Worthy of his Name by Eglanton Thorne

WITH that visit to Lavender Terrace, Gus' old life came to an end. The next morning Edith and her grandfather saw him into the train for Rayleigh.

Mr. Mouncey, the energetic young vicar of Rayleigh, would meet him at the other end of his journey. Edith had no fear for him, since he was going to Mr. Mouncey; yet the boy had already won for himself such a place in her heart that she felt parting with him.

"We shall come to Rayleigh in the spring, I hope," she said, "so I shall see you then, Gus."

The boy smiled his sweet, winsome smile, but tears rose suddenly in his eyes. He was leaving this kind friend, he was leaving behind every one he had ever known, and going to a place of which he knew nothing, and his heart sank within him at the thought.

"Look here, young sir," said the colonel sharply, "mind you do your duty where you are going. You attend to what Mr. Mouncey says, and he will make a man of you."

Make a man of him! What sort of a man? Gus wondered, as Miss Edith's form receded from his view, and he knew that the train was bearing him out of London. A gentleman-such a gentleman as his father had wished him to be? That was what Gus desired to become.

Rayleigh was a long, straggling village, with few houses that were not the dwellings of working people. A deep, still river ran through the place, and supplied the need of its chief industry, the large paper mill that stood upon its banks.

Most of those who dwelt in the small brick cottages were engaged in the mill. The long lines of these cottages were not picturesque, but the village could boast the beauty of a fine old church, with an ivy-mantled tower. Close to the church was the vicarage, a large square house, once the home of a numerous family; but the former vicar had removed to another living, and his successor, being young and unmarried, seemed out of place in the big house. But he was a warm-hearted, genial man, and soon gathered plenty of life about himself.

Within a stone's throw of the vicarage was his cottage home for orphan lads, a veritable home, where, under the care of a good-natured, motherly widow, the boys lived a free and happy life. The vicar showed them a kindness which fell little short of that of a father. The boys had well-nigh the run of the vicarage. They dug and tended the garden, which was one of the best in the neighbourhood, and were rewarded with the finest of the fruit and vegetables.

Mr. Mouncey supplemented the instruction they received at the village school with informal classes held of an evening in his large old dining-room. He had had no intention of founding an orphanage. A desire to befriend a poor woman who had lost her husband, and two young lads who had been deprived of both father and elder brother by an accident at the mill, had led to the opening of the cottage. Other orphan lads in the neighbourhood, who must otherwise have been sent to the nearest workhouse, were, as time went on, placed in it. Sometimes friends at a distance asked the vicar to take charge of a forlorn lad; but, as a rule, the inmates of the cottage were boys whose antecedents were well known to Sebastian Mouncey. Gus was the first who came there with a stigma upon him-a boy who had associated with thieves.

But Mr. Mouncey had a welcome for him, not alone because of the generous way in which the colonel, whilst prophesying to Mr. Mouncey the disappointment of his hopes, had been ever ready to open his purse to increase the funds by which the cottage home was maintained; but also because the utter friendlessness of the boy was a sure passport to Sebastian's heart.

He kept to himself all that the colonel had told him of Gus' history. The boy should not begin his new life at Rayleigh with an ill name. And whatever fears the vicar might have concerning his new charge, he showed no suspicion of him. Nothing could be kinder than the way in which he welcomed Gus.

Gus, as he looked into his face, and met the glance of Mr. Mouncey's kind, earnest eyes, said to himself, "A gentleman-one of the right sort. " And this conviction deepened in the boy's mind as he came to know Sebastian Mouncey better. His was indeed the gentle heart from which springs the gentle life.

As for Mr. Mouncey, he was delightfully surprised at the appearance of the boy committed to his care. Simple-hearted as a child himself, and frank almost to eccentricity, he was quick to feel the charm of the boy's artless grace. Gus was not at all the kind of boy he expected to see. He was not a boy of a low type. There was no sign of deceit, meanness, or rascality on his small, well-formed features. The clergyman looked at him, and marvelled.

It was curious how quickly the two came to understand each other. A bond was forged between them from the hour of their meeting.

Gus got on well with the boys in the cottage home. He was friendly with them all, but he made no special friend of any one. It was the vicar who was his friend.

Mr. Mouncey soon discovered that the boy had unusual abilities. He took trouble and sacrificed time in order to give Gus further instruction than he obtained at the village school. He began to teach him Latin, and was astonished at the rapidity with which he mastered the rudiments of that language. Once when the vicar was teaching him, Gus let fall a word which showed that his father had understood Latin.

"Your father? " said Mr. Mouncey in surprise. "Then he was an educated man?"

"My father was a gentleman once," said Gus, with unconscious dignity.

"Once! " repeated the vicar. "What do you mean?"