He looked from his mother to Mr. Havisham.
“Can I have it now?” he cried. “Can I give it to her this minute? She's just going.”
Mr. Havisham handed him the money. It was in fresh, clean greenbacks and made a neat roll.
Ceddie flew out of the room with it.
“Bridget!” they heard him shout, as he tore into the kitchen. “Bridget, wait a minute! Here's some money. It's for you, and you can pay the rent. My grandpapa gave it to me. It's for you and Michael!”
“Oh, Master Ceddie!” cried Bridget, in an awe-stricken voice. “It's twinty-foive dollars is here. Where be's the misthress?”
“I think I shall have to go and explain it to her,” Mrs. Errol said.
So she, too, went out of the room and Mr. Havisham was left alone for a while. He went to the window and stood looking out into the street reflectively. He was thinking of the old Earl of Dorincourt, sitting in his great, splendid, gloomy library at the castle, gouty and lonely, surrounded by grandeur and luxury, but not really loved by any one, because in all his long life he had never really loved any one but himself; he had been selfish and self-indulgent and arrogant and passionate; he had cared so much for the Earl of Dorincourt and his pleasures that there had been no time for him to think of other people; all his wealth and power, all the benefits from his noble name and high rank, had seemed to him to be things only to be used to amuse and give pleasure to the Earl of Dorincourt; and now that he was an old man, all this excitement and self-indulgence had only brought him ill health and irritability and a dislike of the world, which certainly disliked him. In spite of all his splendor, there was never a more unpopular old nobleman than the Earl of Dorincourt, and there could scarcely have been a more lonely one. He could fill his castle with guests if he chose. He could give great dinners and splendid hunting parties; but he knew that in secret the people who would accept his invitations were afraid of his frowning old face and sarcastic, biting speeches. He had a cruel tongue and a bitter nature, and he took pleasure in sneering at people and making them feel uncomfortable, when he had the power to do so, because they were sensitive or proud or timid.
Mr. Havisham knew his hard, fierce ways by heart, and he was thinking of him as he looked out of the window into the narrow, quiet street. And there rose in his mind, in sharp contrast, the picture of the cheery, handsome little fellow sitting in the big chair and telling his story of his friends, Dick and the apple-woman, in his generous, innocent, honest way. And he thought of the immense income, the beautiful, majestic estates, the wealth, and power for good or evil, which in the course of time would lie in the small, chubby hands little Lord Fauntleroy thrust so deep into his pockets.
“It will make a great difference,” he said to himself. “It will make a great difference.”
Cedric and his mother came back soon after. Cedric was in high spirits. He sat down in his own chair, between his mother and the lawyer, and fell into one of his quaint attitudes, with his hands on his knees. He was glowing with enjoyment of Bridget's relief and rapture.
“She cried!” he said. “She said she was crying for joy! I never saw any one cry for joy before. My grandpapa must be a very good man. I didn't know he was so good a man. It's more—more agreeabler to be an earl than I thought it was. I'm almost glad—I'm almost QUITE glad I'm going to be one.”
Cedric's good opinion of the advantages of being an earl increased greatly during the next week. It seemed almost impossible for him to realize that there was scarcely anything he might wish to do which he could not do easily; in fact, I think it may be said that he did not fully realize it at all. But at least he understood, after a few conversations with Mr. Havisham, that he could gratify all his nearest wishes, and he proceeded to gratify them with a simplicity and delight which caused Mr. Havisham much diversion. In the week before they sailed for England he did many curious things. The lawyer long after remembered the morning they went down-town together to pay a visit to Dick, and the afternoon they so amazed the apple-woman of ancient lineage by stopping before her stall and telling her she was to have a tent, and a stove, and a shawl, and a sum of money which seemed to her quite wonderful.
“For I have to go to England and be a lord,” explained Cedric, sweet-temperedly. “And I shouldn't like to have your bones on my mind every time it rained. My own bones never hurt, so I think I don't know how painful a person's bones can be, but I've sympathized with you a great deal, and I hope you'll be better.”
“She's a very good apple-woman,” he said to Mr. Havisham, as they walked away, leaving the proprietress of the stall almost gasping for breath, and not at all believing in her great fortune. “Once, when I fell down and cut my knee, she gave me an apple for nothing. I've always remembered her for it. You know you always remember people who are kind to you.”
It had never occurred to his honest, simple little mind that there were people who could forget kindnesses.
The interview with Dick was quite exciting. Dick had just been having a great deal of trouble with Jake, and was in low spirits when they saw him. His amazement when Cedric calmly announced that they had come to give him what seemed a very great thing to him, and would set all his troubles right, almost struck him dumb. Lord Fauntleroy's manner of announcing the object of his visit was very simple and unceremonious. Mr. Havisham was much impressed by its directness as he stood by and listened. The statement that his old friend had become a lord, and was in danger of being an earl if he lived long enough, caused Dick to so open his eyes and mouth, and start, that his cap fell off. When he picked it up, he uttered a rather singular exclamation. Mr. Havisham thought it singular, but Cedric had heard it before.
“I soy!” he said, “what're yer givin' us?” This plainly embarrassed his lordship a little, but he bore himself bravely.
“Everybody thinks it not true at first,” he said. “Mr. Hobbs thought I'd had a sunstroke. I didn't think I was going to like it myself, but I like it better now I'm used to it. The one who is the Earl now, he's my grandpapa; and he wants me to do anything I like. He's very kind, if he IS an earl; and he sent me a lot of money by Mr. Havisham, and I've brought some to you to buy Jake out.”
And the end of the matter was that Dick actually bought Jake out, and found himself the possessor of the business and some new brushes and a most astonishing sign and outfit. He could not believe in his good luck any more easily than the apple-woman of ancient lineage could believe in hers; he walked about like a boot-black in a dream; he stared at his young benefactor and felt as if he might wake up at any moment. He scarcely seemed to realize anything until Cedric put out his hand to shake hands with him before going away.
“Well, good-bye,” he said; and though he tried to speak steadily, there was a little tremble in his voice and he winked his big brown eyes. “And I hope trade'll be good. I'm sorry I'm going away to leave you, but perhaps I shall come back again when I'm an earl. And I wish you'd write to me, because we were always good friends. And if you write to me, here's where you must send your letter.” And he gave him a slip of paper. “And my name isn't Cedric Errol any more; it's Lord Fauntleroy and—and good-bye, Dick.”
Dick winked his eyes also, and yet they looked rather moist about the lashes. He was not an educated boot-black, and he would have found it difficult to tell what he felt just then if he had tried; perhaps that was why he didn't try, and only winked his eyes and swallowed a lump in his throat.
“I wish ye wasn't goin' away,” he said in a husky voice. Then he winked his eyes again. Then he looked at Mr. Havisham, and touched his cap. “Thanky, sir, fur bringin' him down here an' fur wot ye've done, He's—he's a queer little feller,” he added. “I've allers thort a heap of him. He's such a game little feller, an'—an' such a queer little un.”
And when they turned away he stood and looked after them in a dazed kind of way, and there was still a mist in his eyes, and a lump in his throat, as he watched the gallant little figure marching gayly along by the side of its tall, rigid escort.
Until the day of his departure, his lordship spent as much time as possible with Mr. Hobbs in the store. Gloom had settled upon Mr. Hobbs; he was much depressed in spirits. When his young friend brought to him in triumph the parting gift of a gold watch and chain, Mr. Hobbs found it difficult to acknowledge it properly. He laid the case on his stout knee, and blew his nose violently several times.
“There's something written on it,” said Cedric,—“inside the case. I told the man myself what to say. 'From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me.' I don't want you to forget me.”
Mr. Hobbs blew his nose very loudly again.
“I sha'n't forget you,” he said, speaking a trifle huskily, as Dick had spoken; “nor don't you go and forget me when you get among the British arrystocracy.”
“I shouldn't forget you, whoever I was among,” answered his lordship. “I've spent my happiest hours with you; at least, some of my happiest hours. I hope you'll come to see me sometime. I'm sure my grandpapa would be very much pleased. Perhaps he'll write and ask you, when I tell him about you. You—you wouldn't mind his being an earl, would you, I mean you wouldn't stay away just because he was one, if he invited you to come?”
“I'd come to see you,” replied Mr. Hobbs, graciously.
So it seemed to be agreed that if he received a pressing invitation from the Earl to come and spend a few months at Dorincourt Castle, he was to lay aside his republican prejudices and pack his valise at once.
At last all the preparations were complete; the day came when the trunks were taken to the steamer, and the hour arrived when the carriage stood at the door. Then a curious feeling of loneliness came upon the little boy. His mamma had been shut up in her room for some time; when she came down the stairs, her eyes looked large and wet, and her sweet mouth was trembling. Cedric went to her, and she bent down to him, and he put his arms around her, and they kissed each other. He knew something made them both sorry, though he scarcely knew what it was; but one tender little thought rose to his lips.
“We liked this little house, Dearest, didn't we?” he said. “We always will like it, won't we?”
“Yes—yes,” she answered, in a low, sweet voice. “Yes, darling.”
And then they went into the carriage and Cedric sat very close to her, and as she looked back out of the window, he looked at her and stroked her hand and held it close.
And then, it seemed almost directly, they were on the steamer in the midst of the wildest bustle and confusion; carriages were driving down and leaving passengers; passengers were getting into a state of excitement about baggage which had not arrived and threatened to be too late; big trunks and cases were being bumped down and dragged about; sailors were uncoiling ropes and hurrying to and fro; officers were giving orders; ladies and gentlemen and children and nurses were coming on board,—some were laughing and looked gay, some were silent and sad, here and there two or three were crying and touching their eyes with their handkerchiefs. Cedric found something to interest him on every side; he looked at the piles of rope, at the furled sails, at the tall, tall masts which seemed almost to touch the hot blue sky; he began to make plans for conversing with the sailors and gaining some information on the subject of pirates.
It was just at the very last, when he was standing leaning on the railing of the upper deck and watching the final preparations, enjoying the excitement and the shouts of the sailors and wharfmen, that his attention was called to a slight bustle in one of the groups not far from him. Some one was hurriedly forcing his way through this group and coming toward him. It was a boy, with something red in his hand. It was Dick. He came up to Cedric quite breathless.
“I've run all the way,” he said. “I've come down to see ye off. Trade's been prime! I bought this for ye out o' what I made yesterday. Ye kin wear it when ye get among the swells. I lost the paper when I was tryin' to get through them fellers downstairs. They didn't want to let me up. It's a hankercher.”
He poured it all forth as if in one sentence. A bell rang, and he made a leap away before Cedric had time to speak.
“Good-bye!” he panted. “Wear it when ye get among the swells.” And he darted off and was gone.
A few seconds later they saw him struggle through the crowd on the lower deck, and rush on shore just before the gang-plank was drawn in. He stood on the wharf and waved his cap.
Cedric held the handkerchief in his hand. It was of bright red silk ornamented with purple horseshoes and horses' heads.
There was a great straining and creaking and confusion. The people on the wharf began to shout to their friends, and the people on the steamer shouted back:
“Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye, old fellow!” Every one seemed to be saying, “Don't forget us. Write when you get to Liverpool. Good-bye! Good-bye!”
Little Lord Fauntleroy leaned forward and waved the red handkerchief.
“Good-bye, Dick!” he shouted, lustily. “Thank you! Good-bye, Dick!”
And the big steamer moved away, and the people cheered again, and Cedric's mother drew the veil over her eyes, and on the shore there was left great confusion; but Dick saw nothing save that bright, childish face and the bright hair that the sun shone on and the breeze lifted, and he heard nothing but the hearty childish voice calling “Good-bye, Dick!” as little Lord Fauntleroy steamed slowly away from the home of his birth to the unknown land of his ancestors.
It was during the voyage that Cedric's mother told him that his home was not to be hers; and when he first understood it, his grief was so great that Mr. Havisham saw that the Earl had been wise in making the arrangements that his mother should be quite near him, and see him often; for it was very plain he could not have borne the separation otherwise. But his mother managed the little fellow so sweetly and lovingly, and made him feel that she would be so near him, that, after a while, he ceased to be oppressed by the fear of any real parting.
“My house is not far from the Castle, Ceddie,” she repeated each time the subject was referred to—“a very little way from yours, and you can always run in and see me every day, and you will have so many things to tell me! and we shall be so happy together! It is a beautiful place. Your papa has often told me about it. He loved it very much; and you will love it too.”
“I should love it better if you were there,” his small lordship said, with a heavy little sigh.
He could not but feel puzzled by so strange a state of affairs, which could put his “Dearest” in one house and himself in another.
The fact was that Mrs. Errol had thought it better not to tell him why this plan had been made.
“I should prefer he should not be told,” she said to Mr. Havisham. “He would not really understand; he would only be shocked and hurt; and I feel sure that his feeling for the Earl will be a more natural and affectionate one if he does not know that his grandfather dislikes me so bitterly. He has never seen hatred or hardness, and it would be a great blow to him to find out that any one could hate me. He is so loving himself, and I am so dear to him! It is better for him that he should not be told until he is much older, and it is far better for the Earl. It would make a barrier between them, even though Ceddie is such a child.”
So Cedric only knew that there was some mysterious reason for the arrangement, some reason which he was not old enough to understand, but which would be explained when he was older. He was puzzled; but, after all, it was not the reason he cared about so much; and after many talks with his mother, in which she comforted him and placed before him the bright side of the picture, the dark side of it gradually began to fade out, though now and then Mr. Havisham saw him sitting in some queer little old-fashioned attitude, watching the sea, with a very grave face, and more than once he heard an unchildish sigh rise to his lips.
“I don't like it,” he said once as he was having one of his almost venerable talks with the lawyer. “You don't know how much I don't like it; but there are a great many troubles in this world, and you have to bear them. Mary says so, and I've heard Mr. Hobbs say it too. And Dearest wants me to like to live with my grandpapa, because, you see, all his children are dead, and that's very mournful. It makes you sorry for a man, when all his children have died—and one was killed suddenly.”
One of the things which always delighted the people who made the acquaintance of his young lordship was the sage little air he wore at times when he gave himself up to conversation;—combined with his occasionally elderly remarks and the extreme innocence and seriousness of his round childish face, it was irresistible. He was such a handsome, blooming, curly-headed little fellow, that, when he sat down and nursed his knee with his chubby hands, and conversed with much gravity, he was a source of great entertainment to his hearers. Gradually Mr. Havisham had begun to derive a great deal of private pleasure and amusement from his society.
“And so you are going to try to like the Earl,” he said.
“Yes,” answered his lordship. “He's my relation, and of course you have to like your relations; and besides, he's been very kind to me. When a person does so many things for you, and wants you to have everything you wish for, of course you'd like him if he wasn't your relation; but when he's your relation and does that, why, you're very fond of him.”
“Do you think,” suggested Mr. Havisham, “that he will be fond of you?”
“Well,” said Cedric, “I think he will, because, you see, I'm his relation, too, and I'm his boy's little boy besides, and, well, don't you see—of course he must be fond of me now, or he wouldn't want me to have everything that I like, and he wouldn't have sent you for me.”
“Oh!” remarked the lawyer, “that's it, is it?”
“Yes,” said Cedric, “that's it. Don't you think that's it, too? Of course a man would be fond of his grandson.”
The people who had been seasick had no sooner recovered from their seasickness, and come on deck to recline in their steamer-chairs and enjoy themselves, than every one seemed to know the romantic story of little Lord Fauntleroy, and every one took an interest in the little fellow, who ran about the ship or walked with his mother or the tall, thin old lawyer, or talked to the sailors. Every one liked him; he made friends everywhere. He was ever ready to make friends. When the gentlemen walked up and down the deck, and let him walk with them, he stepped out with a manly, sturdy little tramp, and answered all their jokes with much gay enjoyment; when the ladies talked to him, there was always laughter in the group of which he was the center; when he played with the children, there was always magnificent fun on hand. Among the sailors he had the heartiest friends; he heard miraculous stories about pirates and shipwrecks and desert islands; he learned to splice ropes and rig toy ships, and gained an amount of information concerning “tops'ls” and “mains'ls,” quite surprising. His conversation had, indeed, quite a nautical flavor at times, and on one occasion he raised a shout of laughter in a group of ladies and gentlemen who were sitting on deck, wrapped in shawls and overcoats, by saying sweetly, and with a very engaging expression:
“Shiver my timbers, but it's a cold day!”
It surprised him when they laughed. He had picked up this sea-faring remark from an “elderly naval man” of the name of Jerry, who told him stories in which it occurred frequently. To judge from his stories of his own adventures, Jerry had made some two or three thousand voyages, and had been invariably shipwrecked on each occasion on an island densely populated with bloodthirsty cannibals. Judging, also, by these same exciting adventures, he had been partially roasted and eaten frequently and had been scalped some fifteen or twenty times.
“That is why he is so bald,” explained Lord Fauntleroy to his mamma. “After you have been scalped several times the hair never grows again. Jerry's never grew again after that last time, when the King of the Parromachaweekins did it with the knife made out of the skull of the Chief of the Wopslemumpkies. He says it was one of the most serious times he ever had. He was so frightened that his hair stood right straight up when the king flourished his knife, and it never would lie down, and the king wears it that way now, and it looks something like a hair-brush. I never heard anything like the asperiences Jerry has had! I should so like to tell Mr. Hobbs about them!”
Sometimes, when the weather was very disagreeable and people were kept below decks in the saloon, a party of his grown-up friends would persuade him to tell them some of these “asperiences” of Jerry's, and as he sat relating them with great delight and fervor, there was certainly no more popular voyager on any ocean steamer crossing the Atlantic than little Lord Fauntleroy. He was always innocently and good-naturedly ready to do his small best to add to the general entertainment, and there was a charm in the very unconsciousness of his own childish importance.
“Jerry's stories int'rust them very much,” he said to his mamma. “For my part—you must excuse me, Dearest—but sometimes I should have thought they couldn't be all quite true, if they hadn't happened to Jerry himself; but as they all happened to Jerry—well, it's very strange, you know, and perhaps sometimes he may forget and be a little mistaken, as he's been scalped so often. Being scalped a great many times might make a person forgetful.”
It was eleven days after he had said good-bye to his friend Dick before he reached Liverpool; and it was on the night of the twelfth day that the carriage in which he and his mother and Mr. Havisham had driven from the station stopped before the gates of Court Lodge. They could not see much of the house in the darkness. Cedric only saw that there was a drive-way under great arching trees, and after the carriage had rolled down this drive-way a short distance, he saw an open door and a stream of bright light coming through it.
Mary had come with them to attend her mistress, and she had reached the house before them. When Cedric jumped out of the carriage he saw one or two servants standing in the wide, bright hall, and Mary stood in the door-way.
Lord Fauntleroy sprang at her with a gay little shout.
“Did you get here, Mary?” he said. “Here's Mary, Dearest,” and he kissed the maid on her rough red cheek.
“I am glad you are here, Mary,” Mrs. Errol said to her in a low voice. “It is such a comfort to me to see you. It takes the strangeness away.” And she held out her little hand, which Mary squeezed encouragingly. She knew how this first “strangeness” must feel to this little mother who had left her own land and was about to give up her child.
The English servants looked with curiosity at both the boy and his mother. They had heard all sorts of rumors about them both; they knew how angry the old Earl had been, and why Mrs. Errol was to live at the lodge and her little boy at the castle; they knew all about the great fortune he was to inherit, and about the savage old grandfather and his gout and his tempers.
“He'll have no easy time of it, poor little chap,” they had said among themselves.
But they did not know what sort of a little lord had come among them; they did not quite understand the character of the next Earl of Dorincourt.
He pulled off his overcoat quite as if he were used to doing things for himself, and began to look about him. He looked about the broad hall, at the pictures and stags' antlers and curious things that ornamented it. They seemed curious to him because he had never seen such things before in a private house.
“Dearest,” he said, “this is a very pretty house, isn't it? I am glad you are going to live here. It's quite a large house.”
It was quite a large house compared to the one in the shabby New York street, and it was very pretty and cheerful. Mary led them upstairs to a bright chintz-hung bedroom where a fire was burning, and a large snow-white Persian cat was sleeping luxuriously on the white fur hearth-rug.
“It was the house-kaper up at the Castle, ma'am, sint her to yez,” explained Mary. “It's herself is a kind-hearted lady an' has had iverything done to prepar' fur yez. I seen her meself a few minnits, an' she was fond av the Capt'in, ma'am, an' graivs fur him; and she said to say the big cat slapin' on the rug moight make the room same homeloike to yez. She knowed Capt'in Errol whin he was a bye—an' a foine handsum' bye she ses he was, an' a foine young man wid a plisint word fur every one, great an' shmall. An' ses I to her, ses I: 'He's lift a bye that's loike him, ma'am, fur a foiner little felly niver sthipped in shoe-leather.”'
When they were ready, they went downstairs into another big bright room; its ceiling was low, and the furniture was heavy and beautifully carved, the chairs were deep and had high massive backs, and there were queer shelves and cabinets with strange, pretty ornaments on them. There was a great tiger-skin before the fire, and an arm-chair on each side of it. The stately white cat had responded to Lord Fauntleroy's stroking and followed him downstairs, and when he threw himself down upon the rug, she curled herself up grandly beside him as if she intended to make friends. Cedric was so pleased that he put his head down by hers, and lay stroking her, not noticing what his mother and Mr. Havisham were saying.
They were, indeed, speaking in a rather low tone. Mrs. Errol looked a little pale and agitated.
“He need not go to-night?” she said. “He will stay with me to-night?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Havisham in the same low tone; “it will not be necessary for him to go to-night. I myself will go to the Castle as soon as we have dined, and inform the Earl of our arrival.”
Mrs. Errol glanced down at Cedric. He was lying in a graceful, careless attitude upon the black-and-yellow skin; the fire shone on his handsome, flushed little face, and on the tumbled, curly hair spread out on the rug; the big cat was purring in drowsy content,—she liked the caressing touch of the kind little hand on her fur.
Mrs. Errol smiled faintly.
“His lordship does not know all that he is taking from me,” she said rather sadly. Then she looked at the lawyer. “Will you tell him, if you please,” she said, “that I should rather not have the money?”
“The money!” Mr. Havisham exclaimed. “You can not mean the income he proposed to settle upon you!”
“Yes,” she answered, quite simply; “I think I should rather not have it. I am obliged to accept the house, and I thank him for it, because it makes it possible for me to be near my child; but I have a little money of my own,—enough to live simply upon,—and I should rather not take the other. As he dislikes me so much, I should feel a little as if I were selling Cedric to him. I am giving him up only because I love him enough to forget myself for his good, and because his father would wish it to be so.”
Mr. Havisham rubbed his chin.
“This is very strange,” he said. “He will be very angry. He won't understand it.”
“I think he will understand it after he thinks it over,” she said. “I do not really need the money, and why should I accept luxuries from the man who hates me so much that he takes my little boy from me—his son's child?”
Mr. Havisham looked reflective for a few moments.
“I will deliver your message,” he said afterward.
And then the dinner was brought in and they sat down together, the big cat taking a seat on a chair near Cedric's and purring majestically throughout the meal.
When, later in the evening, Mr. Havisham presented himself at the Castle, he was taken at once to the Earl. He found him sitting by the fire in a luxurious easy-chair, his foot on a gout-stool. He looked at the lawyer sharply from under his shaggy eyebrows, but Mr. Havisham could see that, in spite of his pretense at calmness, he was nervous and secretly excited.
“Well,” he said; “well, Havisham, come back, have you? What's the news?”
“Lord Fauntleroy and his mother are at Court Lodge,” replied Mr. Havisham. “They bore the voyage very well and are in excellent health.”
The Earl made a half-impatient sound and moved his hand restlessly.
“Glad to hear it,” he said brusquely. “So far, so good. Make yourself comfortable. Have a glass of wine and settle down. What else?”
“His lordship remains with his mother to-night. To-morrow I will bring him to the Castle.”
The Earl's elbow was resting on the arm of his chair; he put his hand up and shielded his eyes with it.
“Well,” he said; “go on. You know I told you not to write to me about the matter, and I know nothing whatever about it. What kind of a lad is he? I don't care about the mother; what sort of a lad is he?”
Mr. Havisham drank a little of the glass of port he had poured out for himself, and sat holding it in his hand.
“It is rather difficult to judge of the character of a child of seven,” he said cautiously.
The Earl's prejudices were very intense. He looked up quickly and uttered a rough word.
“A fool, is he?” he exclaimed. “Or a clumsy cub? His American blood tells, does it?”
“I do not think it has injured him, my lord,” replied the lawyer in his dry, deliberate fashion. “I don't know much about children, but I thought him rather a fine lad.”
His manner of speech was always deliberate and unenthusiastic, but he made it a trifle more so than usual. He had a shrewd fancy that it would be better that the Earl should judge for himself, and be quite unprepared for his first interview with his grandson.
“Healthy and well-grown?” asked my lord.
“Apparently very healthy, and quite well-grown,” replied the lawyer.
“Straight-limbed and well enough to look at?” demanded the Earl.
A very slight smile touched Mr. Havisham's thin lips. There rose up before his mind's eye the picture he had left at Court Lodge,—the beautiful, graceful child's body lying upon the tiger-skin in careless comfort—the bright, tumbled hair spread on the rug—the bright, rosy boy's face.
“Rather a handsome boy, I think, my lord, as boys go,” he said, “though I am scarcely a judge, perhaps. But you will find him somewhat different from most English children, I dare say.”
“I haven't a doubt of that,” snarled the Earl, a twinge of gout seizing him. “A lot of impudent little beggars, those American children; I've heard that often enough.”
“It is not exactly impudence in his case,” said Mr. Havisham. “I can scarcely describe what the difference is. He has lived more with older people than with children, and the difference seems to be a mixture of maturity and childishness.”
“American impudence!” protested the Earl. “I've heard of it before. They call it precocity and freedom. Beastly, impudent bad manners; that's what it is!”
Mr. Havisham drank some more port. He seldom argued with his lordly patron,—never when his lordly patron's noble leg was inflamed by gout. At such times it was always better to leave him alone. So there was a silence of a few moments. It was Mr. Havisham who broke it.
“I have a message to deliver from Mrs. Errol,” he remarked.
“I don't want any of her messages!” growled his lordship; “the less I hear of her the better.”
“This is a rather important one,” explained the lawyer. “She prefers not to accept the income you proposed to settle on her.”
The Earl started visibly.
“What's that?” he cried out. “What's that?”
Mr. Havisham repeated his words.
“She says it is not necessary, and that as the relations between you are not friendly——”
“Not friendly!” ejaculated my lord savagely; “I should say they were not friendly! I hate to think of her! A mercenary, sharp-voiced American! I don't wish to see her.”
“My lord,” said Mr. Havisham, “you can scarcely call her mercenary. She has asked for nothing. She does not accept the money you offer her.”
“All done for effect!” snapped his noble lordship. “She wants to wheedle me into seeing her. She thinks I shall admire her spirit. I don't admire it! It's only American independence! I won't have her living like a beggar at my park gates. As she's the boy's mother, she has a position to keep up, and she shall keep it up. She shall have the money, whether she likes it or not!”
“She won't spend it,” said Mr. Havisham.
“I don't care whether she spends it or not!” blustered my lord. “She shall have it sent to her. She sha'n't tell people that she has to live like a pauper because I have done nothing for her! She wants to give the boy a bad opinion of me! I suppose she has poisoned his mind against me already!”
“No,” said Mr. Havisham. “I have another message, which will prove to you that she has not done that.”
“I don't want to hear it!” panted the Earl, out of breath with anger and excitement and gout.
But Mr. Havisham delivered it.
“She asks you not to let Lord Fauntleroy hear anything which would lead him to understand that you separate him from her because of your prejudice against her. He is very fond of her, and she is convinced that it would cause a barrier to exist between you. She says he would not comprehend it, and it might make him fear you in some measure, or at least cause him to feel less affection for you. She has told him that he is too young to understand the reason, but shall hear it when he is older. She wishes that there should be no shadow on your first meeting.”
The Earl sank back into his chair. His deep-set fierce old eyes gleamed under his beetling brows.
“Come, now!” he said, still breathlessly. “Come, now! You don't mean the mother hasn't told him?”
“Not one word, my lord,” replied the lawyer coolly. “That I can assure you. The child is prepared to believe you the most amiable and affectionate of grandparents. Nothing—absolutely nothing has been said to him to give him the slightest doubt of your perfection. And as I carried out your commands in every detail, while in New York, he certainly regards you as a wonder of generosity.”
“He does, eh?” said the Earl.
“I give you my word of honor,” said Mr. Havisham, “that Lord Fauntleroy's impressions of you will depend entirely upon yourself. And if you will pardon the liberty I take in making the suggestion, I think you will succeed better with him if you take the precaution not to speak slightingly of his mother.”
“Pooh, pooh!” said the Earl. “The youngster is only seven years old!”
“He has spent those seven years at his mother's side,” returned Mr. Havisham; “and she has all his affection.”
It was late in the afternoon when the carriage containing little Lord Fauntleroy and Mr. Havisham drove up the long avenue which led to the castle. The Earl had given orders that his grandson should arrive in time to dine with him; and for some reason best known to himself, he had also ordered that the child should be sent alone into the room in which he intended to receive him. As the carriage rolled up the avenue, Lord Fauntleroy sat leaning comfortably against the luxurious cushions, and regarded the prospect with great interest. He was, in fact, interested in everything he saw. He had been interested in the carriage, with its large, splendid horses and their glittering harness; he had been interested in the tall coachman and footman, with their resplendent livery; and he had been especially interested in the coronet on the panels, and had struck up an acquaintance with the footman for the purpose of inquiring what it meant.
When the carriage reached the great gates of the park, he looked out of the window to get a good view of the huge stone lions ornamenting the entrance. The gates were opened by a motherly, rosy-looking woman, who came out of a pretty, ivy-covered lodge. Two children ran out of the door of the house and stood looking with round, wide-open eyes at the little boy in the carriage, who looked at them also. Their mother stood courtesying and smiling, and the children, on receiving a sign from her, made bobbing little courtesies too.
“Does she know me?” asked Lord Fauntleroy. “I think she must think she knows me.” And he took off his black velvet cap to her and smiled.
“How do you do?” he said brightly. “Good-afternoon!”
The woman seemed pleased, he thought. The smile broadened on her rosy face and a kind look came into her blue eyes.
“God bless your lordship!” she said. “God bless your pretty face! Good luck and happiness to your lordship! Welcome to you!”
Lord Fauntleroy waved his cap and nodded to her again as the carriage rolled by her.
“I like that woman,” he said. “She looks as if she liked boys. I should like to come here and play with her children. I wonder if she has enough to make up a company?”
Mr. Havisham did not tell him that he would scarcely be allowed to make playmates of the gate-keeper's children. The lawyer thought there was time enough for giving him that information.
The carriage rolled on and on between the great, beautiful trees which grew on each side of the avenue and stretched their broad, swaying branches in an arch across it. Cedric had never seen such trees,—they were so grand and stately, and their branches grew so low down on their huge trunks. He did not then know that Dorincourt Castle was one of the most beautiful in all England; that its park was one of the broadest and finest, and its trees and avenue almost without rivals. But he did know that it was all very beautiful. He liked the big, broad-branched trees, with the late afternoon sunlight striking golden lances through them. He liked the perfect stillness which rested on everything. He felt a great, strange pleasure in the beauty of which he caught glimpses under and between the sweeping boughs—the great, beautiful spaces of the park, with still other trees standing sometimes stately and alone, and sometimes in groups. Now and then they passed places where tall ferns grew in masses, and again and again the ground was azure with the bluebells swaying in the soft breeze. Several times he started up with a laugh of delight as a rabbit leaped up from under the greenery and scudded away with a twinkle of short white tail behind it. Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and flew away, and then he shouted and clapped his hands.
“It's a beautiful place, isn't it?” he said to Mr. Havisham. “I never saw such a beautiful place. It's prettier even than Central Park.”
He was rather puzzled by the length of time they were on their way.
“How far is it,” he said, at length, “from the gate to the front door?”
“It is between three and four miles,” answered the lawyer.
“That's a long way for a person to live from his gate,” remarked his lordship.
Every few minutes he saw something new to wonder at and admire. When he caught sight of the deer, some couched in the grass, some standing with their pretty antlered heads turned with a half-startled air toward the avenue as the carriage wheels disturbed them, he was enchanted.
“Has there been a circus?” he cried; “or do they live here always? Whose are they?”
“They live here,” Mr. Havisham told him. “They belong to the Earl, your grandfather.”
It was not long after this that they saw the castle. It rose up before them stately and beautiful and gray, the last rays of the sun casting dazzling lights on its many windows. It had turrets and battlements and towers; a great deal of ivy grew upon its walls; all the broad, open space about it was laid out in terraces and lawns and beds of brilliant flowers.
“It's the most beautiful place I ever saw!” said Cedric, his round face flushing with pleasure. “It reminds any one of a king's palace. I saw a picture of one once in a fairy-book.”
He saw the great entrance-door thrown open and many servants standing in two lines looking at him. He wondered why they were standing there, and admired their liveries very much. He did not know that they were there to do honor to the little boy to whom all this splendor would one day belong,—the beautiful castle like the fairy king's palace, the magnificent park, the grand old trees, the dells full of ferns and bluebells where the hares and rabbits played, the dappled, large-eyed deer couching in the deep grass. It was only a couple of weeks since he had sat with Mr. Hobbs among the potatoes and canned peaches, with his legs dangling from the high stool; it would not have been possible for him to realize that he had very much to do with all this grandeur. At the head of the line of servants there stood an elderly woman in a rich, plain black silk gown; she had gray hair and wore a cap. As he entered the hall she stood nearer than the rest, and the child thought from the look in her eyes that she was going to speak to him. Mr. Havisham, who held his hand, paused a moment.
“This is Lord Fauntleroy, Mrs. Mellon,” he said. “Lord Fauntleroy, this is Mrs. Mellon, who is the housekeeper.”
Cedric gave her his hand, his eyes lighting up.
“Was it you who sent the cat?” he said. “I'm much obliged to you, ma'am.”
Mrs. Mellon's handsome old face looked as pleased as the face of the lodge-keeper's wife had done.
“I should know his lordship anywhere,” she said to Mr. Havisham. “He has the Captain's face and way. It's a great day, this, sir.”
Cedric wondered why it was a great day. He looked at Mrs. Mellon curiously. It seemed to him for a moment as if there were tears in her eyes, and yet it was evident she was not unhappy. She smiled down on him.
“The cat left two beautiful kittens here,” she said; “they shall be sent up to your lordship's nursery.”
Mr. Havisham said a few words to her in a low voice.
“In the library, sir,” Mrs. Mellon replied. “His lordship is to be taken there alone.”
A few minutes later, the very tall footman in livery, who had escorted Cedric to the library door, opened it and announced: “Lord Fauntleroy, my lord,” in quite a majestic tone. If he was only a footman, he felt it was rather a grand occasion when the heir came home to his own land and possessions, and was ushered into the presence of the old Earl, whose place and title he was to take.
Cedric crossed the threshold into the room. It was a very large and splendid room, with massive carven furniture in it, and shelves upon shelves of books; the furniture was so dark, and the draperies so heavy, the diamond-paned windows were so deep, and it seemed such a distance from one end of it to the other, that, since the sun had gone down, the effect of it all was rather gloomy. For a moment Cedric thought there was nobody in the room, but soon he saw that by the fire burning on the wide hearth there was a large easy-chair and that in that chair some one was sitting—some one who did not at first turn to look at him.
But he had attracted attention in one quarter at least. On the floor, by the arm-chair, lay a dog, a huge tawny mastiff, with body and limbs almost as big as a lion's; and this great creature rose majestically and slowly, and marched toward the little fellow with a heavy step.
Then the person in the chair spoke. “Dougal,” he called, “come back, sir.”
But there was no more fear in little Lord Fauntleroy's heart than there was unkindness—he had been a brave little fellow all his life. He put his hand on the big dog's collar in the most natural way in the world, and they strayed forward together, Dougal sniffing as he went.
And then the Earl looked up. What Cedric saw was a large old man with shaggy white hair and eyebrows, and a nose like an eagle's beak between his deep, fierce eyes. What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with love-locks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship. If the Castle was like the palace in a fairy story, it must be owned that little Lord Fauntleroy was himself rather like a small copy of the fairy prince, though he was not at all aware of the fact, and perhaps was rather a sturdy young model of a fairy. But there was a sudden glow of triumph and exultation in the fiery old Earl's heart as he saw what a strong, beautiful boy this grandson was, and how unhesitatingly he looked up as he stood with his hand on the big dog's neck. It pleased the grim old nobleman that the child should show no shyness or fear, either of the dog or of himself.
Cedric looked at him just as he had looked at the woman at the lodge and at the housekeeper, and came quite close to him.
“Are you the Earl?” he said. “I'm your grandson, you know, that Mr. Havisham brought. I'm Lord Fauntleroy.”
He held out his hand because he thought it must be the polite and proper thing to do even with earls. “I hope you are very well,” he continued, with the utmost friendliness. “I'm very glad to see you.”
The Earl shook hands with him, with a curious gleam in his eyes; just at first, he was so astonished that he scarcely knew what to say. He stared at the picturesque little apparition from under his shaggy brows, and took it all in from head to foot.
“Glad to see me, are you?” he said.
“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy, “very.”
There was a chair near him, and he sat down on it; it was a high-backed, rather tall chair, and his feet did not touch the floor when he had settled himself in it, but he seemed to be quite comfortable as he sat there, and regarded his august relative intently but modestly.
“I've kept wondering what you would look like,” he remarked. “I used to lie in my berth in the ship and wonder if you would be anything like my father.”
“Am I?” asked the Earl.
“Well,” Cedric replied, “I was very young when he died, and I may not remember exactly how he looked, but I don't think you are like him.”
“You are disappointed, I suppose?” suggested his grandfather.
“Oh, no,” responded Cedric politely. “Of course you would like any one to look like your father; but of course you would enjoy the way your grandfather looked, even if he wasn't like your father. You know how it is yourself about admiring your relations.”
The Earl leaned back in his chair and stared. He could not be said to know how it was about admiring his relations. He had employed most of his noble leisure in quarreling violently with them, in turning them out of his house, and applying abusive epithets to them; and they all hated him cordially.
“Any boy would love his grandfather,” continued Lord Fauntleroy, “especially one that had been as kind to him as you have been.”
Another queer gleam came into the old nobleman's eyes.
“Oh!” he said, “I have been kind to you, have I?”
“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy brightly; “I'm ever so much obliged to you about Bridget, and the apple-woman, and Dick.”
“Bridget!” exclaimed the Earl. “Dick! The apple-woman!”
“Yes!” explained Cedric; “the ones you gave me all that money for—the money you told Mr. Havisham to give me if I wanted it.”
“Ha!” ejaculated his lordship. “That's it, is it? The money you were to spend as you liked. What did you buy with it? I should like to hear something about that.”
He drew his shaggy eyebrows together and looked at the child sharply. He was secretly curious to know in what way the lad had indulged himself.
“Oh!” said Lord Fauntleroy, “perhaps you didn't know about Dick and the apple-woman and Bridget. I forgot you lived such a long way off from them. They were particular friends of mine. And you see Michael had the fever——”
“Who's Michael?” asked the Earl.
“Michael is Bridget's husband, and they were in great trouble. When a man is sick and can't work and has twelve children, you know how it is. And Michael has always been a sober man. And Bridget used to come to our house and cry. And the evening Mr. Havisham was there, she was in the kitchen crying, because they had almost nothing to eat and couldn't pay the rent; and I went in to see her, and Mr. Havisham sent for me and he said you had given him some money for me. And I ran as fast as I could into the kitchen and gave it to Bridget; and that made it all right; and Bridget could scarcely believe her eyes. That's why I'm so obliged to you.”
“Oh!” said the Earl in his deep voice, “that was one of the things you did for yourself, was it? What else?”
Dougal had been sitting by the tall chair; the great dog had taken its place there when Cedric sat down. Several times it had turned and looked up at the boy as if interested in the conversation. Dougal was a solemn dog, who seemed to feel altogether too big to take life's responsibilities lightly. The old Earl, who knew the dog well, had watched it with secret interest. Dougal was not a dog whose habit it was to make acquaintances rashly, and the Earl wondered somewhat to see how quietly the brute sat under the touch of the childish hand. And, just at this moment, the big dog gave little Lord Fauntleroy one more look of dignified scrutiny, and deliberately laid its huge, lion-like head on the boy's black-velvet knee.
The small hand went on stroking this new friend as Cedric answered:
“Well, there was Dick,” he said. “You'd like Dick, he's so square.”
This was an Americanism the Earl was not prepared for.
“What does that mean?” he inquired.
Lord Fauntleroy paused a moment to reflect. He was not very sure himself what it meant. He had taken it for granted as meaning something very creditable because Dick had been fond of using it.
“I think it means that he wouldn't cheat any one,” he exclaimed; “or hit a boy who was under his size, and that he blacks people's boots very well and makes them shine as much as he can. He's a perfessional bootblack.”
“And he's one of your acquaintances, is he?” said the Earl.
“He is an old friend of mine,” replied his grandson. “Not quite as old as Mr. Hobbs, but quite old. He gave me a present just before the ship sailed.”
He put his hand into his pocket and drew forth a neatly folded red object and opened it with an air of affectionate pride. It was the red silk handkerchief with the large purple horse-shoes and heads on it.
“He gave me this,” said his young lordship. “I shall keep it always. You can wear it round your neck or keep it in your pocket. He bought it with the first money he earned after I bought Jake out and gave him the new brushes. It's a keepsake. I put some poetry in Mr. Hobbs's watch. It was, 'When this you see, remember me.' When this I see, I shall always remember Dick.”
The sensations of the Right Honorable the Earl of Dorincourt could scarcely be described. He was not an old nobleman who was very easily bewildered, because he had seen a great deal of the world; but here was something he found so novel that it almost took his lordly breath away, and caused him some singular emotions. He had never cared for children; he had been so occupied with his own pleasures that he had never had time to care for them. His own sons had not interested him when they were very young—though sometimes he remembered having thought Cedric's father a handsome and strong little fellow. He had been so selfish himself that he had missed the pleasure of seeing unselfishness in others, and he had not known how tender and faithful and affectionate a kind-hearted little child can be, and how innocent and unconscious are its simple, generous impulses. A boy had always seemed to him a most objectionable little animal, selfish and greedy and boisterous when not under strict restraint; his own two eldest sons had given their tutors constant trouble and annoyance, and of the younger one he fancied he had heard few complaints because the boy was of no particular importance. It had never once occurred to him that he should like his grandson; he had sent for the little Cedric because his pride impelled him to do so. If the boy was to take his place in the future, he did not wish his name to be made ridiculous by descending to an uneducated boor. He had been convinced the boy would be a clownish fellow if he were brought up in America. He had no feeling of affection for the lad; his only hope was that he should find him decently well-featured, and with a respectable share of sense; he had been so disappointed in his other sons, and had been made so furious by Captain Errol's American marriage, that he had never once thought that anything creditable could come of it. When the footman had announced Lord Fauntleroy, he had almost dreaded to look at the boy lest he should find him all that he had feared. It was because of this feeling that he had ordered that the child should be sent to him alone. His pride could not endure that others should see his disappointment if he was to be disappointed. His proud, stubborn old heart therefore had leaped within him when the boy came forward with his graceful, easy carriage, his fearless hand on the big dog's neck. Even in the moments when he had hoped the most, the Earl had never hoped that his grandson would look like that. It seemed almost too good to be true that this should be the boy he had dreaded to see—the child of the woman he so disliked—this little fellow with so much beauty and such a brave, childish grace! The Earl's stern composure was quite shaken by this startling surprise.
And then their talk began; and he was still more curiously moved, and more and more puzzled. In the first place, he was so used to seeing people rather afraid and embarrassed before him, that he had expected nothing else but that his grandson would be timid or shy. But Cedric was no more afraid of the Earl than he had been of Dougal. He was not bold; he was only innocently friendly, and he was not conscious that there could be any reason why he should be awkward or afraid. The Earl could not help seeing that the little boy took him for a friend and treated him as one, without having any doubt of him at all. It was quite plain as the little fellow sat there in his tall chair and talked in his friendly way that it had never occurred to him that this large, fierce-looking old man could be anything but kind to him, and rather pleased to see him there. And it was plain, too, that, in his childish way, he wished to please and interest his grandfather. Cross, and hard-hearted, and worldly as the old Earl was, he could not help feeling a secret and novel pleasure in this very confidence. After all, it was not disagreeable to meet some one who did not distrust him or shrink from him, or seem to detect the ugly part of his nature; some one who looked at him with clear, unsuspecting eyes,—if it was only a little boy in a black velvet suit.
So the old man leaned back in his chair, and led his young companion on to telling him still more of himself, and with that odd gleam in his eyes watched the little fellow as he talked. Lord Fauntleroy was quite willing to answer all his questions and chatted on in his genial little way quite composedly. He told him all about Dick and Jake, and the apple-woman, and Mr. Hobbs; he described the Republican Rally in all the glory of its banners and transparencies, torches and rockets. In the course of the conversation, he reached the Fourth of July and the Revolution, and was just becoming enthusiastic, when he suddenly recollected something and stopped very abruptly.
“What is the matter?” demanded his grandfather. “Why don't you go on?”
Lord Fauntleroy moved rather uneasily in his chair. It was evident to the Earl that he was embarrassed by the thought which had just occurred to him.
“I was just thinking that perhaps you mightn't like it,” he replied. “Perhaps some one belonging to you might have been there. I forgot you were an Englishman.”
“You can go on,” said my lord. “No one belonging to me was there. You forgot you were an Englishman, too.”
“Oh! no,” said Cedric quickly. “I'm an American!”
“You are an Englishman,” said the Earl grimly. “Your father was an Englishman.”
It amused him a little to say this, but it did not amuse Cedric. The lad had never thought of such a development as this. He felt himself grow quite hot up to the roots of his hair.
“I was born in America,” he protested. “You have to be an American if you are born in America. I beg your pardon,” with serious politeness and delicacy, “for contradicting you. Mr. Hobbs told me, if there were another war, you know, I should have to—to be an American.”
The Earl gave a grim half laugh—it was short and grim, but it was a laugh.
“You would, would you?” he said.
He hated America and Americans, but it amused him to see how serious and interested this small patriot was. He thought that so good an American might make a rather good Englishman when he was a man.
They had not time to go very deep into the Revolution again—and indeed Lord Fauntleroy felt some delicacy about returning to the subject—before dinner was announced.
Cedric left his chair and went to his noble kinsman. He looked down at his gouty foot.
“Would you like me to help you?” he said politely. “You could lean on me, you know. Once when Mr. Hobbs hurt his foot with a potato-barrel rolling on it, he used to lean on me.”
The big footman almost periled his reputation and his situation by smiling. He was an aristocratic footman who had always lived in the best of noble families, and he had never smiled; indeed, he would have felt himself a disgraced and vulgar footman if he had allowed himself to be led by any circumstance whatever into such an indiscretion as a smile. But he had a very narrow escape. He only just saved himself by staring straight over the Earl's head at a very ugly picture.
The Earl looked his valiant young relative over from head to foot.
“Do you think you could do it?” he asked gruffly.
“I THINK I could,” said Cedric. “I'm strong. I'm seven, you know. You could lean on your stick on one side, and on me on the other. Dick says I've a good deal of muscle for a boy that's only seven.”
He shut his hand and moved it upward to his shoulder, so that the Earl might see the muscle Dick had kindly approved of, and his face was so grave and earnest that the footman found it necessary to look very hard indeed at the ugly picture.
“Well,” said the Earl, “you may try.”
Cedric gave him his stick and began to assist him to rise. Usually, the footman did this, and was violently sworn at when his lordship had an extra twinge of gout. The Earl was not a very polite person as a rule, and many a time the huge footmen about him quaked inside their imposing liveries.
But this evening he did not swear, though his gouty foot gave him more twinges than one. He chose to try an experiment. He got up slowly and put his hand on the small shoulder presented to him with so much courage. Little Lord Fauntleroy made a careful step forward, looking down at the gouty foot.
“Just lean on me,” he said, with encouraging good cheer. “I'll walk very slowly.”
If the Earl had been supported by the footman he would have rested less on his stick and more on his assistant's arm. And yet it was part of his experiment to let his grandson feel his burden as no light weight. It was quite a heavy weight indeed, and after a few steps his young lordship's face grew quite hot, and his heart beat rather fast, but he braced himself sturdily, remembering his muscle and Dick's approval of it.
“Don't be afraid of leaning on me,” he panted. “I'm all right—if—if it isn't a very long way.”
It was not really very far to the dining-room, but it seemed rather a long way to Cedric, before they reached the chair at the head of the table. The hand on his shoulder seemed to grow heavier at every step, and his face grew redder and hotter, and his breath shorter, but he never thought of giving up; he stiffened his childish muscles, held his head erect, and encouraged the Earl as he limped along.
“Does your foot hurt you very much when you stand on it?” he asked. “Did you ever put it in hot water and mustard? Mr. Hobbs used to put his in hot water. Arnica is a very nice thing, they tell me.”
The big dog stalked slowly beside them, and the big footman followed; several times he looked very queer as he watched the little figure making the very most of all its strength, and bearing its burden with such good-will. The Earl, too, looked rather queer, once, as he glanced sidewise down at the flushed little face. When they entered the room where they were to dine, Cedric saw it was a very large and imposing one, and that the footman who stood behind the chair at the head of the table stared very hard as they came in.
But they reached the chair at last. The hand was removed from his shoulder, and the Earl was fairly seated.
Cedric took out Dick's handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
“It's a warm night, isn't it?” he said. “Perhaps you need a fire because—because of your foot, but it seems just a little warm to me.”
His delicate consideration for his noble relative's feelings was such that he did not wish to seem to intimate that any of his surroundings were unnecessary.
“You have been doing some rather hard work,” said the Earl.
“Oh, no!” said Lord Fauntleroy, “it wasn't exactly hard, but I got a little warm. A person will get warm in summer time.”
And he rubbed his damp curls rather vigorously with the gorgeous handkerchief. His own chair was placed at the other end of the table, opposite his grandfather's. It was a chair with arms, and intended for a much larger individual than himself; indeed, everything he had seen so far,—the great rooms, with their high ceilings, the massive furniture, the big footman, the big dog, the Earl himself,—were all of proportions calculated to make this little lad feel that he was very small, indeed. But that did not trouble him; he had never thought himself very large or important, and he was quite willing to accommodate himself even to circumstances which rather overpowered him.