Great Uncle Hoot-Toot

    "Crickwood Farm, February 2.

"My Dearest Vicky,

I have only just got your letter, though you wrote it on the 15th of January. Mrs. Eames – that's the farmer's wife – found it behind a dish on the dresser, where it has been all the time. I never got your other letters; I can't think what became of them. I've asked the postman nearly every day if there was no letter for me. Vicky, I can't tell you all I'd like to say. I thought I'd write to mamma, but I feel as if I couldn't. Will you tell her that I just beg her to forgive me? Not only for leaving home without leave, like I did, but for all the way I went on and all the worry I gave her. I see it all quite plain. I've been getting to see it for a good while, and when I read your dear letter it all came out quite plain like a flash. I don't mind the hard work here, or even the messy sort of ways compared to home – I wouldn't mind anything if I thought I was doing right. But it's the loneliness. Vicky, I have thought sometimes I'd go out of my mind. Will you ask Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot to forgive me, too? I'd like to understand about all he has done for us, and I think I am much sensibler about money than I was, so perhaps he'll tell me. I can ask for a holiday in three weeks, and then I'll come home for one day. I shall have to tell you my plans, and I think mamma will think I'm right. I must work hard, and perhaps in a few years I shall earn enough to come home and have a cottage like we planned. For I've made up my mind to emigrate. I don't think I'd ever get on so well in anything as in a country life; for, though it's very hard work here, I don't mind it, and I love animals, and in the summer it won't be so bad. Please, Vicky, make everybody understand that I hope never to be a trouble and worry any more. – Your very loving

    "Geoff .

"P.S. – You may write here now. I don't mind you all knowing where I am."

By the time Geoff had finished this, for him, long epistle, it was nearly dark. He had to hurry off to the station to be in time with the milk. He was well known now by the men about the railway, and by one or two of the guards, and he was glad to see one he knew this evening, as he begged him to post his letter in town, for it was too late for the Shalecray mail. The man was very good-natured, and promised to do as he asked.

"By Tuesday," thought Geoff, "I may have a letter if Vicky writes at once. And I might write again next Sunday. So that we'd hear of each other every week."

And this thought made his face look very bright and cheery as he went whistling into the kitchen, where, as usual of a Sunday evening, Eames was sitting smoking beside the fire.

"The missis has told me about your letter, Jim," said the farmer. "I'm right-down sorry about it, but I don't rightly know who to blame. It's just got slipped out o' sight."

"Thank you," Geoff replied. "I'm awfully glad to have it now."

"He's never looked so bright since he came," said Mr. Eames to his wife when Geoff had left the room. "He's about getting tired of it, I fancy; and the squire's only too ready to forgive and forget, I take it. But he's a deal o' good stuff in him, has the boy, and so I told the squire. He's a fine spirit of his own, too."

"And as civil a lad as ever I seed," added Mrs. Eames. "No nonsense and no airs. One can tell as he's a real gentleman. All the same, I'll be uncommon glad when he's with his own folk again; no one'd believe the weight it's been on my mind to see as he didn't fall ill with us. And you always a-telling me as squire said he wasn't to be coddled and cosseted. Yet you'd have been none so pleased if he'd got a chill and the rheumatics or worse, as might have been if I hadn't myself seen to his bed and his sheets and his blankets, till the weight of them on my mind's been almost more nor I could bear."

"Well, well," said the farmer, soothingly, "all's well as ends well. And you said yourself it'd never 'a' done for us to refuse the squire any mortal service he could have asked of us."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NEW SQUIRE AND HIS FAMILY

Tuesday brought no letter for Geoff – nor Wednesday, nor even Thursday. His spirits went down again, and he felt bitterly disappointed. Could his friend, the guard, have forgotten to post the letter, after all? he asked himself. This thought kept him up till Thursday evening, when, happening to see the same man at the station, the guard's first words were, "Got any answer to your love-letter yet, eh, Jim? I posted it straight away," and then Geoff did not know what to think.

He did not like to write again. He began to fear that Vicky had been mistaken in feeling so sure that his mother and Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot and Elsa and Frances were all ready to forgive him, and longing for his return. Perhaps they were all still too indignant with him to allow Vicky to write, and he sighed deeply at the thought.

"I will wait till I can ask for a holiday," he said to himself, "and then I will write and say I am coming, and if they won't see me I must just bear it. At least, I am sure mother will see me when the time comes for me to go to America, though it will be dreadful to have to wait till then."

When he got back to the house that evening, the farmer called to him. He had had a letter that morning, though Geoff had not; and had it not been getting dusk, the boy would have seen a slight twinkle in the good man's eyes as he spoke to him.

"Jim, my boy," he said, "I shall want you to do an odd job or so of work the next day or two. The new squire's coming down on Monday to look round a bit. They've been tidying up at the house; did you know?"

Geoff shook his head; he had no time for strolling about the Hall grounds except on Sundays, and on the last Sunday he had been too heavy-hearted to notice any change.

"Do you know anything of gardening?" the farmer went on. "They're very short of hands, and I've promised to help what I could. The rooms on the south side of the house are being got ready, and there's the terrace-walk round that way wants doing up sadly. With this mild weather the snowdrops and crocuses and all them spring flowers is springing up finely; there's lots of them round that south side, and Branch can't spare a man to sort them out and rake over the beds."

"I could do that," said Geoff, his eyes sparkling. "I don't know much about gardening, but I know enough for that." It was a pleasant prospect for him; a day or two's quiet work in the beautiful old garden; he would feel almost like a gentleman again, he thought to himself. "When shall I go, sir?" he went on eagerly.

"Why, the sooner the better," said Mr. Eames. "To-morrow morning. That'll give you two good days. Branch wants it to look nice, for the squire's ladies is coming with him. The south parlour is all ready. There'll be a deal to do to the house – new furniture and all the rest of it. He – the new squire's an old friend of mine and of my father's – and a good friend he's been to me," he added in a lower voice.

"Are they going to live here?" asked Geoff. He liked the idea of working there, but he rather shrank from being seen as a gardener's boy by the new squire and "the ladies." "Though it is very silly of me," he reflected; "they wouldn't look at me; it would never strike them that I was different from any other."

"Going to live here," repeated the farmer; "yes, of course. The new squire would be off his head not to live at Crickwood Bolders, when it belongs to him. A beautiful place as it is too."

"Yes," agreed Geoff, heartily, "it would be hard to imagine a more beautiful place. The squire should be a happy man."

He thought so more and more during the next two days. There was a great charm about the old house and the quaintly laid out grounds in which it stood – especially on the south side, where Geoff's work lay. The weather, too, was delightfully mild just then; it seemed a sort of foretaste of summer, and the boy felt all his old love for the country revive and grow stronger than ever as he raked and weeded and did his best along the terrace walk.

"I wish the squire would make me his gardener," he said to himself once. "But even to be a good gardener I suppose one should learn a lot of things I know nothing about."

Good-will goes a long way, however. Geoff felt really proud of his work by Saturday evening, and on Sunday the farmer took a look at the flower-beds himself, and said he had done well.

"Those beds over yonder look rough still," he went on, pointing to some little distance.

"They don't show from the house," said Geoff, "and Branch says it's too early to do much. There will be frosts again."

"No matter," said Mr. Eames; "I'd like it all to look as tidy as can be for Monday, seeing as I'd promised to help. I'll give you another day off the home-work, Jim. Robins's boy's very pleased to do the station work."

Geoff looked up uneasily. It would be very awkward for him, very awkward indeed, if "Robins's boy" were to do so well as to replace him altogether. But there was a pleasant smile on the farmer's face, which reassured him.

"Very well, sir," he said. "I'll do as you like, of course; but I don't want any one else to do my own work for long."

"All right," said Eames. For a moment Geoff thought he was going to say something more, but if so he changed his mind, and walked quietly away.

Monday saw Geoff again at his post. It was a real early spring day, and he could not help feeling the exhilarating influence of the fresh, sweet air, though his heart was sad and heavy, for his hopes of a reply from Vicky were every day growing fainter and fainter. There was nothing to do but to wait till the time came for a holiday, and then to go up to London and try to see them.

"And if they won't see me or forgive me," thought the boy with a sigh, "I must just work on till I can emigrate."

He glanced up at the terrace as he thought this. He was working this morning at some little distance from the house, but he liked to throw a look every now and then to the beds which he had raked and tidied already; they seemed so neat, and the crocuses were coming out so nicely.

The morning was getting on; Geoff looked at his watch – he had kept it carefully, but he never looked at it now without a feeling that before very long he might have to sell it – it was nearly twelve.

"I must go home to dinner, I suppose," he thought; and he began gathering his tools together. As he did so, some slight sounds reached him from the terrace, and, glancing in that direction, he saw that one of the long windows opening on to it was ajar, and in another moment the figures of two ladies could be seen standing just in the aperture, and seemingly looking out as if uncertain what they were going to do.

"They have come," thought Geoff. "They'll be out here in another instant. I can't help it if it is silly; I should hate ladies and gentlemen to see me working here like a common boy;" and his face grew crimson with the thought.

He hurried his things together, and was looking round to see if he could not make his way out of the grounds without passing near the house, when a quick pattering sound along the gravel startled him. A little girl was running towards him, flying down the sloping path that led from the terrace she came, her feet scarcely seeming to touch the ground, her fair hair streaming behind.

"Oh!" was Geoff's first thought, "how like Vicky!"

But it was his first thought only, for almost before he had time to complete it the little girl was beside him —upon him, one might almost say, for her arms were round him, her sweet face, wet with tears of joy, was pressed against his, her dear voice was speaking to him, "Oh, Geoffey, Geoffey! My own Geoffey! It's I – it's your Vicky."

Geoff staggered, and almost fell. For a moment or two he felt so giddy and confused he could not speak. But the feeling soon went away, and the words came only too eagerly.

"How is it? Where have you come from? Do you know the new squire? Where is mamma? Why didn't you write?"

And, laughing and crying, Vicky tried to explain. Did she know the new squire? Could Geoff not guess? Where were they all? Mamma, Elsa, Frances, Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot – where should they be, but in the new squire's own house? Up there on the terrace – yes, they were all up there; they had sent her to fetch him. And she dragged Geoff up with her, Geoff feeling as if he were in a dream, till he felt his mother's and sisters' kisses, and heard "the new squire's" voice sounding rather choky, as he said, "Hoot-toot, hoot-toot! this will never do – never do, Geoff, my boy."

They let Vicky explain it all in her own way. How Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot had come home from India, meaning to take them all to live with him in the old house which had come to be his. How disappointed he had been by Geoff's selfish, discontented temper, and grumbling, worrying ways, and had been casting about how best to give him a lesson which should last, when Geoff solved the puzzle for him by going off of his own accord.

"And," Vicky went on innocently, "was it not wonderful that you should have come to uncle's own place, and got work with Mr. Eames, whom he has known so long?" In which Geoff fully agreed; and it was not till many years later that he knew how it had really been – how Mr. Byrne had planned all for his safety and good, with the help of one of the cleverest young detectives in the London police, "Ned Jowett," the innocent countryman whom Geoff had patronized!