Chapter 2. How Mark Roche Gained The Day

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_ CHAPTER TWO. HOW MARK ROCHE GAINED THE DAY

The idea of travelling was not allowed to cool. A few days passed, during which the project was discussed, and one morning during breakfast the baronet broke out with, "I don't want to get rid of you boys, but I lie awake of a night now, thinking of you going on such an expedition with the doctor, then growl and grumble at myself with envy."

"Then you really mean us to go, father?"

"Mean it, yes. But it comes hard that you two should have father and uncle who is ready to lay down the money--the bank notes to pay for it all, and here am I going to be left at home longing for letters that can only possibly come at very long intervals."

"Oh, father, but we shall write regularly," cried Mark.

"Of course!" said Sir James sarcastically. "Sit down at the end of a day's tramp, when you are tired out, at a comfortable library table, with a light of a shaded lamp, and write me a good long letter? Rubbish, sir! You will neither of you be in the humour for writing right away there in some forest."

"Oh, of course, uncle," cried Dean, "we shan't have a chance to sit down at a table to write, but we shall take each of us a writing case."

"Humph! Will you? I doubt it, boy; and even if you did you wouldn't be able to get at it when you were in the humour to write; and then if you did scrawl something with a pencil on a scrap of paper, where would you post your letter? In some hollow tree, or tuck it in a bladder and send it floating down a river with a direction scratched on a tin label? Bah! The doctor will take you right away into some wilds, and I shall get no letter for months, and months, and months."

"Oh, father," said Mark sadly, "I never thought of that! It would be hard, dad; and it seems selfish. It's all over. I shan't go."

"Oh!" said Sir James, trying to frown very severely, and forcing a very peculiar husky cough. "Dear, dear, how tiresome!" he cried. "Haven't got a lozenge in your pocket, have you, Dean?"

"No, uncle. Shall I get you a glass of water?"

"No, sir," almost shouted his uncle. "You know I hate cold water. Dear, dear! Barking like this, just as if something has gone the wrong way!" And the baronet pulled out a big silk handkerchief and began blowing his nose violently. "Ah, that's better now. Can't be cold coming on. Ah, much better now."

Then next moment he had clapped his hand smartly down on Mark's shoulder, and the doctor noticed that he kept it there, while there was an artificial ring in his voice as he continued, "Oh, you won't go, sir, won't you?"

"No, father," cried the boy firmly, and he gave his prisoned shoulder a hitch as if to free himself from the pressure, which immediately grew tighter.

"Oh, that's it, is it, sir? Now that I have made up my mind to it and am going to start you all off with a first class equipment, you tell me you are going to play the disobedient young dog, and plump out in a most insolent way--you heard him doctor?--that you won't go!"

"Oh, I must say on his behalf, Sir James," cried the doctor, "that he did not strike me as being insolent."

"Then you could not have been listening, sir, attentively," retorted Sir James. "I look upon it as disobedient and undutiful and--and cowardly."

"Oh, father! cowardly!" cried Mark, making another unsuccessful attempt to set his shoulder free. "How could it be cowardly?"

"Why, sir, if there's any selfishness in it you want to shuffle it off your shoulders on to mine."

"Oh, no, father; don't say that."

"But I have said it, sir," cried Sir James.

"But he doesn't mean it, Mark," cried Dean.

"What, sir! What! What! What's that, sir? How dare you!" thundered Sir James. "Are you going to be insolent and disobedient too?"

"Excuse me, Sir James," said the doctor. "Let me say a few words."

"No, sir," cried Sir James fiercely, "not one word! This is my affair. I never interfere with you over your teaching of my boys."

"I beg your pardon, Sir James."

"No, don't," cried the baronet. "I beg yours. I am very much put out, doctor--very angry--very angry indeed. I always am when I am opposed in anything which I consider to be right. I oughtn't to have spoken to you as I did, so pray leave this to me or I may forget myself and say words to you, my good old friend, for which I shall be sorry afterwards."

The doctor bowed his head.

"I say, uncle," cried Dean.

"Well, sir, and pray what do you say?" snapped out Sir James.

"I was only going to say don't be cross with us, uncle."

"I am not cross, sir--cross, indeed!--only angry and hurt at this opposition. Well, sir, what were you going to say?"

"Only, nunkey--"

"Nunkey, sir! Bah!" That bah! was a regular bark. "You know how I hate that silly, childish word."

"That you don't," thought the boy. "You know you always like it when you are not out of temper."

"Well, there, sir; go on."

"I was going to say, uncle, that I know how it can all be managed."

"Yes, sir, of course! Like all stupid people you want to put your spoke in the wheel and stir everything up and make the mess worse than it was before.--I say, doctor,"--and there was a peculiar twinkle in Sir James's eye--"that's what you would call a mixed metaphor, isn't it?"

"Well, Sir James," said the doctor, smiling, "it does sound something like it."

"Sound!" said Sir James, who was cooling fast. "It would look very much like it in print. Now, Dean, fire away. How were you going to put it right?"

"You come too, uncle."

"Come too!" cried the boy's uncle, growing fierce again. "How can I come too, sir? Why, sir, I should want a Sam Weller, like poor old Pickwick at Dingley Dell, when he could not go to the partridge shooting. Do you think I want to go in a wheelbarrow with someone to push me, in a country where there are no roads? Bah! Pish! Tush! Rrrrr-r-r-rubbish! Here, doctor, did you ever hear such a piece of lunacy in your life?"

"Well, I don't know, Sir James. Lunacy?"

"Yes, sir; lunacy. Now, look here, doctor, don't you begin apologising for these boys and taking their part, because if you do, sir, we are no longer friends."

"Well, Sir James, it has always been an understood thing between us that I was to be quite independent and have liberty to express my opinion in matters connected with you and your boys."

"There, I knew it! You are going over to their side!" raged out Sir James. "And I know how it will be: I shall be so upset that I shall have a fearful fit of the gout after this, and be obliged to have in that doctor with his wretched mixtures for the next fortnight. Well, sir, I must listen to you, I suppose."

"Yes, Sir James, I think you had better," said the doctor, smiling; and he glanced at Mark.

"Well, go on, then," cried Sir James.

"Oh, I say, father, don't," cried Mark sharply.

"Don't what, sir?" pretty well roared his father.

"I don't mind a nip or two, but you did give it to me then. It was like a vice."

"Pooh, boy, pooh! You are not a baby, are you?"

"No, father, but--" began Mark, wriggling his shoulder.

"Hold your tongue, sir, and don't interrupt the doctor. Now, doctor, what were you going to say?"

"I was going to say, Sir James, that I fully believe that a fit of the gout must be very painful--"

"Oh, you think so, do you?"

"Yes, Sir James, and I think also that you are not troubled with many. Of course we are not going to imitate Mr Pickwick, and a wheelbarrow is quite out of the question."

"Now, look here, sir," cried Sir James angrily--but somehow there was a want of reality in his tones--"don't you begin to suggest impossibilities. I think I know what you are aiming at."

"I should not be surprised, sir, if you do. Now, of course if we went on this expedition, or expeditions, we should be going through forests often nearly impassable; but I think I have read--"

"Oh, yes, I know," said Sir James shortly, and the boys watched the doctor with eager eyes, and as they caught his he gave to each a keen encouraging look; "you have read everything--a deal too much, I think," he grumbled, almost inaudibly.

"--that," continued the doctor, making believe that he had not heard the baronet's tetchy words, "great use is made of the blacks in Africa and India, who are quite accustomed to using a litter for the sportsmen in hunting expeditions, for the benefit of their employers."

Sir James set his son's shoulder free by giving him a fierce thrust, and his own hand too, so as to bring down his doubled fist upon the library table.

"Look here, sir," he roared, "do you for a moment think that I would consent to be carried stretched out on a couple of poles raised shoulder high by a pack of niggers? Because if you do--"

"And sometimes," continued the doctor calmly, "the sure-footed ponies of a country are very much used by travellers and hunting parties, for it is necessary that the sportsman or naturalist should not be over fatigued and should keep his nerves steady, as at times his life or that of his companions may rest upon the ability to be true in his aim at some dangerous beast about to charge and strike him down."

"Humph! Yes. That's quite true, boys. A man can't shoot straight when he's pumped out with too much exertion. I have missed horribly sometimes after a long day's tramp seeing nothing worth shooting at; and then just at the end the birds have risen, or a hare has started up and given me an easy chance, and then got away. There, go on, doctor, and don't let me check you with my chatter."

"Oh, I have not much more to say, sir," was the reply.

"Not much more to say!" cried Sir James, in a disappointed tone. "There, go on, sir; go on. The boys are very anxious to hear you-- there, I won't be a sham--so am I too."

"Well, to be brief, sir--" began the doctor.

"But I don't want you to be brief," cried Sir James, thumping the table again, but this time more softly, and no coffee sprang out into the saucers.

"Oh, do go on; do go on!" said Mark's lips inaudibly, and Dean sat swinging himself softly to and fro as he rubbed his hands over his knees.

"Well, Sir James," continued the doctor, "I must say that it seems to me perfectly feasible for you to make up your mind to be one of the party."

"An old man like me, sir?" cried Sir James.

"I beg your pardon, sir; you are not an old man. I believe I number as many years as you, and saving for a slight indisposition now and then you certainly enjoy robust health."

"Oh, no, no, no, no!" cried Sir James. "That's adulation, sir, and I won't have it."

"'Tisn't father; is it, Dean?"

"Not a bit of it," was the reply. "The doctor never flatters."

"Will you boys be quiet?" shouted Sir James, and Mark clapped his hand over his cousin's lips, receiving a similar compliment from Dean in return, while Sir James threw himself back in his chair, frowned severely as he stared straight out of the wide open window, and then twitched himself about, changing his position again and again as if his seat were not comfortable.

A strange silence had fallen on the group, and it was as if three of the four individuals present were suffering from a desire to turn a questioning look upon their companions, but dared not for fear of interrupting Sir James in the deep thoughts which were evidently playing about in his brain and filling his frank, florid, John-Bull-like countenance with wrinkles.

During the space of perhaps two minutes the silence deepened, till all at once from somewhere in the stableyard there was a loud, whack, whack, whack, whack as of wings beating together, and then sharp and clear, defiant and victorious, as if a battle had been won--_Cock-a-doodle-do_!

"Hah!" ejaculated Sir James, starting upright in his chair, as if awakened out of a dream, and turning towards the doctor as if to speak, but only to check himself again. "Oh, absurd!" he quite shouted. "No, no, no, no; impossible; impossible! It could not be. No, no, doctor. You set me thinking and asking myself questions about why not, and all that sort of rubbish. Why, sir, for the first time since our acquaintance began, you have been playing the tempter, and nearly won, what with your litters and palanquins and ponies. No, sir; it's impossible."

"I say, Mark," said Dean, in a loud whisper, "didn't uncle once say that there was hardly such a word as impossible for a man or boy with a will?"

"Silence, sir!" cried Sir James angrily.

"I say, dad," said Mark, closing up to his father's chair and leaning upon his shoulder, "I said I wouldn't go unless you did."

"Yes, sir," cried his father fiercely, "and if you dare to let me hear you utter such insubordinate words again I'll--"

The boy leaned over to look him full in the eyes, and gazed at him firmly, and the others saw him move his lips in a slow, deliberate way as if he were saying something emphatically; and then he drew himself up and seemed to intensify his gaze.

"Well, baby," cried Sir James, "what do you mean by those dumb motions? Speak out."

Mark shook his head and tightened his lips, compressing them into a long line across the bottom of his face, the curve disappearing and a couple of dot-like dimples forming at either end.

"What do you mean by that, sir?" cried Sir James. "Tell me what you mean?"

The boy shook his head once more, and then the line disappeared, the curves came back, and he silently shaped the words as before.

"Do you want to aggravate me, sir? Such foolery! Speak out, sir, at once."

Mark drew back, walked sharply across the room and half opened the door, before turning to face his father again, the others gazing at him in wonder.

"What's come to him, doctor?" cried Sir James. "Here, Mark, I command you, sir: speak out!"

"If you don't come with us, father," said the boy, slowly and deliberately--"oh, Dean, I am sorry for you--there will be no expedition, for I won't go."

There was a moment or two's silence, and then Sir James raged out, "Well, of all the daring--here, doctor, is this the result of your moral teaching of my boys? Now, sir, frankly, what am I to do in a case like this?"

The doctor was silent for a moment or two. Then after drawing a deep breath he turned to Sir James.

"You want my advice, sir, as frankly as I can give it, between man and man?"

"Of course I do, sir," snapped out Sir James.

"Well, sir, my advice is this. Dismiss us now."

"What for--to conspire against me?"

"No, sir," said the doctor, rising; "to give you time to calmly and dispassionately weigh this matter over--I even go so far as to say, to sleep on it."

"No, I can decide now. You don't want me with you."

It is a curious fact, but three voices at the same moment gave vent to the same ejaculation, which blended together and formed one big round "O!"

"I should be an encumbrance upon you."

"You would be a great help and counsel to me, Sir James, and of course take all the responsibility off my shoulders."

"Humph! Yes. Well, that's true," said Sir James. "But you, Dean--now, sir, be honest--I want the simple truth."

"I always do tell the truth, uncle," said the boy, rather surlily; "at least, I always try to."

"Then let's have it out now, sir, without a shadow of a doubt. Let there be no trying. Wouldn't you rather that I stayed at home?"

"No, uncle," came sharply, and almost before the question was uttered.

"Now you, Mark," cried Sir James.

There was silence again for what seemed a minute, but probably was not half.

"Well, sir, I'm waiting."

There was another pause, and then as the baronet jerked himself forward in his chair, gazing at his son fiercely as if to drag a reply from his lips, the boy seemed to swallow something, and, as Dean afterwards said to his cousin when talking the matter over, "I could see it go down your throat just as if you were a big bull calf gulping down the cud."

"I can't help it, father; something seems to make me say it: I won't go unless you come too."

Sir James sank back in his chair, fixing his eyes first upon the doctor, then upon Dean, and lastly upon his son, and it was quite a minute now before he opened his lips to emit a long pent up breath. Then he said, "I must give in, doctor; I'm beaten."

"And you will come too, father?" cried Mark, and his utterance was full of joyous excitement.

"Yes, my boy; I'll come." _

Read next: Chapter 3. Fits Of Temper

Read previous: Chapter 1. Just Before Dinner

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