"Don"t you see he"s not a common boy? he doesn"t whine," she remarked, and handed me a stale bun, saying, "Here, Master Charles, and you needn"t say thank you."
"My name is Harry Richmond, and I thank you very much," I replied.
I heard her say, as I went out, "You can see he"s a gentleman"s son."
The ragged boy was awaiting me eagerly. "Gemini! you"re a lucky one," he cried; "here, come along, curly-poll." I believe that I meant to share the bun with him, but of course he could not be aware of my beneficent intentions: so he treated me as he thought I was for treating him, and making one s.n.a.t.c.h at the bun, ran off cramming it into his mouth. I stood looking at any hand. I learnt in that instant what thieving was, and begging, and hunger, for I would have perished rather than have asked for another cake, and as I yearned for it in absolute want of food, the boy"s ungenerous treatment of me came down in a cloud on my reason. I found myself being led through the crush of people, by an old gentleman, to whom I must have related an extraordinary rigmarole. He shook his head, saying that I was unintelligible; but the questions he put to me, "Why had I no hat on in the open street?--Where did my mother live?--What was I doing out alone in London?" were so many incitements to autobiographical composition to an infant mind, and I tumbled out my history afresh each time that he spoke. He led me into a square, stooping his head to listen all the while; but when I perceived that we had quitted the region of shops I made myself quite intelligible by stopping short and crying: "I am so hungry." He nodded and said, "It "s no use cross-examining an empty stomach. You"ll do me the favour to dine with me, my little man. We"ll talk over your affairs by-and-by."
My alarm at having left the savoury street of shops was not soothed until I found myself sitting at table with him, and a nice young lady, and an old one who wore a cap, and made loud remarks on my garments and everything I did. I was introduced to them as the little boy dropped from the sky. The old gentleman would not allow me to be questioned before I had eaten. It was a memorable feast. I had soup, fish, meat, and pastry, and, for the first time in my life, a gla.s.s of wine. How they laughed to see me blink and cough after I had swallowed half the gla.s.s like water. At once my tongue was unloosed. I seemed to rise right above the roofs of London, beneath which I had been but a wandering atom a few minutes ago. I talked of my wonderful father, and Great Will, and Pitt, and the Peerage. I amazed them with my knowledge. When I finished a long recital of Great Will"s chase of the deer, by saying that I did not care about politics (I meant, in my own mind, that Pitt was dull in comparison), they laughed enormously, as if I had fired them off. "Do you know what you are, sir?" said the old gentleman; he had frowning eyebrows and a merry mouth "you"re a comical character."
I felt interested in him, and asked him what he was. He informed me that he was a lawyer, and ready to be pantaloon to my clown, if I would engage him.
"Are you in the Peerage?" said I.
"Not yet," he replied.
"Well, then," said I, "I know nothing about you."
The young lady screamed with laughter. "Oh, you funny little boy; you killing little creature!" she said, and coming round to me, lifted me out of my chair, and wanted to know if I knew how to kiss.
"Oh, yes; I"ve been taught that," said I, giving the salute without waiting for the invitation; "but," I added, "I don"t care about it much."
She was indignant, and told me she was going to be offended, so I let her understand that I liked being kissed and played with in the morning before I was up, and if she would come to my house ever so early, she would find me lying next the wall and ready for her.
"And who lies outside?" she asked.
"That"s my papa," I was beginning to say, but broke the words with a sob, for I seemed to be separated from him now by the sea itself.
They petted me tenderly. My story was extracted by alternate leading questions from the old gentleman and timely caresses from the ladies. I could tell them everything except the name of the street where I lived.
My midnight excursion from the house of my grandfather excited them chiefly; also my having a mother alive who perpetually fanned her face and wore a ball-dress and a wreath; things that I remembered of my mother. The ladies observed that it was clear I was a romantic child.
I noticed that the old gentleman said "Humph," very often, and his eyebrows were like a rook"s nest in a tree when I spoke of my father walking away with Shylock"s descendant and not since returning to me.
A big book was fetched out of his library, in which he read my grandfather"s name. I heard him mention it aloud. I had been placed on a stool beside a tea-tray near the fire, and there I saw the old red house of Riversley, and my mother dressed in white, and my aunt Dorothy; and they all complained that I had ceased to love them, and must go to bed, to which I had no objection. Somebody carried me up and undressed me, and promised me a great game of kissing in the morning.
The next day in the strange house I heard that the old gentleman had sent one of his clerks down to my grandfather at Riversley, and communicated with the constables in London; and, by-and-by, Mrs.
Waddy arrived, having likewise visited those authorities, one of whom supported her claims upon me. But the old gentleman wished to keep me until his messenger returned from Riversley. He made all sorts of pretexts. In the end, he insisted on seeing my father, and Mrs. Waddy, after much hesitation, and even weeping, furnished the address: upon hearing which, spoken aside to him, he said, "I thought so." Mrs. Waddy entreated him to be respectful to my father, who was, she declared, his superior, and, begging everybody"s pardon present, the superior of us all, through no sin of his own, that caused him to be so unfortunate; and a real Christian and pattern, in spite of outsides, though as true a gentleman as ever walked, and by rights should be amongst the highest.
She repeated "amongst the highest" reprovingly, with the ears of barley in her blue bonnet shaking, and her hands clasped tight in her lap. Old Mr. Bannerbridge (that was the old gentleman"s name) came back very late from his visit to my father, so late that he said it would be cruel to let me go out in the street after my bed-time. Mrs. Waddy consented to my remaining, on the condition of my being surrendered to her at nine o"clock, and no later, the following morning.
I was a.s.sured by Mr. Bannerbridge that my father"s health and appet.i.te were excellent; he gave me a number of unsatisfying messages, all the rest concerning his interview he whispered to his daughter and his sister, Miss Bannerbridge, who said they hoped they would have news from Hampshire very early, so that the poor child might be taken away by the friends of his infancy. I could understand that my father was disapproved of by them, and that I was a kind of shuttlec.o.c.k flying between two battledores; but why they pitied me I could not understand.
There was a great battle about me when Mrs. Waddy appeared punctual to her appointed hour. The victory was hers, and I, her prize, pa.s.sed a whole day in different conveyances, the last of which landed us miles away from London, at the gates of an old drooping, mossed and streaked farmhouse, that was like a wall-flower in colour.
CHAPTER III. DIPWELL FARM
In rain or in sunshine this old farmhouse had a constant resemblance to a wall-flower; and it had the same moist earthy smell, except in the kitchen, where John and Martha Thresher lived, apart from their furniture. All the fresh eggs, and the b.u.t.ter stamped, with three bees, and the pots of honey, the fowls, and the hare lifted out of the hamper by his hind legs, and the country loaves smelling heavenly, which used to come to Mrs. Waddy"s address in London, and appear on my father"s table, were products of Dipwell farm, and presents from her sister, Martha Thresher. On receiving this information I felt at home in a moment, and asked right off, "How long am I to stay here?--Am I going away tomorrow?--What"s going to be done with me?" The women found these questions of a youthful wanderer touching. Between kissings and promises of hens to feed, and eggs that were to come of it, I settled into contentment. A strong impression was made on me by Mrs. Waddy"s saying, "Here, Master Harry, your own papa will come for you; and you may be sure he will, for I have his word he will, and he"s not one to break it, unless his country"s against him; and for his darling boy he"d march against cannons. So here you"ll sit and wait for him, won"t you?" I sat down immediately, looking up. Mrs. Waddy and Mrs. Thresher raised their hands. I had given them some extraordinary proof of my love for my father. The impression I received was, that sitting was the thing to conjure him to me.
"Where his heart"s not concerned," Mrs. Waddy remarked of me flatteringly, "he"s shrewd as a little schoolmaster."
"He"ve a bird"s-nesting eye," said Mrs. Thresher, whose face I was studying.
John Thresher wagered I would be a man before either of them reached that goal. But whenever he spoke he suffered correction on account of his English.
"More than his eating and his drinking, that child"s father worrits about his learning to speak the language of a British gentleman," Mrs.
Waddy exclaimed. "Before that child your h"s must be like the panting of an engine--to please his father. He "d stop me carrying the dinner-tray on meat-dish hot, and I"m to repeat what I said, to make sure the child haven"t heard anything ungrammatical. The child"s nursemaid he"d lecture so, the poor girl would come down to me ready to bend double, like a bundle of nothing, his observations so took the pride out of her. That"s because he "s a father who knows his duty to the child:--"Child!" says he, "man, ma"am." It"s just as you, John, when you sow your seed you think of your harvest. So don"t take it ill of me, John; I beg of you be careful of your English. Turn it over as you"re about to speak."
"Change loads on the road, you mean," said John Thresher. "Na, na, he"s come to settle nigh a weedy field, if you like, but his crop ain"t nigh reaping yet. Hark you, Mary Waddy, who"re a widde, which "s as much as say, an unocc"pied mind, there"s c.o.c.kney, and there"s country, and there "s school. Mix the three, strain, and throw away the sediment. Now, yon "s my view.
His wife and Mrs. Waddy said reflectively, in a breath, "True!"
"Drink or no, that"s the trick o" brewery," he added.
They a.s.sented. They began praising him, too, like meek creatures.
"What John says is worth listening to, Mary. You may be over-careful. A stew"s a stew, and not a boiling to shreds, and you want a steady fire, and not a furnace."
"Oh, I quite agree with John, Martha: we must take the good and the evil in a world like this."
"Then I"m no scholar, and you"re at ease," said John.
Mrs. Waddy put her mouth to his ear.
Up went his eyebrows, wrinkling arches over a petrified stare.
In some way she had regained her advantage. "Art sure of it?" he inquired.
"Pray, don"t offend me by expressing a doubt of it," she replied, bowing.
John Thresher poised me in the very centre of his gaze. He declared he would never have guessed that, and was reproved, inasmuch as he might have guessed it. He then said that I could not a.s.sociate with any of the children thereabout, and my dwelling in the kitchen was not to be thought of. The idea of my dwelling in the kitchen seemed to be a serious consideration with Mrs. Martha likewise. I was led into the rooms of state. The sight of them was enough. I stamped my feet for the kitchen, and rarely in my life have been happier than there, dining and supping with John and Martha and the farm-labourers, expecting my father across the hills, and yet satisfied with the sun. To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe, and this was my feeling in my father"s absence. I knew he would come, without wishing to hurry him. He had the world beyond the hills; I this one, where a slow full river flowed from the sounding mill under our garden wall, through long meadows. In Winter the wild ducks made letters of the alphabet flying. On the other side of the copses bounding our home, there was a park containing trees old as the History of England, John Thresher said, and the thought of their venerable age enclosed me comfortably. He could not tell me whether he meant as old as the book of English History; he fancied he did, for the furrow-track follows the plough close upon; but no one exactly could swear when that (the book) was put together. At my suggestion, he fixed the trees to the date of the Heptarchy, a period of heavy ploughing.
Thus begirt by Saxon times, I regarded Riversley as a place of extreme baldness, a Greenland, untrodden by my Alfred and my Harold. These heroes lived in the circle of Dipwell, confidently awaiting the arrival of my father. He sent me once a glorious letter. Mrs. Waddy took one of John Thresher"s pigeons to London, and in the evening we beheld the bird cut the sky like an arrow, bringing round his neck a letter warm from him I loved. Planet communicating with planet would be not more wonderful to men than words of his to me, travelling in such a manner. I went to sleep, and awoke imagining the bird bursting out of heaven.
Meanwhile there was an attempt to set me moving again. A strange young man was noticed in the neighbourhood of the farm, and he accosted me at Leckham fair. "I say, don"t we know one another? How about your grandfather the squire, and your aunt, and Mr. Bannerbridge? I"ve got news for you."
Not unwilling to hear him, I took his hand, leaving my companion, the miller"s little girl, Mabel Sweetwinter, at a toy-stand, while Bob, her brother and our guardian, was shying sticks in a fine att.i.tude. "Yes, and your father, too," said the young man; "come along and see him; you can run?" I showed him how fast. We were pursued by Bob, who fought for me, and won me, and my allegiance instantly returned to him. He carried me almost the whole of the way back to Dipwell. Women must feel for the lucky heroes who win them, something of what I felt for mine; I kissed his b.l.o.o.d.y face, refusing to let him wipe it. John Thresher said to me at night, "Ay, now you"ve got a notion of boxing; and will you believe it, Master Harry, there"s people fools enough to want to tread that ther" first-rate pastime under foot? I speak truth, and my word for "t, they"d better go in petticoats. Let clergymen preach as in duty bound; you and I"ll uphold a manful sport, we will, and a cheer for Bob!"
He a.s.sured me, and he had my entire faith, that boxing was England"s natural protection from the foe. The comfort of having one like Bob to defend our country from invasion struck me as inexpressible. Lighted by John Thresher"s burning patriotism, I entered the book of the History of England at about the pace of a carthorse, with a huge waggon at my heels in the shape of John. There was no moving on until he was filled. His process of receiving historical knowledge was to fight over again the personages who did injury to our honour as a nation, then shake hands and be proud of them. "For where we ain"t quite successful we"re cunning," he said; "and we not being able to get rid of William the Conqueror, because he"s got a will of his own and he won"t budge, why, we takes and makes him one of ourselves; and no disgrace in that, I should hope! He paid us a compliment, don"t you see, Master Harry? he wanted to be an Englishman. "Can you this?" says we, sparrin" up to him.
"Pretty middlin"," says he, "and does it well." "Well then," says we, "then you"re one of us, and we"ll beat the world"; and did so."
John Thresher had a laborious mind; it cost him beads on his forehead to mount to these heights of meditation. He told me once that he thought one"s country was like one"s wife: you were born in the first, and married to the second, and had to learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them. He recommended me to mix, strain, and throw away the sediment, for that was the trick o" brewery. Every puzzle that beset him in life resolved to this cheerful precept, the value of which, he said, was shown by clear brown ale, the drink of the land. Even as a child I felt that he was peculiarly an Englishman. Tales of injustice done on the Niger river would flush him in a heat of wrath till he cried out for fresh taxes to chastise the villains. Yet at the sight of the beggars at his gates he groaned at the taxes existing, and enjoined me to have pity on the poor taxpayer when I lent a hand to patch the laws.
I promised him I would unreservedly, with a laugh, but with a sincere intention to legislate in a direct manner on his behalf. He, too, though he laughed, thanked me kindly.
I was clad in black for my distant mother. Mrs. Waddy brought down a young man from London to measure me, so that my mourning attire might be in the perfect cut of fashion. "The child"s papa would strip him if he saw him in a country tailor"s funeral suit," she said, and seemed to blow a wind of changes on me that made me sure my father had begun to stir up his part of the world. He sent me a prayer in his own handwriting to say for my mother in heaven. I saw it flying up between black edges whenever I shut my eyes. Martha Thresher dosed me for liver.
Mrs. Waddy found me pale by the fireside, and prescribed iron. Both agreed upon high-feeding, and the apothecary agreed with both in everything, which reconciled them, for both good women loved me so heartily they were near upon disputing over the medicines I was to consume.
Under such affectionate treatment I betrayed the alarming symptom that my imagination was set more on my mother than on my father: I could not help thinking that for any one to go to heaven was stranger than to drive to Dipwell, and I had this idea when my father was clasping me in his arms; but he melted it like snow off the fields. He came with postillions in advance of him wearing c.r.a.pe rosettes, as did the horses.
We were in the cricket-field, where Dipwell was playing its first match of the season, and a Dipwell lad, furious to see the elevens commit such a breach of the rules and decency as to troop away while the game was hot, and surround my father, flung the cricket-ball into the midst and hit two or three of the men hard. My father had to shield him from the consequences. He said he liked that boy; and he pleaded for him so winningly and funnily that the man who was hurt most laughed loudest.
Standing up in the carriage, and holding me by the hand, he addressed them by their names: "Sweetwinter, I thank you for your attention to my son; and you, Thribble; and you, my man; and you, Baker; Rippengale, and you; and you, Jupp"; as if he knew them personally. It was true he nodded at random. Then he delivered a short speech, and named himself a regular subscriber to their innocent pleasures. He gave them money, and scattered silver coin among the boys and girls, and praised John Thresher, and Martha, his wife, for their care of me, and pointing to the chimneys of the farm, said that the house there was holy to him from henceforth, and he should visit it annually if possible, but always in the month of May, and in the shape of his subscription, as certain as the cowslip. The men, after their fit of cheering, appeared unwilling to recommence their play, so he alighted and delivered the first ball, and then walked away with my hand in his, saying:
"Yes, my son, we will return to them tenfold what they have done for you. The eleventh day of May shall be a day of pleasure for Dipwell while I last, and you will keep it in memory of me when I am gone. And now to see the bed you have slept in."