“Now, Master Cyril,” Amy protested, “will you leave that fire alone? It’s not you that can mend my fires.”

A boy of nine, great and heavy for his years, with a full face and very short hair, bent over the smoking grate. It was about five minutes to eight on a chilly morning after Easter. Amy, hastily clad in blue, with a rough brown apron, was setting the breakfast table. The boy turned his head, still bending.

“Shut up, Ame,” he replied, smiling. Life being short, he usually called her Ame when they were alone together. “Or I’ll catch you one in the eye with the poker.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Amy. “And you know your mother told you to wash your feet this morning, and you haven’t done. Fine clothes is all very well, but—”

“Who says I haven’t washed my feet?” asked Cyril, guiltily.

Amy’s mention of fine clothes referred to the fact that he was that morning wearing his Sunday suit for the first time on a week-day.

“I say you haven’t,” said Amy.

She was more than three times his age still, but they had been treating each other as intellectual equals for years.

“And how do you know?” asked Cyril, tired of the fire.

“I know,” said Amy.

“Well, you just don’t, then!” said Cyril. “And what about YOUR feet? I should be sorry to see your feet, Ame.”

Amy was excusably annoyed. She tossed her head. “My feet are as clean as yours any day,” she said. “And I shall tell your mother.”

But he would not leave her feet alone, and there ensued one of those endless monotonous altercations on a single theme which occur so often between intellectual equals when one is a young son of the house and the other an established servant who adores him. Refined minds would have found the talk disgusting, but the sentiment of disgust seemed to be unknown to either of the wranglers. At last, when Amy by superior tactics had cornered him, Cyril said suddenly:

“Oh, go to hell!”

Amy banged down the spoon for the bacon gravy. “Now I shall tell your mother. Mark my words, this time I SHALL tell your mother.”

Cyril felt that in truth he had gone rather far. He was perfectly sure that Amy would not tell his mother. And yet, supposing that by some freak of her nature she did! The consequences would be unutterable; the consequences would more than extinguish his private glory in the use of such a dashing word. So he laughed, a rather silly, giggling laugh, to reassure himself.

“You daren’t,” he said.

“Daren’t I?” she said grimly. “You’ll see. I don’t know where you learn! It fair beats me. But it isn’t Amy Bates as is going to be sworn at. As soon as ever your mother comes into this room!”

The door at the foot of the stairs creaked and Constance came into the room. She was wearing a dress of majenta merino, and a gold chain descended from her neck over her rich bosom. She had scarcely aged in five years. It would have been surprising if she had altered much, for the years had passed over her head at an incredible rate. To her it appeared only a few months since Cyril’s first and last party.

“Are you all ready, my pet? Let me look at you.” Constance greeted the boy with her usual bright, soft energy.

Cyril glanced at Amy, who averted her head, putting spoons into three saucers.

“Yes, mother,” he replied in a new voice.

“Did you do what I told you?”

“Yes, mother,” he said simply.

“That’s right.”

Amy made a faint noise with her lips, and departed.

He was saved once more. He said to himself that never again would he permit his soul to be disturbed by any threat of old Ame’s.

Constance’s hand descended into her pocket and drew out a hard paper packet, which she clapped on to her son’s head.

“Oh, mother!” He pretended that she had hurt him, and then he opened the packet. It contained Congleton butterscotch, reputed a harmless sweetmeat.

“Good!” he cried, “good! Oh! Thanks, mother.”

“Now don’t begin eating them at once.”

“Just one, mother.”

“No! And how often have I told you to keep your feet off that fender. See how it’s bent. And it’s nobody but you.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s no use being sorry if you persist in doing it.”

“Oh, mother, I had such a funny dream!”

They chatted until Amy came up the stairs with tea and bacon. The fire had developed from black to clear red.

“Run and tell father that breakfast is ready.”

After a little delay a spectacled man of fifty, short and stoutish, with grey hair and a small beard half grey and half black, entered from the shop. Samuel had certainly very much aged, especially in his gestures, which, however, were still quick. He sat down at once—his wife and son were already seated—and served the bacon with the rapid assurance of one who needs not to inquire about tastes and appetites. Not a word was said, except a brief grace by Samuel. But there was no restraint. Samuel had a mild, benignant air. Constance’s eyes were a fountain of cheerfulness. The boy sat between them and ate steadily.

Mysterious creature, this child, mysteriously growing and growing in the house! To his mother he was a delicious joy at all times save when he disobeyed his father. But now for quite a considerable period there had been no serious collision. The boy seemed to be acquiring virtue as well as sense. And really he was charming. So big, truly enormous (every one remarked on it), and yet graceful, lithe, with a smile that could ravish. And he was distinguished in his bearing. Without depreciating Samuel in her faithful heart, Constance saw plainly the singular differences between Samuel and the boy. Save that he was dark, and that his father’s ‘dangerous look’ came into those childish eyes occasionally, Cyril had now scarcely any obvious resemblance to his father. He was a Baines. This naturally deepened Constance’s family pride. Yes, he was mysterious to Constance, though probably not more so than any other boy to any other parent. He was equally mysterious to Samuel, but otherwise Mr. Povey had learned to regard him in the light of a parcel which he was always attempting to wrap up in a piece of paper imperceptibly too small. When he successfully covered the parcel at one corner it burst out at another, and this went on for ever, and he could never get the string on. Nevertheless, Mr. Povey had unabated confidence in his skill as a parcel-wrapper. The boy was strangely subtle at times, but then at times he was astoundingly ingenuous, and then his dodges would not deceive the dullest. Mr. Povey knew himself more than a match for his son. He was proud of him because he regarded him as not an ordinary boy; he took it as a matter of course that his boy should not be an ordinary boy. He never, or very rarely, praised Cyril. Cyril thought of his father as a man who, in response to any request, always began by answering with a thoughtful, serious ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

“So you haven’t lost your appetite!” his mother commented.

Cyril grinned. “Did you expect me to, mother?”

“Let me see,” said Samuel, as if vaguely recalling an unimportant fact. “It’s to-day you begin to go to school, isn’t it?”

“I wish father wouldn’t be such a chump!” Cyril reflected. And, considering that this commencement of school (real school, not a girls’ school, as once) had been the chief topic in the house for days, weeks; considering that it now occupied and filled all hearts, Cyril’s reflection was excusable.

“Now, there’s one thing you must always remember, my boy,” said Mr. Povey. “Promptness. Never be late either in going to school or in coming home. And in order that you may have no excuse”—Mr. Povey pressed on the word ‘excuse’ as though condemning Cyril in advance—“here’s something for you!” He said the last words quickly, with a sort of modest shame.

It was a silver watch and chain.

Cyril was staggered. So also was Constance, for Mr. Povey could keep his own counsel. At long intervals he would prove, thus, that he was a mighty soul, capable of sublime deeds. The watch was the unique flowering of Mr. Povey’s profound but harsh affection. It lay on the table like a miracle. This day was a great day, a supremely exciting day in Cyril’s history, and not less so in the history of his parents.

The watch killed its owner’s appetite dead.

Routine was ignored that morning. Father did not go back into the shop. At length the moment came when father put on his hat and overcoat to take Cyril, and Cyril’s watch and satchel, to the Endowed School, which had quarters in the Wedgwood Institution close by. A solemn departure, and Cyril could not pretend by his demeanour that it was not! Constance desired to kiss him, but refrained. He would not have liked it. She watched them from the window. Cyril was nearly as tall as his father; that is to say, not nearly as tall, but creeping up his father’s shoulder. She felt that the eyes of the town must be on the pair. She was very happy, and nervous.

At dinner-time a triumph seemed probable, and at tea-time, when Cyril came home under a mortar-board hat and with a satchel full of new books and a head full of new ideas, the triumph was actually and definitely achieved. He had been put into the third form, and he announced that he should soon be at the top of it. He was enchanted with the life of school; he liked the other boys, and it appeared that the other boys liked him. The fact was that, with a new silver watch and a packet of sweets, he had begun his new career in the most advantageous circumstances. Moreover, he possessed qualities which ensure success at school. He was big, and easy, with a captivating smile and a marked aptitude to learn those things which boys insist on teaching to their new comrades. He had muscle, a brave demeanour, and no conceit.

During tea the parlour began, to accustom itself to a new vocabulary, containing such words as ‘fellows,’ ‘kept in,'m’ lines,’ ‘rot,’ 'recess,’ ‘jolly.’ To some of these words the parents, especially Mr. Povey, had an instinct to object, but they could not object, somehow they did not seem to get an opportunity to object; they were carried away on the torrent, and after all, their excitement and pleasure in the exceeding romantic novelty of existence were just as intense and nearly as ingenuous as their son’s.

He demonstrated that unless he was allowed to stay up later than aforetime he would not be able to do his home-work, and hence would not keep that place in the school to which his talents entitled him. Mr. Povey suggested, but only with half a heart, that he should get up earlier in the morning. The proposal fell flat. Everybody knew and admitted that nothing save the scorpions of absolute necessity, or a tremendous occasion such as that particular morning’s, would drive Cyril from his bed until the smell of bacon rose to him from the kitchen. The parlour table was consecrated to his lessons. It became generally known that ‘Cyril was doing his lessons.’ His father scanned the new text-books while Cyril condescendingly explained to him that all others were superseded and worthless. His father contrived to maintain an air of preserving his mental equilibrium, but not his mother; she gave it up, she who till that day had under his father’s direction taught him nearly all that he knew, and Cyril passed above her into regions of knowledge where she made no pretence of being able to follow him.

When the lessons were done, and Cyril had wiped his fingers on bits of blotting-paper, and his father had expressed qualified approval and had gone into the shop, Cyril said to his mother, with that delicious hesitation which overtook him sometimes:

“Mother.”

“Well, my pet.”

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Well, what is it?”

“No, you must promise.”

“I’ll do it if I can.”

“But you CAN. It isn’t doing. It’s NOT doing.”

“Come, Cyril, out with it.”

“I don’t want you to come in and look at me after I’m asleep any more.”

“But, you silly boy, what difference can it make to you if you’re asleep?”

“I don’t want you to. It’s like as if I was a baby. You’ll have to stop doing it some day, and so you may as well stop now.”

It was thus that he meant to turn his back on his youth.

She smiled. She was incomprehensibly happy. She continued to smile.

“Now you’ll promise, won’t you, mother?”

She rapped him on the head with her thimble, lovingly. He took the gesture for consent.

“You are a baby,” she murmured.

“Now I shall trust you,” he said, ignoring this. “Say ‘honour bright.’”

“Honour bright.”

With what a long caress her eyes followed him, as he went up to bed on his great sturdy legs! She was thankful that school had not contaminated her adorable innocent. If she could have been Ame for twenty-four hours, she perhaps would not have hesitated to put butter into his mouth lest it should melt.

Mr. Povey and Constance talked late and low that night. They could neither of them sleep; they had little desire to sleep. Constance’s face said to her husband: “I’ve always stuck up for that boy, in spite of your severities, and you see how right I was!” And Mr. Povey’s face said: “You see now the brilliant success of my system. You see how my educational theories have justified themselves. Never been to a school before, except that wretched little dame’s school, and he goes practically straight to the top of the third form—at nine years of age!” They discussed his future. There could be no sign of lunacy in discussing his future up to a certain point, but each felt that to discuss the ultimate career of a child nine years old would not be the act of a sensible parent; only foolish parents would be so fond. Yet each was dying to discuss his ultimate career. Constance yielded first to the temptation, as became her. Mr. Povey scoffed, and then, to humour Constance, yielded also. The matter was soon fairly on the carpet. Constance was relieved to find that Mr. Povey had no thought whatever of putting Cyril in the shop. No; Mr. Povey did not desire to chop wood with a razor. Their son must and would ascend. Doctor! Solicitor! Barrister! Not barrister—barrister was fantastic. When they had argued for about half an hour Mr. Povey intimated suddenly that the conversation was unworthy of their practical commonsense, and went to sleep.