said--"But I'm sure I shall be refused. Father will never hear of it. The boys in public schools all go to church on Sundays, don't they? Well, you know I should never be allowed to do that!"
Montrose made no reply, and they walked on in unbroken silence till they reached the abode of Miss Clarinda Cleverly Payne, where on the threshold stood a bright-eyed, pleasant-faced active personage in a lilac cotton gown and snow-white mob-cap of the fashion of half a century ago.
"Good-morning sir! Nice morning! Good-morning Master Lionel! Well now, toe be sure, I dew believe the eggs is just laid for you! I heerd the hens a-clucking the very minute you came in sight! Ah dearie me! if we all did our duty when it was expected of us, like my hens, the world would get on a deal better than it dew! Walk in, sir!--walk in Master Lionel!--the table's spread and everything's ready; the window's open too, for there's a sight o' honeysuckle outside and it dew smell sweet, I can assure you! Nothing like Devonshire honeysuckle except Devonshire cream! Ah, and you'll find plenty o' that for breakfast! And I'm sure this little gentleman's sorry his kind master's going away, eh?"
"Yes, I am very sorry, ma'am," said Lionel earnestly, taking off his little cap politely as he looked up at the worthy Clarinda's sunbrowned, honest countenance--"But it isn't much use being sorry, is it? He must go, and I must stay,--and if I were to fret for a whole year about it, it wouldn't make any difference, would it?"
"No, that it wouldn't,"--returned Miss Payne, staring hard into the pathetic young eyes that so wistfully regarded her,--"But you see some of us can't take things so sensibly as you do, my dear!--we're not all so clever!"
"Clever!" echoed Lionel, with an accent of such bitterness as might have befitted a cynic of many years' worldly experience--"I am not clever. I am only crammed."
"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Clarinda, gazing helplessly about her,--"What does the child mean?"
"He means just what he says"--answered Montrose with a slight, rather sad smile,--"If you had to learn all the things Lionel is supposed to know--"
"Larn?" interrupted Miss Clarinda with a sharp sniff--"Thank the Lord I ain't had no larnin'! I know how to do my work and live honestly without runnin' into debt,--and that's enough for me. To see the young gels nowadays with their books an' their penny papers, all a-gabblin' of a parcel o' rubbish as doesn't consarn 'em,--it dew drive me wild, I can tell you! My niece Susie got one o' them there cheap novels one day, and down she sat, a-readin' an' a-readin', an' she let the cream boil and spoilt it, an' later on in the day, she slipt and fell on the doorstep with a dozen new-laid eggs in her apron and broke eight o' them,--then in a week or two she took to doin' her hair in all sorts o' queer towzley ways, and pinched her waist in, till she couldn't fancy her dinner and her nose got as red as a carrot. I said nothing,--for the more you say to they young things the worse they get,--but at last I got hold o' the book that had done the mischief and took to readin' it myself. Lor!--I laughed till I nearly split!--a parcel o' nonsense all about a fool of a country wench as couldn't do nothing but make butter, and yet she married a lord an' was took to Court with di'monds an' fal-lals!--such a muck o' lies was printed in that there book as was enough to bring the judgment of the Almighty on the jackass as wrote it! I went to my niece and I sez to her, sez I--'Susie my gel, you're a decent, strong, well-favoured sort o' lass, taken just as God made ye, and if you behave yourself, you may likely marry an honest farmer lad in time,--but if ye get such notions o' lords and ladies as are in this silly lyin' book, an' go doin' o' your hair like crazy Jane, there's not a man in Combmartin as won't despise ye. An' ye'll go to the bad, my gel, as sure as a die!' She was a decent lass, Susie, an'