The sad-faced man clearly desired to avoid me, answering
my nod with a cold embarrassment, and clutching Johnny's hand whenever
the child called "Good-morning!" to me cordially. I fancied him
ashamed of his foolish falsehood; and I, on my side, was angry because
of it. The pair were for ever strolling backwards and forwards on
deck, or resting beneath the awning on the poop, and talking--always
talking. I fancied the boy was delicate; he certainly had a bad cough
during the first few days. But this went away as our voyage proceeded,
and his colour was rich and rosy.
One afternoon I caught a fragment of their talk as they passed, Johnny
brightly dressed and smiling, his father looking even more shabby and
weary than usual. The man was speaking.
"And Queen Victoria rides once a year through the streets of London on
her milk-white courser, to hear the nightingales sing in the Tower.
For when she came to the throne the Tower was full of prisoners, but
with a stroke of her sceptre she changed them all into song-birds.
Every year she releases fifty; and that is why they sing so
rapturously, because each one hopes his turn has come at last.
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