"Well, learning's a great thing; and when a gamekeeper's son does take a fit of it, I suppose it's all right to humour it. But you and I, wife, can get on very well without it."

"Speak for yourself," retorted Mrs Argent; "I wish you had half as much in your head as that boy has got, that's all!"

"And I suppose you wish you'd got the other half, eh? Stuff!"

And after this little tiff the worthy couple were silent for a while.

Presently Mrs Argent again spoke. "I wonder what they'll do about the church organ when George's gone?"

"Ah! you may say so," said the husband, with a touch of importance in his voice which became a churchwarden when speaking of church matters; "it'll be hard to fill his place there."

"So it will. Did you stay after the service on Sunday?"

"No; you know I had to go round to the curate's. Why?"

"Just because if you'd heard him play you'd have been glued to your chair, as I was. It was beautiful. I couldn't have got up from that chair if I'd tried."

"Good job you didn't try, if you were glued down, especially in your Sunday gown. I shouldn't care to have to buy many of them a month."

"Now, John, you know I've not had a new gown for nearly a year."

And then the talk took a departure over a range of topics to which I need not drag my unoffending reader. This short conversation sufficed to satisfy my curiosity in part as to the boy who was paying me such constant attention; and another event which shortly happened served to bring me into still closer acquaintance with George Reader. One day there entered the shop a party consisting of half a dozen persons. One of them was a young man in the dress of a clergyman, and the others I knew well by sight as respectable and respected villagers.

"Good-morning, Mr Argent," said the curate, for the clerical gentleman was none other; "we've come to see you on a little matter of business."

"Hope there's nothing wrong with the heating stoves in the church, sir,"

said Mr Argent, with an anxious face, "I was always against them being used at all."

"The stoves are quite well, I believe," said the curate, smiling; "our business is of quite a different kind. We've come to make a purchase, in fact."

Mr Argent's face brightened considerably, partly at the a.s.surance as to the salubrity of the gas-stoves and partly at the prospect of business.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he said, no longer with his churchwarden's voice, but as the Muggerbridge silversmith.

"Well, we have been asked to select a small present to be given by the choir and congregation of our church to George Reader, who, I suppose you know, is going next week to college."

"I have heard tell of it, sir," said Mr Argent, "and my wife and I were only wondering the other day what was to become of the music at the church when he's gone."

"We don't like to think of it," said one of the party. "It would want a good one to take his place," said another.

"We shall all miss him," said the curate; "and we are anxious before he leaves us to present him with some little token of our regard. We have kept the thing from you, Mr Argent, as of course we should have to come to you to procure whatever we decided on getting, so your contribution to the gift will have to be some good advice on the matter we are still undecided about--what to get."

"I shall be very glad to help--have you decided--er--I mean--has anything been said--that is--about what--"

"About how much? Well, we have nearly four pounds--in fact, we might call it four. What have you about that price that would be suitable?"

Oh! how my heart fluttered, for I could guess by this time what was coming.

Mr Argent looked profound for a minute, and then said, "There's one thing, I think, would do."

"What?" asked the deputation.

He pulled me out of the window and laid me on the counter.

"A watch! Dear me! we thought of all sorts of things, but not once of that!"

"It would be a suitable present," said one of the party; "but this one is 4 10."

"That needn't matter," said Mr Argent; "if you like it my wife and I will settle about the difference."

"That's very kind of you, Mr Argent. Does any one know if George has a watch?"

"I know he hasn't," said one of the party. "And what's more, I've heard him say he wishes he had one."

"And I can answer for it he's been looking in at my window at this very one every day for the last month," said the silversmith.

"Well, what do you say to getting this, then? We needn't ask you if it's a good one, Mr Argent."

"No, you needn't, sir," replied the smiling Mr Argent, who, as I had remained run down since the day he bought me, could not well have answered the question more definitely.

"You'll clean it up, will you, and set it going, and send it to me this afternoon?" said the curate;--"and perhaps you would like to come with us to Reader's cottage this evening, when we are going to present it?"

Mr Argent promised to form one of the party, and the deputation then left.

I was swiftly subjected to all the cleaning and polishing which brushes, wash-leather, and whiting could give me. I was wound up and set to the right time, and a neat piece of black watered ribbon was attached to my neck, and then I waited patiently till the time came for my presentation to my new master.

The gamekeeper's cottage to which I was conducted in state that evening was not an imposing habitation. It boasted of only three rooms, and just as many occupants. George, the hero of the occasion, was the son of its humble owner and his wife, and, as will have been gathered, had turned out a prodigy. From his earliest days he had displayed a remarkable apt.i.tude for study. Having once learned to read at the village school, he became insatiable after books, and devoured all that came within his reach.

Happily he fell into the hands of a wise and able guide, the clergyman of the parish, who, early recognising the cleverness of the boy, strove to turn his thirst for learning into profitable channels, lent him books, explained to him what he failed to understand, incited him to thoroughness, and generally const.i.tuted himself his kind and helpful adviser.

The consequence of this timely tuition had been that George had grown up, not a boisterous, over bearing prig, showing off his learning at every available chance, and making himself detestable, and everybody else miserable, by his conceited air, but a modest, quiet scholar, with plenty of hidden fire and ambition, and not presuming on his talents to scorn his humble origin, or be ashamed of his home and parents--on the contrary, connecting them with all his dearest hopes of success and advancement in the world.

They, good souls, were quite bewildered by the sudden blaze of their son's celebrity. They hardly seemed to understand what it all meant, but had a vague sort of idea that they were implicated in "Garge's"

achievements. They would sit and listen to him as he read to them, as if they were at an exhibition at which they had paid for admission, and it is not too much to say "Garge" was, in their eyes, almost as dreadful a personage as the lord of the manor himself.

Among his fellow-villagers George was, as the reader will have gathered, somewhat of a hero, and not a little of a favourite. This distinction he owed to a talent for music, which had at a very early age displayed itself, and had been heartily encouraged by the rector. In this pursuit, which he followed as his only recreation, he had made such progress that, while yet a boy, he became voluntary organist at the church, and as such had won the hearts of the neighbours.

They didn't know much about music, but they knew the organ sounded beautiful on Sundays, and that "Garge" played it. And so it was a real trouble to them now that he was about to leave Muggerbridge.

You may imagine the state of excitement into which this unexpected visit threw simple Mr and Mrs Reader. The good lady was too much taken aback even to offer her customary welcome, and as for the gamekeeper, he sat stock still in his chair, with his eyes on his son, like a hound that waits the signal for action.

"We are rather an invasion, I'm afraid," said the curate, squeezing himself into the little kitchen between a clothes-horse and a dresser.

"Not at all," said George, looking very bewildered.

"Perhaps you'll wonder why we've come?" added the curate, turning to the gamekeeper.

"Maybe you've missed something, and thinks one of us has got it," was the cheerful suggestion.

The curate laughed, and the deputation laughed, and George laughed, and George's mother laughed, which made things much easier for all parties.