A FEW days after school had commenced Frank Norris called in again at the Holls". It was a bright day, and Harry had gone out in his box, and Mrs. Holl was alone.
"Harry will be sorry he is out, sir," was her first greeting to Frank; "he has been looking forward to your coming again. You don"t know, sir, how much good you have done him. The boy has generally wonderful good spirits, considering his condition; still, though he don"t say nought, I can see sometimes that he isn"t never quite happy except when he is working away with his books or playing on that fiddle of his.
"Evan has been and spent all the money as was given him that day at the Serpentine in buying a new fiddle for him. I don"t see much in the thing myself, and it seems to me they must have cheated Evan altogether, for it ain"t a new un, but an old, brown, dirty-looking thing, as looks as if it had been made nigh fifty years; and they goes and charges him thirty-eight shillings for it, and pretended to make a favour of it, while John only paid seven and sixpence for the one he had before, which was a beautiful new shiny one.
"However, Harry seems delighted with it, and says it"s beautiful soft, and mellow. But what he means I don"t know, though I do allow it ain"t so squeaky as the other; and sometimes when Harry is playing soft on it, it does sound beautiful. Still, thirty-eight shillings is a big price for an old thing like that."
"Old fiddles are always worth more than new ones, Mrs. Holl. Do you know there are some fiddles two or three hundred years old which could not be bought for less than three or four hundred pounds?"
"My gracious!" Mrs. Holl exclaimed, "three or four hundred pounds for such a thing as a fiddle. I calls it downright wicked."
"He is a wonderful boy that son of yours, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, changing the subject; "a regular genius I should call him. What a pity it is that he is a cripple!"
"Ay, that it is," Mrs. Holl agreed, "and he is a wonderful chap, is Harry. But he ain"t no son of mine, Mr. Norris, though he don"t know it himself, and I shouldn"t like him to be told."
"Then what relation is he, Mrs. Holl, if it is not an impertinent question?"
"He ain"t no sort of relation at all, sir," the woman answered.
"Then how came you to bring him up, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked in surprise.
"Well, sir, it was a very simple matter. But if so be as you care to hear it, I will tell you just how it happened." And, leaning against the mantelpiece, with the red light of the fire thrown up into her face, Mrs. Holl went on very slowly, and speaking as though she almost saw what she was relating.
"Well, sir, it were an evening in April--a cold bitter day. I was sitting here between light and dark, drinking my tea with John, who was just come home from work--John is my husband, you see, sir--when we heard a noise outside in the street. We went out to see what was the matter, and we found a poor young creature, with a baby in her arms, had fallen down in a faint like.
"She was a pretty young thing, sir; and though her dress was poor and torn, she looked as if she had not been always so. Some one says, "Take them to the workhouse." "No!" says I--for my heart yearned towards the poor young thing--"bring her in here; mayn"t we, John?" says I. Well, sir, John did not say nothing, but he took the baby out of her arms and gave it to me, and then he upped and took the poor young creature--she were no great weight, sir--and carried her into the house, and laid her on the bed, as it might be by the window there.
"Well, sir, that bed she never left; she came round a little, and lived some days, but her mind were never rightly itself again. She would lay there, with her baby beside her, and sing songs to herself; I don"t know what about, for it were some foreign language. She were very gentle and quiet like, but I don"t think she ever knew where she was, or anything about it. She were very fond of baby, and would take it in her arms, and hush it, and talk to it. She faded and faded away, and the doctor said nothing could be done for her; it made my heart ache, sir, and if you will believe me, I would go upstairs and cry by the hour.
"The thought of the little baby troubled me too. I had lost my first little one, sir, and I could not a-bear the thought of the little thing going to the workhouse. So one day I says to John, "John, when that poor mother dies, for G.o.d"s sake don"t "ee send the little baby to the workhouse; He has taken away our own little one, and may be He has sent this one for us to love in his place. Let us take him as our own." John, he did not say nothing, but he up and gived me a great kiss, and said, "Sairey, you"re a good woman!" which of course, sir," Mrs. Holl put in apologetically, "is neither here nor there, for any mother would have done the same; but it"s John"s way when he"s pleased. That very same night the baby"s mother died."
Standing with her rough honest face lit up by the bright fire-glow she related it, simply, and as a matter of course, all unconscious of the good part she had taken in it, a.s.suming no credit to herself, or seeing that she deserved any.
When she had finished there was a little silence. Frank pa.s.sed his hand furtively across his eyes, and then shook Mrs. Holl warmly by the hand, saying, "Your husband was right, Mrs. Holl, you are a good woman."
Mrs. Holl looked completely amazed, and stammered out, "Lor" bless you, sir! there wasn"t anything out of the way in what I did, and there"s scores and scores would do the like. Having just lost my own little one, my heart went out to the poor little thing, and it seemed sent natural like, to fill up the place of the little angel who was gone from us.
Bless your heart, sir, there weren"t nothing out of the way in that, nothing at all, and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy"s a good boy, and a clever boy, and he is a comfort and a help to us; a better boy never lived. But we have always grieved sorely over the accident."
"Then he was not originally lame, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked.
"Dear me! no, sir, not till he were six years old. It happened this way.
I was laid up at the time--I was just confined of Mary, she is my eldest girl--and somehow Harry he went out in the street playing. I don"t rightly know how it happened; but never shall I forget when they brought him in, and said that a cart had run over him. John, he was in--which was lucky, for I think I lost my head like, and went clean out of my mind for a bit, for I loved him just like my own. They did not think he would have lived at first, for the cart had gone over the lower part of his body and broke one of his thigh-bones, and the other leg up high. It was a light cart I have heard tell, or it must have killed him.
"He were in bed for months, and, if you will believe me, if ever there was a patient little angel on earth, it was surely Harry. He never complained, and his chief trouble was for my sake. At last he got well; but the doctors said he would never walk again, for they thought there was some damage done to his spine; and sure enough he never has walked.
He is always cheerful, and keeps up wonderful, considering.
"He has always been given to reading. John made a shift to teach him his letters, and then the children of the neighbours, they lent him their schoolbooks, and taught him what they knew, and in a short time, bless you, sir, he knew more than them all! He would sit and read for hours together. He is wonderful clever, Harry is."
"Well, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, rising, "I am very much obliged to you for your story; but I must be going now, or else I shall be late for school. Tell Harry I am sorry I missed him, and will look in again soon.
Have you thought anything further of what I said about Evan?"
"Yes, sir, and thank you most kindly; but father thinks he had better wait another year or so, till he gets a bit older and steadier. As for them books as you was kind enough to send Harry, the boy must thank you hisself; except when he is playing on his fiddle he is always reading at them, and it is as much as I can do to get him outside the doors. He was never very fond of it, for he thinks people look at him; but since those books has come I have regular to take them away from him, put his cap on his head, and push him outside the door. He will be in a taking that he has missed you to-day."
"Well, good-bye, Mrs. Holl, I haven"t a moment to lose," and Frank, putting on his hat, made off at a sharp run to school, only arriving just in time to say prayers.
Frank Norris, although a Sixth town boy, was not head of Richards", as Johnstone had been longer in that form, and was consequently senior to him. Johnstone was, however, small and slightly built, and cared little for rowing, cricket, or football. He had gained his place in the Sixth by sheer hard work rather than by talent. He was fussy and irritable, with a strong sense of the importance of his position as a Sixth town boy and head of Richards". Between him and Frank there was no cordiality, for it irritated him that the latter was upon all occasions appealed to, and his advice asked in everything relating to games, and all matters of dispute referred to him. Frank, on the other hand, although he at all times gave way to Johnstone in house matters, was constantly annoyed by his continual self-a.s.sertion and his irritation at trifles. They were the only two Sixth town boys at Richards", but there were three Upper "Sh.e.l.ls," Harris, Travers, and James, and these ranked almost with the Sixth, for the great demarcation of the School was between the Upper and Under "Sh.e.l.ls," the former having the right to f.a.g.
Frank and Johnston had each a small room of their own; the three Upper "Sh.e.l.ls" had a room together, but they used Frank"s study almost as much as their own; one or other would generally come in to work with him in the evening, and it was here that councils were held as to house matters or knotty points connected with field or water.
"I wish Trafalgar Square wasn"t out of bounds," Harris said one evening.
They had finished the work for the next day, and had gathered for a chat in Frank"s room before turning into bed. Frank was sitting in a rickety arm-chair by the fire, Harris on the table, and the other two on the bed.
"Why do you wish so, Harris?" Frank said.
"Why, I should like to go up to see those rows they have pretty nearly every day. Thompson, the home boarder, told me he saw a regular fight there yesterday evening between the police and the Chartists."
"Well, it"s no use wishing, because bounds begin at the gate in Dean"s Yard. I never could understand myself why we should be allowed to go the other way, down the slums, as far as we please, where there is every chance of getting into a row, while we are not allowed to walk quietly up Parliament Street; then we may go along the other way, by the new Houses of Parliament, to Westminster Bridge, and across the bridge to baths; but we may not go out from Dean"s Yard and walk across in front of the Abbey to the Bridge. I expect when the rules were made there were no houses built beyond us, and there were fields extending back from the river, while the other way led up to the Court. But I should certainly like to go up and see one of those Chartist riots. However, I don"t think it can be done; it would be setting a bad example to the young uns, and the chances are ten to one we should run against one of the masters."
"Hardly likely, I should think," Travers said; "it would be shocking bad luck to run against one of them in a crowd like that."
"Well, you see, Travers, we are so preciously conspicuous in these tail-coats; of course it"s the custom, and I stick up for old customs; still, I do think it"s a ridiculous thing that we should be obliged to wear tail-coats. Of course the jackets for the fellows under the Upper "Sh.e.l.l" are all right, but one cannot go on wearing jackets higher than that; still, I do think they might let us wear cutaways; tail-coats were all right when every one else wore tail-coats, but in our days it is absurd to wear a coat which n.o.body else wears except for an evening dress. You can tell a fellow a mile off as a Westminster boy by his coat."
"It has its advantages," James said. "Look how Johnstone would lose his importance without his tails, he would look like a plucked jay."
There was a general laugh.
"He is not a bad fellow," Frank replied, "though he does think a good deal of himself. Still, as no one else thinks anything of him, it is just as well he should fancy himself. But never mind that now. No, I don"t think there is any chance of our getting to see the fun in Trafalgar Square. I should like to go to one of the halls where those fellows spout, and to get up and say something the other way. Of course one would have to go in a strong body, else there would not be much of us left when we got into the street again. I must have a chat with Perkins about it, he is sure to be up to all that kind of thing."
"Yes, but there would be the trouble of getting in after lock-up."
"Oh, I dare say we might get over that," Harris replied; "the f.a.gs would never peach."
"We won"t tell them if we can help it," Frank said; "if we go in for any lark of that sort only one of our f.a.gs must know it. I can trust young Phillpot to hold his tongue. Well, I will chat it over with Perkins, and see what can be done."
Perkins was a retired prize-fighter who kept a public-house on Bank Side. In a large room attached to the house he gave sparring exhibitions twice a week, with the aid of other fellow-pugilists, and also gave private lessons in the art of self-defence. Bank Side was not out of bounds, but it was strictly against the rules for any boy to enter a public-house; nevertheless, a good many of the Westminster boys had learned boxing from this worthy. There was a private entrance behind the house into what Perkins called his "saloon," and the boys strove to consider that by using this they avoided an infringement of the rule.
The fact of their taking lessons was unknown to the master, for indeed at Westminster the boys were at perfect liberty to do as they pleased out of school-time, providing that they did not go out of bounds.
The rules enforcing attendance at fields or water, of abstaining from entering public-houses, and generally of conducting themselves as gentlemen, were left to what may be called their own police, the senior Queen"s Scholars and the Sixth Form town boys, and these kept a far more rigorous hand over the younger boys than the masters could possibly have done. A vigorous thrashing was the punishment for shirking fields, or for any action regarded as caddish; and it was therefore only the Upper "Sh.e.l.ls" and Sixth, who, being free from the operation of the law as to fields and water, were able to frequent Perkins"s establishment.
Of those who went there, most of them did so for the genuine purpose of learning boxing; but a few used the place for the purpose of smoking and drinking. But these did so at hours when there was no chance of finding Perkins at work with his pupils, for public feeling would not have tolerated, even in an upper form boy, anything that would have been looked upon as such bad form.
The next morning, after breakfast, Frank walked down to "The Black Dog."
He was one of Perkins"s best pupils, and the latter had more than once been heard to express his regret that Frank had not been born in a lower cla.s.s of life.
"He"s got the making of a champion in him," the ex-pugilist would say regretfully; "in another five years, when he has got his full height and filled out, I warrant he will fight twelve stone; look how quick he is on his pins; and I tell you I have all my work to do now to guard my head, he hits like lightning, and once or twice has fairly knocked me off my pins. I"d back him now for fifty pounds against any novice in England; and as for pluck, I have never seen him wince, hit him as hard as you will he always comes up smiling. Barkley, he is a good boxer too, but he ain"t got temper, sir; he gets nasty if he has a sharp counter; and though he keeps cool enough, there is an ugly look about his face which tells its tale. He would never keep his temper, and I doubt if he"s real game at bottom. I knows my customers, and have never hit him as I hit Norris; I don"t want to lose a pupil as pays fair and square, and I know I should mighty soon lose him if I were to let out at him sharp. No, there is bad blood in that chap somewhere."