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Read Ebook: Ihmissyöjäin saarilla: (Adventure) Romaani by London Jack Tudeer Aune Translator
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Ebook has 2241 lines and 78364 words, and 45 pages
Meanwhile he was missed. He was often missed for the matter of that, but he had seldom been so long away on such a night.
His father was an easy-minded farmer, who tilled his own acres; he was reading the newspaper in an easy chair, and his mother, a delicate, somewhat nervous, lady, was sewing near the window.
When the evening shadows began to fall, the nurse tapped at the room door and entered. "Has Harry been here, mum?"
"No, Lizzie; don't you know where he is?"
"Haven't seen him for hours, mum. I made sure he was here."
"Oh! you silly child, to let him out of your sight like that. Go and look for him at once."
"Mm? what?" said Harry's father, looking lazily over his newspaper. "Child Harold? Gone on a pilgrimage perhaps."
"Oh! don't be foolish," said his wife, petulantly. "Well, my dear, how should I know. Very likely he is up in the dusty attic squatting among the cobwebs, or rummaging for curiosities in some old drawer or another."
But Harry was not upstairs among the cobwebs, nor rummaging in any drawer whatever, nor talking to John in the stable, nor playing with his toys in the loft, nor anywhere else that any one could think of.
So there was a pretty to do.
His mother was too happy to scold him, and his father laughed heartily at the whole affair. For Harry had neither sisters nor brothers.
While the boy was being stripped and re-dressed in dry clothes, the dog threw herself in front of the kitchen fife.
Presently they both had supper. If Harry was pale while playing at bubble-ships in the water-vat, he was rosy enough now, and verily his cheeks shone in the lamplight.
Before he knelt down that night by his mother's knee to say his prayers, she asked him if he had done much wrong to-day.
ADVENTURES IN THE FOREST.
At breakfast next morning young Harry was much surprised and concerned to be told that he was going to have a governess.
"A guv'niss," he said, pausing in the act of raising a spoonful of oatmeal porridge to his mouth, "a guv'niss, papa? What's a guv'niss? Something to eat?"
"No, child; a governess is a lady, who will do the duties of a teacher to you, learn you your lessons and--"
"Mamma can do that."
"And give you sums to do."
"Ma does all that, papa."
"And go with you wherever you go."
Harry leant his chin upon his hand thoughtfully for a moment or two; then he said:
"Mm, will the guv'niss go high up the trees with me, papa, and will she make faces at Towsie?"
"I don't think so, Harold."
"I don't want the old lady," said Harry.
"Your leave will not be asked, my dear boy."
"I'm afraid," said Mr Milvaine, turning to his wife, "that you spoil that child."
"I'm afraid," returned Mrs Milvaine mildly, "I have received assistance from you."
Harry's governess came in a week. It was surely a sad look-out for her, if she was to be hated and beaten and bitten.
She was not a prim, angular, starchy, "tawsey"-looking old maid by any means. At most she had seen but nineteen summers; fresh in face, blue-eyed, dimpled, and with beautiful hair.
Harry soon took to her.
"I sha'n't beat you," he said, "as long as you're good."
The attic was cleared of cobwebs and rubbish, and turned into a schoolroom, and studies at regular hours of the day commenced forthwith.
Harry determined to make his own terms with his "guv'niss." He would be good, and learn his lessons, and do his sums, and write his copy and all that, if she would read out of a book to him every day, and describe to him a scene in some far-off land.
She promised.
Before commencing lessons of a forenoon, Miss Campbell read a portion of one of the Gospels to him, and then she prayed. Miss Campbell was one of those girls who are not ashamed to pray, not ashamed to ask mercy, help and guidance from Him from whom all blessings flow. Before leaving school Miss Campbell took the Book again, but now no other portion would he allow her to read except the Revelations. There was a charm about these that never, never palled upon the child.
But always in the evenings "Guvie" had to devote herself to a different kind of literature, and the books now were usually tales of adventure by land and at sea.
Miss Campbell did try her wee pupil with "Sandford and Merton." I am sorry to say he would have none of it. The "Arabian Nights" pleased better, but he could not quite understand them.
For Sunday reading nothing delighted Harry better than Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." I am happy in being able to put this on record, and boys who have not read the work, have a real treat in store for them.
So Miss Campbell and her pupil got on very well together indeed; and many a delightful walk, ay, and run too, they had in the forest. They were a trio-now, because Eily always made one of the number. She went to school as well as Harry, and if she did not learn anything, at all events she lay still and listened, and that is more than every dog would have done.
Harry introduced his "Guvie," as he called her, to his pet toad, which she pretended to admire, but was secretly somewhat afraid of.
"John told me, Guvie," he said one day, "that toadie would go to sleep all winter, so I'm going to put a biscuit in his box for his breakfast when he wakes, then we won't go near him till spring-time comes."
He was impulsive then and brave, fond to some extent of mischief of a mild, kind nature, but he was tender-hearted. One day in the forest he came to the foot of a great Scotch fir-tree.
"There is an old nest up there, Guvie. I'm off up."
She would have held him, but he was far beyond her reach ere she could do so. He stopped when about ten feet above her.
"I knew, Guvie," he cried, with a roguish smile on his countenance, "that you would try to catch me if you could. Now come, Guvie, catch me now, if you can."
"Oh! do come down, Harry dear," the poor girl exclaimed. "You frighten me nearly to death."
"Don't die, Guvie dear, there's a good Guvie; I'm only going to the top of the tree, to the very top you know, no farther, to pull down the old nest, else the nasty lazy magpie will lay in it again next year, and not build a new one at all."
"Do, Harry, come down," cried Miss Campbell, "and I'll give you anything."
"No, no, Guvie; papa always says, `Do your duty, Harold boy, always do your duty.' I'm going to do what papa bids me. Good-bye, Guvie, I'll soon be back."
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