CONTENTMENT.Illustration: " ... IN THE HOME-GARDEN OUR DEAR LITTLE MAY SITS CALMLY AT REST ON THIS BEAUTIFUL DAY."" ... in the home-garden our dear little maysits calmly at rest on this beautiful day."weet Summer-time dawns with a flush o'er the skies,The bees and the butterflies come in her train,While the dear little children, with joy in their eyes,Stand watching the lark as he mounts to the skies,While singing his joyous refrain.The meadow is sprinkled with beautiful flowers,The hedge with its sweet-scented blossoms of snow.How bright is the sunshine! how fresh are the showers!How happy the children, these holiday hours,As shouting and singing they go!But Summer (who stole on the footsteps of Spring)Is driven in turn far out of our view,When ruddy-hued Autumn her mantle must flingO'er meadow and orchard, till each growing thingIs transformed to a beautiful hue.Then the little ones, laughing, must hie them awayTo the blackberry wood and the nut-growing ground;But in the home-garden our dear little MaySits calmly at rest, on this beautiful day,Contented with what she has found.D. B. McKean.
Illustration: " ... IN THE HOME-GARDEN OUR DEAR LITTLE MAY SITS CALMLY AT REST ON THIS BEAUTIFUL DAY."" ... in the home-garden our dear little maysits calmly at rest on this beautiful day."
" ... in the home-garden our dear little maysits calmly at rest on this beautiful day."
weet Summer-time dawns with a flush o'er the skies,The bees and the butterflies come in her train,While the dear little children, with joy in their eyes,Stand watching the lark as he mounts to the skies,While singing his joyous refrain.The meadow is sprinkled with beautiful flowers,The hedge with its sweet-scented blossoms of snow.How bright is the sunshine! how fresh are the showers!How happy the children, these holiday hours,As shouting and singing they go!But Summer (who stole on the footsteps of Spring)Is driven in turn far out of our view,When ruddy-hued Autumn her mantle must flingO'er meadow and orchard, till each growing thingIs transformed to a beautiful hue.Then the little ones, laughing, must hie them awayTo the blackberry wood and the nut-growing ground;But in the home-garden our dear little MaySits calmly at rest, on this beautiful day,Contented with what she has found.
D. B. McKean.
Sohe was left an heir at the age of ten years—heir to all the fortune of his dead aunt, which consisted of two shillings and fourpence, a flower-basket, a pebble with a hole drilled through it, and a dying woman's blessing. "Truly," you will say, "he was rich."
He was small and thin, this little heir, and one poor leg was drawn up three inches higher than the other, which obliged him to walk with those wooden things called crutches. He was called Fé; but his name was of very little use to him, as he could neither read nor write it.
An old woman had promised "to see after him for a bit" at his aunt's death. She lived in a room in the same wretched lodging-house which had sheltered Fé and his aunt for the past six years.
I have not told you yet that my heir did not live in London, but in a large busy town in the south of England.
Fé's temporary guardian, Mrs. Crump, was short and cross, and not very young; her nose was slightly hooked, her eyes were black, and rather sharp. She wore a jet black frizzled wig, which contrasted well with the primrose-tinted skin; her voice showed her bad temper, for it was sharp and harsh, like the creaking of a door.
After having settled and arranged everything, she bade Fé follow her into her black little room, and that was the last he ever saw of his poor little old home, where for ten long grown-up years he had lived, to go to rest weak, hungry, and ill, and to rise more weak, hungry, and miserable still. Yet in that little home there had also lived a thin, worn-out woman, who had never spoken a harsh word to him, but had often tried to stay his tears with her kisses. And Fé knew now—and the knowledge was agony—that he would never rest his eyes upon that sweet mother-face again.
Mrs. Crump earned what she could get by selling flowers in the streets. She thought she could not turn poor Fé to better account than by making him sell them too, so she arranged half her bunches in Fé's basket, and tied it round his neck. Then she took him with her, and while she went round to the houses Fé stood in the principal streets, and offered his flowers to the passers-by.
Old Mrs. Crump soon made the discovery that "the heir" sold many more than she did during the day, but such was her vanity that she could not at first bring herself to believe that people preferred to buy of the pale-faced cripple boy than of her, with her jet black wig and creaking voice. When she found it was really the case, she was very angry. But besides being a very jealous old woman, she was naturally avaricious in the extreme, and she kept all Fé's earnings, and only gave him very scanty food in return.
She did not care to give up "seeing after him for a bit," yet she allowed a strong dislike to grow up against the boy in her own old cross heart.
One day, as Fé stood by the side of the street, with his basket hanging from his neck, and a bit of sunlight shining straight into his eyes, he felt some one touch his arm, and when he turned his head, he saw a young lady leaning towards him. She had long shining hair and blue eyes, there were dimples and bright pink on her cheeks; she slipped sixpence into his hand, whispering something about keeping it quite for himself, and then passed on, walking very quickly.
When Fé looked up to thank her, he saw only the flowing shining hair under a round black hat in the distance. Fé thought about the money for a long time: it was the first gift he had ever received, and he wondered if he might really keep it for himself. He thought how often, when he was so hot and thirsty, he might buy a little milk, and it seemed refreshing only to think of it. Then he remembered that Mrs. Crump took all the pence he earned, and he felt sure that she disliked him very much, and would take away his sixpence the moment she saw it. So at last he twisted it in a leaf out of his basket, and pushed it through a hole into the lining of his cap, for safety.
When he went back with Mrs. Crump in the evening, and she asked him for his earnings, that little sixpence in his cap felt like a stone, seeming to weigh him down to the ground; and when he went to the corner where he slept, he lay down on his little ragged bed, cold and miserable; and though he was tired out, he could not sleep for thinking of his great wickedness in concealing the sixpence.
Then he looked round the room, and thought how much whiter and sweeter his old home was; he remembered, too, how his kind aunt used to kiss him if he cried, and he held up his little pale wet face, almost hoping he should feel that kiss once more; he longed so intensely for a little love, poor little "heir!"
Mrs. Crump's room was, like herself, dirty and ugly: perhaps it may be silly to say so, but I do think that rooms generally resemble their inmates.
The ceiling of this one was brown and peeled, the walls were covered with old newspapers, with here and there a scrap of brown wrapping-paper, making unsightly and hideous patterns; the whole was splashed with dirt and mildew; the floor was rotten at places, and black, and quite slippery with grease and dirt; the window had four panes, two of which were stuffed with rags.
As little Fé's tired eyes wandered round this dirty room, they fell upon the figure of Mrs. Crump sleeping in a bed in the opposite corner of the room. She was breathing heavily, and after Fé had listened for some time to her short snores, he felt so miserable and lonely and wicked, that he formed the brave resolution of arousing her, and confessing to her the history of the sixpence.
It was strange that what Fé would have trembled to confess in the broad daylight he felt strong and brave enough to acknowledge by the light of the pale moon. He crawled up, after a few minutes' thought, and after diving about his ragged bed, he found his cap, and took from the leaf his precious sixpence; then he crept to the side of Mrs. Crump's bed, shivering, but determined. But suddenly he halted, and gave a scream of fright; a band of moonlight fell across the bed, and certainly there lay Mrs. Crump, but her nightcap had slipped off, and her black wig lay on a chair by her bedside. Poor Fé, in his childish ignorance, had never had a doubt about the wig; in fact, he had never understood that people wore such things. When he saw Mrs. Crump without hair, and the moonlight making her still more awful-looking, he was quite overwhelmed with fear.
The old woman rose up hastily at the scream, and she saw only little Fé quite motionless, with a wild, strained look of fright in his eyes. When she made out in a half-asleep way that it was the child she detested who had dared to disturb her, wigless and asleep, her wrath boiled up, and when the same moonbeam showed her the shining silver clasped in the little hand, it fell hissing and spluttering and burning hot on the poor child's head, as he knelt speechless and trembling with fright.
She made up her mind in one instant that it must be some money he had taken for the flowers, and had kept back from her. "You wicked, thievish boy!" she shrieked. "I'll teach you to thieve, and then pry about arter people be a-bed; so good as I've been to ye, too. Ye jest leave my door for good to-night."
And in a fit of passion she rolled out of bed, scolding and shaking poor Fé the while. She pulled him down the three creaking steps and out into the cold wet street—and there, with one more cruel push, she left him, friendless and alone.
With a sob and a gasp he saw her shut the door, but the fright and shaking had been too much for his weakened frame. He seemed for a few moments to feel again all the dreadful pain and anguish he remembered having felt when he was very ill once long ago. His aching, weary little head seemed too heavy for him to bear, and with a moan of pain he fell forward, and lay where he fell insensible.
and sorrowed for the little heir, and for her own unkindness in throwing the beams of her light just across old Mrs. Crump in her bed, and she stooped and kissed the poor boy as he lay on the hard cold stones, and tried in vain to warm him with her silvery light.
Bad old Mrs. Crump slept late on into the next morning, and this was the reason that she knew nothing more of what happened to the poor friendless little heir.
A doctor set out very early next morning to see a poor invalid woman who lived in the same street as little Fé's cruel guardian.
He was a short, plain little man, but his beaming smile hid the ugliness, and made the face tell that he was true and kind and good, and the eyes seemed to think it best to tell their own tale, in case the smile alone might not be trusted, and they glistened and shone, and told of every kindly thought and feeling of which the little man carried a big heart-full.
He was a clever doctor, and this woman he knew was poor. He did not expect payment from her, neither did he from the white-faced, crippled boy lying in the street, with mud on his face and clothes, and clinging to his brown hair. But he lifted him into his carriage tenderly and lovingly, and ordered his servant to drive quickly to the hospital.
As he raised Fé's helpless little form, something fell with a chink on the stones; but he did not wait to see what it was then.
There in the hospital lay little Fé, and he was for many days unconscious, and they whispered that his life must be very short, and that he would never be strong again.
The kind little doctor, who attended him most regularly, was speaking to a young lady one day of the poor little heir. He said, "The boy has consumption, and the cold of the streets added to his weakness, and some sudden shock, has so increased the disease, that I fear his days on earth will be few."
The young lady begged the doctor to take her to see the boy as soon as he was able. And one day, when Fé was better and well enough to sit up inbed, to his great joy he saw once more the pretty face with the pink and dimples, and shining curling hair; and the sight seemed to refresh him, and make him stronger and happier.
Before she went away she told him that he should go away soon, and be made quite well again in some beautiful country place.
This girl with the shining hair spoke in a low sweet voice to the doctor about him; she said, "Move him to my home, doctor; don't let him die in this hot town, where there is no air." And the doctor said, "We will try it, but he cannot last long."
So after a few weeks my little heir was tenderly borne away from this hot, noisy town, where he had lived but to suffer; and on the day he left a poor starving woman found his sixpence on the muddy pavement, and she cried for joy, and prayed over it, and bought with it bread which helped to save the life of her poor half-famished child. So even little Fé's sixpence brought a blessing with it.
And now Fé, who had never heard the song of the birds, or smelt the sweet country air before, was well nursed and cared for at the home of this girl with the shining hair. He faded gradually day by day, but he felt at rest and happy, though his weakness was very great. At last, one day he begged for more air, as he was faint; and they carried him out into a hay-field, and there, with his head pillowed on the hay, with the soft blue sky above him, and the scent of flowers in the air, with the low of cows and hum of bees in the distance, and the sweet scythe music sounding near him, and the touch of the girl's fair soft hand on his brow, my little heir passed away without even a moan, only a little sigh of relief, of happiness, and rest.
Then a grand sweet smile fell upon his face, which there had never been room for during his life.
Over his little grave (the heir's grave) the beautiful girl placed a small grey stone cross, and the only inscription upon it—
Whetheror not it is a bad thing to get punished will largely depend upon the punishment, but when you deserve to be punished, and some one else is at hand to receive it in your stead, then punishment is apt to become a farce. Just consider this:Ideserve the whipping, butyouare hired to take it for me. Perhaps you think this is a joke, but I am really in earnest. I am alluding to a practice which was actually once in vogue—though never to a great extent—in this and other countries. By whipping one boy instead of another it was hoped that the feelings of the offender would be so worked upon, that he would refrain from doing wrong rather than have an innocent lad punished.
Well, the long retinue of servants in the households of kings usually included a whipping-boy, kept to be whipped when a prince needed chastisement. What a funny occupation! D'Ossat and Du Perron, who ultimately rose to the dignity of cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church, were whipped by Pope Clement VIII. in the place of Henri IV. And there stood for Charles I. a lad called Mungo Murray, whose name would seem to show that he was of Scottish birth. The most familiar example of whipping-boy is mentioned by Fuller in his "Church History." His name was Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and the prince whose punishments he bore was Edward, son of bluff King Hal, who was afterwards Edward VI., the boy-king of England.
The scene which the picture on the next page brings vividly before us represents one aspect of the use of whipping-boys. It tells its story well. The young prince would seem to have incurred his tutor's displeasure, and the birch is about to be employed upon the person of the unfortunate Fitzpatrick. But Prince Edward cannot bear to see poor Barnaby flogged instead, and is interceding with his grave guardian on behalf of the lad. By all accounts which we have the boy-king was a clever and amiable youth, and his untimely death in his sixteenth year would appear to show that he stood much more in need of the tenderest care than of the birch. It need hardly be added that as soon as he mounted the throne the services of Fitzpatrick could no longer be in request. You may whip a prince, but when that prince becomes king, even while still a boy, the rod must be banished forthwith. Shakespeare says "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," and this must be especially true in such a case as that of the hapless young Edward, who had to discharge all the kingly duties without being old enough to feel much, if any, interest in them. His courtiers spoke of him as if he were a boy Solomon, and he cannot have needed much castigation, even through the medium of Barnaby Fitzpatrick.
Illustration: PRINCE EDWARD'S WHIPPING-BOY."prince edward's whipping-boy."(Seep. 220.)
Inmy recent talks about the Coronations and the Royal Funerals, the scenes that passed before us were intimately connected with the history of England. The matters upon which I shall touch to-day are to a large extent more particularly connected with the Abbey itself. No mean personages were the abbots of the "West Monastery," or Westminster, in early times. They were independent of any English bishop, and therefore once in two years had to present themselves at Rome. Some of the abbots were old, and some very fat, and were perhaps tempted to think their independence dearly purchased by a journey so long and toilsome. The monastery was exceedingly rich—it had possessions in ninety-seven towns and villages, seventeen hamlets, and 216 manors. William I. gave the Abbey some lands in Essex, in exchange for one of its manors, to which he took a fancy, and upon which "Royal Windsor" has since risen.
The Abbots of Westminster claimed a tithe of all the fish caught in the river between Gravesend and Staines. When St. Peter (according to the legend I have already told you) consecrated his own church on Thorney, he said, on parting with Edric the fisherman, "Go out into the river; you will catch a plentiful supply of fish, whereof the larger part shall be salmon. This have I granted on two conditions: first, that you never fish again on Sundays; secondly, that you pay a tithe of them to the Abbey of Westminster." And as long as it was possible the monastery kept its grasp on the Thames fisheries. In 1282, the abbot, in defence of his claim, defeated the Rector of Rotherhithe in the law courts, and the original grant by St. Peter was put forward as authority for the rights of the convent in the matter. Almost to the end of the fourteenth century it was the custom for a fisherman once a year to take his place beside the prior, bringing a salmon for St. Peter. The fish was carried in state through the refectory, the prior and all the brethren rising as it passed.
The Abbey and its precincts for a long period comprised a vast group of buildings, quite cut off by pleasant meadows and gardens from the neighbouring city. From King Street the approach was under two grand arches and past the Clock Tower, where once hung and swung Great Tom of Westminster, now in St. Paul's Cathedral. The entrance to Tothill Street marks the site of the gatehouse or prison of the monastery, in which many illustrious prisoners were confined before its demolition, in 1777. Amongst them may be named Sir Walter Raleigh, John Hampden, and Lilly the astrologer.
There is so much that is interesting connected with the sanctuary, the cloisters, and the chapter-house, that I shall devote my next talk specially to those buildings. The abbot's house, now the deanery, saw many notable scenes in the Middle Ages. Especially was it so with the Jerusalem Chamber, of which the low rough wall runs off from the south side of the western portal of the Abbey. There is an entrance to it from the nave. It was in this chamber that Henry IV. died. He was purposing a journey to the Holy Land, when, in 1412, fearfully afflicted with leprosy, he came up to London for his last Parliament. Soon after Christmas, he was praying at St. Edward's Shrine, when he was taken so ill that his death before the shrine seemed probable. He was, however, carried to the Jerusalem Chamber, and on learning its name, praised God that the prophecy that he should die in Jerusalem would be fulfilled. His son, the gay and dissolute Prince Harry, attended his father in his last moments, and then retired to an oratory, and spent a long day on his knees. Henceforth the latter was a changed character, and every one was astonished at the way in which he shook off the past, and devoted himself to his new duties as an English king.
Round the shrine of St. Edward are several small chapels, but of their dedication or the special devotions originally carried on in them very little seems to be known. We know that there were altars with perpetual lamps burning, and venerated crucifixes, and an abundance of relics. Those placed here by Henry III. I have already spoken of; besides these, there was a "Girdle of the Virgin" and other fragments of holy dresses, given by Edward the Confessor. Good Queen Maud gave a large portion of the hair of Mary Magdalene; and amongst other relics deposited here at various times were "a phial of the Holy Blood" and the vestments of St. Peter. At the porch of the Chapel of St. Nicholas was buried, in 1072, a Bishop Egelric, who had been imprisoned for two years at Westminster, but who by his "fastings and tears had so purged away his former crimes as to acquire a reputation" for sanctity. His fetters were buried with him, and his grave was a place of great resort for pilgrims in the time of the early Norman kings.
Illustration: LITTLE FÉ'S FRIEND."little fé's friend." "little fé"(p. 218)
But it was the shrine of Edward the Confessor, with its beautiful surroundings, its grand musical services, and its abundant holy relics, that formed the chief attraction to pilgrims, and yet only the barest hints and allusions have come down to us as to what was going on for centuries in the great centre of English religious life.
Of one event that took place at the beginning of the sixteenth century we have full particulars. Islip (under whom Henry the Seventh's Chapel was completed) was abbot when the red hat of a cardinal was sent from Rome to adorn the head of Wolsey. The Pope's messenger rode through London with the hat in his hand, and with the Bishop of Lincoln riding on one side of him and the Earl of Essex on the other. A grand escort of nobles and prelates accompanied. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen on horseback and the City guilds were ranged along Cheapside. The hat was carried triumphantly at the head of the procession to Westminster, and received at the Abbey door by Abbot Islip and several other abbots, all in their robes of state. For three days the hat reposed on the high altar, and then came Wolsey with a grand retinue from his palace at Charing Cross to the Abbey, and a goodly company of archbishops, bishops, and abbots, performed a solemn service. Wolsey knelt on the altar steps, and the Archbishop of Canterbury put the hat on the new cardinal's head. "Te Deum" was sung, and then the assembled nobles and prelates rode back in state to a grand banquet at Wolsey's palace.
In 1539 the monastery was dissolved, and as the Reformation advanced, various changes took place in the Abbey services. Instead of an abbot, a dean now bore sway. Much of the property of the Abbey was transferred to the great city cathedral, which gave rise to the proverb of "robbing Peter to pay Paul." The hallowed relics disappeared, as well as Llewellyn's crown and other historic mementoes; monuments were damaged, and Edward's bones ejected from their ancient shrine. For a time the Abbey was in real danger, and some of the outlying property was given up to Protector Somerset to induce him to spare the sacred edifice. We read in the convent books of twenty tons of Caen stone being given him from some of the ruined buildings. A few years afterwards it seemed as if the old order of things were going to be restored, and the Spanish husband of Queen Mary attended a grand mass of reconciliation in the Abbey, to signalise the return of England to her ancient faith. Six hundred Spanish courtiers, in robes of white velvet striped with red, attended the king from Whitehall, and the Knights of the Garter joined the procession. The queen was absent, from indisposition. After the long mass, which lasted till two in the afternoon, the king and courtiers adjourned to Westminster Hall, where Cardinal Pole presided over a solemn reconciliation of the English Church with Rome. Soon afterwards King Edward's Shrine was restored and his body replaced therein, several altars were re-erected, and masses and processions went on as of old. But Abbot Feckenham—the last mitred abbot in England—had only ruled for a year when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, sent Feckenham to prison, threw down the stone altars and transformed the Abbey into the "Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster," which is still the lawful name of the edifice.
Henceforth the Abbey was academic as well as ecclesiastical, and Elizabeth was very proud of her Westminster College.
The old Abbey witnessed some strange scenes in the times of the Puritans. The ecclesiastical vestments had been already sold, the tapestries removed to the Houses of Parliament, the college plate melted down, and Henry VII.'s Chapel despoiled of its brass and iron, when, in 1643, the Abbey was subjected to actual desecration. The Royalist stories of soldiers smoking and singing round the communion table, and playing boisterous games about the church and chapels, have not been proved. But Sir Robert Harley, who had taken down the Eleanor crosses at Cheapside and Charing Cross, destroyed the richly-ornamented altar erected in memory of Edward VI. The crown, sceptre, and coronation robes were brought out of the treasury, and Wither, the poet, was arrayed in them for the amusement of the party engaged in the affair. Soon afterwards these historic national treasures were sold.
For nearly six years the celebrated Westminster Assembly of Divines sat in the Chapel of Henry VII. and the Jerusalem Chamber, compiling catechisms and confessions of faith, which are still of authority amongst the Presbyterians. Whilst the assembly was sitting, Bradshaw (who sentenced Charles I. to death) was living at the deanery. He used to be fond of climbing up into a solitary chamber in the south-western tower, which was long reputed to be haunted by his ghost.
At the Restoration the Protestant services, ofcourse, replaced the Presbyterian ones, and we catch a glimpse of Charles II. conducted round the Dean's Yard by the famous Westminster schoolmaster, Dr. Busby. On this occasion, as the story goes, the doctor kept his hat on his head for fear his boys should think there was a greater man than himself in the world. The Stuarts had learned nothing from adversity, and on May 20th, 1688, an occurrence in the Abbey shows us what was the feeling of the nation. On that day Dean Sprat began to read King James's Declaration of Indulgence. Immediately, there was such a tumultuous noise in the church that nobody could hear him speak. Before he had finished, the congregation had disappeared, and only the officials and Westminster scholars remained gazing at the dean, who could scarcely hold the proclamation for trembling.
I want now to call your attention once more to the Chapel of Henry VII., in which the banners of the Knights of the Bath form a conspicuous feature. We first heard of these knights in connection with the coronation of Richard II. They rode in the coronation processions till the end of the seventeenth century. It was originally the custom at each coronation for a number of knights to be created before the royal procession started from the Tower. For a long time they were not connected with any special order, but as the bath formed a conspicuous feature in the ceremonies of their creation, they gradually assumed in consequence the name of Knights of the Bath. The king used to bathe with them, all being placed in large baths and then wrapped up in blankets. In 1725 the order was reconstructed; membership in it was henceforth to be the reward of merit. William, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards known as the "Butcher of Culloden," was the first knight under the new rules. He was only four years of age, and was accordingly excused from the bath, but presented his little sword at the altar. To suit the number of stalls in the chapel the number of knights was limited to thirty-six. After the installation ceremonies the royal cook stood by the Abbey door with a cleaver, and threatened to strike off the spurs of any unworthy member of the order. Extensive alterations were made in the order in 1839, and no banners have since been added to those hanging in the chapel. The banner of Earl Dundonald was taken down in 1814, and kicked down the chapel steps in consequence of charges of fraud brought against him. In after years these charges were disproved, and on the day of his funeral in 1860, the banner, by command of the Queen, was again placed in its ancient position.
Mr. clairwas very much surprised the next morning by a visit from Mr. Murray. Bertie had quite forgotten to mention anything about his meeting with him till he heard the visitor announced, and then it was too late for explanations. It was quite enough for Uncle Clair and Aunt Amy to know that he was a friend of the boys' to ensure a kindly and cordial welcome, but Eddie looked rather black at the visitor, and greeted him coldly.
As the children were on the point of going out, Mr. Murray said they ought to be off, and not lose another moment of the morning sunshine. "The sun and fresh air you get before noon, and the sleep before midnight, are what make strong, healthy, wealthy men and women of you," he said; "so be off, and perhaps I shall find you on the beach later on."
Rather reluctantly Eddie followed Bertie, who was already half-way down the stairs. "I wonder what he wanted?" he grumbled, when they reached their favourite haunt beside an old boat just above high water mark, where Agnes almost directly afterwards joined them. "To see how badly off we are, I suppose. I don't like meeting any one who ever knew us at Riversdale."
"Why, Eddie?" Bertie asked, in open-mouthed wonder. "I thought you would be delighted to see an old friend. I was, I can tell you, when I met him yesterday."
"Oh! you saw him before? I suppose you asked him to come and see us," Eddie cried angrily.
"No, I didn't; he said he would come himself, and asked for Uncle Clair's address; and he was always very good to us, Eddie: he gave me a steam-engine, don't you remember? and you a box of paints.He used to call you a little genius when he came to Riversdale. He's a dear old man, Agnes," Bertie added, turning in search of sympathy from his brother's gloomy face.
"I don't like any one who knew us when we were rich to see us now," Eddie cried suddenly. "They must despise us!"
"Eddie," Agnes cried, a world of reproach in her voice, and sudden tears in her soft eyes, on hearing what he had said, "Eddie dear, how can you say so? how can you ever think such dreadful things? as if it matters a bit whether people are rich or poor, so long as they do right!"
Illustration: "AGNES ... AFTERWARDS JOINED THEM""agnes ... afterwards joined them"(p. 224)
"But we're not poor," Bertie cried exultantly: "that's the fun of it! Why, we have everything we want, haven't we? Everything," he repeated, with a comprehensive glance all round, and an eloquent wave of his somewhat tarry hands. "Why, we're never cold or hungry, or anything. Eddie should come to the City for a while, if he wants to see poor people. Why, I know a fellow in a warehouse near us—Watts his name is—who has only one arm, and gets eighteen shillings a week. He has a wife and a number of children, and he has to walk four miles every morning to work, and four home again, because he can't afford fourpence for a 'bus.' Oh, yes!" he continued; "if Eddie wants to know what it is to be poor, let him come to the City!"
"I thought people in the City were rich," Eddie said, looking interested for a moment. "Uncle Gregory said you were to make your fortune."
"Yes," Bertie replied, slowly and thoughtfully, "there's a lot of rich people; but it seems as if there were twenty thousand times more people very poor. I don't understand it at all."
"Nor I," said Agnes, in a very low voice; "but I agree with you, Bertie: we're not poor a bit; but oh dear!Iwas poor before poor papa died; we often had nothing to eat but bread for days, and such a little mite of fire. But why didn't you tell us, Bertie, that you met the gentleman yesterday?"
"Just at first I forgot. You remember when I went up for that fishing-line and hooks, and Teddy said we might fish from the chain pier; I found you all gone there, and I ran after you as fast as ever I could. While we were fishing I forgot everything, though I caught nothing, and then, when I did think of it, I thought perhaps youwouldn't care to know that our cousins are here."
Bertie spoke quickly, with flushed cheeks, averted eyes, and a good deal of confusion.
"Our Cousins Dick and Harry Gregory?" Eddie said quietly.
"Yes; they and aunt were with Mr. Murray; and he asked me ever such a lot of questions and said the funniest things. Of course he never had heard a word of poor papa's death, and how we had to leave Riversdale; and how he did pucker his eyebrows over it! And when I said I was in Uncle Gregory's office, and you were with Uncle Clair learning to be an artist, you should see how he wrinkled his forehead and scowled! Then he asked me how I came to be here, and I told him, and how near I came to missing you all, and I wondered whatever I should have done if I had. He said I might have had a very happy time with my cousins: gone in a yacht to the Isle of Wight and round the Land's End; and I couldn't help looking surprised. It showed how littleheknew of Aunt Gregory, though he was with her; and then he said he'd call and see Uncle Clair, and I forgot to tell him, and that's all. Let us go and have a swim, Eddie, and perhaps Agnes will like to rest here for a while."
For answer, Eddie threw himself on the smooth pebbly beach, and hiding his face on his folded arms, sobbed bitterly, wildly almost. Bertie looked and listened in dumb, helpless amazement. Eddie crying! it seemed absurd, impossible! The rough, hardy, resolute boy would not have cried in such a place for anything, "not," he said afterwards, in confidence, to Agnes, "not if he had a tooth pulled out!" and that, in Bertie's idea, was the climax of human misery, the height of human endurance. But Eddie's sobs continued for a long time without either Agnes or Bertie attempting to offer any consolation, for the simple reason that they did not know in the least what was the matter with him. Once, indeed, Agnes ventured to ask timidly if he were ill, and the answer was such a rough "No, leave me alone!" that she sat and looked at Bertie for what seemed two hours, and was in reality about nine or ten minutes.
The pains and passions, as well as the pleasures of childhood are very fleeting, after all, and Eddie Rivers, in spite of his fifteen years, was a very child, so that he recovered himself quickly, and looked round with an expression of shameful defiance; but on Bertie's puzzled and Agnes' sorrowful face he saw neither contempt nor amusement, and he stammered out a sort of apology.
"I'm very sorry, Bertie, but I could not help it."
"Poor Eddie!" Agnes whispered sympathetically.
"I'm glad you are all right, Ted," Bertie cried, with an uncomfortable feeling in his throat. "I thought you were going to be really bad."
"So I was, 'really bad,' Bert," Eddie answered, with a very unusual accession of gentleness and humility. "I didn't like anybody or anything a moment ago; I thought you were very selfish. I quite disliked those unkind Gregory boys; I thought Mr. Murray came to see us just to make fun of us. I was as wicked and miserable as ever I could be, and I do wish we had our dear ponies, and could ride every day like other boys, instead of moping down here on the beach."
"I thought you liked it, Eddie. I do, over anything," Bertie replied, looking quite serious; "and I'm sure if Uncle Clair knew you wanted a pony badly, he would let you have one. Why didn't you tell him?"
Eddie flushed angrily, and turned aside a little impatiently. "Uncle Clair is far too good to me already. You don't understand me a bit, Bertie: you never did; or you either, Agnes—no, you don't. You are both quite happy and contented, but I'm not."
"Why?" Bertie asked. "Do, tell us, Eddie! Oh, I know! it's because you have an enemy, and I believe he makes you think all kinds of absurd things. Just tell me who he is, Ted, and I'll thrash him," Bertie whispered eagerly.
"Thrash whom? I don't understand you, Bert." Eddie looked up with a sudden appearance of interest, and Agnes drew a little away: she did not quite understand the turn matters were taking; but Bertie meant to talk the "enemy" question over thoroughly, and pulled Agnes back to add her persuasions to his.
But Eddie looked so thoroughly amazed, that Bertie was quite at a loss how to go on. If his brother had an enemy, he did not seem to know anything about it; still, there were Uncle Clair's words: they must mean something; and at last he repeated them, and said he was determined not to have poor Eddie worried by any one in the world.
"Do you know what it means, Agnes? I don't. Do you know what Uncle Clair meant?"
"I think I can guess," she replied, without looking at either of her cousins. "I believe uncle meant that Eddie's enemy washimself, because you know, dear, very often you won't let yourself be happy, and make yourself quite miserable about nothing at all."
"Oh!" Eddie said, after a long silence, "do you think Uncle Clair meant that?"
"Here he is, and Mr. Murray too," Bertie said, jumping up, and springing forward, forgetting that poor Eddie's face still bore traces of his recentdistress, and that Agnes too looked very sad, and not a bit inclined for company. They had not Bertie's happy knack of shaking off unpleasant sensations and being cheerful in a moment. However, Uncle Clair and Mr. Murray were standing beside them, and there was nothing for it but to make the best of the situation, though Eddie, at least, would have gladly been alone, to think over Agnes' words, and ask himself if he really was his own enemy.
Mr. murray'sconversation with Mr. Clair had been a long and interesting one, as far as the boys were concerned. Mr. Murray heard every particular of Mr. Rivers' losses which Mr. Clair knew, and also gained a good insight into the character and temper of the lads. What he heard of Bertie pleased him greatly, especially as it agreed exactly with what Mr. Gregory said; about Eddie he looked a little grave, and puckered up his forehead for full five minutes, as Mr. Clair described his restlessness, discontent, and want of application, and, worst of all, the foolish idea that he was really very clever, and very much misunderstood and unappreciated by his relatives.
"The boy is fairly clever, but he's not a genius," Mr. Clair said. "If he would only work, he might get on; but Eddie prefers to dream noble things rather than do them; he will spend hours looking at beautiful pictures, and then nearly break his childish heart because he can't do something equally good. His ideas, his ambitions, are excellent, but he will not work."
"Is there no other profession he might get on better at? Would he make a lawyer, or a doctor, do you think?" Mr. Murray asked.
"I'm afraid not; he really wants to be an artist; besides, he's so proud and sensitive, that he never would make his way in the world if he had to mix with people, and fight for a place. Poor Eddie, I am sorry for him," Mr. Clair said, kindly. "He has such an unhappy disposition."
"And the little girl?" Mr. Murray said. "How is she provided for? She is Frank Rivers' child, I think you said?"
"Yes; and she's the worst off of them all. Being a girl, and so delicate, I really do not see what's to become of her if anything should happen to us. It's a great pity she is not stronger," Mr. Clair remarked; "she has a wonderful talent for drawing, and is the most patient, painstaking, intelligent pupil I ever met. If Eddie had only half her diligence, he would get on much better."
Then he heard of the peculiarly solitary life Bertie led at Kensington, and listened in wonder, while Mr. Clair said Eddie was never asked to his uncle's, had never seen his cousins, and that he did not even know the Gregorys were in Brighton.
"You see, we are very different sort of people, Mr. Murray: our tastes, habits, and manner of life are so widely apart, that it is perhaps all for the best that we should not meet frequently. Still, he is Eddie's uncle: the boys are his first cousins; it seems a little odd that they should be complete strangers."
"Odd! why, it's very strange. I can't comprehend it!" Mr. Murray cried, looking quite fierce. "I must make them better acquainted. Ah! I've hit on the very thing. I'm going to take the Gregory boys for a trip in my yacht along the south coast; the Rivers lads shall come too. You must all come: there's nothing to make people acquainted and set them at their ease like a few days at sea in a small craft. Promise me you will join us. We start on Monday morning, and will land you anywhere, and at any time you like. A week's cruise would do you all good."
"I'm afraid you must excuse us, Mr. Murray. We should not be a very welcome addition to your party," Uncle Clair said, coldly. "I have no desire to force my acquaintance on Mr. Gregory."
"He's not coming with us, in the firstplace, and even if he were, I suppose I am at liberty to choose what guests I please to accompany me on my trip?" Mr. Murray cried, almost fiercely; "but"—turning to Mrs. Clair—"we need not discuss that point: it's the children we were talking about. It would be a first-rate opportunity for both lads to make friends with their cousins."
"Yes," Aunt Amy answered, thoughtfully. "They have so few friends in the world, poor children, that it would be a sad pity to miss a chance of increasing them. I feel half inclined to accept your kind invitation for the children's sake, but we have arranged to return home a week from Monday, and I almost fear my husband's engagements will not permit him to remain another day."
"Very well, Mrs. Clair; a week will, I think, be sufficient for our purpose. I'll find out in that time what the lads are really made of. I've had so many boys grow up under my eye, that I can read them pretty accurately now, and what's more, study them when they least imagine I'm thinking of them. As for your husband, he wants three months' complete rest, and a cruise to the Mediterranean in my yacht; and heshallhave it, later on!" and Mr. Murray seeming as if he were in a fearful passion with some one, frowned quite terribly, and shook his head fiercely, whereas he was only making a very kind and generous proposal to a poorartist, who could never afford more than a brief holiday, and always had, so to speak, to carry his profession along with him. Mr. Clair, however, did not seem very pleased with the suggestion, however much he might like it—and in his own mind he felt that he really needed just such a complete rest and change of scene, soft climate, and freedom from all care and anxiety, to enable him to shake himself free from a strange feeling of dulness and languor that had been stealing over him lately, and a sort of mental depression that was harder to bear than actual illness. But three months away from his pupils and work seemed absolutely out of the question to Mr. Clair, therefore he did not let his mind dwell on it, but returned to the question of the children.