"Glad I am, mother, the holidays are over. It's quite different going back to school again when one goes to be captain--as I'm sure to be. Isn't it jolly?"
Mrs. Boyd's face as she smiled back at Donald was not exactly "jolly." Still, she did smile; and then there came out the strong likeness often seen between mother and son, even when, as in this case, the features were very dissimilar. Mrs. Boyd was a pretty, delicate little English woman: and Donald took after his father, a big, brawny Scotsman, certainly not pretty, and not always sweet. Poor man! he had of late years had only too much to make him sour.
Though she tried to smile and succeeded, the tears were in Mrs.
Boyd's eyes, and her mouth was quivering. But she set it tightly together, and then she looked more than ever like her son, or rather, her son looked like her.
He was too eager in his delight to notice her much. "It is jolly, isn't it, mother? I never thought I'd get to the top of the school at all, for I'm not near so clever as some of the fellows. But now I've got my place; and I like it, and I mean to keep it; you'll be pleased at that, mother?"
"I should have been if--if--" Mrs. Boyd tried to get the words out and failed, closed her eyes as tight as her mouth for a minute, then opened them and looked her boy in the face gravely and sadly.
"It goes to my heart to tell you--I have been waiting to say it all morning, but, Donald, my dear, you will never go back to school at all."
"Not go back; when I'm captain! why, you and father both said that if I got to be that, I should not stop till I was seventeen--and now I'm only fifteen and a half. O, mother, you don't mean it! Father couldn't break his word! I may go back!"
Mrs. Boyd shook her head sadly, and then explained as briefly and calmly as she could the heavy blow which had fallen upon the father, and, indeed, upon the whole family. Mr. Boyd had long been troubled with his eyes, about as serious a trouble as could have befallen a man in his profession--an accountant--as they call it in Scotland. Lately he had made some serious blunders in his arithmetic, and his eyesight was so weak that his wife persuaded him to consult a first-rate Edinburgh oculist, whose opinion, given only yesterday, after many days of anxious suspense, was that in a few months he would become incurably blind.
"Blind, poor father blind!" Donald put his hand before his own eyes. He was too big a boy to cry, or at any rate, to be seen crying, but it was with a choking voice that he spoke next: "I'll be his eyes; I'm old enough."
"Yes; in many ways you are, my son," said Mrs. Boyd, who had had a day and a night to face her sorrow, and knew she must do so calmly. "But you are not old enough to manage the business; your father will require to take a partner immediately, which will reduce our income one-half. Therefore we cannot possibly afford to send you to school again. The little ones must go, they are not nearly educated yet, but you are. You will have to face the world and earn your own living, as soon as ever you can. My poor boy!"
"Don't call me poor, mother. I've got you and father and the rest. And, as you say, I've had a good education so far. And I'm fifteen and a half, no, fifteen and three-quarters-- almost a man. I'm not afraid."
"Nor I," said his mother, who had waited a full minute before Donald could find voice to say all this, and it was at last stammered out awkwardly and at random. "No; I am not afraid because my boy has to earn his bread; I had earned mine for years as a governess when father married me. I began work before I was sixteen. My son will have to do the same, that is all."
That day the mother and son spoke no more together. It was as much as they could do to bear their trouble, without talking about it, and besides, Donald was not a boy to "make a fuss" over things. He could meet sorrow when it came, that is, the little of it he had ever known, but he disliked speaking of it, and perhaps he was right.
So he just "made himself scarce" till bedtime, and never said a word to anybody until his mother came into the boys' room to bid them good-night. There were three of them, but all were asleep except Donald. As his mother bent down to kiss him, he put both arms round her neck.
"Mother, I'm going to begin to-morrow."
"Begin what, my son?"
"Facing the world, as you said I must. I can't go to school again, so I mean to try and earn my own living."
"How?"
"I don't quite know, but I'll try. There are several things I could be, a clerk--or even a message-boy. I shouldn't like it, but I'd do anything rather than do nothing."
Mrs. Boyd sat down on the side of the bed. If she felt inclined to cry she had too much sense to show it. She only took firm hold of her boy's hand, and waited for him to speak on.
"I've been thinking, mother, I was to have a new suit at Christmas; will you give it now? And let it be a coat, not a jacket. I'm tall enough--five feet seven last month, and growing still; I should look almost a man. Then I would go round to every office in Edinburgh and ask if they wanted a clerk. I wouldn't mind taking anything to begin with. And I can write a decent hand, and I'm not bad at figures; as for my Latin and Greek--"
Here Donald gulped down a sigh, for he was a capital classic, and it had been suggested that he should go to Glasgow University and try for "the Snell" which has sent so many clever young Scotsmen to Balliol College, Oxford, and thence on to fame and prosperity.
But alas! no college career was now possible to Donald Boyd.
The best he could hope for was to earn a few shillings a week as a common clerk. He knew this, and so did his mother. But they never complained. It was no fault of theirs, nor of anybody's.
It was just as they devoutly called it, "The will of God."
"Your Latin and Greek may come in some day, my boy," said Mrs.
Boyd cheerfully. "Good work is never lost. In the meantime, your plan is a good one, and you shall have your new clothes at once. Then, do as you think best."
"All right; good-night, mother," said Donald, and in five minutes more was fast asleep.
