CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING OF THE ADVENTURE

‘So fair a summer look for never more.’

――_Thomas Nashe._

Leaning back against the leather cushion of the railway-carriage, Griffith Weston was conscious of an endless panorama of fields and meadows, of green hedges and white hawthorn, and blazing, yellow furze. The whole landscape was bathed in a crude glare of June sunlight, and the heat, and the vivid glittering light, and the rushing train, made his head ache.

He wore a light, loose, flannel suit, without a waistcoat, and his wide short trousers left his knees bare. A dark olive-green silk tie brought out unnecessarily the sallowness of his complexion; his straw hat lay on the seat beside him. He was not in the least a handsome boy, but his expression was pleasing. He looked quiet rather than shy; he looked intelligent, sensitive, and sweet-tempered. His eyes, beneath their drooping lids, had something of that sleepy gentleness which characterizes the angels and youths of Perugino, but the wide space between them gave the whole countenance, with its beautiful forehead, a kind of grave nobility and innocence.

A more brilliant colour glowed clearly enough in the fresh, ruddy cheeks of the sisters and brother who sat opposite him――Barbara, Ann, and Jim. Miss Johnson also sat on that side of the carriage, and Pouncer was at present invisible, somewhere under the seat.

The little boy’s position, in its comparative isolation, was characteristic; also the attitude of a watchful, listening silence he maintained amid the chatter of the others. His tutor had left a day or two ago, and he was now more or less independent, travelling by the same train as Miss Johnson and her pupils, but distinctly not of their party.

The eldest of these pupils, Barbara, dressed in white muslin, with slim, black, neatly-stockinged legs, and folded hands, looked demure and slightly priggish. Ann, who was fat, and had reddish hair and freckles, looked only very simple and plain. Her mouth was, as usual, slightly open, her hot little hands were not folded, and in no way did she present so lady-like an appearance as Barbara. One cannot be lady-like and breathe through one’s mouth, Miss Johnson had told her that very day, and poor Ann had felt at once that she was doomed. Jim, in his white sailor-suit, was fidgety and vivacious, hovering perilously on the obscure borderline which, in Miss Johnson’s opinion, separated the lively from the naughty.

It was not till the train drew in at a station that Pouncer made an appearance. He did so suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, and rushed to the window to look out, breathing noisily on the glass, and pushing aside Ann, who got in his way. There he remained, a ridiculous leather muzzle dangling under one ear, till the guard arrived with a basin of water. Pouncer lapped up the water with a big splashing red tongue, stopping every now and then to roll his round eyes and give a wag of his tail. With the amazing popularity of all bulldogs, he had managed in the space of some two minutes to attract the charmed attention of quite a group of persons. The group included the stationmaster, several boys, a postman, one or two porters, a sporting gentleman, and a lady who played the mandoline. Intending travellers, however, passed on in search of another compartment....

Again they tore through the glare and the heat. Jim’s black head was nodding now against Miss Johnson’s very angular elbow, and Grif, too, began to grow drowsy. He wondered what it would be like at grandpapa’s. Only Edward――who was to come on later from school――and Barbara had been there before. Edward and Barbara had given innumerable accounts of their previous visit, entering into all details, but things for Grif often had a mysterious way of turning out to be quite different from other people’s descriptions of them. _His_ things were rarely _their_ things; and it came into his sleepy head that everybody’s things must be unlike everybody else’s. _His_ trees, for instance, were not Jim’s or Barbara’s, or Ann’s or Edward’s. They were just _his_――or _were_ they his? Was he not rather theirs? Why, if he was not, did they stoop down with long green arms to catch him? and why was there such a roaring in their branches as he had never heard before? He tried to escape, to run away, but they closed him in on every side; they clutched him, and he tore at their green, shadowy embrace, scattering the leaves in showers....

“By Jove, I’ve been asleep!” he thought, as the crash of another train whizzing by awoke him with a start. He smiled at Miss Johnson, whose glittering pince-nez was fixed upon him with an expression at once severe and anxious.

His smile was intended to be reassuring, but he knew from past experience that Miss Johnson would not be reassured. If she took nothing to do with his education, she had, since his father and mother were started on their travels in the East, taken a great deal to do with him in other ways. It was rather a bore, of course, but then it would soon be over, for in the autumn he was going to school――to the same school as Edward. Miss Johnson had remarked that it would remove a load from her mind when he actually went, and he knew he should have gone a year ago had his people only been able to convince themselves that he was strong enough. This, in fact――this question of his strength――was just the mental load Miss Johnson had alluded to. For that matter, he couldn’t remember a time when it _wasn’t_ there for some one――a thing to be discussed and described――discussed even with Grif himself. If they would only let him alone, he thought, he would be all right. But they never would. Miss Johnson, indeed, made more fuss than anybody else ever had. She did nothing but fuss. She was fussing now because he had fallen asleep, just as she had fussed at other times because he had remained awake. You would think from what she said that he could _help_ being liable to catch colds which passed almost immediately into high fevers; could help a nocturnal restlessness which led him fine dances in dreamland, and sometimes, though not lately, had even led him from the safety of bed. Then, out of blind wanderings, he had awakened, bewildered and cold, recognizing nothing about him in the darkness except that he was not where he ought to be, tucked up, snugly and warmly, between his blankets....

The engine whistled and began to slow down. Miss Johnson removed her glasses and began to polish them. Pouncer again appeared.

“Here we are, children! Get everything ready. Ann, don’t forget your parcels!”

There was haste, excitement, and some unnecessary zeal, to which Pouncer contributed. Overcoats and bundles were pulled down from the racks on to the seats, and also on to the floor. Miss Johnson dropped first her umbrella and then her bag, and Pouncer found them both.

“There’s Aunt Caroline!” screamed Ann from the window, pushing back Jim and Barbara with a vigorous elbow. “Stop! Oh, don’t crush so!”

Pouncer was making frantic efforts to oust Ann from her position, while Grif fumbled with the leash. Aunt Caroline, tall and fair and smiling, stood on the platform. A porter swung open the door and Pouncer was first out after all, though his victory caused the overturning of Ann, who had become amazingly entangled with the leash.

“Oh, Bouncer, you’re awful!” poor Ann breathed plaintively, as she sat enmeshed on the floor of the railway-carriage. She arose, to be scolded by Miss Johnson for having dirtied her muslin.

Aunt Caroline was talking.

“Well, chicks, you’re not roasted alive, are you? How do you do, Miss Johnson? Ann, dear, you look positively boiling! Don’t bother about your gloves: nobody wears gloves here.”

Ann stuffed them back into her pocket with a sigh of relief.

“We must go and help Miss Johnson to see about the luggage. There’s a man waiting for it with a cart. There’s the trap, too, but it won’t hold us all I’m afraid. Somebody will have to walk and keep me company.”