AtNoulton Farm each day was like its brother. Inflexible hours, inflexible duties, all proceeded with a regimental punctuality. At meals not a word was spoken, and while the master of the house was in it, all conversation was carried on, even in remote rooms, in an undertone.
Our little friend used to see the workhouse boy at prayers, morning and evening, and occasionally to pass his pale disquieted face on the stairs or lobbies when his duties brought him there. They eyed one another wistfully, but dared not speak. Mr. Archdale had so ordained it.
That workhouse boy—perhaps he was inefficient, perhaps too much was expected from him—but he had the misfortune perpetually to incur—I can hardly say his master’s displeasure, for the word implies something emotional, whereas nothing could be at all times more tranquil and cold than that master—but his correction.
These awful proceedings occurred almost daily, and were conducted with the absolute uniformity which characterised the system of Noulton Farm. At eleven o’clock the cold voice of the Sergeant-Major called “Tony!” and Tony appeared, writhing and whimpering by anticipation.
“My cane,” said the master, stepping into the room which he called the workshop, where the organ, half finished, stood, stop-diapason, dulciana, and the rest in deal rows, with white chips, chisels, lead, saws, and glue-pots, in industrious disorder, round. Then Tony’s pale, miserable face was seen in the “parlour,” and Miss Mary would look down on the floor in pale silence, and our little friend’s heart would flutter over his lesson-book as he saw the lank boy steal over to the chimney-piece, and take down the cane, and lingeringly disappear.
Then was heard the door of the workshop close, and then very faint the cold clear voice of the master. Then faint and slow the measured cut of the cane, and the whine of the boy rising to a long hideous yell, and, “Oh, sir, dear—oh, sir, dear; oh, Mr. Archdale, oh, master, dear, oh, master, dear!” And this sometimes so protracted that Mary used to get up and walk round the room in a kind of agony whispering—“Oh, poor boy. Oh, poor Tony. Oh mercy—oh goodness. Oh! my good Lord, when will it be over!” And, sitting apart, the little boy’s eyes as they followed her would fill with tears of horror.
The little fellow said lessons to Mr. Archdale. There was nothing unreasonable in their length, and his friend Mary helped him. It was well for him, however, that he was a bright little fellow, with a good memory, for the Sergeant was not a teacher to discriminate between idleness and dulness.
No one ever heard Mr. Archdale use a violent expression, or utter a curse. He was a silent, cold, orderly person, and I think the most cruel man I ever saw in my life.
He had a small active horse, and a gig, in which he drove upon his outdoor business. He had fixed days and hours for everything, except where he meditated a surprise.
One day the Sergeant-Major entered the room where the boy was reading at his lessons, and, tapping him on the shoulder, put the county newspaper into his hand; and, pointing to a paragraph, desired him to read it, and left the room.
It was a report of the proceedings against Tom Orange, and gave a rather disreputable character of that amusing person. There was a great pain at the boy’s affectionate heart as he read the hard words dealt to his old friend, and worse still, the sentence. He was crying silently when the Sergeant returned. That stern man took the paper, and said in his cold, terrible tones—
“You’ve read that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And understand it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If I find you speaking to Thomas Orange, I’ll tie you up in the workshop, and give you five dozen.” And with this promise he serenely left him.
Children are unsuspicious of death, and our little friend, who every night used to cry in his bed silently, with a bursting heart, thinking of his mammy and old happy times, till he fell asleep in the dark, never dreamed that his poor friend Mary was dying—she, perhaps, herself did not think so any more than he, but every one else said it.
They two grew to be great friends. Each had a secret, and she trusted hers to the little friend whom God had sent her.
It was the old story—the troubled course of true love. Willie Fairlace was the hero. The Sergeant-Major had found it all out, and locked up his daughter, and treated her, it was darkly rumoured, with cruel severity.
He was proud of his daughter’s beauty, and had ambitious plans, I dare say; and he got up Willie’s farm, and Willie was ruined, and had enlisted and was gone.
The Sergeant-Major knew the post-office people in the village, and the lovers dared not correspond directly. But Willie’s cousin, Mrs. Page, heard from him regularly, and there were long messages to Mary. His letters were little else. Andnow at lasthad come a friend to bear her messages to trusty Mrs. Page, and to carry his back again to Noulton Farm.
After her father had gone out, or in the evening when he was at the organ in the “workshop,” and sometimes as, wrapped in her cloak, on a genial evening, she sat on the rustic seat under the great ash tree, and the solemn and plaintive tones of the distant organ floated in old church music from the open window through the trees and down the fragrant field toward the sunset sky, filling the air with grand and melancholy harmony, she would listen to that whispered message of the boy’s, looking far away, and weeping, and holding the little fellow’s hand, and asking him to say it over again, and telling him she felt better, and thanking him, and smiling and crying bitterly.
One evening the Sergeant was at his organ-pipes as usual. The boy as he stood in the garden at his task, watering the parched beds, heard a familiar laugh at the hedge, and the well-known refrain—
“Tag-rag-merry-derry-perrywig and hatband-hic-hoc-horum-genetivo!”
“Tag-rag-merry-derry-perrywig and hatband-hic-hoc-horum-genetivo!”
“Tag-rag-merry-derry-perrywig and hatband-hic-hoc-horum-genetivo!”
It was Tom Orange himself!
In spite of his danger the boy was delighted. He ran to the hedge, and he and Tom, in a moment more, were actually talking.
It became soon a very serious conversation. The distant booming of the organ-pipes assured him that the light grey eye and sharp ear of the Sergeant were occupied still elsewhere.
Tom Orange was broaching a dreadful conspiracy.
It was no less than that the boy should meet him at the foot of the field where the two oziers grow, at eleven o’clock, on the night following, and run away with him, and see mammy again, and come to a nice place where he should be as happy as the day is long, and mammy live with him always, and Tom look in as often as his own more important business would permit.
“I will, Tom,” said the boy, wildly and very pale.
“And oh! Tom, I was so sorry about the trial, and what lies they told,” said the boy, after they had talked a little longer; “and saying that you had been with gipsies, and were a poacher; and oh! Tom, is mammy quite well?”
“Yes.”
“And all my ships were lost on the moor; and how is little Toozie the cat?”
“Very well; blooming—blushing.”
“And, Tom,youare quite well?”
“Never better, as I lately told Squire Harry Fairfield; and mind ye, I’ll be even yet with the old boy in there,” and he indicated the house with a jerk of his thumb.
“I don’t hear the organ, Tom. Good-bye.”
And Tom was off in a moment, and the boy had resumed his watering-pot. And that evening he sat down with, for the first time, a tremendous secret at his heart.
There was one grief even in the hope of his liberation. When he looked at poor Mary, and thought how lonely she would be. Oh! if poor Mary could come with him! But some time or other he and Tom would come and take her away, and she would live with him and mammy, and be one of that happy family.
She did not know what thoughts were in the boy’s mind as his sad earnest eyes were fixed on her, and she smiled with a little languid nod.
But he need not have grieved his gentle heart on this account. There was not to be a seeming desertion of his friend; nor anything she could mistake for a treacherous slight.
That morning, at two o’clock, Mary died.
About ten minutes before, an alarm from the old servant, who slept in the room, called up her father.
Her faithful little friend was on his knees sobbing beside the bed, with her wasted hand in his, as the Sergeant-Major, hastily dressed, walked in, and stood by the curtain looking down into those large, deep eyes. She was conscious, though she could not speak. She saw, as she looked up her last look, a few sullen drops gather in those proud eyes, and roll down his cheeks. Perhaps the sad, wondering look with which she returned these signs of tenderness, smote him, and haunted him afterwards. There was a little motion in her right hand as if she would have liked him to take it—in sign of reconciliation—and with those faint tokens of the love that might have been, the change of death came, and the troubled little heart was still, and the image of Willie Fairlace was lost in the great darkness.
Then the little boy cried aloud wildly—
“Oh! Mary, pretty Mary. Oh! Mary, are you dead? Oh! isn’t it a pity; isn’t it a pity! Oh! is she dead?”
The Sergeant dried his eyes hastily. He hoped, I dare say, that no one had seen his momentary weakness. He drew a long breath. With a stern face he closed the pretty eyes that Willie Fairlace, far away now, will never forget; and closed the little mouth that never will complain, or sigh, or confess its sad tale more.
“You had better get to your room, boy. Get to your bed,” said the Sergeant, not ungently laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll take cold. Give him a candle.”
Thenext day the Sergeant was away in his gig to Wyvern, a long journey, to report to the Squire, and obtain leave of absence from his duties for a day or two. He was to spend that night at Hatherton, there to make arrangements about the funeral.
It was a relief to all at Noulton Farm, I need hardly say, when the master of the house was away.
A very sad day it was for the boy; a day whose gloom was every now and then crossed by the thrill and fear of a great excitement.
As evening darkened he went out again to the garden in the hope of seeing Tom Orange. He would have liked that cheer at the eve of his great venture. But Tom was not there. Neither counsel nor encouragement to be heard; nothing but the song of the small birds among the leaves, and the late flowers, soon to close, peeping from among the garden plants, and the long quiet shadows of the poplars that stood so tall and still against the western sky.
The boy came in and had his lonely cup of tea in the “parlour,” and a little talk with the somewhat sour and sad old servant. He was longing for the night. Yearning to see Tom’s friendly face and to end his suspense.
At last the twilight was gone. The night had indeed come, and the moon shone serenely over the old gray roof and the solemn trees; over the dead and the living.
The boy lay down in his bed at the accustomed early hour. The old woman had taken away his candle and shut the door. He lay with his eyes wide open listening with a palpitating heart for every sound.
The inflexible regularity which the absent master had established in his household was in the boy’s favour. He heard the servant shut and bar the outer door at the wonted hour. He saw the boy’s candle in his window for a while and then put out. Tony was in his bed, and for tired Tony to lie down was generally to be asleep.
Peeping stealthily from his lattice he saw the old servant’s candle glimmering redly through the window on the juniper that stood near the wall in the shadow; and soon that light also disappeared, and he knew that the old woman had gone into her room. It was half-past ten. She would be asleep in a quarter of an hour, and in another fifteen minutes his critical adventure would have commenced.
Stealthily, breathlessly, he dressed. His window looked toward the ozier trees, where Tom was to await him. It opened, lattice fashion, with a hinge.
Happily the night was still, and the process of preparing to descend perfectly noiseless. The piece of old rope that lay in the corner he had early fixed on as his instrument of escape. He made it fast to the bed-post, and began to let himself down the wall. The rope was too short, and he dangled in air from the end of it for a second or two, and then dropped to the ground. The distance of the fall, though not much, was enough to throw him from his feet, and the dog in the lock-up yard at the other side of the house began to bark angrily. For a minute the boy gave himself up.
He lay, however, perfectly still, and the barking subsided. There was no other alarm, and he stole very softly away under cover of the trees, and then faster down the slope toward the appointed oziers.
There indeed was Tom Orange in that faint light, more solemn than he ever remembered to have seen him before. Tom was thinking that the stealing away this boy might possibly turn out the most serious enterprise he had yet engaged in.
He had no notion, however, of receding, and merely telling the boy to follow him, he got into a swinging trot that tried the little fellow’s endurance rather severely. I think they ran full three miles before Tom came to a halt.
Then, more like himself, he inquired how he was, and whether he thought he could go on fifteen miles more that night.
“Oh, yes, he could do anything that night. Quite well.”
“Well, walk a bit that you may get breath, and then we’ll run again,” said Tom, and so they set forward once more.
They had now accomplished about four miles more. The little fellow was not so fresh as at starting. A drizzling rain, too, had commenced, with a cold change of wind, and altogether the mere adventure of running away was not quite so pleasant, nor even Tom’s society quite so agreeable on the occasion, as he had fancied.
“You have done four out of the fifteen; you have only eleven of the fifteen before you now. You have got over seven altogether up to this. Not so bad. You’re not tired, youngster?”
“Not the least.”
“That’s right. You’re a good soldier. Now come, we’ll stand close under this hedge and eat a bit.”
They supped very heartily on great slices of bread and corned beef, which bore ample traces of the greens in which it had been served when hot.
“And now, boy, you must get on to Hatherton by yourself, for I’m known about here, and there’s a fair there in the morning, and there will be people on the way before light. You must go a mile beyond the town, to the George public. Mrs. Gumford keeps it, and there I’ll meet you.” Then he detailed the route and the landmarks for the boy’s guidance. “Take a drink of this,” said he, pulling a soda-water bottle full of milk out of his coat pocket.
And when he had done—
“Take a mouthful of this, my hero, it will keep you warm.”
And he placed a flask of brandy to the boy’s lips, and made him swallow a little.
“And here’s a bit more bread, if you should be hungry. Good-night, and remember.”
After about an hour’s solitary walking, the boy began to grow alarmed. Tom’s landmarks failed him, and he began to fear that he had lost his way. In half an hour more he was sure that he was quite out of his reckoning, and as his spirits sank he began to feel the cold wind and drenching rain more and more.
And now he found himself entering a town not at all answering Tom’s description of Hatherton.
The little town was silent, its doors and windows shut, and all except a few old-fashioned oil-lamps dark.
After walking listlessly about—afraid to knock and ask anywhere for shelter—worn out, he sat down on a door-step. He leaned back and soon fell fast asleep.
A shake by the shoulder roused him. A policeman was stooping over him.
“I say, get up out o’ that,” said the imperious voice of the policeman.
The boy was not half awake; he stared at him, his big face and leather-bound chimney-pot looked like a dream.
“I say,” he continued, shaking him, but not violently, “you must get up out o’ that. You’re not to be making yourself comfortable there all night. Come, be lively.”
Comfortable! Lively!—all comparative—all a question of degrees.
The boy got up as quickly as the cold and stiffness of his joints would let him.
Very dutifully he got up, and stood drenched, pale, and shivering in the moonlight.
The policeman looked down not unkindly now, at the little wayfarer. There was something piteous, I dare say. He looked a grave, thoughtful man, of more than fifty, and he put his hand on the child’s shoulder.
“Ye see, boy, that was no place to sleep in.”
“No, sir, I’ll never do it again, sir, please.”
“You’re cold; you’d get pains in your bones.”
“I’ll not any more, sir, please.”
“Come with me, my boy, it’s only a step.”
He brought the boy into his house down the lane close by.
“There’s a fire. You warm yourself. There’s my little one in fever, so you can’t stop long. Sit down, child, and warm yourself.”
He gave him a drink of hot milk and a piece of bread.
“You don’t get up, you know; there’s no need,” he added.
I think he was afraid of his pewter spoons. He kept the little fellow nearly half an hour, and he lent him an old bottomless sack to wrap about his shoulders, and charged him to bring it back in the morning. I think the man thought he might be a thief. He was a kind man—there was a balancing of great pity and suspicion.
The boy returned the sack with many thanks, in the first faint twilight of morning, and set forth again for Hatherton. It was, the fellow who directed him said, still five miles on.
At about a mile from Hatherton, cold and wet, and fearing to be too early at the George Inn, the rendezvous agreed on, the tired little fellow crept in, cold and wet, to a road-side pot-house.
At the fire of the ale-house three fellows were drinking beer. Says one who had now and then had his eye on the boy—
“That boy there has run away from school.”
I cannot describe the terror with which the little fellow heard those words. The other two looked at him. One was a fat fellow in breeches and top boots, and a red cloth waistcoat, and a ruddy good-humoured face; and after a look they returned to their talk; and in a little while the lean man, who seemed to find it hard to take his eyes off him, said, “That’s a runaway, that chap; we ought to tell the police and send him back to school.”
“Well, that’s no business of ours; can’t you let him be?” said the red waistcoat.
“Come here,” said the lean man, beckoning him over with his hard eye on him.
He rose and slowly approached under that dreadful command.
I can’t say that there was anything malevolent in that man’s face. Somewhat sharp and stern, with a lean inflexibility of duty. To the boy at this moment no face could have been imagined more terrific; his only hope was in his fat companion. He turned, I am sure, an imploring look upon him.
“Come, Irons, let the boy alone, unless ye mean to quarrel wi’ me; d—— me yeshalllet him alone! And get him his breakfast of something hot, and be lively,” he called to the people; “and score it up to me.”
So, thanks to the good Samaritan in top boots and red waistcoat, the dejected little man pursued his way comforted.
As he walked through Hatherton he was looking into a shop window listlessly, when he distinctly saw, reflected in the plate glass, that which appalled him so that he thought he should have fainted.
It was the marble, blue-chinned face of the Sergeant-Major looking over his shoulder, with his icy gray eyes, into the same window.
He was utterly powerless to move. His great eyes were fixed on that dreadful shadow. He was actually touching his shoulder as he leaned over. Happily the Sergeant did not examine the reflection, which he would have been sure to recognise. The bird fascinated by the cold eye of a snake, and expecting momentarily, with palpitating heart, the spring of the reptile, may feel, when, withdrawing the spell, it glides harmlessly away, as the boy did when he saw that dreaded man turn away and walk with measured tread up the street. For a moment his terror was renewed, for Bion, that yellow namesake of the philosopher, recognising him, stood against the boy’s leg, and scratched repeatedly, and gave him a shove with his nose, and whimpered. The boy turned quickly, and walking away the dog left him, and ran after his master, and took his place at his side.
Atthe George Inn, a little way out of Hatherton, the boy, to his inexpressible delight, at last found Tom Orange.
He told Tom at once of his adventure at the shop window, and the occurrence darkened Tom’s countenance. He peeped out and took a long look toward Hatherton.
“Put the horse to the fly and bring it round at once,” said Tom, who put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a rather showy handful of silver.
I don’t pretend to say, when Tom was out of regular employment, from what pursuits exactly he drew his revenue. They had rather improved than otherwise; but I dare say there were anxious compensations.
The boy had eaten his breakfast before he reached Hatherton. So much the better; for the apparition of the Sergeant-Major would have left him totally without appetite. As it was, he was in an agony to be gone, every moment expecting to see him approach the little inn to arrest him and Tom.
Tom Orange was uneasy, I am sure, and very fidgety till the fly came round.
“You know Squire Fairfield of Wyvern?” said the hostess, while they were waiting.
“Ay,” said Tom.
“Did you hear the news?”
“What is it?”
“Shot the night before last in a row with poachers. Gentlemen should leave that sort o’ work to their keepers; but they was always a fightin’ wild lot, them Fairfields; and he’s lyin’ now a dead man—all the same—gave over by Doctor Willett and another—wi’ a whole charge o’ duck-shot lodged under his shoulder.”
“And that’s the news?” said Tom, raising his eyes and looking through the door. He had been looking down on the ground as Mrs. Gumford of the George told her story.
“There’s sharp fellows poachers round there, I’m told,” he said, “next time he’d a’ been out himself with the keepers to take ’em dead or alive. I suppose that wouldn’t answerthem.”
“’Tis a wicked world,” said the lady.
“D——d wicked,” said Tom. “Here’s the fly.”
In they got and drove off.
Tom was gloomy, and very silent.
“Tom, where are we going to?” asked the boy at last.
“All right,” said Tom. “All right, my young master. You’ll find it’s to none but good friends. And, say now—Haven’t I been a good friend to you, Master Harry, all your days, sir? Many a mile that you know nothing about has Tom Orange walked on your business, and down to the cottage and back again; and where would you or her have been if it wasn’t for poor Tom Orange?”
“Yes, indeed, Tom, and I love you, Tom.”
“And now, I’ve took you away from that fellow, and I’m told I’m likely to be hanged for it. Well, no matter.”
“Oh, Tom; poor Tom! Oh! no, no, no!” and he threw his arms round Tom’s neck in a paroxysm of agonised affection, and, in spite of the jolting, kissed Tom; sometimes on the cheek, on the eyebrow, on the chin, and in a great jolt violently on the rim of his hat, and it rolled over his shoulder under their feet.
“Well, that is gratifyin’,” said Tom, drying his eyes. “There is some reward forprencipleafter all, and if you come to be a great man some o’ these days, you’ll not forget poor Tom Orange, that would have spent his last bob and spilt his heart’s blood, without fee or reward, in your service.”
Another explosion of friendship from the boy assured Tom of his eternal gratitude.
“Do you know this place, sir?” asked Tom, with a return of his old manner, as making a sudden turn the little carriage drove through an open gate, and up to a large old-fashioned house. A carriage was waiting at the door.
There could be no mistake. How delightful! and who was that? Mammy! at the hall door, and in an instant they were locked in one another’s arms, and “Oh! the darlin’,” and “Mammy, mammy, mammy!” were the only words audible, half stifled in sobs and kisses.
In a minute more there came into the hall—smiling, weeping, and with hands extended toward him, the pretty lady dressed in black, and her weeping grew into a wild cry, as coming quickly she caught him to her heart. “My darling, my child, my blessed boy, you’re the image—Oh! darling, I loved you the moment I saw you, and now I know it all.”
The boy was worn out. His march, including his divergence from his intended route, had not been much less than thirty miles, and all in chill and wet.
They got him to his bed and made him thoroughly comfortable, and with mammy at his bedside, and her hand, to make quite sure of her, fast in his, he fell into a deep sleep.
Alice had already heard enough to convince her of the boy’s identity, but an urgent message from Harry, who was dying, determined her to go at once to Wyvern to see him, as he desired. So, leaving the boy in charge of “mammy,” she was soon on her way to the old seat of the Fairfields.
If Harry had not known that he was dying, no power could ever have made him confess the story he had to tell.
There were two points on which he greatly insisted.
The first was, that believing that his brother was really married to Bertha Velderkaust, he was justified in holding that his nephew had no legal right to succeed.
The second was, that he had resolved, although he might have wavered lately a little, never to marry, and to educate the boy better than ever he was educated himself, and finally to make him heir to Wyvern, pretending him to be an illegitimate son of his own.
Whether the Sergeant-Major knew more than he was ordered or undertook to know, he never gave the smallest ground to conjecture. He stated exactly what had passed between him and Harry Fairfield. By him he was told that the child which was conveyed to Marjory Trevellian’s care was his own unacknowledged son.
On the very same evening, and when old Mildred Tarnley was in the house at Twyford, was a child taken, with the seeds of consumption already active in it, from a workhouse in another part of England and placed there as the son of Charles Fairfield and Alice. It was when, contrary to all assurances, this child appeared for a few days to rally, and the situation consequent on its growing up the reputed heir to Wyvern alarmed Harry, that he went over, in his panic, to the Grange, and there opened his case, that the child at Twyford was a changeling, and not his brother’s son.
When, however, the child began to sink, and its approaching death could no longer be doubtful, he became, as we have seen, once more quite clear that the baby was the same which he had taken away from Carwell Grange.
Dr. Willett’s seeing the child so often at Twyford, also prevented suspicion, though illogically enough, for had they reflected they might easily have remembered that the doctor had hardly seen the child twice after its birth while at the Grange, and that, like every one else, he took its identity for granted when he saw it at Twyford.
Alice returned greatly agitated late that evening. No difficulty any longer remained, and the boy, with ample proof to sustain his claim, was accepted as the undoubted heir to Wyvern, and the representative of the ancient family of Fairfield.
The boy, Henry Fairfield, was as happy as mortal can be, henceforward. His little playmate, the pretty little girl whom Alice had adopted, who called her “mamma,” and yet was the daughter of a distant cousin only, has now grown up, and is as a girl even more beautiful than she was as a child. Henry will be of age in a few months, and they are then to be married. They now reside at Wyvern. The estate, which has long been at nurse, is now clear, and has funded money beside.
Everything promises a happy and a prosperous reign for the young Fairfield.
Mildred Tarnley, very old, is made comfortable at Carwell Grange.
Good old Dulcibella is still living, very happy, and very kind, but grown a little huffy, being perhaps a little over petted. In all other respects, the effect of years being allowed for, she is just what she always was.
Tom Orange, with a very handsome sum presented by those whom he had served, preferred Australia to the old country.
Harry Fairfield had asserted, in his vehement way, while lying in his last hours at Wyvern, that the fellow with the handkerchief over his face who shot him was, he could all but swear, his old friend Tom Orange.
Tom swore that had he lived he would have prosecuted him for slander. As it is, that eccentric genius has prospered as the proprietor of a monster tavern at Melbourne, where there is comic and sentimental singing, and some dramatic buffooneries, and excellent devilled kidneys and brandy.
Marjory Trevellian lives with the family at Wyvern, and I think if kind old Lady Wyndale were still living the consolations of Alice would be nearly full.
[The End]
The three volume edition published by Tinsley Brothers (London, 1869) was referenced for many of the fixes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g.Alley/Allie/Ally, tea-things/tea things, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Assorted punctuation corrections.
Some images were relocated nearer the scene they depict.
[Chapter V]
Change “the old fellow with amulberry colouredface” tomulberry-coloured.
[Chapter VI]
(which he still called the “harpischord.”) toharpsichord.
“I’ll gi’e ye the jewellery—dy’ehear?” tod’ye.
[Chapter VIII]
“of a a saturnine and sulky sort” delete onea.
[Chapter IX]
“no use in parting at worse oddsthatwe need” tothan.
[Chapter XIV]
(by-and-by,” helaaghed; “you shall) tolaughed.
[Chapter XV]
“was supposed to cover agreaddeal of” togreat.
“butsomtimesthe thunder and flame”sometimes.
“let me see how long his stick his—his stick and his...” add an m-dash after first instance ofstick.
[Chapter XVI]
“A good house-wife, is she, that’s something,” delete first comma.
[Chapter XVII]
“nothin’ but old’oman’stalesand fribble-frabble” to’oman’s tales.
[Chapter XXI]
“but that’s nothing to dowi’it” towi’ it.
[Chapter XXIV]
“swear that he meant novillany” tovillainy.
“suprisedlean, straight Mrs. Tarnley” tosurprised.
[Chapter XXVI]
“Give it me. Ha, yes, my bibe” addtoafterit.
[Chapter XXVIII]
“thought thatoccuredmore than once” tooccurred.
“was notconcilitated, but disgusted” toconciliated.
[Chapter XXXV]
“I’m thinkin,’ as sound before if ye” attach the apostrophe tothinkinto formthinkin’.
“she heard the click-clack of Mildred’sshoegrow fainter” toshoes.
[Chapter XXXVIII]
“that nervous tremor which is sopleasantto see” tounpleasant.
[Chapter XL]
“and there’s two stoutlad’swi’ him” tolads.
[Chapter XLII]
“I am tired,I butwon’t mind the wine” tobut I.
[Chapter XLVIII]
“Dead men, ’tis an old sayin,’ is kin” attach second appostrophe tosayinto formsayin’.
[Chapter XLIX]
“Mildred had made him—a promise write often” addtoafterpromise.
[Chapter L]
“mud—toohigh: oput your foot on” tohigh to.
[Chapter LI]
“and if try to manage for him I’ll want the best...” addIafterif.
“andyelook out some decent poor body” toye’ll.
“three stops, sir—diapason, principal, dulciana.” addandto the list.
[Chapter LIII]
(“That wouldn’t do nohow,” you know, said Harry) move the right quotation mark to afterknow.
“but one and’tother, both together.” tot’other.
[Chapter LIV]
“Doctor’sWillett says he’ll have it well” toDoctor.
[Chapter LV]
“What the de’il d’ye ye mean, Master Harry?” deleteye.
“in my mind when ask ye to come over” addIafterwhen.
[Chapter LVI]
“There’s bin changes since, and I don’t see why Wyvern should be charged so heavy?” change question mark to a period.
[Chapter LVI]
“Theneighours, great and small,” toneighbours.
[Chapter LIX]
“Yoursomething richer this week than you were” toYou’re.
[Chapter LX]
“and spoke under his breath,andhe groped in this twilight.” toas.
[Chapter LXIII]
“as theSerjeant-Major, hastily dressed” toSergeant-Major.
[Conclusion]
“Many a mile that you nothing about has Tom...” addknowafteryou.
[End of Text]