The Story of the White-Rock Cove | Page 4

air and constant change for the summer months, and a winter in some warm climate. There had been some hesitation as to how my cousin, their only child, should be disposed of. He was not very strong, and school life, it was feared, might be too great an ordeal for another year; so my parents had written, offering that he should spend that time at Braycombe, and share my tutor's instructions. The decisive answer from my uncle had only just arrived, and I was in a tumult of joy and excitement that it was in favour of my cousin's coming to stay with us, and that the actual day of our visitors' arrival had been fixed.
George listened with every appearance of interest to my communication.
"I'm glad your cousin's coming, Master Willie, as you're pleased," he said.
"But aren't you glad, too, for your own sake?" I asked. "It will be so nice having him to play with us."
"Oh, I'll be pleased to see him, never fear for that," responded George. "I knew his father when he was but a little fellow like yourself."
"Mamma calls me her big boy," I threw in, disapprovingly. "But what do you think Aleck will be like?"
"Well, sir, I should expect very much such another young craft as yourself; or, now I come to think of it, perhaps a year older or so."
"Not a year," I replied; "ten months and a half. I asked mamma his birth-day. Do you think he'll be as tall as me? because papa and mamma say I'm tall for my age."
"His father stood six feet one the day he came of age. I daresay his son will take after him," said George.
"And be as tall as that?" I inquired, feeling rather anxious, until reassured, at the transformation of my cousin in prospect into a young giant.
I suppose that few children had ever seen less of other children than I had up to this time. There were but three gentlemen's houses in our neighbourhood: the Rectory, where lived the elderly clergyman and his wife, who had never had a family; the Elms, a country seat, where Sir John and Lady Cosington and two grown-up daughters resided; and Willowbank, another country place, occupied by a young married couple, with one little baby. Elmworth, our nearest town, was seven miles off; and this distance almost entirely precluded intercourse with any of the families there.
In consequence of this, I had been completely without companions of my own age up to this time. In books I had read much of children's amusements with their companions; and although the perfect happiness of my own home left nothing really to be wished for, if ever a wish did occur to me for anything I had not, it was for a play-fellow and companion somewhere about my own age; and now, when this wish of mine was really on the eve of being realized, I was filled with vague dreams and anticipations of all the delight which it was to bring to me. When George and I had mutually agreed that my cousin Aleck--allowing for the difference of age--might be reasonably expected to be somewhat taller than myself, we sat down on the beach, and began to discuss certain plans of mine for giving him a suitable welcome.
Dim ideas, the result of "Illustrated London News'" pictures, were floating in my mind--bouquets, triumphal arches, addresses, and so forth--even although I wound up by saying--
"Of course, not like that exactly; only something--something rather grand."
[Illustration: OLD GEORGE AND WILLIE.]
Old George, however, kindly and wisely pulled my schemes down, and laid them affectionately in the dust:--
"You see, Master Willie, anything written, even in your best hand, wouldn't come up to what you will say in the first five minutes by word of mouth; and then the school banners, though very suitable for a feast--and I'm sure my Susan would be right pleased to look them up for you--would be no ways suitable. 'A merry Christmas and happy New Year,' or, 'Braycombe Schools, founded 1830,' would look odd-like flying in the avenue at this time of year. And though I'd be glad to do anything to give you pleasure, I'd rather be opening the gate to your uncle and aunt and cousin, as they drive up, than firing off a gun, which might disturb their nerves, not to say frighten the horses."
All of which was perfectly unanswerable. But as old George put on his spectacles in conclusion, I knew he meant to consider the subject with attention; and I therefore remained quietly at his side, sending flat stones skimming along the water, or throwing in a stick for Frisk to fetch out again, until, as I expected, he signified to me that he had thought of what would do.
He said that the light arch which