AT THE COBBLER’S WINDOW SHE STOPPED.
AT THE COBBLER’S WINDOW SHE STOPPED.
“No, thank you, Miss, an’ that I won’t. Mrs. Radford’s just been sayin’ as how they must have cost you fourpence apiece, so really, Miss, I couldn’t eat one of they, no, not if it was ever so.”
“Does Mrs. Radford still think we are rapidly coming to the end of our money?” asked Miss Dorothea.
“Yes, Miss, indeed she does; she says ’tis like Oldham wakes, whatever they be, an’ that it can’t last out.”
“Are you afraid, too?”
“Me afraid? an’ that I’m not, an’ you as always pays over an’ above for what you have.”
Mrs. Tregennis still stood in the doorway, holding the teapot in her right hand, and here Tommy joined her.
“Well, then,” Miss Margaret’s voice was quite pleading, “won’t you have an orange?”
Mrs. Tregennis put the teapot down on the brown tile that served as a stand. “I simply couldn’t, Miss,” she stated emphatically; “it would choke me, that it would.”
“Do you think it would be safe to experiment on Tommy? Tommy, would you choke if you were to eat one of the oranges we bought this afternoon?”
In reply Tommy stretched out both hands for the fruit, and his teeth had met in the thick rind before Mammy could improve his manners.
“An’ what do you say, my son? I’d be ashamed!”
“Thank you,” said Tommy, removing a large piece of orange peel from between his teeth.
“I should say ‘Miss,’ ma lovely,” still corrected Mammy, but by this time a little fountain of sweet, yellow juice spurted upwards from the orange, and Tommy, sucking vigorously, walked away.
Later in the evening, as the ladies were going out once more Mrs. Radford opened her door and beckoned them into the room.
“It was kind of you to ask my babe to drive with you to-morrow,” she said, in her most mincing tones, “but I have always most carefully protected her from the society of common children, and I would rather keep her by my side.”
So the ladies went round to see Auntie Jessie, with the result that in all Draeth no child went to bed that night more happily than Ruthie Tregennis, Tommy’s cousin and future wife.
But Annabel’s pillow was wet!
“I HAVEN’Tforgotten Blue Lady; I haven’t forgotten, please, Miss Margaret, Miss,” and Tommy turned over sleepily in bed, then wakened, yawned, rubbed his eyes and sat upright.
“What sort o’ weather, Daddy?” he demanded. “Is’t sun an’ fine?”
It was.
Tommy then called down to Mammy in the kitchen, pleading to be dressed at once, so as to be ready when the gingle came. Mammy got out his brown jersey suit.
“Miss Margaret said old clothes, Mammy, so I shan’t wear ’e.”
“You’ll do they no harm, and you’ll just wear ’em.”
“I wants my old clothes, Mammy, where be ’em. Miss Margaret said old clothes; she said old clothes, Mammy, she did.”
It was not until Miss Margaret approved of the brown jersey suit that Tommy submitted and was dressed.
When he was ready he stood in the doorway, and to every one who passed he shouted the news. “I be goin’ a-drivin’ in a gingle to Polderry.” And to the question, “Who with?” he gave the invariable answer, “With Miss Margaret and Miss Dorothea and Ruthie and me.”
After breakfast the sun was hidden behind a cloud of mist. Tommy and the ladies consulted the glass on the front. It was very high, and all the watermen thought there was no fear of rain. Then Mrs. Tregennis packed the luncheon basket, and Tommy wished it was ten o’clock.
Miss Margaret had a happy thought, and suggested that they should go across to West Draeth and themselves bring round the gingle for Miss Dorothea and Ruthie. This was a grand idea. Hurriedly Mrs. Tregennis put on Tommy’s boots and ran upstairs for his warm coat and his cap.
Miss Margaret and Tommy crossed the river by the ferry for quickness. “If you like, Tommy, you shall help me to hold the reins and to drive,” promised Miss Margaret.
“If it be all the same to ee I’d rather have the whip,” was the reply.
“But why?”
“For to hit ’en.”
“But he won’t want hitting,” objected Miss Margaret. “I expect he’ll trot along awfully well and won’t want any hitting at all.”
Tommy looked unconvinced, and as they left the boat at the slip he turned the conversation into other channels. “Lugger a-buildin’ over there,” he pointed with his thumb. “Must be for West Draeth as ’tis on that side. I seen one lanch one evenin’ an’ one lanch the next.”
By the time Tommy had imparted all he knew of boatbuilding and launches they had reached Mr.Chard’s door. The gingle was already outside, and while the pony was being brought round a small crowd of boys collected and watched with interest.
“Hallo, Tommy Tregennis.”
“Hallo!”
“What be a-doin’ over here, Tommy; ain’t there room for ee to East Draeth?”
“Goin’ to Polderry,” said Tommy, proudly, and fell into the gingle as he spoke.
“Do these boys go to school with you, Tommy?” and Tommy told Miss Margaret that they did.
“They West Drayers do play their own side evenin’s,” he explained, “when they comes over to we they comes with their mothers an’ just sits on our sands, an’ that do be just so good as nothin’, that be.”
From every doorway people came out to see the start of the gingle for Polderry. Everybody waved and everybody shouted, and it was for all the world like a Sunday-school treat. Near the Post Office a louder cry than ever came from Tommy and was at once echoed by Ruthie, and both children rose up and waved their long white mufflers.
“We’m goin’ to Polderry; we’m goin’ to Polderry.”
Miss Margaret’s whole attention was taken up with the astonished pony, but, far away in the distance, standing on the quay, Miss Dorothea descried the figure of Uncle Harry and Uncle Harry was waving and shouting too.
Polderry was only five miles off along the cliff, but in driving you cover nearly twice that distance in order to have a better road. Miss Margaret had beendirected to go past the station, up by the golf-links, through St Peter’s and along the main road to Esselton, then they were to turn off to the right down the beautiful Brenton Valley and so to Polderry.
In the gingle Tommy sat up near the horse on the right-hand side with Miss Margaret next to him. Opposite Tommy was Miss Dorothea, so that Ruthie was near the door facing Miss Margaret. The reins, therefore, passed in front of Tommy, and suddenly he clutched them very tight while they were driving through the town, with the result that Jimmy, the pony, swerved to the left and almost ran into the corner of the bridge. Miss Margaret told him that he should help to drive when they were up on the wide country road, and very reluctantly Tommy let go. It was both surprising and disappointing when immediately afterwards Tommy again seized the reins, this time so tightly that it was with difficulty that his fingers were unclasped.
“You must be quite obedient,” Miss Margaret reminded him.
So little, however, did Tommy realize what was meant by obedience that scarcely had she finished speaking than he again seized the reins with both hands, while a naughty look of defiance appeared on his face.
After this there was distinct depression in the gingle until Ruthie’s shrill, bright voice pierced the gloom.
“There do be a nest on that wall under the ivy,” she said, very confidentially. “’Tis a brave, big secret, an’ no-one knows of it at all except only me an’Tommy, an’ my daddy an’ mammy, an’ his daddy an’ mammy, ’n Aunt Keziah Kate an’ Granfäather Tregennis.”
“Just a family secret,” interposed Miss Margaret. “And what sort of a nest is it?”
“I don’t know what sort o’ nest it be. It do be a very nice little tight nest, an’ ’tis quite empty this little nest, but I don’t know what kind of nest ’e do be; just little an’ tight.”
Tommy disliked being ignored. “It hasn’t got no eggs in it, ’tis empty; ef there was eggs in ’eIshould know what ’twas.”
“My daddy, he knows of a nest up here wanst,” Ruthie continued, “that had twelve eggs in it, twelve speckly eggs.”
“Oh, Ruthie, as many as twelve?”
“Yes, just so many as twelve.”
“But what a very improvident mother-bird!” Miss Margaret objected. “How would she ever manage to feed twelve babies? And think of the very hard work it would be for the father to teach twelve children-birds to sing.”
All this time Jimmy was pulling his load uphill, trotting every now and again, as though he were thoroughly enjoying the morning’s work.
When the top of the hill was in sight, “Which way do we turn, to the right or to the left, Tommy?” asked Miss Dorothea.
“To the left,” replied Tommy, without hesitation.
“How do you know which is your right hand and which is your left?”
Tommy became most communicative. “Why, I writes with my right hand over to school. There be two girls an’ one boy in the second class as writes with their left hand, so they can’t never tell. I wrote my name wanst six times on one side of my slate and six times on the other, an’ it was so lovely I had to bring it home to show Mammy, Miss Lavinia said. ’Twas brave an’ handsome, it was!”
“What be they white flowers?” interrupted Ruthie.
“Stitchwort,” the ladies answered.
“’Tisn’t, ’tis cat’s eyes!” contradicted Tommy.
“Hush, Tommy,” said Ruthie, “you’m a naughty boy. My mammy always calls they ‘rattle-baskets’ because it do rattle so when ’tis dry.”
Ruthie’s last words came spasmodically, for Tommy had unexpectedly leaned forward over the splashboard and hit Jimmy on the back with his white muffler. It had been a great disappointment to Tommy to find, when they started, that there was no whip in the gingle, and that the pleasure of hittin’ ’en was not to be his. Realizing that the muffler would make a fairly good substitute, he used it with such effect that the startled pony broke into a quick gallop, and the ladies and Ruthie were jerked backwards in their seats.
When Miss Margaret had quietened the pony she spoke very seriously to Tommy.
Jimmy proved an unusually good pony for steep hills, taking them at a brisk trot. Going downhill, however, he was cautious and picked his way most carefully. Half-way down a steep, rough road Tommyagain used his muffler as a whip. Then Miss Margaret was quite angry. As she felt that more words were useless, she merely loosened the muffler from his tight grasp and put it in the corner near the lunchbasket, where Ruthie sat.
It was most perplexing and embarrassing to have one’s principal guest in constant need of correction.
Tommy was evidently quite surprised at Miss Margaret’s decided action in the matter of the muffler, and for some moments afterwards sat silent and subdued. Then slowly, very slowly, his left hand stole towards her disengaged right resting upon the cushion. This seemed a sign of repentance on Tommy’s part, and Miss Margaret’s fingers closed tightly over his as she smiled across at Miss Dorothea.
Her happiness in Tommy’s regeneration was short-lived. Snatching his hand away, “Get me some o’ that stuff, Miss Margaret,” he shouted, “get me some o’ that stuff for a whistle.”
“What stuff?”
“Suckymores, suckymores for a whistle.”
They were still driving down the steep, rugged road, so Miss Margaret turned Jimmy to the grass of the hedge-bank and Miss Dorothea, Ruthie and Tommy got out. Miss Dorothea was able to break off some grand sycamore twigs for whistles, enough for all the boys in Miss Lavinia’s school.
“Whoa, Jimmy; steady, Jimmy!” and Miss Margaret pulled hard at the right rein, only just saving Tommy from being knocked down by the wheel and run over.
Tommy tried to look natural and unconcerned, but Miss Dorothea had seen the cause of Jimmy’s start. Tommy had picked up a hazel switch and, thinking himself unobserved, had hit the pony sharply on the flank.
It seemed quite useless to reprove him any more, so Miss Margaret sternly ordered him to return to the gingle. This he obstinately refused to do. He was goin’ to walk for a bit, he was goin’ to run on behind, he was. When Miss Dorothea walked towards him he ran away. He was literally lifted into the gingle, and then sat in Miss Dorothea’s place, refusing to move, as he wished to be next to Ruthie. Ruthie herself explained to him that in that way the balance would be all wrong, but he still remained obdurate. Once more he was lifted up and put into his proper place.
Then, although Miss Margaret took the reins, she did not drive on. Instead, “Miss Dorothea,” she said, “shall we go on to Polderry, or shall we drive straight back home?”
“Oh, Miss Margaret,” pleaded Ruthie, “please, please, go on! don’t ee go home. Tommywillbe a good boy, won’t ee now, Tommy?”
Tommy shook his head affirmatively.
“Well,” said Miss Margaret, “you must quite understand that if we go on you are to be good. If you are naughty again I shall turn Jimmy round and drive home at once.”
Unfortunately Tommy was used to threats that were seldom carried out. The policeman would comefor him, Mammy said, when he was naughty, and, although he had often been really quite naughty, still the policeman had not come. At other times he was told that he would be sent to London to live with the monkeys in the Zoo. At first this possibility had filled him with dread, but now familiarity had blunted the sharp edge of fear.
Something in Miss Margaret’s manner, however, warned him that hers was not an idle speech, and he decided that he must be really careful for the rest of the drive.
A little farther on, down the same hilly part of the main road, a lady approached them. “Have you just come through a village?” she asked, as they were passing by.
They had noticed on the right, down a side road, a few scattered houses, but scarcely thought it could be called a village.
“Had it any shops or a garage?” she asked again, and seemed disheartened when they told her that there were no shops nearer than Draeth, five miles away.
Afterwards they understood her anxiety, for right in the middle of the roadway stood a big, immovable motor. Two men were crawling under its body, and Miss Margaret had to call out sharply to one of them to withdraw his feet before she could drive Jimmy and the gingle past.
At Polderry it was decided that the very first thing to do was to eat the lunch that Mrs. Tregennis had packed in the big round basket.
When Tommy and Ruthie found that the yellow part of their eggs was green outside they were much surprised.
“Be they raw?” asked Tommy.
“Hard-boiled,” answered Miss Dorothea, and Tommy ate his egg quickly, all by itself.
After this he gave back his slice of bread and butter. “Don’t want ’e now, I wants a piece of cake.”
“You must eat the bread and butter first,” he was told.
“No, shan’t,” he said, and passed it on to Ruthie, who could not take it from him because Miss Margaret shook her head.
“Shan’teat’en,” Tommy stated, emphatically.
But this was a case in which Miss Margaret undoubtedly held the upper hand. She made no reply to Tommy’s assertion, and when he tried to extract a piece of cake from the basket it was placed beyond his reach.
“Shan’teat ’en,” he said again, but again no notice was taken of his words. Defiantly he picked up the bucket and spade and began to dig in the sand.
A tempting row of Cornish splits, halved and spread with jam and cream, was prepared by Miss Dorothea.
Tommy soon returned. “Can I have a split, please?” he asked, in quite a different voice.
“Yes,” he was promised, “as soon as ever the bread and butter’s eaten.”
He shook his head, and almost at once asked again, “Pleasecan I have a split, ’n jam ’n cream?”
“Tommy,” said Miss Margaret, very definitely, “don’t be such a foolish boy. Until you have eaten the bread and butter you can have nothing else. Try to understand that I mean that.”
Tommy’s hands hung limply at his sides. He gazed in open-mouthed amazement at Miss Margaret. She did really and truly mean it, he supposed. It was very odd and very surprising, and he picked up the rejected bread and butter and slowly began to eat.
“Oh, my cake,” exclaimed Ruthie, as half a slice of saffron-cake broke in her hand and fell into the sand.
“You can’t eat that now, Ruthie,” laughed Miss Margaret, as she was about to pick it up. “It will be much too gritty.”
Then Miss Margaret realized that she had made a grave tactical error, for at once Tommy’s bread and butter fell at his feet.
“That must be eaten,” said Miss Margaret quickly, and Tommy put his heel upon it and ground it deep down in the sand. Out of the corners of his eyes he glanced at Miss Margaret, but apparently she was quite unaware of his action, so he sidled up to her and once more pleaded for a split.
At this point, with disconcerting suddenness, the rain began to fall. Hastily the luncheon basket was repacked and Miss Margaret, Miss Dorothea and Ruthie ran to the shelter of a coach-house near by, where they were given permission to stay. Tommy remained behind and resumed his digging in the sand. When no notice was taken of his absence, hedecided that making castles in the rain was poor sport. Accordingly he rejoined his party and found them merrily continuing the interrupted lunch.
Confidently he approached Miss Margaret, asking for “a split an’ cream, please.”
“But I can’t give you a split,” she said, “you were to have it when you’d eaten the bread and butter, and not until then.”
“I did eat the bread and butter in my hand.”
“What about the piece in the sand?”
Then Miss Margarethadseen him tread on it: this was unexpected.
“Couldn’t help droppin’ ’e,” he said, now almost tearfully.
“But why did you bury it deep down in the sand?”
“I thought somebody might come along an’ not know, an’ pick ’e up an’ eat ’e, an’ it wouldn’t be nice for they.”
“Very well,” said Miss Margaret, “I’ll give you another piece exactly the same size, and when you’ve eaten that you can have splits and cream and just whatever you like.”
But Tommy refused and kicked a ball savagely round and round the coach-house to soothe his outraged feelings. Violent exercise, however, did not allay his hunger.
“Pleasecan I have a split,” he asked once more.
Without speaking, Miss Margaret offered him a piece of bread and butter exactly the size of that which he had hidden in the sand, and Tommy ate it without remonstrance.
After lunch the picnic-party played ball-games in the roomy coach-house, but when at the end of an hour the rain showed no sign of abating, the ladies, in spite of Ruthie’s earnest pleading, decided that it would be wiser to go home.
Somewhat dejectedly they walked to the inn for the gingle and Jimmy. Tommy brought up the rear, trailing his long spade after him and rattling his bucket against his knees each step he took. “Well,” Miss Dorothea overheard him say, “Well, Ruthie; now this day do be bravely spoiled.”
On the homeward drive Miss Dorothea told the children the history of Little Black Sambo. Then Ruthie told a story in which full-stops occurred in the middle of sentences whenever it was absolutely necessary that she should pause for breath.
“There was wanst a little boy an’ he had a rabbit and it lived in a house in the garden an’ he went up to feed it with green stuff one night an’ he. Left the door open an’ he met a man an’ he said to the man what have you got in your pocket an’ the man said a little rabbit an’ the boy took this little baby rabbit an’ took it to his home because he’d lost his own rabbit. Through leavin’ the door open an’ he met a man an’ he said to the man what’ve you got in your pocket an’ he said a very little bird so he took it to his home and put it in a house in his garden.”
At some length the story went on. Always the boy met a man, and always the man had in his pocket some strange and unexpected animal which the boy took to his home and put in a house in the garden.
But finally, “An’ the boy went out again an’ he met a lady wheelin’ a pram an’ there was a baby in the pram an’ the boy said what’veyougot in your pocket an’ the lady said I haven’t got nothin’ in my pocket an’ neither she hadn’t got nothin’ in her pocket for she only had a little baby an’ the little baby was in the pram.”
Then Ruthie looked round the gingle, smiling, and the wet audience of three, realizing that in this unfinished and unsatisfactory way the story ended, thanked her politely, and wondered whether the boy kept all his new pets safely or whether, like the original rabbit, they too escaped.
Going up the hill from Esselton they again passed the big, immovable car; it was still standing right in the middle of the road. All the passengers sat very closely together under the hood, evidently awaiting relief. Fired by Ruthie’s example, Tommy decided that he, too, would tell a story.
“There was wanst a rabbit—. An’ it went down to the beach—. An’ there was another rabbit, too—. An’ a great, big giant came down—. An’ he took away one of the rabbits, did the giant—. An’ the giant ate it all up.”
They were passing St Peter’s by this time. Draeth and home and Mammy were very near and Tommy felt unhappy inside. “I do be feelin’ brave an’ bad,” he said, lifting tearful eyes to Miss Margaret. But Miss Margaret was busily occupied with the pony and the reins, and had no sympathy to extend to a conscience-stricken boy.
In pelting rain the gingle drew up in front of Mr. Chard’s door. “Been a-sailin’, Tommy Tregennis?” asked some of the West Drayers, but Tommy felt too bad to reply.
“Been a good boy, my lovely?” asked Mammy, as she drew off his boots.
“I dunno!”
“But you must know,” said Mammy, as she buttoned the strap shoes. “Been a good boy?”
There was no answer.
“Well, have you been naughty?” Mammy persisted.
Tommy wriggled down from the chair. “I dunno, and don’t ee bother I no more, Mammy, ask Miss Margaret what I been,” and he ran from the house, unmindful of the rain, to seek the soothing presence of his never-failing admirer, Aunt Keziah Kate.
After tea Mammy had a long and serious talk with the ladies. “’Underds of times,” she admitted, she threatened Tommy, and nothing happened. “When there’s visitors here I feel I must go the easiest way,” she explained.
“He’s too good to be spoiled,” urged Miss Margaret.
“We don’t want to spoil him, Miss, his daddy an’ me, and we must try and be firmer with him, for he do indeed be gettin’ out of hand.”
At six o’clock Miss Margaret heard Tommy go into the bedroom, and soon afterwards there was Mrs. Tregennis’s heavier step on the stairs. There was a rustle of bed clothes and a creaking of springs, and by these signs Miss Margaret knew that Tommy was in bed.
“Tommy,” said Mrs. Tregennis, “do you know why your Mammy do be feelin’ very sad?”
“No Mammy,” was the reply, “but shall us talk a bit about you, when ee was just a very little girl.”
“No, my son,” said Mrs. Tregennis, with great firmness; “we’m not goin’ to talk about me when I was small; we be goin’ to talk about you, instead, my son.”
Then the door was closed and Miss Margaret heard no more.
AFTERthe Polderry picnic the relations between Tommy and his ladies were distinctly strained. In many little ways they worked for his regeneration and tried to bring home to him the enormity of his offences.
On the following day, which was Sunday, he himself showed tact in avoiding the upstairs sitting-room. Mammy brought up the letters and whenever the ladies approached the kitchen they found Tommy fully and unobtrusively occupied with urgent affairs in the corner farthest from the door.
On Monday morning when he was running along the quay from school, his quick eye saw a halfpenny lying in the dust near some drying tackle. This was unprecedented good fortune. It was the first money that Tommy had ever found. After picking it up he looked round for possible claimants, but as none appeared he put it in his pocket and pursued his homeward way.
He found only Mammy indoors. She was very busy just then, and although she was moderately enthusiastic over his find, he felt the need of wider sympathy and ran out into the alley on the off-chance of meeting with Jimmy Prynne.
Jimmy Prynne was not in sight, but coming up from the sea were his ladies. They carried travelling-rugsand books, and were laughing together as they walked. Tommy had always taken them into his confidence at once no matter whether it was in joy or sorrow. To-day he felt an unaccountable diffidence in approaching them.
Somewhat hesitatingly he drew near and their laughter at once ceased. “Found this!” and he held his dusty halfpenny up to view.
Miss Dorothea said nothing, Miss Margaret merely remarked “Oh,” and passed on.
Quite obviously they had not seen his treasure. “’Tis a ’a’penny,” he insisted. “I found ’e on the quay all in a ’eap o’ dust.”
Miss Dorothea passed into the house. Miss Margaret smiled politely, and “Oh,” she said once more.
Tommy was sick at heart. It was as though the very foundations of his world were giving way.
In the matter of finds he seemed to have struck a run of luck, for on Tuesday he came home with a knife picked up on the shingle near the Frying Pan steps. It was an ivory-handled knife and had four blades of different sizes; they were all rusty and all broken.
“I’ll give ee my knife, Daddy,” said Tommy, at tea-time, pushing it across the table.
“Mustn’t do that, must never give nothin’ as cuts.”
“Why?” asked Tommy.
“’Twill cut love. If so be as I took that knife I shouldn’t love ee any more. ’Tis all right if ’e do be bought, so here be a ’a’penny for ee.”
Daddy thrust the knife into his deep, trouser pocket, and Tommy put the halfpenny into his.
Tommy felt that his ladies would surely be interested in this day’s event. There was not only the thrilling incident of the finding of the knife, but there was the subsequent financial transaction with Daddy, and a second halfpenny in his trouser pocket to-day. He poured out his story to them as they were mounting the stairs. To his amazement it left them cold.
When next they passed the kitchen door he entreated his Daddy to show the knife to them, and Tregennis displayed the four broken blades from which he had removed the rust with bits of cinder.
“You will find that most useful, Tregennis,” said Miss Margaret. To Tommy she spoke not at all.
In the doorway she relaxed just a little. “You have really been quite lucky, Tommy,” she remarked, and went with Miss Dorothea down to the sea.
Later the ladies had occasion to buy stamps. Coming from the post-office they saw Tommy sitting on the quay-wall, knocking off bits of mortar with his heels.
“Our one-time friend!” laughed Miss Dorothea, but Miss Margaret looked straight ahead.
When Tommy saw them he slipped from the wall and ran behind them whistling and singing to attract attention. As this proved a dull and ineffectual game he dodged in front kicking an old salmon tin before him as he ran. By the Three Jolly Tars Teddy Falconer was playing. When he saw Tommy he hastily picked up his ball and shrank into the doorway of the inn. Now Tommy would have been distinctly glad for this incident to pass unobserved, butit was at this moment, unluckily, that Miss Margaret became aware of him.
“Why does Teddy look so frightened?” she asked.
“’Tother day I did kick his ball for ’e, and ...” with a dramatic gesture towards the shrinking Teddy, “’e did run into his house to tell his Mammy.”
The look that Miss Margaret gave Tommy showed him that his position was in no wise strengthened. He fell behind and walked home dejectedly to tea.
At half-past six that evening, when the water was high, there was to be a launch, Tregennis said. Miss Dorothea was tired, so Miss Margaret went alone to see the new lugger take the water. She missed the launch because it was all over half-an-hour before she got there, but she found instead, playing on the quay, Mary Sarah and Katie, and the whole Stevenson family.
Of course the Stevensons were there, Mary Sarah explained, for they were the O’Grady’s cousins. Mary Sarah was as much as five, and in virtue of her age she took the lead. Mary Sarah enlightened the others as to the identity of the Lady, and vouched for her respectability, so to speak. The Lady had often spoken to her, she told them with an air of superiority, and she had often spoken to the Lady when the Lady was sittin’ writin’ up on the top o’ the cliffs.
When the conversation dragged a reference was made to sweets, and the whole party repaired to Mrs. Tregennis’s house.
“Mrs. Tregennis,” called out Miss Margaret, “here’s Mary Sarah O’Grady, and Katie O’Grady, and theircousins the Stevensons and me. We’ve all come here for sweets. Have you any to give away?”
There was a blank moment when Mrs. Tregennis announced that she hadn’t got no not one.
Tommy, who was in the kitchen at the time, was delighted to think that sweets were not forthcoming for Mary Sarah and Katie, and the whole family of Stevensons.
Then Miss Margaret brightened up. “I remember!” she said, and ran upstairs two steps at a time.
When she returned she had in her hand a good-sized paper bag which she gave to Mary Sarah.
“Now Mary Sarah,” she admonished; “you share them out, turn and turn about. Be quite fair. They’re such pretty children,” she remarked to Mrs. Tregennis.
“They did oughter be,” was the reply, “for they be Irish to the very finger-tips.”
Miss Margaret again turned to the group of children. “What have you got, Katie?” and Katie withdrew from her mouth a big bull’s-eye.
With bulging cheek, and somewhat inarticulately, Mary Sarah spoke. “Her do have a shocking bad cold,” she said with the wisdom of three times five; “they mints will be brave an’ good for she.”
This incident made a deep impression upon Tommy. So far the ladies had been his own special property; he had shared them quite occasionally with Ruthie, but with her alone. That Mary Sarah and Katie and the Stevensons should adopt them was by no means in accordance with his wishes. Something must bedone, and that something clearly must be the strengthening of his own moral character.
Weeks before Miss Margaret had initiated Tommy into the mysteries of an early morning rite. You first of all clasped hands (right hands it had to be, Tommy’s left was always rejected), and then you said “Good morning,” and smiled, and after that you shook the hands up and down and jumped once to each shake. Both shaking and jumping got quicker and quicker, and at last ended with an abrupt stop, and your arms fell stiffly to your sides.
To Tommy this ceremony had become an integral part of the morning. It was strange, too, how only Miss Margaret knew the proper way. When Miss Dorothea tried to shake hands with him once he found that she had absolutely no knowledge of the right method of procedure and he had been obliged to tell her so.
For three mornings now the ceremony had been neglected. On the Wednesday Tommy determined that it must no longer be omitted, and when he saw Miss Margaret he held out his hand and smiled. Miss Margaret smiled too, took his hand in hers, shook it just once, said “Good morning,” then turned to Mrs. Tregennis and gave orders for the day.
“Why wouldn’t Miss Margaret shake hands with me proper?” he asked afterwards.
“Don’t ee know?” Mammy replied, “I guessIknow. You think, my son.”
So Tommy thought.
There was great excitement in Draeth the next day,for a big Conservative tea-meeting had been arranged for the afternoon, and The Member was to be present.
At one end of the tea-table Mrs. Tregennis presided. She was accompanied by Tommy in the dandy-go-risset sailor suit, and by Tregennis. Tregennis felt very stiff and uncomfortable, for as this was such an important occasion Mrs. Tregennis had decided that he must discard the fisherman’s jersey in favour of his wedding suit. In all the eight years he had been married this suit had not been worn above a dozen times, for, as he declared to Miss Margaret, “It has to be some fine weather, Miss, when I puts on they.”
This afternoon the wedding suit was worn, and Tregennis, Mrs. Tregennis and Tommy sat down to tea with their fellow-Conservatives and with all the quality of Draeth. An excellent tea was provided at sixpence a head; The Member made a few remarks on the political outlook which were well received, and the meeting broke up amid general congratulations. As Mrs. Tregennis explained afterwards to the ladies she herself was not a Conservative, in fact, her father was a Liberal, so if it came to a question of family she was a Liberal too. She knew naught of it, but always hoped that the best man would get in, politics or no politics. Tommy, she supposed, would be brought up as a Conservative and follow in his father’s steps.
“But that is too dreadful to contemplate,” exclaimed Miss Margaret. “Tommy, come here.”
This was a tone of voice Tommy had not heard for five days. He came with alacrity.
Miss Margaret held out a bottle of boiled sweetsthat were just the very best kind he liked; hard and scrunchy they were on the outside, soft and sticky within.
“These,” said Miss Margaret, “are Liberal sweets. Each time you eat one you must say, ‘I’m a good Liberal.’”
Tommy grinned.
“That do be bribery and corruption,” objected Tregennis.
“Never mind,” Miss Margaret replied. “Now, Tommy, what are you to say?”
Tommy had taken two sweets at the same time and there was a bulge in each cheek. In reply to Miss Margaret’s question he bit first on the right side of his mouth, and “I be a brave good Liberal,” he asserted. Then he bit on the left side and the formula was repeated.
Afterwards, “I don’t care which I be, ’servative or Liberal,” he affirmed, “but I do like they sweets better’n either.”
The next morning Miss Margaret shook hands with him in quite the proper manner. They jumped quite thirteen times and the ending was exceptionally sudden and abrupt. While Miss Margaret stood stiffly in front of him Tommy made a little dash forward and threw his arms around her. She stooped and kissed him and Tommy went off happily to school.
So big was the bottle of Liberal sweets that even on Saturday there were still some left. Just before tea Tommy asked many times that Mammy would get these from the cupboard and let him eat them then.
“Not before tea, ma handsome; not till ee do go to bed.”
“Wants they now to wanst,pleaseMammy,” Tommy stated.
“Not till ee do go to bed, I tell ee.”
“Gimme one of they Liberal sweetsnow.”
“Tommy,” it was Miss Margaret’s voice. “Tommy, I want to give you a box of chocolates to-morrow, but if you ask once more to-day for the bottle of sweets, I shall keep the chocolates for myself.”
“There, you hear,” said Mammy, “an’ you do know now, Tommy, that what Miss Margaret says that she do mean.”
Tommy nodded a little shamefacedly. “Yes, I know,” he assented; “I remember.”
When Tommy came in from play two hours later he walked up to the kitchen cupboard.
“Mammy,” he demanded eagerly, holding up his hands to the shelf out of reach, “Mammy, I tell ee, do give I one o’ they Lib....”
Then came recollection. “Oh,” he said, “I had a’most forgot.”
His outstretched hands dropped to his sides, he clutched the stuff of his trousers to keep the restless fingers still, and with very tightly closed lips turned his back on the cupboard and the kitchen, and walked upstairs to bed.
Thus it was that Tommy took the first conscious and determined step towards the improvement of his moral character.
INthe upper windows of the double-fronted house near the church plain short blinds had replaced the long Madras muslin curtains. Again the gay Brussels carpet in the best sitting-room was covered with newspaper and the ornaments were put away. All visitors had left Draeth, for the Summer was over, and with the summer Tommy’s sixth birthday had come and gone.
Being six did not bring with it the rare delight that Tommy had expected. For one thing he missed his ladies; for another he was troubled by the growing sadness of his Mammy’s face. Twice when he came in unexpectedly he had found her in tears, and yet she had assured him that she had no headache anywhere.
It was most unfortunate, too, that just when things were a little dreary Granny Tregennis should be so very tired. Whenever Tommy ran in to see her now, he found that she was still in bed, and although she wanted him to play with her on Saturday mornings yet, when he went upstairs, she seemed to have but little pleasure in the play-toys that were kept in the fireplace cupboard.
“My Granny did ought to have a brave long sleep,” he asserted with puckered brow.
“She do be goin’ to have a brave long sleep, ma handsome,” Mammy’s eyes filled with tears as she spoke and this seemed to Tommy inconsistent.
On the front, looking for occupation, he fell in with Old John. Old John was a life-long friend, but of late there had been so many other interests to attract him that Old John had been neglected.
Now Tommy hailed him. “Gotten a noo pair o’ trousers,” he shouted, and almost overbalanced in his effort to stand on one leg with the other stretched out at right angles in front of him.
“Hm!” said Old John.
Taking his pipe from his mouth he examined the trousers critically. “Hm!” he said again.
“My Mammy’s blue skirt,” Tommy explained, proudly, while he reversed his position. He now stood on the left leg and thrust forward the right.
“Hallo!” he cried, for Mammy was approaching to bring him in to bed.
“Tommy ’e do tell me ’e’ve gotten noo trousers.”
Mammy nodded.
“Made out o’ your blue skirt, Ellen Tregennis?”
Mammy nodded and smiled.
“You’m gotten as good a little woman as ever is in the world for your Mammy, Tommy.” Old John looked at Mrs. Tregennis, who laughed in acknowledgement of the compliment.
“We’m forced to do as careful as we can,” she said. “When Tom can’t go neither boulter-fishin’ nor whiffin’ we be livin’ on our means like the gintry; then I make clothes for Tommy, so’s he’ll be respectable. ’Taint no mortal use, Old John, for we tolooksmall andbesmall both, so there’s where ’tis to.”
“Makes ’en out of hers!” This was a fact that Tommy was very proud of.
Again Mammy laughed. “Well, ’tis so,” she admitted. “Tom an’ me we wears the clothes, then Tommy wears ’en, then they do be made into mats an’ we treads on ’en. Blouses bain’t no good though, for ’e,” she added ruefully; “very wastely things they be to tear up for ’e, the sleeves do come s’awkward!”
“An’ Tom now, ’e do be a brave good husband?” queried Old John.
“That he be. I wouldn’t stand no nonsense, I wouldn’t be ’umbugged about with ’e, me at my size.”
Mammy smiled and led Tommy off to bed.
At the top of the alley Tommy stopped. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said as he turned towards Main Street.
“Where be a-goin’?” asked Mammy.
“Where be I a-goin’?” Tommy echoed in surprise. “Why I be a-goin’ to say good-night to my Gran.”
“I shouldn’t go to-night, ma handsome; Granny’s tired.”
Tommy turned and looked at his mother in amazement. Every night ever since he could remember he had run along to say “good-night” to Granny.
“She’ll want me, an’ I must go,” he demurred.
“She do be too tired for ee to-night, my lamb.”
“Do ee mean, Mammy, that ’er do be too tired for me to say good-night to she?” Tommy was frankly incredulous.
Mammy nodded and again the tears came. “Shecan’t do with ee, not to-night,” she said very softly.
Much puzzled Tommy was led into the house and undressed; still puzzled he went upstairs to bed. Half-an-hour later he fell asleep, wondering.
The next day, Saturday, a reluctant Tommy was sent to spend the morning on the beach, while Mammy went along to be with Aunt Keziah Kate, for Granny’s tiredness was nearly over.
In the old-fashioned bedroom there was little to do but wait.
“She do be slippin’ away fast,” said Aunt Keziah Kate.
Gently she stroked the frail old hands that lay on the coarse coverlet. There were no tears in her eyes. There would be plenty of time for weeping afterwards, now they must just wait.
“It do be just like Gran.” Mammy hastily brushed away a tear. “Never wasn’t no trouble to no-one, wasn’t Gran. All her life she’ve spent in considerin’ others. As long as visitors was here she’ve keppen up; now that the summer’s over she do be quietly slippin’ away.”
The old woman, lying so quietly on the bed, opened her eyes and her lips moved slowly. Aunt Keziah Kate bent to catch the whispered words.
“Saturday?”
Aunt Keziah Kate nodded.
“What be the time?”
Aunt Keziah Kate told her.
“Then where be Tommy?”
“You don’t want ’e mother this mornin’, do ee?”
An almost imperceptible movement of Granny’s head was the reply, and Tommy was hastily found and brought up from the sunshine of the beach to the dim light of Granny’s room.
“Go very quietly, my lamb,” warned Mrs. Tregennis.
“But I allus do,” answered Tommy, rather indignantly. “She don’t never hear me come; it do be a surprise for she.”
Then he creaked across the room on tip-toe, stepped first of all on to the hassock and from this to the chair. When he raised the curtain the sight of the lined face lying so still, so very still, upon the pillow stopped the “Bo” before it left his lips.
Instead, “Granny, Granny,” he whispered. “I do be come to play with ee, my Granny.”
The tired old eyes opened very slowly, and for a moment it almost seemed as though she smiled. “Ma lovely,” she whispered.
But there were no play-toys to-day, for in the same room where a new life had begun so many years ago an old one was soon to end. There was no storm now. Outside the sun shone brightly, and a little breeze gently moved the old chintz window curtains made so many years ago by Granny’s busy hands.
Granfäather Tregennis had come into the room and large tears were rolling down his cheeks. Tommy thought that grown men never cried. His wonder deepened when Granfäather, who was quite grown up, knelt down on the other side of the bed and covered his face with his hands.
Mammy and Aunt Keziah Kate were crying too.
Tommy’s heart tightened with despair. Granny had forgotten him, for again her eyes were closed.
Then he remembered something that would surely arouse her interest, and from his trouser pocket he pulled out yards of tangled, woollen chain; the very chain that Granny had taught him to make in the far-away Christmas holidays.
“I made this for ee, Granny,” he said, putting into her hands a motley string of pink, and green, and blue and red. “I did make ’e for ee all myself, no-one else did never do none of ’e at all.”
Once more Granny opened her eyes. “Thank ee ma lovely,” she whispered, and a little sigh fluttered between her parted lips.
Then Tommy was led away.
When Aunt Keziah Kate would have removed the tangled chain the feeble fingers closed and held it more firmly.
Afterwards, when Granny was at rest, Granfäather Tregennis took it from the cold hands and put it away in a drawer with his few treasures—a dry, withered rose given him by Granny many, many years ago, and an artificial spray of orange-blossom worn by Granny on their wedding-day.
ONthe day of Granny’s funeral Old John took care of Tommy.
Old John lived up towards the Barbican, in as neat a cottage as you could find in Draeth. No woman ever did a hand’s turn in his little, two-roomed crib; the old sailor washed and mended, cleaned and scrubbed, and kept his home so well that, as Mrs. Tregennis remarked, ’twould be possible to eat anything as ’e’d made, an’ eat it off his floor at that, an’ she for one would gladly do it.
It was not until Old John was getting on in years that he had married and set up a cabin of his own. He had given up sailorin’ then and turned fisherman, because he wouldn’t leave his bonny little maid so much alone.
Only to himself, never to any other, did Old John confess that the bonny little maid had proved a misfit. God, how he had loved her! Nigh on eighty was Old John now, and still he dreamed of her at night. Too much given to newsin’ she had been and that was all the trouble.
“’Ousin’ and tea-drinkin’ don’t hold in our line o’ life,” Old John had told her, but she had only laughed and followed her own bent. Under her care, or lack of care, the trim cottage by the Barbican had become a dirty hovel.