Chapter XII: Jock in Trouble

NEXT morning Jock went as usual to the Moores' for his lessons, and came back as usual to early dinner. It was an unwontedly silent meal. Mrs. Baynes looked sad, and more than once Jock met Aunt Judith's eyes fixed steadily upon him, as if she were trying to make out his thoughts.

When the meal was over, he expected to have an hour in which to amuse himself. He was about to rush off, that he might join the other children, but Aunt Judith stopped him.

"Wait, Jock. I want a few words with you. Come with me."

She took him away from Grannie into the morning-room where she sat down, and made him stand just in front. Then she said slowly—"Jock—have you something to say to me?"

Jock looked at her in surprise. The next moment he began to understand.

"Have you anything to say—about yesterday afternoon?"

Jock's lips went tightly together.

"I think you have. Tell me—where did you go, and who was with you?"

A pause followed. Jock gazed steadily at her; and in his mind, he kept repeating—"I mustn't say anything. I mustn't say anything—" as if he were conning a lesson.

"Were you within bounds all the afternoon?"

"No," came at once. It was so natural to the boy to speak out.

"Where did you go? Jock, I insist on knowing. What made you disobey?"

"I—couldn't help it."

"Nonsense."

"I couldn't help it, Aunt Judith. I—had to go."

"Jock, you are telling me a lie."

Jock turned crimson. That made him angry as hardly anything else could have done. He was in the main a sweet-tempered boy, but he could lose his temper.

"I'm not. I'm not telling a lie," he cried vehemently. "I never do."

"I don't know what you may have done in the past. You are certainly now telling me a deliberate untruth. 'Had to go!' 'Couldn't help it!' A boy of your age. Of course you could help it."

Jock shook an indignant head. Words failed him.

"You gave me your promise that you would never go beyond bounds, and you said I might depend on your word."

"I didn't. I didn't," cried the boy.

"You did not—what?"

"I didn't promise for always. I thought you meant—just that first day. I didn't 'mean' to go beyond bounds—but—it wasn't a promise for always."

"That is another untruth," Aunt Judith said.

Jock was shaking with passionate resentment. "It isn't—it isn't," he cried. "I don't ever tell stories. Dad and Mummie know I don't. Dad always said—"

"That will do. I don't wish to hear any more. I happen to know that you went over the Common on the way to the wood. How much farther I cannot tell. And somebody was with you—no doubt one of the Moore children. I have no concern with what they do, but I do insist on obedience from you. Have you anything more now to tell me?"

Jock's lips were glued together, and his eyes had grown dark with passion.

Aunt Judith waited for a full minute. Then, she said—"I am very much disappointed in you. I took you for a truthful boy, and now you are telling me one falsehood after another. You will not go to Mr. Moore to-day. I shall explain that I am keeping you in. Go upstairs, and stay there—either till you choose to confess frankly all you have been doing, or else till night. I expect to hear where you went, and who was with you. If this were not the first time that I have found you out in direct disobedience, as well as in untruth, I would punish you more severely. As it is, you must spend the rest of the day in your room, unless you resolve to speak out. After that—I must consider."

Jock went without a word, his heart beating heavily. Never before in his life had his word been doubted. It had always been enough for him to say—"Yes, I did," or "No, I didn't,"—and he was at once believed. And now—now—to be accused of having told more than one bare-faced untruth, and of having deliberately broken his promise—he did not know how to bear it.

Sullenly, he sat down by the window in his pretty little room, feeling heart-sick and wretched. Not to be trusted! Not to be believed! Brought up as he had been to look on a promise as sacred, as never to be broken, this was the hardest thing that could have come to him, and perhaps not less hard because, deep down in his heart, Jock knew that he had brought it upon himself by his folly in letting Mousie lead him blindfold into mischief.

But even if he had not assured Mousie that he would not tell tales—could he have done otherwise? Could he have saved himself from blame by bringing disgrace on a girl? Dad would never have wished that. So in any case things must have gone wrong, because Aunt Judith would have asked questions which he could not answer. So argued Jock to himself, and he would not listen to a soft voice which asked—"But why did you go at all?"

And Grannie would believe what Aunt Judith told her. This was a real trouble, for the boy dearly loved his gentle Grannie. And they would write and tell Mummie—would tell her that her boy had broken his word.

The thought overwhelmed him. He did not know how to face it. Suddenly he recollected that to-morrow was the day for letters to be posted to India, and that they were always sent off the evening before. Aunt Judith would be writing that very afternoon. Jock himself had a letter in hand to his mother.

He would finish it now, this minute, and would post it himself. Before his mother went, she had given to him a supply of envelopes ready stamped and addressed, so there was no difficulty.

In a tearing hurry he got out his partly-written sheet, and sat down at the small writing-table. His pen scratched vehemently over the last page.

"Mummie dear, Ive got to tell you something. Aunt Judith is so horrid. She says Ive told a lie and I havent, I never do and Im so miseble I dont know how to bear it. I do do wish youd come home, darling Mummie, I do want you so awfully much, please, please, do come back to your own

"JOCK."

Then he folded the sheet in haste and put it into one of the addressed envelopes, which he stuck fast. He seized his cap, and his hand was on the door-handle—when he stopped. He had been ordered to stay in this room all day.

But he couldn't—he couldn't—and he wouldn't. The letter had to go. If not, Mummie might believe Aunt Judith, and that would be too dreadful. And since Aunt Judith refused to believe what he said—what did things matter? He might just as well not try to be good. The letter anyhow had to go.

So he slipped out, shut the door behind him, and fled down the back-stairs, meeting no one by the way. Then out into the back-garden, and thence through a field, not to the village Post-office, where he could not fail to be noticed, but away to a small red Post-box, put up for the convenience of the Great House people, close to a gate leading into the grounds.

Pelting along at full speed, Jock was almost there, when, like a flash, another thought came.

He seemed all at once to be at home, and to hear Jane's voice saying, as so often she had said—"Now, Master Jock, do think of your mother, and don't you go and worry her. She's so easy tired, you know."

Would this letter of his "worry" her? Jock could not doubt that it would. She was so soon grieved and troubled by anything that made other people unhappy, more especially her own boy. And if it would—how could he send it off? And yet, if he did not send it, how could he endure to have Aunt Judith writing such things as she would say?

Jock went more and more slowly, till he reached the little red box. He stood still then, and stared hard at it.

Should he—or should he not—drop in the envelope? He took it out of his pocket, gazed at it, held it to the slit, almost let go—and again he heard Jane's warning words—"Don't you worry her!" And a little voice in his own heart joined in—"Don't—oh, don't."

"Oh, Mummie!" Jock gasped under his breath.

He thrust the letter into his pocket and burst through the gate, careless where he might be going, only with a wild longing to rush away from everything and everybody. He was out of bounds again, but he entirely lost sight of this fact, as he fled along a narrow path, on and on, till he reached an open space, surrounded by bushes, and having at its centre a fountain, from which a thin stream of water spouted gently upwards.

There Jock stood still, breathing hard. He was quite alone. Nobody would see or hear. So he flung himself flat on the grass and burst into a flood of tears. He had reached the depth of despair, and could see no light anywhere.