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"O Walter, what a jolly place this is," said his little brother, "jollier than Semlyn even." "Wait a bit, Charlie; don't make up your mind too soon," said Walter; while Eden looked at the boy with a somewhat sad smile playing on his lips. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil? Much Ado about Nothing.
"Well, we must fancy that this is the Pearl and this Semlyn Lake," said Walter, wading up to the knees to launch the boat, and springing in when he had given it the final shove. They were excellent rowers, but Charlie had never tried his skill in a sea like that, and was timid, for which there was every excuse.
Among many other subjects that evening they talked over one which never fails to interest deeply every right-minded boy I mean their homes. It was no wonder that, as Walter talked of the glories of Semlyn lake and its surrounding hills, his face lighted up, and his eyes shone with pleasant memories.
"We can't stay for that, Charlie boy; it's a good thing that Semlyn Lake has taught us both to row, isn't it?" "O yes; don't you wish we had the little Pearl here now, Walter? Wouldn't we make it fly, instead of this cranky old wretch."
Power, we have seen, was something of a young poet, and on the day he left Semlyn with Walter, who was to accompany him home, he sat a long time silent in the train, and then tore out a leaf of his pocket-book, on which he had scribbled the following lines on Semlyn Lake.
Before getting any fun out of him it was necessary to see what kind of boy he was; and as Jones hardly knew what line to take, he began on the commonest and most vulgar tack of catechising him about his family and relations. "What's your father?" "My father is a gentleman," said Walter, rather surprised at the rudeness of the question. "And where do you live?" "At Semlyn." "And how old are you?"
It was late in the afternoon when Walter found himself on the top of the hill which looks down over Semlyn Lake.
The railroad, after leaving far behind the glorious hills of Semlyn, passes through country flatter and more uninteresting at every mile, until it finds itself fairly committed to the fens. Nothing but dreary dykes, muddy and straight, guarded by the ghosts of suicidal pollards, and by rows of dreary and desolate mills, occur to break the blank grey monotony of the landscape.
To be with you and Power at such a place as Semlyn must be O Walter, it almost makes me envious to think of you there. But I can't come, and I'll tell you frankly the reason. I can't afford, or rather I mean that my mother cannot afford, the necessary travelling expenses. I look on you, Walter, as my best school friend, so I may as well say at once that we are very, very poor.
Poor verses, and showing too delicate a sensibility to be healthy in any boy; yet dear to me and dear to Walter for Power's sake, and because they show the strange charm which Semlyn has for those who have the gift of appreciating those natural treasures with which earth plentifully fills her lap. Pudorem, amicitiam, pudicitiam, divina atque humana promiscum, nihil pensi neque moderati habere.
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