The Young Clementina Read Online Free Page B

a few lines of criticism, written months ago and forgotten, saved me from a second reading of the same dull tome. There is a pile of copy-books in the drawers of the battered old bureau which I had rescued from the schoolroom at the Parsonage. I scarcely ever look at them but I know that they are there and the knowledge is, somehow, comforting. They mirror my life from a contemporary standpoint, they are a material evidence of the troubles that I have borne, of the storms that have failed to wreck me, of the calms that have failed to discourage me.
    I missed Garth dreadfully when he went to Eton. Kitty could not share in the make-believe games which had so delighted Garth and me. Her imagination could not people the woods with redskins and outlaws. She liked playing with dolls; she liked playing at houses, or shops. I used to play at her games because she could not play at mine, but I found them dull and monotonous after the wild freedom of the woods. The mornings were occupied with lessons. Father taught me himself and he made everything interesting. He was a born teacher, with ideas upon education greatly in advance of his time. I enjoyed my hours with him, they passed quickly—he led my mind from one point to another, so that I learned almost without knowing it. In the afternoon I took the path over the hill to the Manor stables to exercise Garth’s pony and his dog. It was a routine life, busy and useful. The days passed quickly.
    The holidays were too short for all the things that Garth wanted to do. Old haunts to be revisited, old pleasures to resume.
    I lost Garth for a little while during his schooldays at Eton; he slipped away from me in spirit. That was bound to happen, of course, and I should have known it if I had not been so ignorant of the world. He was unhappy at Eton I think—although he never said so—the lack of privacy irked him (he had always had as much privacy as he liked). He was homesick for Hinkleton and the freedom of the woods. When he went on to Oxford he was happier and more settled. He became once more the companion of my childhood’s days. At Oxford his time was at his own disposal, he could be solitary if he wanted. He could shut his door upon the world and take leisure for thoughts and dreams. And, because he was not always in a crowd, he was able to make friends with people who appealed to him, and to pick and choose a few congenial spirits. Garth was more normal during those years at Oxford than he ever was before—or since. I see that now, when I look back. At the time, of course, I saw nothing beyond the day. I sorrowed when Garth went from me and rejoiced when he returned.
    It was while he was at Oxford that he grew so amazingly. As a child he was small for his age, and then he suddenly shot up into a very tall, thin young man. Later he filled out and became broad-shouldered and deep-chested, but he always retained the narrow hips and long lean legs of the born runner. I have only to shut my eyes to see Garth as he was in those far-off days. His long spare frame, his dark hair that fitted his small well-shaped head like a cap. His blue eyes, dreamy or eager as occasion demanded, were rather deeply sunk in his sun-tanned face. He had a short straight nose, and his mouth was large and mobile, the mouth of an actor, full of expression. His feet and his hands were long and thin, he had long sensitive fingers.
    What else can I tell you about that Oxford Garth? (I want you to see him clearly, Clare. It is so important that you should see Garth clearly in his early days, before he was embittered and disillusioned by the world.) He did not care for games—perhaps that was one of the reasons why his time at Eton was unhappy—he ran well, and swam, but the passion of his life was, and still is, riding. Garth rode magnificently, he was absolutely fearless, and yet he was not reckless, nor inconsiderate of his horse as fearless riders often are. When he was on a horse,