Chapter III: Jock Has to Be a Man

"JOCK, dear, I want you here."

Jock was hard at work, running his new engine and carriages round the room, one evening a week later. It was dusk, and lights had been lighted.

"'PARIS,'" shouted an eager voice. Then—"Yes, Mum. D'rectly minute. Mayn't I just go on to Edinburgh?"

"Yes, just that, and then come here."

Jock's notions of "Joggraphy" were vague. His engine contrived somehow to touch at Australia on the way to Edinburgh, and then to land its (imaginary) passengers in Ireland. Having accomplished this feat, he ran to his mother.

"Mum, I do love my new pocket-book. It's most awfully nice. How did you know I wanted it?"

"Mothers guess things sometimes. Jock dear, I have something to say, and I want you to be brave about it. Something that we can't quite like—and yet—it has to be." Jock waited expectantly. "I am thinking—" she stopped for a moment—"I am thinking of going out to Dad."

"Out to India!" Jock opened his eyes. "Why—Mum—but that'll be awfully jolly, won't it?"

She held his hand, speaking with a little shake in her voice. "You see, dear, I always meant to go as soon as I should be well enough. And I am well now."

"Dad 'll think me grown a lot. I s'pose he wants you there most tremenjously. Don't you want to go, Mummie?"

"Very, very much—to be with dear Dad. But—"

"Shall we start d'rectly? What a lot of things we'll have to pack."

"'I' must start in about two weeks. But—Jock, my darling—I can't take you with me."

Jock stared up in her face. That she should go and leave him behind had never entered his thoughts as the barest possibility. A year earlier, if she could have travelled, she would have left him, but since she could not, nothing was said about the matter. He had always had his mother; he could not imagine living without her. He had known vaguely that some day he would have to go to school, but that had lain too far ahead to be considered.

"You see, dear, you have to be in England. You must be brought up like other English boys. You must learn to think as Englishmen think—to be able to do your duty by-and-by to our Country and our King. You have to learn how to be fair to others—how to take a beating—how to serve and how to obey."

"Couldn't you and Dad teach me all that?"

"I'm afraid not. And the climate of India is bad for English boys; and the life would be bad too—in many ways. There would be no proper games for you—no boys to play with. So many things would be harmful—things you can't understand."

"And will you be gone only a very little while? Will you come back—very soon?" A choky feeling came into Jock's throat, but he held it down. Dad often said that British boys didn't cry.

"We shall both come back—as soon as possible."

"Will it be—six weeks?"

Her lips were trembling. Jock gave one glance up. Then he put his curly head down on her knees, and fought his battle out in silence. Her hand crept round him.

"Have I got to stop here—all alone?" he presently asked.

"No, this house will be let to strangers. And you will be with dear, kind Grannie. You know how fond she is of you."

"Will Aunt Judith be there?"

"Yes. She will take such care of my Jock."

"I don't want her. I want—want—you."

Another break, and Jock spoke again. "Will Aunt Judith teach me my lessons?"

"You will have lessons from a kind clever man who lives near Grannie—Mr. Moore, the curate. He has boys of his own, and you will learn with them for the present."

"A man!" This was promotion. Jock sat up, interested. Till now he had had only women-teachers.

"And you will have no end of games with the boys. Think what it will mean—being in the country, with fields and woods and flowers and birds. So different from a town like this. And you will write to me every week, and I shall write every week to you."

Jock spoke in smothered tones—"I wish—I wish—you hadn't got to go."

"But Dad has to be there. So many of our best and bravest men are wanted in India. Some day perhaps you will be there too; only you have first to learn lots of things—things that can only be taught properly in England. And—yes, in Scotland too. England and Scotland are one. And you have to be a man now, my darling—because it is right for me to go, and for you to stay behind."

Jock murmured—"I'll—try." Then he ran out of the room; and his mother knew him too well to follow.