“I think,” she went on in a methodical way—“I think Major Desmond did me the kindness to mention to you and Captain D’Arcy-Muir an idea I had concerning Boy——”
“Oh yes, a most absurd idea,” interposed Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, with quite a solemn reproach in her voice. “Pardon me for saying so, Letitia, but I really am surprised at you. A preposterous idea!—to separate my boy from me!”
“You mistake,” answered Miss Leslie; “I had no wish to separate you. You would have seen quite as much of Boy as you see now, or as you will see when in the natural course of things you send him to school. My sole desire in the proposition I made, and which I asked Major Desmond to explain, was to benefit your dear little child in every possible way. I am all alone in the world——”
“Yes, I know! So sad!” put in Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir in a tone of commiseration that was almost an insult.
“And I have a large fortune,” pursued Miss Letty with unruffled composure: “when my time comes to die, I shall probably leave more than one-hundred-thousand pounds——”
“No! You don’t say so! Really, Letitia, you are indeed fortunate! Why ever don’t you marry?There are lots of poor fellows who would only be too delighted.”
“We can pass that question,” said Miss Leslie patiently. “What I wish to point out to you is that I am what the world calls a fairly wealthy woman, and that if you could see your way to letting me adopt Boy and educate him, everything I possessed would be his at my death.”
“Oh, I don’t wonder at all,” said Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir expansively, “that you have taken such a fancy to my boy! That’s quite natural. And really, Letitia, if you don’t know how to dispose of your fortune otherwise, I cannot imagine anything more pleasant for you than to make him your heir. But to adopt him for the purpose of educating him according to your notions! Oh dear no! It would never do!”
“If he is not educated according to my notions he will certainly not be my heir,” said Miss Letty very firmly. “He is just now at an age when anything can be done with him. Give me leave to take him out of the radius of his father’s unfortunate example, and surround him with all that is healthy and good and useful, and I am sure you will not regret it.”
“Dear me! I am so sorry for you!” and “Muzzy” smiled blandly; “I feel for you with all my heart, and I quite understand your wish to have Boy! It would be delightful for you, but I cannot possibly hear of it! I am his mother,—I could not part with him under any circumstances whatever!”
“You are quite resolved, then?” and Miss Leslie looked at her steadily.
“Quite! I have my own ideas of education, and I could not possibly allow the slightest interference. My son”—and here she swelled visibly with a sense of her own importance—“will have every chance in life!”
“God grant it!” said Miss Letitia fervently. “No one in the world desires his good more heartily than I do. And if ever I can be of any assistance to him in his career, I will. But for the present I will say good-bye,—both to you—and to him.”
“Are you going away?” enquired Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir with but a faint show of interest.
“Yes, I shall go to Scotland for the rest of the summer, and I have arranged to join a party of friends in Egypt this winter. So I shall not be here to interfere”—and Miss Letty smiled rather sadly as she emphasised the word—“with Boy. I hope he will not quite forget me.”
“I hope not,” said “Muzzy” with bland commiseration. “But of course you know children never remember anything or anybody for long. And what a blessing that is, isn’t it?”
Miss Letty made no answer; she was down on the floor kissing Boy.
“Good-bye, darling,” she whispered,—“good-bye! I shall not see you for a while, but you will always love me, won’t you?”
“Alwiz love ’oo!” murmured Boy earnestly, with a vague sense that he was experiencing a very dreadful emotion which seemed quite to contract his little heart—“Alwiz!” and he threw his chubby arms round Miss Letty’s neck and kissed her again and again.
“Dear little man!” she said with almost a half-sob. “Poor little man! God bless you!”
Then she rose, and turning to Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir held out her hand.
“Good-bye!” she said. “If you should ever change your mind about Boy, please let me know at once. I shall be glad to have him at any time between now and till he is seven,—after that it would be no use—as all his first impressions will have taken root too deeply in his nature to be eradicated.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed “Muzzy” with a wide smile. “You are really quite a blue-stocking, Letitia! You talk just like a book of philosophy or degeneration—which is it?—I never can remember! I always wonder what people mean when they try to be philosophic and talk about impressions on the mind! Because of course impressions are always coming and going, you know—nothing ever remains long enough to make a lasting effect.”
Miss Letty said no more. It was useless to talk to such a woman about anything but the merest commonplaces. The ins and outs of thought—the strange slight threads of feeling and memory out of which thecharacter of a human being is gradually woven like a web,—the psychic influences, the material surroundings, the thousand-and-one things that help to strengthen or to enervate the brain and heart and spirit, all these potentialities were unknown to the bovine female who waxed fat and apathetic out of pure inertia and sloth. She was, as she was fond of announcing, a ‘mother,’ but her ideas of motherhood consisted merely in feeding Boy on sloppy food which frequently did not agree with him, in dosing him with medicine when he was out of sorts, in dressing him anyhow, and in allowing him to amuse himself as he liked wherever he could, however he could, at all times and in all places dirty or clean. A child of the gutter had the same sort of maternal care. Of order, of time, of refinement, of elegance and sweet cleanliness there was no perception whatever; while the Alpha and Omega of the disordered household was of course “Poo Sing,” who rolled in and rolled out as he chose, more or less disgraceful in appearance and conduct at all hours. However, there was no help for it—Miss Letty had held out a rescue, and it had been refused, and there was nothing more to be done but to leave Boy, for the present at any rate, in his unfortunate surroundings. But there were tears in the eyes of the tender-hearted lady when she returned home alone that day, and missed the little face and the gay prattle that had so greatly cheered her loneliness. And after dinner, when the stately Plimpton handed her her cupof coffee, she was foolish enough to be touched by his solemnly civil presentation to her of a diminutive pair of worn shoes set in orderly fashion on a large silver tray.
“Master Boy left these behind him, my lady,” he said,—he always called Miss Letty ‘my lady’ out of the deep deference existing towards her in his own mind. “They’re hishold ones.” Plimpton was fond of aspirating his h’s,—he thought the trick gave an elegant sound to his language.
“Thank you, Plimpton,” said Miss Leslie, with a faint smile. “I will send them to his mother in the morning.”
But she did not send them to his mother. When she was quite alone, she kissed each little shoe tenderly, and tied them up together in soft silk paper with a band of blue ribbon,—and then, like a fond weak creature, put them under her pillow when she went to bed and cried a little,—then slept and dreamed that her “brave true Harry” was alive and wedded to her, and that Boy was her very own darling, with no other “Muzzy” in the world.
Dayswent on, months went on, years went on, as they have a habit of doing, till Boy arrived at the mature age of nine. Changes had occurred during this period, which slight in themselves were destined to have their lasting effect upon his character and temperament. To begin with, Captain and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir had been compelled, through the force of circumstances, to leave the house in Hereford Square, and give up living in London altogether. The Honourable Captain’s means had been considerably straitened through his “little ways,” and often and often during occasional flashes of sobriety it would occur to him that Boy was steadily growing, and that what a d——d pity it was that Miss Leslie had not adopted him after all. Once or twice he had broached the subject to his wife, but only to be met by a large placid smile, and the remark—
“Jim, I really am surprised at you! I thought you had more pride. But really you don’t seem to mind the idea of your only son being put in the position of a pauper!”
“Don’t see where the pauper comes in,” growledthe Honourable Jim. “A hundred thousand pounds is surely enough to keep a man from the workhouse. And if that lot of money is going around begging, I don’t see why the little chap shouldn’t have it. I’ve nothing to leave him,—why the deuce don’t you let the old lady take him and have done with it?”
“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, with a lachrymose air of deeply seated injury, “if you are so lost to decency as to wish to part from your own flesh and blood——”
“Oh, hang it all!” burst out the “Honourable” scion of century-condensed aristocracy: “D——n your flesh and blood! Have it your own way! Do as you d——n please! Only don’t bother me.”
In this way such marital discussions always ended,—and Boy struggled steadily along in growth and being and thought, wholly unconscious of them. He had lost sight of Miss Letty, but truly had not forgotten her—though in the remote village on the sea coast where his father had now elected to dwell in order that he might indulge in his pet vice without undue public comment or observation, he found himself so utterly estranged from all delicate and helpful sympathies as to be almost rendered stunned and stupid. In the first year after he had left London he was taught some desultory lessons by a stolid-faced country wench who passed for being a nursery governess, but whose abilities were chiefly limited to ogling the young sailor and farmer ladsof the place, and inventing new fashions for arranging her coarsely abundant hair. Boy’s contempt for her knew no bounds: he would sit and watch her out of the corners of his eyes while she stood before a lookingglass, smirking at her own reflection, and quite unwittingly he developed a curious vein of satire which soon showed itself in some of the questions he put to her and to others. A sad little change had taken place in him—the far-off, beautiful angel look of his countenance had all but vanished, and an expression of dull patience combined with weariness had taken its place. For by this time of course he had found out the true nature of “Poo Sing’s” chronic illness, and the knowledge of it had filled him with an inexpressible disgust and shame. Child though he was, he was not too young to feel a sick thrill when he saw his father march into the house at night with the face, voice, and manner of an infuriated ruffian bent on murder. And he no longer sat in a chair innocently murmuring “Poo Sing”—but slunk away from the evil sight, whispering faintly to himself, “Father! Oh, father!” In dark corners of the house, and more often outside the house in a wooded little solitude of pines, where scarcely a bird’s wings fluttered to disturb the dark silence, Boy would sit by himself meditating, and occasionally reading—for he had been quick to learn his letters, and study offered as yet no very painful difficulties to him. He was naturally a boy of bright brain and acute perception—but the brightness had been darkened and the perception blunted by the ever down-pressing weight of home influences brought about by his father’s degradation and his mother’s indifference. He began to see clearly now that it was not without good cause he had felt sorry for his “Muzzy’s” ugliness, for that ugliness was the outcome of her own fault. He used to wander down to the border of the sea, mechanically carrying a tin pail and wooden spade, and there would sit shovelling in sand and shovelling it out again; and while thus engaged would sometimes find there one or two ladies walking with their children—ladies in trim serge skirts, and tidily belted blouses, and neat sailor-hats set gracefully on prettily arranged hair,—and he could not for the life of him understand why his mother should allow her dress to be less orderly than that of the cook, and her general appearance less inviting and odorous than that of the old woman who came round twice a week to sell prawns and shrimps at the door. And so he brooded and brooded—till on one sudden and alarming day the stolid nursery governess was found on his father’s knee, with his father’s arms clasped round her,—and such an appalling clamour ensued that Boy, who was of course not told the real reason of the disorder, stood terrified and thought every one in the house had gone raving mad, and that he, poor small chap, was left alone in the middle of a howling wilderness. The stolid nursery governess, on being discovered,had promptly fainted, and lay on the floor with her large feet well upturned and more than an inch of stocking exposed;—the “Honourable” Jim rattled out all his stock of oaths till he was black and blue in the face with impotent swearing, and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, plumping heavily down in the nearest convenient chair, lifted up her voice and wept. And in the middle of her weeping, happening to perceive Boy standing on the threshold of the room, very palefaced and half paralysed with fright, she caught him up in her arms and exclaimed, “My poor, dear, injured son!” with a wifely and maternal gusto that was more grotesque than impressive. Boy somehow felt that he was being made ridiculous, though he could not have told why. And when the stolid-faced nursery governess had prolonged her fainting fit as much as was desirable and endurable,—when with many grunts and sighs, spasmodic kicks and plunges, she righted herself, so to speak, first into a sitting posture, and then gradually rose to her feet, a tearful martyr to wrongful suspicions, and, with one injured-innocence look of reproach at Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir and a knowing side-wink at the irate and roaring “Jim,” left the room and afterwards the house, never to return, Boy lived for many days in a state of deep wonderment, not knowing what to make of it. It was a vast puzzle to his young mind, but he was conscious of a certain advantage to himself in the departure of the ill-used young woman, who had socasually superintended his few lessons in the intervals of dressing her hair. He was left very much more alone, and took to wandering—“daunering” as the Scotch would say—all about the village and down by the edge of the sea, like a small waif of the world, neglected and astray. He was free to amuse himself as he liked, so he strolled into all sorts of places, dirty and clean, and got his clothes torn and ragged, his hands and face scratched and soiled; and if it chanced that he fell into a mud-puddle or a sea-pool—which he often did—he never thought of telling his mother that he was wet through, because she never noticed it, and he therefore concluded that it did not matter. And he began to grow thin, and wiry, and brown, and unkempt, till there was very little difference in appearance between him and the common boys of the village, who were wont to haunt the sea-shore and pick up stray treasures in the way of weed and shell and wreckage there,—boys with whom he very soon began to fraternise, much to his detriment. They were not bad boys—but their language was brutal, and their manners more so. They called him a “ninny” when he first sought their society, and one big lout beat him on the head for his too sharp discovery of a shilling buried in the sand. But these were trifles; and after proving that he was not afraid of a ducking, or a stand-up fight either, they relented towards him, and allowed him to be an associate of their scavenger pursuits. Thus he learnt new formsof language and new customs of life, and gradually adopted the lazy, slouching walk of his shore-companions, together with their air of general indifference, only made occasionally piquant by a touch of impudence. Boy began to say sharp things now and then, though his little insolences savoured more of satire than malice. He did not mean to be rude at any time, but a certain vague satisfaction moved him when he found that he could occasionally make an observation which caused his elders to wince, and privately wonder whether their grey hairs were not standing on end. He rather repressed this power, however, and thought a good deal more than he said. He began to consider his mother in a new light,—her ways no longer puzzled him so much as they amused him. It was with almost a humorous condescension that the child sat down obediently to his morning lessons with her,—lessons which she, with much elaboration and importance, had devised for his instruction. Truth to tell, they were very easy samples of learning,—her dense brain was not capable of arranging anything more than the most ordinary forms of study,—and Boy learnt more of the world in an hour’s listening to the chat of the fishermen on the quay, than his “Muzzy” could have taught him in a hundred years. There was in particular one old, old man, wrinkled and weather-beaten, whose sole life’s business seemed to be to sit on a tar-barrel and smoke his pipe, exceptwhen he gave a hand to help pull in the fishing smacks as they came to shore laden with herring or mackerel. He was known in the place by the nickname of “Rattling Jack,”—and to him Boy would often go, and with half bold, half shy questions would draw him out to tell stories of the sea, though the old chap was not very fond of harking back to his past life and adventures, and generally preferred to expound short essays on the conduct of life, drawn from his long experience.
“Aye, there y’are,” he said on one occasion, when Boy, with some pride, brought for his inspection a beautiful rose-coloured sea-anemone which he had managed to detach from the rocks and carry off in his tin pail. “There y’are, you see! Now ye’ve made a fellow-creature miserable y’are as ’appy as the day is long! Eh, eh—why for mussy’s sake didn’t ye leave it on the rocks in the sun with the sea a-washin’ it an’ the blessin’ of the Lord A’mighty on it? They things are jes’ like human souls—there they stick on a rock o’ faith and hope maybe, jes’ wantin’ nothin’ but to be let alone; and then by-and-by some one comes along that begins to poke at ’em, and pull ’em about, and wake up all their sensitiveness-like—’urt ’em as much as possible, that’s the way!—and then they pulls ’em off their rocks and carries ’em off in a mean little tin pail! Ay, ay, ye may call a tin pail whatever ye please—a pile o’ money or a pile o’ love—it’s nought but a tin pail—not a rock with the sun shinin’ upon it.And o’ coorse they dies—there ain’t no sense in livin’ in a tin pail.”
These remarks being somewhat profound, were rather beyond Boy’s comprehension, but he gathered something of their sense and looked rather wistfully at his sea-trophy.
“Will it die now?” he asked anxiously.
“Av coorse it will! How’d you like to be off your own blessed rock, and squeeged into a pail? Come now, tell me that! Wouldn’t you kick the bucket over?—Hor—hor—hor!” and the old man laughed hoarsely at what he considered a bright and natural witticism—“an’ die an’ ’ave done with it?”
“I suppose I should,” answered Boy meditatively. “What do you do when you die?”
“I ain’t done it yet,” replied Rattling Jack rather testily. “But I expec’ when I ’ave to, I’ll do it as well as my betters—stretch out my legs, turn up my toes, shut up my eyes, chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe, and go slick off. There ain’t no particular style o’ doing it.”
Boy stood staring, limp with horror,—Rattling Jack had been so extremely realistic in his description—suiting the action to the word, and the word to the action,—and at the “chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe” he had made such an appalling noise that Boy felt it would be necessary to run for assistance. But the venerable gentleman soon recovered from his histrionic efforts, and refilling his pipe began stuffing the tobaccowell into it with the point of an extremely dirty forefinger.
“Ay, ay, there y’are,” he went on. “Now wot are ye goin’ to be yerself when yer tries to knock up a riggin’ in this wide world? There bain’t no place for boys in this old country, but away wiz yer to ’Meriker and Canada. Ask yer father to send ye away to ’Meriker,—there’s a chance for ev’ry man to make a million there, an’ come back a reg’lar bounder. An’ then ye can marry one o’ they foine ladies wot’s all dress an’ no brains. Simper-simper—slish-slish!—ah, they makes me sick, they do! I tell yer,” here he turned angrily round upon the astonished boy, “I tell yer they makes me sick, they do! We don’t see a-many of ’em ’ere, the Lord be blessed for all ’is mussies, but if ever you goes to Lunnon——”
“I used to live in London,” murmured Boy apologetically.
Rattling Jack looked at him in a kind of dull wrath.
“You! You little shaver! Come from Lunnon, do yer? Well, wot in the world is yer doin’ ’ere? Now tell me that!” Here lighting his pipe he stuck it well between his yellow teeth, and turned round with a fish-like glare in his eye upon the small boy before him. “Wot are yer doin’ ’ere?” he repeated. “Come now, tell me that!”
Boy meditated, finally he said,—
“I’m very sorry I can’t tell you. I really don’t know.”
“Avast there!” said Rattling Jack. “A boy as don’t know where ’e is, nor wot ’e is, nor why ’e is, ain’t no good as I can see. Chuck it!”
Possibly it may have been from the consideration of these scathing remarks of Rattling Jack that Boy was moved one morning to ask his “Muzzy” a perplexing question, which has often presented itself as the profoundest of problems to most of the world’s metaphysicians.
“Mother, what am I?”
Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, who had just settled herself comfortably in an arm-chair to hear him read aloud a short summary, prepared by herself, of some of the baldest and prosiest facts of our glorious English history, gazed at him with a bland smile.
“Don’t be silly, Boy!”
“I’m not silly,” he answered, with a touch of irritation. “I want to know what I really am—I mean, what is the good of me?”
“What is the good of you?” echoed “Muzzy,” nodding her large head abstractedly. “Are you not my son?”
“Yes, but I might have been anybody’s son, you see,” said Boy. “That isn’t it at all. I should like to know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“Of course you would,” replied his mother with comfortable composure. “Very natural, and veryproper. But we can’t decide that just now. When you are older perhaps you shall go into the Navy.”
Boy’s face flushed, and his delicate brows contracted. His mother did not understand him. But he had found out that it was no use arguing with her.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, and turned at once to his lessons in resigned patience.
It was strange, he thought, but inevitable, that no one could be found to tell him exactly what he wished most to learn. About God, for instance,—who was that Personage really? He was afraid to ask. He had been told that God had made him, and the world, and everything that was in the world, and he was accustomed to say a little form of prayer to this same God every night at bedtime, and every morning on rising—the servant Gerty at Hereford Square had taught him to do so, and his “Muzzy” had blandly approved of Gerty’s religious zeal. But he had no real conception as to Whom he was addressing himself. The sweet old story—the grand story of the selfless Christ, had been told him in a sort of vague and inconsequent manner, but he had not understood it a bit. One of his petitions to Heaven, invented by Gerty, ran thus,—“Dear Jesus, bless father, bless mother, make me a good boy, and save my soul for Heaven, Amen!” But he had no sort of idea what his “soul” was, or why it should be so carefully “saved for Heaven.” What was thegood of his soul? And what was Heaven? Often he thought he would ask Rattling Jack,—but he hesitated to do so lest that venerable cynic should empty vials of wrath on his defenceless head for being in such a state of ignorance. And so the days went on, and he was fast becoming used to the companionship of the boy-scavengers on the beach, and the conversation of Rattling Jack, when a sudden and glorious break occurred in the clouds of his dull sky. Major Desmond came down from London unexpectedly to see his father and mother, and to ask that he might be allowed to go to Scotland and stay a whole month with Miss Leslie, at a beautiful place she had taken there for the summer on the fairy shores of Loch Katrine. He was amusing himself by the sea as usual, putting helpless baby-crabs into a glass bottle, when his mother’s maid-of-all-work came hurrying down to find him, and seizing him suddenly by the arm, upset the whole crab family all over the sand. But Boy made no remark of either anger or sorrow as he saw his crawling collection scattered in all directions,—they were not the only crabs, he reflected philosophically—there were a good many more in the sea. And when he heard that Major Desmond was waiting to see him, he was very glad, though as a matter of fact he was not quite sure who Major Desmond was, except that he was associated in his mind with an old magic lantern which had fallen outof repair, and was shut up in a cupboard with the worn-out boots of the household. He ran, however, as fast as his little wiry legs would carry him, moved by curiosity and an eagerness that he could not well explain, but made conscious, by the outcoming aura of pleasurable sensations, that something agreeable was about to happen. He forgot that he was dirty and untidy,—he did not know that he looked neglected—so that he was utterly unaware of the reasons which caused the well-dressed, handsome, burly old gentleman, with the white moustache, to recoil a step or two at sight of him, and exclaim, “Oh Lord!” accompanying the ejaculation with a low whistle. Major Desmond?—of course he remembered him now!—he was the friend of that far-off vision of his childhood, “Kiss-Letty.” And rising memories began to send the colour to his face, and the sparkle to his eyes, and the tremulous curve to his lips, as he held out his grimy little hand and said somewhat nervously,—
“How do you do, Major? Has Miss Letty come too?”
The Major recovered from the shock of dismay with which he had at first contemplated the little sea-ragamuffin—and as he caught the look and smile with which Boy accompanied his question he began to breathe again.
“No, she has not come,” he replied, taking a grip of Boy’s thin shoulder with his strong yet gentlehand. “She is in Scotland. I am going over there to shoot. And I want to take you with me if your mother will let you come. How would you like to go, eh?”
Boy remained speechless. He could really have cried for joy at the idea—but he had learnt to control his emotions. One of the special “points” of his mother’s character was the maternal delight she had in refusing him any very special relaxation—she judged that as “discipline,” and used to say it was “a mother’s duty” to see that “her son” was not spoilt. So remembering this in time, he only smiled and was silent. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, looking narrowly at him, smiled also, condescendingly and complacently.
“Dear Boy! He doesn’t want to leave me,” she said, reverting to her old idea that she had made herself an absolute necessity to his comfort and happiness. “But I really think—yes—I think I should like him to go with you, Major. A little change will do him good—he is growing so fast——”
“Yes, by Jove he is!” agreed Desmond, looking at the little fellow with a doubtful air; “and getting jolly thin on it too! What do you feed him on, eh? Oh, never mind, we won’t go into it if you’d rather not. A little knocking round in the heather won’t hurt him. Well, ma’am, if you’re agreeable I can take him at once—we can reach London this evening and take the mail train up to-morrow.”
And so with few words, to Boy’s complete amazement, it was all settled. He was told to go and get washed and dressed, and the good-natured maid-of-all-work hearing these instructions, came to him in his little room and scrubbed him down, and helped him into his only decent suit of clothes, still of the “Jack Tar” pattern, and made by a country tailor. The country tailor was the only one who had fitted Boy properly; all his other clothes were stitched together loosely by Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, who had “designed” them, as she said with much pride, and “cut” them, alas! on the following of those designs. A few little shirts and socks were crammed hastily into the very portmanteau Major Desmond had given him so long ago, and the maid-of-all-work perceiving a loose box of toys in a corner, containing she knew not what, put that in also—“for,” she muttered to herself, “they’ll amuse him on a rainy day, and I’ve heard it always rains in Scotland.” And so before he had time almost to look round, he had said good-bye to his mother,—his father was at the public-house and it was not worth while sending for him,—and was in the train with the Major sitting opposite to him—yes, there they were, flying, rushing, flying along to London at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He could hardly believe it; his head was quite confused with the hurry and surprise of it. He felt a little shy too, and afraid; the pretty confidence of his early days had quite disappeared. He peepedup every now and then at the Major, and the Major in turn, over the edge of a newspaper, peeped at him.
“By Jove, how the poor little beggar has been allowed to run wild!” thought the good-natured gentleman, whom the passing of years had made more good-natured than ever. “Looks like a ragged wastrel!” Aloud he said, “Boy, old chap, do you know what I’m going to do with you when we get to town?”
Boy smiled trustfully, because the Major looked so cheerful.
“No,” he said. “You tell me!”
“I’m going to put you in a mild Turkish bath,” pursued the Major. “Know what that is?”
“No!” and Boy laughed.
“Thought not! Well, you’ll know before you go to bed!”
Then came a silence, while the Major read his paper and the train rushed on,—and Boy began thinking, or rather trying to think over the rapid and amazing events of the day.
“I wish I’d said good-bye to Rattling Jack,” he remarked suddenly.
“Oh, do you? And who the deuce is ‘Rattling Jack?’”enquired the Major.
“He is just an old man,” replied Boy—“oh, very old! But he is a good talker and he amuses me often. He has seen a great deal of life.”
At this observation Major Desmond folded up hisnewspaper, laid it flat on his knee with a bang, and stared hard. “Seen a great deal of life!” What an old-fashioned, weird, and preoccupied look the little fellow had, to be sure! And how thin he was, and brown! What would Miss Letty say of him when she saw him? Would she be glad she had not been able to adopt him, or would she be sorry? These thoughts passed like small lightning flashes over the Major’s brain, and he gave a short impatient sigh. But so far as he was personally concerned he meant to make the best of it all, and on arriving in London that night he not only fulfilled his intention of seeing Boy through a Turkish bath, but he also took him to a tailor’s establishment famous for ready-made clothing, and “rigged him out,” as he termed it, with everything that was necessary for the son of a gentleman. And Boy slept soundly in the little room assigned to him at the Major’s bachelor flat,—his little limbs, lately encrusted with sea-salt that had almost baked itself into his tender flesh, were soothed and softened and rested by the rubbing and polishing he had received at the Turkish bath,—a rubbing and polishing which by-the-bye he had found intensely amusing and delightful, and he slipped into his new little flannel nightgown with a sense of ease and rest and light-heartedness that he had not felt for many a long day. And in his sleep something that had seemed hard and unchildish in him rolled away for the time being, for when he got up the next morningand put on his smart little grey travelling suit and cap to match, and his gold curls, rather short, but washed free of the sea-iodine, were glistening with something of their old brightness over his forehead, he looked more like the “Boy” of his babyhood than he had done for months. He was himself conscious of an alteration in his feelings,—Rattling Jack and his scavenger friends had all glided away like a bad dream or a picture painted on a vanishing screen,—his smiles came easily,—his step was brisk and light,—and while at breakfast with the Major, his laugh rang out with almost as much sweetness and freedom as in the old chuckling days of his affection for “Kiss-Letty.” And then, when they started for the north by the terrible train known as the “Flying Scotchman,” what joy!—what excitement!—what novelty! There was the jolly guard with the strongest of Highland accents—what a splendid fellow he was to be sure! Then there was the other man with the polite countenance and the gold buttons on his coat, who came round respectfully to take orders for luncheon-basketsen route,—he was a very agreeable person too, especially when luncheon-time came and the basket with it. Then there were the wonderful picture-papers with which the Major provided him, together with a fascinating little hamper of fruit, and a box of the finest chocolate. What a heavenly journey!—what an almost inspired “rush” it was from London to Edinburgh—a flight as of the gods! Andwhen Edinburgh was reached, and the Major did not stop there, but took another train on to a place called Callander, where Miss Leslie’s elegant landau awaited them, there followed a drive like a dream through scenery that was surely as beautiful as any fabled fairy-land. Crown upon crown of deep purple hills stretched softly away into the evening distance of a golden sky as clear as amber,—glorious trees nodding drowsily under a weight of clustering scarlet berries—trees which the Major told him were called rowans in Scotland and mountain-ash in England,—tufts and hillocks of heather almost blazing like fire in the after-glow of the set sun—and a sweet mysterious noise of rippling water everywhere—the noise of falling “burnies” leaping from rocky heights, and trickling down into deep recesses of coolness and shadow fringed with bracken and fern. And then the first glimpse of Loch Katrine! That exquisite turn of the road which charms the dullest spectator after passing the Trossachs Hotel,—with Ellen’s Isle standing like a jewel on the shining breast of the peaceful water! Boy’s long pent-up love of the beautiful found vent here in a cry of ecstacy, and he stood up on the seat of the carriage to take in the whole of the matchless panorama. His eyes sparkled,—his little face shone with joy and animation; and seeing how he had almost smiled himself into the real child he was again, the kindly Major was more satisfied, and did not feel so much nervousdread of what Miss Letty might say, when the carriage turned suddenly round into a fine avenue of silvery birches and pine, and bowled up to the door of a long wide house, covered with roses, and set on a terrace overlooking the Loch, where stood the gentle lady upon whom the passing of time had scarcely left a perceptible trace—Miss Letty, as serene and graceful as ever, with the same beneficent look of welcome and soft dove-like glance of eye. At sight of her, Boy let himself go altogether, and flinging reserve and timidity to the winds sprang into her ready arms, and hugged her tight, with a strong inclination to cry, so deeply was he excited. Miss Letty was no less moved as she tenderly embraced him, and it took her a minute or two to conquer her emotion. Then she said,—
“Dear Boy! I am so glad to see you! How you have grown!”
Boy laughed sheepishly and shamefacedly. How he had grown indeed! It seemed quite a mistake to have done it. Why could he not always have stayed a little child and looked at “booful pick-shures” with “Kiss Letty”? And indeed no matter how much we are bound to believe in the wise ordainments of a sublime and perfect Providence, we may ask whether for many a child it would not have been happiest never to have grown up at all. Honestly speaking, we cannot grieve for the fair legions of beloved children who have passedaway in their childhood,—we know, even without the aid of Gospel comfort, that it is “far better” with them so. If Boy had been an analyst of feeling he would have known that deep in his sensitive consciousness there was a faint regret that he had even become so old as nine years. It was the first pulsation of that much crueller sense of loss and error which sometimes affects the full-grown man, when looking back to the bygone days of his youth. But Boy, though he was beginning to take himself into his own confidence, and to consider carefully the results of giving way to emotion, had not proceeded so far as to understand all the fine breathings of variable thought that stirred his brain cells as the wind stirs ripples on a pool; he only knew that just now he was both very glad and very sorry—very glad to be again with “Kiss Letty,” very sorry to have “grown” so much as to be somewhat more removed from her than in former time. He hung affectionately on her arm though now, as they went into the house together,—and a sense of “home sweet home” gave his step lightness and his eyes a clear sparkle, as he passed through the pretty hall, adorned in Scottish fashion with great stag antlers and deer heads, and bright clusters of heather and scarlet rowans set on the table as well as in every corner where a touch of colour or brightness seemed necessary,—and then up the broad, softly carpeted stairs to the delightful room which had been prepared for him—a room with a wide window commanding a glorious view of almost the whole glittering expanse of Loch Katrine. And here Margaret awaited him—Margaret, as comely and tidy as of old, with her kind face and spotless apron,—Margaret, who met him with almost the same exclamation as Miss Letty though tuned in different words.
“Bless the lad! How he has grown, to be sure!”
And again he blushed and smiled, and looked sheepish, and felt happy and sad at once. But Margaret soon found out to his comfort and her own that he was not so advanced in years and knowledge after all,—that he had but slipshod notions as to the manner of washing his hands, and was apt to perform that cleansing business in a very limp and halfhearted fashion. Likewise he had little or no idea as to how he should brush and comb his curly hair,—and it was greatly to Margaret’s delight that she found her services could not be quite dispensed with. She began at once to “arrange” him according to her own particular way of “valeting” a small boy, and presently turned him out to her entire satisfaction in a becoming white flannel suit,—one of the halfdozen Major Desmond had bought him on the way through London,—with a soft blue tie knotted under his little open collar, and the bright waves of his hair disposed to the best advantage. Very sweet and very wistful too the little fellow looked as he then went down to dinner; and Miss Letty’s eyes grew dim with a sudden moisture, as she glanced at him from timeto time and noticed, as only a loving woman can, the slight indefinable alterations in him, which, like the faintly pencilled lines in a drawing, were bound to become darker, and gradually to take their place in the whole composition of his life and character. Major Desmond had told her exactly the condition in which he had found him, and as she heard, her heart grew heavy and sore. Why, she thought, if his parents were going to do no more than allow him to run wild among the common boys of a village sea-shore, could they not have given him the chance she had offered? She said something to this effect in half a dozen words to her old friend Dick, who, with a puzzled tug at his white moustache and a shrug of his broad shoulders, gave the matter up as a sort of difficult conundrum.
“But it’s the mother, Letty,—it’s the soft, fat, absurdly self-important mother!” he declared. “Tell you what, Jim D’Arcy-Muir, besotted with drink as he is, knows he is a beast, and that is a great point in his favour. When a man knows he is a beast and admits it, you can give him credit for honesty if for nothing else; and Jim, I firmly believe, would hand you over the little chap at once, and be glad enough to give him such a jolly good start in life. But Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir—there!—she’s a beast too and she doesn’t know it, which makes all the difference. She’s not a beast in drinking—no—but she’s a beast in her sloth and love of muddle and dirt and confusion, andworse than a beast in stupid obstinacy. No one can do anything with her. She will always be a drag on Boy’s wheel!”
“His mother?” suggested Miss Leslie gently.
“Yes, I know. She’s his mother, more’s the pity. The days are coming when he will despise his mother—and that is a very bad look-out for any chap. But it will not be his fault—it will be hers.”
Miss Leslie said no more on the subject just then,—she had Boy at any rate for a month to herself, and she resolved to watch him closely and study his character for herself.
She began a close and tender observation of him,—his manners, his little quaint ways of speech,—and for the first week of his stay with her she noticed nothing to awaken her anxiety. The change from his “scavenger” life on the sea-shore to the elegance and refinement of Miss Letty’s home, combined with the beauty and freshness of an open-air existence in the Scottish Highlands, gave Boy for the time a happy oblivion of all his recent sordid experiences. Fishing, boating, climbing, and riding on a lovable little Shetland pony which his kind hostess had bought for his use—these new and delightful pastimes, so enjoyable to healthy childhood, were all his to try in turn,—and whether he was rushing like a little madcap to the top of a convenient hill to catch a first sight of Major Desmond as he came down from the higher moors with the rest of the shooting-party,—orwhether he was helping Miss Letty gather great picturesque bunches of bracken and rowan branches in the woods for the decoration of the house, Boy was unthinkingly and unquestioningly happy. Winsome and bright, he behaved like the real child he truly was in years; he had no time to go away by himself into little corners and think, for there was a boy named Alister McDonald, two years older than himself, who struck up a friendship with him, and had no sort of idea of leaving him alone. This same Alister was a terrible person. He too was an only son,—but his father, Colonel McDonald, was not a “Poo Sing,” but a very fine specimen of a gentleman at his best. He and his wife, a woman of bright disposition and sweet character, had brought up their boy to love all things bold, manly, and true—and Alister had developed the bold and manly by doing everything in the world that could risk his life and get him into a pickle—and his present way of serving the Cause of Truth was to go and tell everything to his mother. The very first day he made acquaintance with Boy, he stuck his small hands in his small trouser pockets and remarked airily,—
“I suppose you’re game for any sort of a lark, ain’t you?”
“I suppose I am!” Boy answered, with a touch of reserved assurance.
“All right! Then we’ll be pals!” Alister had answered, and to prove his sincerity, took Boy atonce in charge, and escorted him straight away to a mysterious salmon-pool, where, trying to angle with a long willow wand, a bit of string, and a just killed wasp instead of the orthodox fly, they both very nearly fell in and made an end of their lives. To be the hero of hairbreadth escapes suited Alister perfectly. He always had some dark scheme in his mind—some new plan for generally alarming and exciting the neighbourhood. But as a matter of fact all the people in the place had got pretty well used to the endless scrapes of “Maister Alister” as they called him, and even his mother, whose nerves had undergone many a severe trial concerning the delinquencies of her only darling, had now become more or less resigned to the inevitable. Two or three days of each other’s society were enough to make Boy and Alister inseparables,—and many a hearty roar of laughter did their strange adventures on hill and moor, by stream and loch, cause Major Desmond and his sporting friends,—while kind Miss Letty, with two or three other pleasant ladies who were her guests, laughed with them, and quickly forgave the little truants all their mischief.
One day there came a pause in the merriment,—the heroic Alister was seized with a raging toothache, a malady which might even upset the calm of an Ajax. There was nothing for it but to have the worrying tooth pulled out, whereupon Alister’s mother took him to Edinburgh for the necessary operation.It was a dull, cloudy sort of day,—rain had set in early in the morning, and a furious gust of wind swept the fair waters of Loch Katrine, and bent the silvery birches to and fro till they presented the weird aspect of shivering white ghosts, stooping to bathe their long tresses in the waters, and anon lifting themselves again in attitudes as it seemed of wild despair at the pitiless storm. There was no possibility of either walking or driving or boating, and Alister being away, Boy was rather at a loss what to do with himself. Miss Letty saw him looking a little wistful and wearied, and at once took him in hand herself. Putting her arm around him she said,—
“What shall we do to amuse ourselves, Boy?”
Boy smiled faintly.
“I don’t know!” he said.
“Do you like pictures as much as you used to do?”
Boy hesitated.
“Some!” he said dubiously. “Not all!”
“Did you bring your magic lantern with you?”
Boy opened his eyes wide.
“Oh no! That’s all gone to pieces long ago!”
Miss Letty made no comment on the magic lantern’s destruction.
“Well, let’s ask Margaret what there is among your things to amuse ourselves with,” she said cheerily. “All sorts of odds and ends were packed with your clothes!”
“Were there?” said Boy. “Mother didn’t pack them—it was the servant.”
Again Miss Letty made no comment, and Boy holding her by the arm went with her to Margaret, who, on being questioned, smiled, and opened a cupboard full of curious-looking objects.
“They’re all more or less broken, my leddy!” she said. “But the Cow is here as good as it ever was!”
“The Cow!” and Miss Letty laughed, but a little moisture suffused her eyes.
Boy looked at her questioningly.
“What’s the Cow?” he asked.
“Ah, darling, you have grown to be such a little man now that you don’t remember the poor Cow!” said Miss Letty half laughingly, half sadly. “Where is it, Margaret?”
Margaret selected it from the heap in the cupboard, and gave it gingerly into the hand of her mistress—the same wise-looking quadruped, with its movable head wagging as faithfully as ever.
Boy looked at it with a smile that was almost derisive.
“That a Cow!” he said.
“Yes,” said Miss Letty, “and you thought it a very nice Cow when you were a little child. But you have grown so big now—though you are only nine years old. Oh, don’t you remember!—you used to call it ‘Dunny’?”
Boy’s face brightened with a sudden look of recognition.
“Oh, yes! I remember now!” he said, and he gave a fillip with his finger to the head of the despised “Dunny” to set it wagging faster. “That was when I was quite a baby!”
“Yes,” said Miss Leslie, sorrowfully, “when you were quite a baby!”
She held the Cow in her hand tenderly—she would not put it back among the broken toys. But she said no more about it just then. The only thing they found among the mass of rubbish which had been thrust into Boy’s portmanteau so hastily by his mother’s maid-of-all-work was a German War-game, which Boy proposed to play with Miss Letty.
She acceded, and together they went down to her own boudoir, where she placed “Dunny” on a little bracket above her writing-desk, and then applied herself to master the game of killing as per German military tactics. Boy proved himself an extraordinary adept at this mechanical warfare, and won all along as triumphantly as if he had been the Kaiser himself. Indeed, he showed an extraordinary amount of cunning, which, though clever, was not altogether as lovable and childlike as Miss Letty in her simplicity of soul could have wished. There was a vague discomfort in her mind as she allowed herself to be ignominiously beaten. For though the game was only a game, it had itsfixed rules like every other, and Miss Letty was sorely worried by the fancy—it was only a fancy—that Boy had been trying to “cheat” in a peculiarly adroit fashion. She would not allow herself to dwell upon the point, however, and when she put away the game, and took him to tea in the drawing-room, where two of the ladies staying in the house were sitting with their needlework, and listening to the howling wind and gusty rain, she gave him a little chair by the side of the bright fire, which was necessary on such a chilly day in Scotland, and let him talk as he liked, and generally express his sentiments. For some time he was very silent, contenting himself with tea-cake and scones, and only occasionally remarking on the absence of Alister McDonald, and the suffering he was perhaps undergoing with his tooth; but after a bit he began to ask questions, and unburden his mind on sundry matters, encouraged thereto by one of the ladies present, who was interested by his winsome face, clear eyes, and light, trim little figure.
“What are you going to be when you are a man?” she asked.
Boy considered.
“A man is a long way off,” he answered gravely. “And, you see, you can never tell what may happen! Dads is a man. But he isn’t anything.”
“He’s an officer in the Army, dear,” corrected Miss Letty gently: “a retired officer,—but still an officer.”
“What is the good of being an officer if you retire before you ever fight?” asked Boy.
All the ladies smiled, but volunteered no answer.
“You see it wouldn’t be any use,” went on Boy reflectively. “I shouldn’t care to have to learn how to fight if I wasn’t ever wanted to do it. I think I’d rather be like Rattling Jack!”
“Who on earth is ‘Rattling Jack’?” asked the youngest lady present, suppressing a laugh.
“He is an old man at home,” explained Boy. “He used to be on a merchant vessel, trading to India, Japan, and China, and all that, and he says he has seen nearly the whole world. People say he’s got a lot of money hidden away in his mattress—and that when he was in Ceylon he managed to steal a ruby worth ten thousand pounds! Fancy! Wasn’t that clever of him? And he’s got it still!”
“Then he’s a thief!” said Miss Letty, trying to look severe. “It isn’t at all clever to steal. It’s very wicked! He must be a bad man!”
“Yes, I suppose he is,” said Boy with a little sigh. “But of course the person from whom he stole the ruby ought to have come after him. But he never did. So that was lucky! And some people say it’s only a bit of red glass he’s got!”
“Whatever it is, a bit of glass or a ruby, he had no business to steal it!” said Miss Letty.
“Oh, but he hasn’t been found out,” answered Boy. “And he doesn’t mind telling people he’s got it!”
There was a pause. Miss Letty was a trifle vexed,—the other two ladies were merely amused.
“I’ll tell you another thing about him,” said Boy, suddenly warming into confidence. “He buys things off us!”
They all laughed outright.
“Buys things off us!” exclaimed Miss Letty. “Oh, Boy dear, what do you mean?”
“Well, you see, all along the shore there are the most curious things washed in from the sea,” said Boy—“silver spoons and forks, and penknives, and boxes, and sometimes money. Just before I came away I found a gold bracelet in the sand, and Rattling Jack gave me one-and-sixpence for it, and he had it cleaned, and it was solid gold, and he sold it for three pounds. Wasn’t that clever of him?”
Again the laughter broke out, but Miss Letty sighed.
“I don’t think ‘Rattling Jack’ is quite a nice person for you to talk to,” she said. “Does your mother know anything about him?”
“Oh, no! Mother doesn’t know anybody!” answered Boy candidly. “I make my own friends!”
“Well, we don’t want you to be a Rattling Jack!” said the young lady who had before spoken. “We want you to be a brave, honest man, and a gentleman! You must try for the Navy—not the Merchant Navy, but the regular fighting Navy—the Queen’s Navy!”
“Yes—but you never get higher than ‘Admiral’ there!” said Boy, with a matter-of-fact cynicism. “Rattling Jack told me that was just an honour without sufficient pay to keep it up. It isn’t worth working for, I fancy!”
“My dear Boy!” exclaimed Miss Letty, distressed. “Not worth working for! How did you get such ideas in your head? Whatisworth working for?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Boy. “Not much, I expect. All you can do is to amuse yourself, and you want lots of money for that!”
The pained expression deepened on Miss Letty’s sweet old face, but she could say nothing just then, as a diversion was created by the sudden bouncing entrance of Alister McDonald, accompanied by his mother, both damp with rain, but both with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, back from Edinburgh, and fresh from their drive through the storm from the Callander station.
“Please excuse us!” laughed Mrs. McDonald. “But we thought you might be having tea about this time, so we risked coming in!”
Miss Leslie welcomed them heartily, with the unaffected sincerity which was her great charm, and ordered fresh tea and scones; while Alister, drawing Boy aside, related to him with graphic picturesqueness of detail his thrilling experiences at the dentist’s.
“He said, would I have gas? I said, what is gas?And mother said it was a stuff you took through a tube, and you went off stiff and silly, and didn’t know what was going on! And I said no, I wouldn’t have gas. I liked to know what was being done to me anyhow! ‘It will hurt you, sir,’ said he. I said ‘All right; it hurts now.’ ‘Sit in this chair,’ he said, ‘and keep still.’ I sat in a big chair with a sort of iron swivel on to it, and I laid my head back, and opened my mouth wide. And he looked in. And I thought of the execution of Charles the First! Then he said, ‘Now, sir, steady!’ Then I shut my eyes and repeated in my head,