CHAPTER II
LIFE IN SUMMER LOANING.
"O children," cried old Mrs. Morgan during a lull in the frolicsome riot,"here comes your uncle Tom. I can hear his voice in the hall. Now we'll have a song and a dance!"
She rose and walked towards the drawing-room door, and the bairns crowded after, with joyful, expectant faces.
But when the door was opened, and they found Uncle Tom standing there holding little ragged Johnnie by the hand, astonishment and wonder seemed to deprive everybody of speech. Miss Scraggs, an elderly spinster, nearly fainted.
"What on earth" began one elderly gentleman.
"As I live -" exclaimed the other.
Neither got any further, but both burst into a hearty fit of laughing.
Mrs. Morgan, Tom's mother, found voice first.
"Tom," she cried,"who or what have you gotten there?"
"Well, mother, I couldn't say at least, not exactly. He is a sort of mitherless bairn well, not exactly that either, because he has a mother, but no father. And you see how poor the child is. Look at his naked feet, mother and children all, and we so happy and jolly and everything. And this Christmas eve, too, mother. I thought we might that is, I might do some little thing for him a supper, or anything like that and then send him home."
"My own good-hearted Tom!" said the old lady, smiling."And did you pick him up in the street?"
"No, not exactly in the street, mother. Fact is, he was in the grounds, and looking in at the window."
"In the grounds, Tom! Oh, do you think he was after the spoons, or
"No, no, dear mother," interrupted the stalwart son."He was peeping in at the dancing and the Christmas tree. He said the children were just like fairies."
"Droll boy. What is his name? Jack? When did you see fairies?"
"When I was a god, big lady."
"When you were what?"
"He means," said Mr. Tom Morgan,"when he had a seat in the gallery of the theatre at a pantomime, I suppose."
"Oh yes. Are you a good boy?"
"No, ma'am; very wicked. For 'there is none that doeth good and sinneth not, no, not one.'"
The elderly men-people behind laughed loudly and heartily.
"What do you think of that, Dawson?" said one, nudging the other in the ribs.
"Good, good! Capital, Mrs. Morgan!"
But Miss Scraggs said,"Dreadful!"
"What are you going to be when you grow up to manhood?" continued Mrs. Morgan.
"I'm not quite sure, big lady. I think I'd like to be a bu'glar."
It is no wonder that Miss Scraggs screamed, or that"big lady" lifted up her hands.
"Oh, take the dreadful creature away!" cried Miss Scraggs;"he may kill us all before morning."
But when Tom Morgan laughingly explained that poor little Jack knew not what he was saying, and had no idea what a burglar was, he was restored to favour.
"Well, Tom," said the elder Mr. Morgan, who was Tom's father,"take your little sans-culotte away and give him a feed. I'll warrant he won't say 'no' to that on a Christmas eve."
"And some dood tlothes too," lisped a wee maiden of six"some dood tlothes, Uncle Tom."
Then Jack made a bow such as he had seen actors outside caravans in the Green make. He took off the remains of his glengarry solemnly with his right hand, put his left hand to his heart, and bent his body low.
"I say, Morgan," cried Dawson, as Tom led Jack off,"that isn't any ordinary boy. Blame me if I don't think there are the makings of a little gentleman about him. What think you?"
"Well, Dawson, you never can tell what a boy of that age may turn to or be. He might turn out a burning and a shining light in church or state, he might become a leader of armies, or he might give Jack Ketch a job."
Young Tom Morgan for he was not above four-and-twenty, although his beard was so big and strong was