Beginning a New Life

"I won't run after him any more," I said to myself one day. "He's half
a wild beast, and if he wants us to be enemies, we will."

I suppose I knew a good deal for my age, as far as education went. If I
had been set to answer the questions in an examination paper I believe I
should have failed; but all the same I had learned a great deal of
French, German, and Latin, and I could write a fair hand and express
myself decently on paper. But when I sat at our window watching Shock's
wonderful activity, and recalled how splendidly he must be able to swim,
I used to feel as if I were a very inferior being, and that he was a
long way ahead of me.

As the time went on our visits to the garden used to grow less frequent;
but whenever the weather was fine and my mother felt equal to the task,
we used to go over; and towards the end old Brownsmith's big armed
Windsor chair, with its cushions, used to be set under a big quince tree
in the centre walk, just where there were most flowers, and as soon as
we had reached it the old fellow used to come down with a piece of
carpet to double up and put beneath my mother's feet.

"Used to be a bit of a spring here," he said with a nod to me; "might be
a little damp."

Then he would leave a couple of cats, "just for company like," he would
say, and then go softly away.