Читать книгу Miss Bunting онлайн

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"Hullo, Robin," said Jane Gresham.

"Hullo, Jane," said the young man, and sat down on the horse-block beside her.

"What was all the noise?" said Jane.

"I promised I'd show the boys how my foot fastens on," said the young man, "and now I can't get the foul thing fixed again. Do you mind?"

Without ostentation he pulled up his right trouser leg and busied himself with his artificial foot. Having accomplished the job at last to his satisfaction, he smoothed the crease in his trousers.

"Ass," she said. "One day you'll do it once too often. Anyway, they've all seen your foot about a hundred times."

"I know," said the young man. "I expect it's showing off. It isn't everyone who has a foot like mine. I remember when I was little I had a book called Otto of the Silver Hand, with illustrations, woodcuts I think, rather grim and frightening, and always wished I had one. I didn't think of a foot. But a silver one would be a bit heavy."

Jane Gresham looked at him. Robin Dale whom she had known all her life, the Rector's only son by a late marriage, had been a junior classical master at Southbridge School just before the war. Then he had gone into the Barsetshire Yeomanry, got a commission, fought all through Africa and Sicily, and finally had his right foot so badly shattered in the Anzio landing that it had to be amputated, and he had been discharged. Southbridge School would willingly have taken him back, but he still felt too crippled and self-conscious to face the school life. His father, a widower for many years, living alone, wanted Robin to stay at home for a time. Robin had done his best to be valiant, but he moped sadly till Admiral Palliser, who did not like to see people mope and found work a cure for most evils, suggested that he should give little Frank some tutoring before he went to Southbridge. The tutoring was a success, other little boys in the Old Town joined the class. The Rector, who had private means, managed to get the stables altered and the furnace installed, and Frank Gresham was the first pupil. When we say that the horses' racks and the original narrow box staircase to the grooms' quarters had been left untouched, as had the rather terrifying kind of gallows over which sacks of oats and bales of straw were hauled up to the loft, the reader will realize what an unusual and delightful school Frank and his fellow scholars had.