Harry Milvaine; Or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy

by Gordon Stables

Guvie. I'm off up."

  She would have held him, but he was far beyond her reach ere she coulddo so. He stopped when about ten feet above her.

  "I knew, Guvie," he cried, with a roguish smile on his countenance,"that you would try to catch me if you could. Now come, Guvie, catch menow, if you can."

  "Oh! do come down, Harry dear," the poor girl exclaimed. "You frightenme nearly to death."

  "Don't die, Guvie dear, there's a good Guvie; I'm only going to the topof the tree, to the very top you know, no farther, to pull down the oldnest, else the nasty lazy magpie will lay in it again next year, and notbuild a new one at all."

  "Do, Harry, come down," cried Miss Campbell, "and I'll give youanything."

  "No, no, Guvie; papa always says, `Do your duty, Harold boy, always doyour duty.' I'm going to do what papa bids me. Good-bye, Guvie, I'llsoon be back."

  And away he went. It seemed, several times ere he reached the top, thathe would be back far sooner than even he himself expected, for littlebranches often gave way with a crack that sent a thrill of horrorthrough Miss Campbell's heart.

  "Oh! what if he should fall and be killed," she thought.

  But presently Harry was high high up on the very point of the tree. Heproceeded at once to throw down the great nest of sticks and grass andclay; no very easy task, as he had to work with one hand, while he heldon with the other.

  But he finished at last, and the nest lay at Miss Campbell's feet.

  The wind blew high to-day, and the tree swayed and swayed about, justlike a ship's mast at sea.

  "Oh! Miss Guvie, do try to come up," cried the boy, looking down. "Itis so nice; and I can see all over the country. Wouldn't I like to be asailor. Do come up."

  But Miss Campbell only cried, "Do come down."

  When he did obey her at last, she could contain herself no longer. Downshe must sit on a bank of withered pine-needles and give vent to sobsand tears.

  Then the boy's heart melted for her, and he went and threw his armsaround her and kissed her, and said:

  "Oh! Guvie dear, don't cry, and Harry will never, never be _quite_ sonaughty again. Don't cry, dear, and when Harry grows a big man, he willfight for you and then marry you."

  She was pacified at last, and they started for home.

  "I'll keep firm hold of your hand," said Harry, "and then you won't cryany more, and nothing can hurt you."

  "We'll both want brushing, won't we, Harry?" she said, smiling.

  It was true. For Harry's jacket was altogether green, with the mouldfrom the tree, and he had transferred a goodly portion of it to hervelveteen jacket, while hugging her.

  "Ha!" laughed Harry; "we are both foresters now, Guvie. What fun! Allgreen, green, green."

  But Harry had given his governess a terrible fright, and she tried tomake him promise that he would not climb trees again.

  The boy held his wise, wee head to one side for a few seconds andconsidered.

  "That wouldn't do, Guvie," he said. "But when I go up a tree you shallcome with me. There now!"

  "But, dear child, _I_ cannot climb trees."

  "You could a beech?" quoth Harry.

  "Well, I might a beech, a little way."

  "If you don't climb a beech, I shall go a mile high up into a fir," saidthe young rascal.

  So poor Miss Campbell had to consent, and in the depth of the forestwhere many lordly beeches grew, "Guvie" took lessons in climbing.

  It certainly is no difficult operation for even a girl to get out on tothe arm of a beech tree. One could almost walk there, and the branchesare as clean as a table.

  The governess was further commanded by her lord and pupil to take bookswith her up into the trees and read to him.

  When summer came, and the beech trees were one mass of tender greenleaves, with the bees all singing their songs, as they flew from flowerto flower, it was far from unpleasant to get up into leafland, and whileaway an hour or longer with a delightful book.

  Sometimes indeed they went high enough to let a branch shut out the viewof the earth entirely, and then it was like being in fairyland.

  One beautiful evening in the latter end of June Miss Campbell and hewent out for a stroll as usual.

  Eily did not follow them. Truth to say, Harry had shut her up in thesaddle-room.

  There was much to be seen and noticed, and oceans of wild flowers tocull, and there were birds' nests to be visited, many of which containedonly eggs, while others had in them little half-naked, hairy "gorbals,"that opened such extraordinary big gaping yellow mouths, that they couldhave swallowed a church--that is, if the church were small enough.

  There grew not far from the five-barred gate, mentioned in last chapter,an immensely large and beautiful beech tree; and it had its branchesclose to the ground, so that it presented no great difficulty to get upinto it.

  Miss Campbell had never been this way before, but to-night her guide ledher hither, under pretence of showing her a tree with a hawk's nest init.

  The hawk's nest was up there in the pine tree-top right enough, and itwas not an old one either, for when Harry kicked the tree and cried"Hush-oo-oo!" out and away flew the beautiful and graceful bird. Thenthey came to the beech tree.

  "Let us get up here and read," said Harry; "the sun isn't thinking ofgoing down yet. I don't think the sun is moving a bit. I don't supposehe knows what o'clock it is."

  As soon as they were safely and securely seated, and Miss Campbell hadread a short but stirring story to her pupil, Harry pulled aside abranch.

  "Do you see that grass field?" he asked.

  "Yes, dear."

  "Well, do you know who lives there?"

  "No, Harry."

  "Towsie."

  "And who is Towsie?"

  "Why, silly Guvie, Towsie is Towsie, of course; Towsie is his Christianname; Jock, I suppose, is his papa's name. Towsie Jock, there now!"

  "What nonsense _are_ you talking, dear?" said Miss Campbell.

  "Why, telling you about Towsie Jock, to be sure. Towsie Jock is _so_funny, and what faces he makes when I make faces at him! Mind you,Guvie, I don't think he quite likes to be called Towsie Jock. And _I_wouldn't either, would you, dear Guvie?"

  "I haven't the remotest idea, Harry, what it is all about, nor who orwhat Towsie Jock, as you call him, or _it_, is."

  "Oh, haven't you, Guvie? Well, you shall see. Mind you it isn't ahedgehog. Something, oh, ever so much bigger."

  As he spoke Harry slipped like an eel down from the tree. Heaccomplished this by sliding out to the tip of the branch, out and outtill it bent with his light weight, and dropped him on the ground.

  Harry went straight to the gate, the top bar of which he had previously,in one of his lonely rambles, taken the precaution to tie down. Helooked now to see that the fastening was all secure, then commenced toshout.

  "Towsie Jock! Towsie Jock! Towsie! Towsie! Towsie!"

  Jock was at a distant corner of the field, his favourite corner, on highground, where he could see the country for miles around. He wasstanding there chewing his cud and looking at the sky. Perhaps he waswondering what kind of a day it was to be to-morrow.

  Suddenly he thrust one ear back to listen.

  "Towsie! Towsie!" came the shout in shrill treble.

  "It is that monkey again," said Towsie, to himself. "If I can only pinone horn through him, I'll carry him all round and round the field, atthe gallop too."

  Miss Campbell, from the tree, first heard a dreadful bellowing roar,which ended in one continuous stream of hoarse explosions, as it were.

  "Wow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow," and next moment, to her horror, she saw agigantic horrid homed bull coming tearing towards the gate, his nose onthe ground, and his tail like a corkscrew over his back.

  "Harry, Harry!" she screamed. "Oh! fly, Harry, fly!"

  "He can't get over, Guvie," cried Harry, coolly. "Let me introduce you,as papa says. That is Towsie Jock. Towsie! Towsie! Towsie Jock!Towsie Jock!"

 
"Wow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"

  On came the bull as mad as ever bull was.

  Miss Campbell shouted again, and screamed with terror.

  "Harry, come, oh, dear Harry, come up. For my sake then."

  "But he _can't_ get over, I tell you, Guvie."

  "But I'm fainting, Harry."

  "Oh, in that case I'll come, Guvie. Papa says, `Always, whatever youdo, Harry, be kind and polite to ladies.' I'm coming, Guvie. Don'tfall till I get hold of you."

  And none too soon.

  "Wow-ow--_woa_!"

  Next moment the gate flew in splinters with