Mark was anxious to attend the Grammar School with Cass; but Mrs.
Lidderdale's dread nowadays was that her son would acquire a West
country burr, and it was considered more prudent, economically and
otherwise, to let him go on learning with his grandfather and herself.
Mark missed Cass when he went to school in Rosemarket, because there was
no such thing as playing truant there, and it was so far away that Cass
did not come home for the midday meal. But in summertime, Mark used to
wait for him outside the town, where a lane branched from the main road
into the unfrequented country behind the Rose Pool and took them the
longest way home along the banks on the Nancepean side, which were low
and rushy unlike those on the Rosemarket side, which were steep and
densely wooded. The great water, though usually described as
heart-shaped, was really more like a pair of Gothic arches, the green
cusp between which was crowned by a lonely farmhouse, El Dorado of Mark
and his friend, and the base of which was the bar of shingle that kept
out the sea. There was much to beguile the boys on the way home, whether
it was the sight of strange wildfowl among the reeds, or the exploration
of a ruined cottage set in an ancient cherry-orchard, or the sailing of
paper boats, or even the mere delight of lying on the grass and
listening above the murmur of insects to the water nagging at the sedge.
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