But Mrs. Evelyn (her husband
had not lived to come to the title) declined this. Fordham was in
the country with his tutor, and she wished Cecil to come and spend
his quarantine with her in London before joining him. The boys
grumbled very much, but Caroline could hardly wonder when she talked
with their tutor.
He, like every one else, liked, and even loved personally that
perplexing subject, John Lucas Brownlow, alias Jock. The boy was too
generous, honourable, truthful, and kindly to be exposed to the
stigma of removal; but he was the perplexity of everybody. He could
not be convinced of any necessity for application, and considered a
flogging as a slight risk quite worth encountering for the sake of
diversion. He would execute the most audacious pranks, and if he was
caught, would take it as a trial of skill between the masters and
himself, and accept punishment as amends, with the most good humoured
grace in the world. Fun seemed to be his only moving spring, and he
led everybody along with him, so as to be a much more mischievous
person than many a worse lad.
The only exceptions in the house to his influence seemed to be his
brother and cousin. Both were far above the average boy. Armine,
for talent, John Friar Brownlow at once for industry and steadiness.
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