The Crofton Boys | Page 3

to Crofton. In Mr. Tooke's large school
there was not one boy younger than ten; and Philip believed that Mr.
Tooke did not like to take little boys. Hugh was aware that his father
and mother meant to send him to school with Philip by-and-by; but the
idea of having to wait--to do his lessons with Miss Harold every day till
he should be ten years old, made him roll himself on the parlour carpet
in despair.
Philip was between eleven and twelve. He was happy at school: and he
liked to talk all about it at home. These holidays, Hugh made a better
listener than even his sisters; and he was a more amusing one--he knew
so little about the country. He asked every question that could be
imagined about the playground at the Crofton school, and the boys'
doings out of school; and then, when Philip fancied he must know all
about what was done, out came some odd remark which showed what
wrong notions he had formed of a country life. Hugh had not learned
half that he wanted to know, and his little head was full of wonder and
mysterious notions, when the holidays came to an end, and Philip had
to go away. From that day Hugh was heard to talk less of Spain, and
the sea, and desert islands, and more of the Crofton boys; and his play
with little Harry was all of being at school. At his lessons, meantime,

he did not improve at all.
One very warm day, at the end of August, five weeks after Philip had
returned to school, Miss Harold had stayed full ten minutes after twelve
o'clock to hear Hugh say one line of the multiplication-table over and
over again, to cure him of saying that four times seven is fifty-six; but
all in vain: and Mrs. Proctor had begged her not to spend any more
time to-day upon it.
Miss Harold went away, the girls took their sewing, and sat down at
their mother's work-table, while Hugh was placed before her, with his
hands behind his back, and desired to look his mother full in the face,
to begin again with "four times one is four," and go through the line,
taking care what he was about. He did so; but before he came to four
times seven, he sighed, fidgetted, looked up at the corners of the room,
off into the work-basket, out into the street, and always, as if by a spell,
finished with "four times seven is fifty-six." Jane looked up
amazed--Agnes looked down ashamed; his mother looked with severity
in his face. He began the line a fourth time, when, at the third figure, he
started as if he had been shot. It was only a knock at the door that he
had heard; a treble knock, which startled nobody else, though, from the
parlour door being open, it sounded pretty loud.
Mrs. Proctor spread a handkerchief over the stockings in her
work-basket; Jane put back a stray curl which had fallen over her face;
Agnes lifted up her head with a sigh, as if relieved that the
multiplication-table must stop for this time; and Hugh gazed into the
passage, through the open door, when he heard a man's step there. The
maid announced Mr. Tooke, of Crofton; and Mr. Tooke walked in.
Mrs. Proctor had actually to push Hugh to one side,--so directly did he
stand in the way between her and her visitor. He stood, with his hands
still behind his back, gazing up at Mr. Tooke, with his face hotter than
the multiplication-table had ever made it, and his eyes staring quite as
earnestly as they had ever done to find Robinson Crusoe's island in the
map.
"Go, child," said Mrs. Proctor: but this was not enough. Mr. Tooke

himself had to pass him under his left arm before he could shake hands
with Mrs. Proctor. Hugh was now covered with shame at this hint that
he was in the way; but yet he did not leave the room. He stole to the
window, and flung himself down on two chairs, as if looking into the
street from behind the blind; but he saw nothing that passed out of
doors, so eager was his hope of hearing something of the Crofton
boys,--their trap-ball, and their Saturday walk with the usher. Not a
word of this kind did he hear. As soon as Mr. Tooke had agreed to stay
to dinner, his sisters were desired to carry their work elsewhere,--to the
leads, if they liked; and he was told that he might go to play. He had
hoped he might be overlooked in the window; and unwillingly did he
put down first one leg and then the other from the chairs, and