Read Online The Elderbrook Brothers by Gerald Bullet - Free Book Online

flow of facetious pomposities. That a boy in his school should have a desire for learning was a shattering astonishment, and the confession implied by that astonishment might be even more shattering. It did not bear looking at too closely.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ said Guy. ‘Now and again.’
    Mr Cowlin gave him a long considering look. ‘How far have you got?’
    â€˜Not very far,’ Guy admitted uneasily. ‘Only bits here and there,’ he added, understating his achievement.
    â€˜Which page?’ Mr Cowlin insisted. ‘Do you know your declensions? Let’s hear the first. Go ahead.’
    That was an easy one. He had learnt the inevitable
mensa
orally from Felix and had it pat.
    â€˜Good,’ said Mr Cowlin. ‘Now second declension.’
    â€˜Shall I say
puer
or
dominus
, sir?’ Guy was excited and beginning to show off. It had flashed into his mind that old Cowlin might come in useful.
    â€˜Please yourself,’ said Cowlin. ‘No, we’ll take it as said. What about verbs? Future indicative of
moneo?
    During that brief recital he said to himself: he’s not a fool, he’s teachable. He felt an impulse to help the boy, and equally a desire to impress him. In his mind’s eye he saw his shelf of Latin authors—Virgil, Horace, and the rest—with the dust of years thick upon them.
    â€˜I’ve got some books at home that might interest you. What do you say?’ Unconsciously he had dropped his schoolmaster manner and spoke as to an equal.
    â€˜What, now, sir?’
    â€˜No time like the present.’
    Guy climbed over the gate and joined Mr Cowlin on his walk home. He spent no time in idle wonder at the unexpected turn of events: he was too busy thinking ahead. His vague plans for the future were taking shape, and it now seemed possible that Mr Cowlin—Mr Cowlin of all people!—would have a hand in them.
    Mr Cowlin occupied a small house in Upmarden Lane, opposite The Plough and Gaiters. He lived alone and made his own breakfast every morning, but took his main meals at Mrs Gruntle’s cottage, twenty yards up the road. Mrs Gruntle, the relict of a postman long deceased, had for at least ten years cherished the extraordinary notion that she might one day be persuaded to become Mrs Cowlin; but Cowlin, in whose eyes she was a very ordinary harmless amiable elderly woman and nothing more, remained blessedly unaware of the project. His back windows looked out on a small garden and orchard, which healthily occupied some of his too abundant leisure, and to a wide view of green hills and sky. Mrs Gruntle had neverset foot inside his house: the privilege of cleaning for him belonged to a succession of village ‘daily’ girls. He was, in genera], a reserved but not unneighbourly man. He joined, if from a slight distance, in the conversation that went on pretty continuously at The Plough and Gaiters; and if ever he sighed for better company he never sought it.
    He led Guy into a large untidy room, into which the summer evening light struggled with difficulty through one small west window. It was the room of a bachelor and a recluse. The two chairs, as well as the table, were scattered with books; and there were other books dropped on the floor. The warm air stank of upholstery and stale tobacco. On the walls were a few old prints, picked up at auction sales. A first glance might have suggested that the man who lived here was a great reader, but the true inference to be drawn from the sight of so many scattered books was less flattering to their owner. Cowlin’s was an indolent and restless spirit. Almost every volume represented an unfulfilled intention: nowadays he seldom read in the same book for thirty consecutive minutes.
    â€˜Here’s Virgil,’ said Mr. Cowlin. ‘Do you know about him? No, of course you don’t: how could you?’
    He began discoursing on Virgil, his life, and the sort of man he was; but