I was very glad that it was so, and I did not exactly wish for war or the plague to come back; and yet the more I heard of Fred’s tales the more restless I grew, because the days were so dull, and because we never went anywhere, and nothing ever happened.

CHAPTER VII.

WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY—­SCRUPLES—­BABY CECIL—­I PREPARE—­I RUN AWAY.

I think it was Fred’s telling me tales of the navy captain’s boyhood which put it into our heads that the only way for people at our age, and in our position, to begin a life of adventure is to run away.

The captain had run away.  He ran away from school.  But then the school was one which it made your hair stand on end to hear of.  The master must have been a monster of tyranny, the boys little prodigies of wickedness and misery, and the food such as would have been rejected by respectably reared pigs.

It put his grandson and me at a disadvantage that we had no excuses of the kind for running away from the grammar school.  Dr. Jessop was a little pompous, but he was sometimes positively kind.  There was not even a cruel usher.  I was no dunce, nor was Fred-though he was below me in class—­so that we had not even a grievance in connection with our lessons.  This made me feel as if there would be something mean and almost dishonourable in running away from school.  “I think it would not be fair to the Doctor,” said I; “it would look as if he had driven us to it, and he hasn’t.  We had better wait till the holidays.”

Fred seemed more willing to wait than I had expected; but he planned what we were to do when we did go as vigorously as ever.

It was not without qualms that I thought of running away from home.  My mother would certainly be greatly alarmed; but then she was greatly alarmed by so many things to which she afterwards became reconciled!  My conscience reproached me more about Rupert and Henrietta.  Not one of us had longed for “events” and exploits so earnestly as my sister; and who but Rupert had prepared me for emergencies, not perhaps such as the captain had had to cope with, but of the kinds recognized by the yellow leather book?  We had been very happy together—­Rupert, Henrietta, Baby Cecil, and I—­and we had felt in common the one defect of our lives that there were no events in them; and now I was going to begin a life of adventure, to run away and seek my fortune, without even telling them what I was going to do.

On the other hand, that old mean twinge of jealousy was one of my strongest impulses to adventure-seeking, and it urged me to perform my exploits alone.  Some people seem to like dangers and adventures whilst the dangers are going on; Henrietta always seemed to think that the pleasantest part; but I confess that I think one of the best parts must be when they are over and you are enjoying the credit of them.  When the captain’s adventures stirred me most I looked forward with a thrill of anticipation to my return home—­modest from a justifiable pride in my achievements, and so covered with renown by my deeds of daring that I should play second fiddle in the family no more, and that Rupert and Henrietta would outbid each other for my “particular” friendship, and Baby Cecil dog my heels to hear the stories of my adventures.