IN CHILDHOOD
One summer, which in point of date now lies many years behind us, four boys used to play together, and to quarrel and make it up again with one another—to live together through the long, golden days, that vivid, eager life peculiar to children, in a curious, old-fashioned garden on the bank of the river Tees, and on the Durham side of that stream. The garden belonged to a great house, not very old, though it was the abode of an old family, solemn, not to say gloomy, in its dulness and stateliness of appearance, and standing out in rather sombre contrast to the woods which were behind it, and the terraces which sloped down from its front to the river-side. The name of the house was Thorsgarth; many a spot hereabouts bore some name reminiscent of long-past Danish occupation and Scandinavian paganism. It was a characteristic giving a peculiar flavour to the language and nomenclature of the whole country-side, and one, too, which has been sweetly sung by at least one of our English poets. With this fact, these four particular boys were probably unacquainted, and it is more than probable that if they had known all about it theywould have cared less than nothing for the circumstance. What could it matter to them that, a little farther down the stream, that sweet spot where they loved to wade in the shallows, and not far from which noisy Greta came tumbling and laughing into the arms of sedater Tees—where the numerous wasps’ nests were to be found under the bank, to destroy which nests they had gone through such delicious toils and perils, and where on sunny days the trout would lurk in the pools amongst the big boulders,—what could it matter to them that this scene had been immortalised by both poet and painter? To them it was all their own paradise; the presence of an artist would have vexed and incommoded them. There they kicked, jumped, splashed, and generally misconducted themselves in the sweet solitude and the generous sunshine of that far-back summer, without a thought of its being hallowed ground. Three of them were not of an age at which the ordinary boy is given to appreciate poetry. As for the eldest of them, if he ever did read it, he kept the fact to himself.
These four boys were all the sons of gentlemen, in the conventional sense of the term—albeit their fathers were men of widely different calibre, as regarded not only worldly, but also mental and moral characteristics.
The eldest and the third in age were brothers, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth. Their father’s was one of the oldest families in the neighbourhood, and had been one of the richest, although many people had begun to say that not much was now practically left to him except the old house itself, the Red Gables, which stood in genial vicinity to many other houses, both great and small, in the great cobble-stoned, slanting square, which formed the west end of Bradstane town.
Michael Langstroth at this period was twelve years old, a noble boy to look at, tall and broad, with a dark face, and a sweet, rather rare smile. There was a good deal of unconscious pride in his manner and bearing. Perhaps his piercing gray eyes, going with this dark complexion, might really betoken that Norse descent in which his family gloried. All his actions were, so far as one could judge, in harmony with his outer appearance; without fuss or ostentation, but all partaking of the intrinsically splendid, generous, and lavish. Even at this early time of their lives, the other boys knew that Michael hated lies with an intensity which showed itself more in sudden, violent action than in words. They knew that he resented any untruth amongst them as if it had been a personal insult. There was, indeed, no doubt that Michael was a son in whose proud looks a father might glory; while with all his strength and power there were in him other and quieter charms, such as a mother might delight in. And Mrs. Langstroth did very greatly delight in what seemed to her her son’s high and noble qualities, during the short time that she was allowed to do so.
‘I fear it will never last,’ she would say to herself, watching him with prayer and trembling, as mothers do watch those sons who have a way of turning into something so different from what the maternal yearnings would shape them into if, along with the yearnings, the power existed of fulfilling them. ‘I fear it will never last. Contact with the world will harden him. Flattery will make him vain. Universal homage will spoil him.’ Mrs. Langstroth was a sweet and saintly lady, and her son Michael a brave and noble boy; but what insignificant hen-mother exists who does not think that theattention to herself and her matchless offspring must of necessity be universal?
With pathetic, devoted blindness she would have prepared him to meet this irresistible tide of flattery and greatness by keeping him fast at her own side, and never loosing his leading strings. The mention of a public school drew tears from her eyes, and set her gentle heart beating wildly. It was written that her son Michael’s education—every branch of it—was to be taken out of her hands, and placed in others, firmer, harder, sterner, and to them who can survive their roughness, kinder hands than even those of a mother.
Gilbert, Michael’s brother, was a well-grown boy, too, of ten, with a smaller, rounder head, a narrower forehead, and blue-gray eyes, which had a trick of languishing sometimes. He had an exquisitely soft and melancholy voice, was slow of speech, and possessed a graceful, though by no means effeminate figure. He was always, and apparently by nature, courteous and gentle in manner and speech, seldom indulging in the downright unflattering candour which Michael, for all he was so gentlemanly, frequently used towards his companions. Gilbert never said rude things to any one, but he was not so popular with his comrades as Michael.
The second boy, in order of years, was swarthy Roger Camm, the son of the curate of Bradstane. Eleven were the years he counted in actual point of time—thirty, perhaps, and those rough ones, in his knowledge of care and trouble, in his painful, enforced acquaintance with grief, with contrivances and economies, and weary struggles to make both ends meet. For his father was not passing rich on forty pounds a year—he was morethan passing poor on something less than a hundred, out of which he had dolefully to ‘keep up the appearance of a gentleman,’ clothe and feed his son and himself, and educate the former. His wife, poor soul, exhausted with the endless and complicated calculations necessitated by this ever-present problem, had some years ago thankfully closed her eyes, and said good-bye to labour and grief. The curate and his lad struggled on without her as best they could. All that Roger learnt, whether of solid instruction or flimsy accomplishment—little enough was there of the latter to gloss his manners or appearance—he was taught by his father, and that with fasting and prayer. Along with his Latin and Greek declensions, he imbibed also the more bitter lesson of declining fortunes; for his father had married late, and was not promoted as he grew older and more careworn. Side by side with the first problem of Euclid, as with the last, there was for ever present another, which it would have required more than a mere mathematical head to answer, and which yet imperiously demanded some sort of a solution; it was the problem which Mrs. Camm had carried with her to her grave, and it ran: ‘Given, not sufficient income to buy a proper supply of butcher’s meat, cakes, and ale, how to make water-porridge twice a day, with skim-milk to wash it down, answer the same purpose as the more liberal diet, save on certain rare and solemn feast-days, not specified in the calendar.’ And along with the invaluable rule, that prepositions govern the objective case (for the Rev. Silas Camm held fast by the Lindley Murray of his boyhood), Roger grasped and held fast the axiom, so that he could and did mould his conduct upon it, that to bear your hardships in silence is necessary—that to utter one word of complaint, tolook greedily at occasional dainties, or to gorge in unseemly fashion on the abundance at other men’s tables, no matter what the size of the internal void to be filled; to betray by word, look, or deed that you ever feel the pinch of hunger at home—to do this is disgrace of the deepest dye, second only to lying and stealing. By the time he was eleven years old, Roger had digested these lessons thoroughly, and had, as it were, assimilated them, so that they were in his system. Sometimes, at the abundant ‘spreads’ on the Thorsgarth or Red Gables boards, his sallow young face would take a faint glow, his deep-set black eyes would grow wistfully misty, but never a word betrayed the bareness of the board at home, nor the fact that his father might even then be asking a blessing upon a bowl of oatmeal-porridge, sole reward of a hard day’s work. For the living of Bradstane, although ancient, was not rich, and the parish priest’s own stipend was not a fat one. Judge, therefore, how exceeding short the curate must have come!
Roger was on good terms with all his companions, and if they sometimes wondered why he never used to ask them to go and play with him, or have tea with him, they were quite satisfied with his explanation, that there was no garden to his father’s house, and they agreed with him, that without a garden to play in there could be no fun. He and Michael Langstroth, very dissimilar in almost everything, were fast friends, while Gilbert Langstroth and the fourth and last of this party of boys hung together in a lukewarm manner, the older and calmer of them often quietly instigating the mischief that the younger one performed.
This fourth and youngest was Otho Askam, the onlyson of the master of Thorsgarth, and heir to the sombre-looking house, and the grand old garden in which they all disported themselves. Otho, like his friends, was tall for his age, and well set-up. One can but guess at the man to come, in the little father of eight years old. But Otho gave strong signs of individuality even at this early age. The other boys, if they had spoken their minds, would have said that he was fitful and moody in temper; that no one could tell what would please, what offend him; that, when he was pleased, it was in a saturnine, mirthless style, strange in so young a child; that when offended, his wrath was more deep than loud, but that his brown eyes glowed, on such occasions, with a dull fire, and his childish face in its anger took an expression of savage fierceness. They could also have related, these other boys, that when angry, Otho never rested till he had revenged himself, either by damaging or mutilating some of their cherished ‘things,’ or by doing them bodily harm, as grievous as his childish brain and small hands could devise and compass. By the end of the summer they had got used to it. They laughed at him, and talked about his ‘little rages.’ They were bigger and stronger than he was. The youngest of them was two years his senior. They used to tease him sometimes, on purpose to have the fun of seeing what shape his vengeance would take, and would shout with laughter at its feebleness when wreaked.
There was on record one great occasion on which Michael Langstroth had failed to see the amusing side of an escapade of Otho’s, and had taken upon himself to give him a sound hiding (with due regard, that is, to the difference in their ages and strengths). It was sound enough, however, for Master Otho to make the welkinring again with his yells; but the thrashing had been administered in payment, with interest, if possible, of Otho’s wanton cruelty to a wretched, half-starved cat, which he had pursued with the vindictive determination not so much to compass its death, as to secure to it as long a term of torture as possible, before that death should take place.
‘You cowardly little viper, you!’ Michael had shouted, towering over him after the first half of the pummelling had been administered. ‘Don’t you know that it’s nothing but a coward, and a dirty one, that hurts things that can’t fight back? You miserable little beggar, you!’
‘Michael, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you! I hate you! I wish the devil would get hold of you. I’ll kill you some day for this. What do you hit me for? I can’t hityouback, you great coward!’
At which there was a great laugh from the other boys, none the less hilarious when the big lad, looking scornfully down upon the little one, said—
‘I do it for your good, and you ought to be thankful for it.’
Otho snuffled then, but took an early opportunity of laying a crooked root in an unexpected and obscure spot, over which Michael tripped ignominiously, and nearly barked his shins, when the snuffle became a joyful chuckle.
Later in the same afternoon, Michael Langstroth found himself apart from the other boys, in a lonely part of the garden, where a broad terrace ended, and rough, uncut grass, dotted with wild plants, began—the top of the river-bank, in fact. The lad seated himself on this bank, under a tree, just out of the broiling sun, and a silenceand quietness fell upon him, while he gazed before him into the gurgling, flowing river. It was a pastime he loved. Shadowy, half-formed thoughts passed through his brain at such times, thoughts as vague as the murmur of the river; intuitions, impulses stirred him, whose nature he did not now understand, but which, for all that, might be not the less blessed and fruitful in years to come, when he should have forgotten these, their first upspringings; for thus it is, as well as in other ways, that ‘the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’
The river was the thing which Michael remembered longer than anything else. When a babe in his nurse’s arms he had leaped at its sudden shimmer through the trees, and since then its presence had been ever with him, more or less. It had been his companion and confidant without his knowing it. He went unconsciously to its side to think out his young thoughts, and it carried all his vague meditations gliding down its stream as it flowed between the two fair counties of York and Durham. Of course, he was not conscious how potent was its presence in his life; he would find that out only when he should come to move in other scenes—when he should get men for his companions instead of the stream.
Little more remains to be said of them at this time, save that the mothers of the Langstroths and of Otho Askam were both living then, young and beautiful women, one of them, at least, wrapped up in her husband and her children. Otho was the only one of the lads who had a sister, the little Eleanor, three years of age, and so much younger than they that she never shared their sports; and they knew nothing of her, save when they saw her sometimes walking on the upper terrace,led by her nurse or her mother, when she would sometimes stop and look at them with a pair of great candid eyes, and burst into a laugh at some of their antics. A sturdy-looking, not very pretty child, with little resemblance to Otho in either expression or complexion.