Mrs. Morton put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. The husband was moved: he got up and attempted to take her hand. "Indeed, Margaret, I did not mean to vex you."
"And I who have been such a fa--fai--faithful wi--wi--wife, and brought you such a deal of mon--mon--money, and always stud--stud--studied your interests; many"s the time when you have been fast asleep that I have sat up half the night--men--men--mending the house linen; and you have not been the same man, Roger, since that boy came!"
"Well, well" said the good man, quite overcome, and fairly taking her round the waist and kissing her; "no words between us; it makes life quite unpleasant. If it pains you to have Sidney here, I will put him to some school in the town, where they"ll be kind to him. Only, if you would, Margaret, for my sake--old girl! come, now! there"s a darling!--just be more tender with him. You see he frets so after his mother. Think how little Tom would fret if he was away from you! Poor little Tom!"
"La! Mr. Morton, you are such a man!--there"s no resisting your ways!
You know how to come over me, don"t you?"
And Mrs. Morton smiled benignly, as she escaped from his conjugal arms and smoothed her cap.
Peace thus restored, Mr. Morton refilled his pipe, and the good lady, after a pause, resumed, in a very mild, conciliatory tone:
"I"ll tell you what it is, Roger, that vexes me with that there child.
He is so deceitful, and he does tell such fibs!"
"Fibs! that is a very bad fault," said Mr. Morton, gravely. "That must be corrected."
"It was but the other day that I saw him break a pane of gla.s.s in the shop; and when I taxed him with it, he denied it;--and with such a face!
I can"t abide storytelling."
"Let me know the next story he tells; I"ll cure him," said Mr. Morton, sternly. "You now how I broke Tom of it. Spare the rod, and spoil the child. And where I promised to be kind to the boy, of course I did not mean that I was not to take care of his morals, and see that he grew up an honest man. Tell truth and shame the devil--that"s my motto."
"Spoke like yourself, Roger," said Mrs. Morton, with great animation.
"But you see he has not had the advantage of such a father as you. I wonder your sister don"t write to you. Some people make a great fuss about their feelings; but out of sight out of mind."
"I hope she is not ill. Poor Catherine! she looked in a very bad way when she was here," said Morton; and he turned uneasily to the fireplace and sighed.
Here the servant entered with the supper-tray, and the conversation fell upon other topics.
Mrs. Roger Morton"s charge against Sidney was, alas! too true. He had acquired, under that roof, a terrible habit of telling stories. He had never incurred that vice with his mother, because then and there he had nothing to fear; now, he had everything to fear;--the grim aunt--even the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle--the apprentices--the strange servants--and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring.
Beware of the man who has been roughly treated as a child.
The day after the conference just narrated, Mr. Morton, who was subject to erysipelas, had taken a little cooling medicine. He breakfasted, therefore, later than usual--after the rest of the family; and at this meal pour lui soulager he ordered the luxury of a m.u.f.fin. Now it so chanced that he had only finished half the m.u.f.fin, and drunk one cup of tea, when he was called into the shop by a customer of great importance--a prosy old lady, who always gave her orders with remarkable precision, and who valued herself on a character for affability, which she maintained by never buying a penny riband without asking the shopman how all his family were, and talking news about every other family in the place. At the time Mr. Morton left the parlour, Sidney and Master Tom were therein, seated on two stools, and casting up division sums on their respective slates--a point of education to which Mr. Morton attended with great care. As soon as his father"s back was turned, Master Tom"s eyes wandered from the slate to the m.u.f.fin, as it leered at him from the slop-basin. Never did Pythian sibyl, seated above the bubbling spring, utter more oracular eloquence to her priest, than did that m.u.f.fin--at least the parts of it yet extant--utter to the fascinated senses of Master Tom. First he sighed; then he moved round on his stool; then he got up; then he peered at the m.u.f.fin from a respectful distance; then he gradually approached, and walked round, and round, and round it--his eyes getting bigger and bigger; then he peeped through the gla.s.s-door into the shop, and saw his father busily engaged with the old lady; then he began to calculate and philosophise, perhaps his father had done breakfast; perhaps he would not come back at all; if he came back, he would not miss one corner of the m.u.f.fin; and if he did miss it, why should Tom be supposed to have taken it? As he thus communed with himself, he drew nearer into the fatal vortex, and at last with a desperate plunge, he seized the triangular temptation,--
"And ere a man had power to say "Behold!"
The jaws of Thomas had devoured it up."
Sidney, disturbed from his studies by the agitation of his companion, witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. "O Tom!"
said he, "what will your papa say?"
"Look at that!" said Tom, putting his fist under Sidney"s reluctant nose. "If father misses it, you"ll say the cat took it. If you don"t--my eye, what a wapping I"ll give you!"
Here Mr. Morton"s voice was heard wishing the lady "Good morning!" and Master Tom, thinking it better to leave the credit of the invention solely to Sidney, whispered, "Say I"m gone up stairs for my pocket-hanker," and hastily absconded.
Mr. Morton, already in a very bad humour, partly at the effects of the cooling medicine, partly at the suspension of his breakfast, stalked into the parlour. His tea-the second cup already poured out, was cold.
He turned towards the m.u.f.fin, and missed the lost piece at a glance.
"Who has been at my m.u.f.fin?" said he, in a voice that seemed to Sidney like the voice he had always supposed an ogre to possess. "Have you, Master Sidney?"
"N--n--no, sir; indeed, sir!"
"Then Tom has. Where is he?"
"Gone up stairs for his handkerchief, sir."
"Did he take my m.u.f.fin? Speak the truth!"
"No, sir; it was the--it was the--the cat, sir!"
"O you wicked, wicked boy!" cried Mrs. Morton, who had followed her husband into the parlour; "the cat kittened last night, and is locked up in the coal-cellar!"
"Come here, Master Sidney! No! first go down, Margaret, and see if the cat is in the cellar: it might have got out, Mrs. M.," said Mr. Morton, just even in his wrath.
Mrs. Morton went, and there was a dead silence, except indeed in Sidney"s heart, which beat louder than a clock ticks. Mr. Morton, meanwhile, went to a little cupboard;--while still there, Mrs. Morton returned: the cat was in the cellar--the key turned on her--in no mood to eat m.u.f.fins, poor thing!--she would not even lap her milk! like her mistress, she had had a very bad time!
"Now come here, sir," said Mr. Morton, withdrawing himself from the cupboard, with a small horsewhip in his hand, "I will teach you how to speak the truth in future! Confess that you have told a lie!"
"Yes, sir, it was a lie! Pray--pray forgive me: but Tom made me!"
"What! when poor Tom is up-stairs? worse and worse!" said Mrs. Morton, lifting up her hands and eyes. "What a viper!"
"For shame, boy,--for shame! Take that--and that--and that--"
Writhing--shrinking, still more terrified than hurt, the poor child cowered beneath the lash.
"Mamma! mamma!" he cried at last, "Oh, why--why did you leave me?"
At these words Mr. Morton stayed his hand, the whip fell to the ground.
"Yet it is all for the boy"s good," he muttered. "There, child, I hope this is the last time. There, you are not much hurt. Zounds, don"t cry so!"
"He will alarm the whole street," said Mrs. Morton; "I never see such a child! Here, take this parcel to Mrs. Birnie"s--you know the house--only next street, and dry your eyes before you get there. Don"t go through the shop; this way out."
She pushed the child, still sobbing with a vehemence that she could not comprehend, through the private pa.s.sage into the street, and returned to her husband.
"You are convinced now, Mr. M.?"
"Pshaw! ma"am; don"t talk. But, to be sure, that"s how I cured Tom of fibbing.--The tea"s as cold as a stone!"
CHAPTER IV.
"Le bien nous le faisons: le mal c"est la Fortune.
On a toujours raison, le Destin toujours tort."--LA FONTAINE.
[The Good, we effect ourselves; the Evil is the handiwork of Fortune. Mortals are always in the right, Destiny always in the wrong.]