A Rough Shaking, page 26
“How on the face of this blessed world, boy, do you expect to work in the garden without shoes?” she said at length.
“Most things I can do well enough without them,” answered Clare; “—even digging, if the ground is not very hard. My feet used to be soft, but now the soles of them are like leather.—They’ve grown their own shoes,” he added, with a smile, and looked straight in her eyes.
The smile and the look went far to win her heart, as they had won that of her mistress: she felt them true, and wondered how such a fair-spoken, sweet-faced boy could be on the tramp. She poured him out a huge cup of coffee, fried him a piece of bacon, and cut him as much bread and butter as he could dispose of. He had not often eaten anything but dry bread, in general very dry, since he left the menagerie, and now felt feasted like an emperor. Pleased with the master, the cook fed the dog with equal liberality; and then, curious to witness their reception by John, between whom and herself was continuous feud, she conducted Clare to the gardener. From a distance he saw them coming. With look irate fixed upon the dog, he started to meet them. Clare knew too well the meaning of that look, and saw in him Satan regarding Abdiel with eye of fire, and the words on his lips—
The moment he came near enough, without word, or show of malice beyond what lay in his eye, he made, with the sharp hoe he carried, a sudden downstroke at the faithful angel, thinking to serve him as Gabriel served Moloch. But Abdiel was too quick for him: he had read danger in his very gait the moment he saw him move, and enmity in his eyes when he came nearer. He kept therefore his own eyes on the hoe, and never moved until the moment of attack. Then he darted aside. The weapon therefore came down on the hard gravel, jarring the arm of his treacherous enemy. With a muttered curse John followed him and made another attempt, which Abdiel in like manner eluded. John followed and followed; Abdiel fled and fled—never farther than a few yards, seeming almost to entice the man’s pursuit, sometimes pirouetting on his hind legs to escape the blows which the gardener, growing more and more furious with failure, went on aiming at him. Fruitlessly did Clare assure him that neither would the dog do any harm, nor allow any one to hit him. It was from very weariness that at last he desisted, and wiping his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, turned upon Clare in the smothered wrath that knows itself ridiculous. For all the time the cook stood by, shaking with delighted laughter at his every fresh discomfiture.
“Awa’, ye deil’s buckie,” he cried, “an tak’ the little Sawtan wi’ ye! Dinna lat me see yer face again.”
“But the lady told me you would give me a job!” said Clare.
“I didna tell her I wad gie yer tyke a job! I wad though, gien he wad lat me!”
“He’s given you a stiff one!” said the cook, and laughed again.
The gardener took no notice of her remark.
“Awa’ wi’ ye!” he cried again, yet more wrathfully, “—or—”
He raised his hand.
Clare looked in his eyes and did not budge.
“For shame, John!” expostulated the cook. “Would you strike a child?”
“I’m no child, cook!” said Clare. “He can’t hurt me much. I’ve had a good breakfast!”
“Lat ‘im tak’ awa’ that deevil o’ a tyke o’ his, as I tauld him,” thundered the gardener, “or I’ll mak’ a pulp o’ ‘im!”
“I’ve had such a breakfast, sir, as I’m bound to give a whole day’s work in return for,” said Clare, looking up at the angry man; “and I won’t stir till I’ve done it. Stolen food on my stomach would turn me sick!”
“Gien it did, it wadna be the first time, I reckon!” said the gardener.
“It would be the first time!” returned Clara “You are very rude.—If Abdiel understood Scotch, he would bite you,” he added, as the dog, hearing his master speak angrily, came up, ears erect, and took his place at his side, ready for combat.
“Ye’ll hae to tak’ some ither mode o’ payin’ the debt!” said John. “Stick spaud in yird here, ye sall not! You or I maun flit first!”
With that he walked slowly away, shouldering his hoe.
“Come, Abdiel,” said Clare; “we must go and tell Miss Tempest! Perhaps she’ll find something else for us to do. If she can’t, she’ll forgive us our breakfast, and we’ll be off on the tramp again. I thought we were going to have a day’s rest—I mean work; that’s the rest we want! But this man is an enemy to the poor.”
The gardener half turned, as if he would speak, but changed his mind and went his way.
“Never mind John!” said the cook, loud enough for John to hear. “He’s an old curmudgeon as can’t sleep o’ nights for quarrellin’ inside him. I’ll go to mis’ess, and you go and sit down in the kitchen till I come to you.”
CHAPTER LIV. THE KITCHEN.
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CLARE WENT INTO THE KITCHEN, and sat down. The housemaid came in, and stood for a moment looking at him. Then she asked him what he wanted there.
“Cook told me to wait here,” he answered.
“Wait for what?”
“Till she came to me. She’s gone to speak to Miss Tempest.”
“I won’t have that dog here.”
“When I had a home,” remarked Clare, “our servant said the cook was queen of the kitchen: I don’t want to be rude, ma’am, but I must do as she told me.”
“She never told you to bring that mangy animal in here!”
“She knew he would follow me, and she said nothing about him. But he’s not mangy. He hasn’t enough to eat to be mangy. He’s as lean as a dried fish!”
The housemaid, being fat, was inclined to think the remark personal; but Clare looked up at her with such clear, honest, simple eyes, that she forgot the notion, and thought what a wonderfully nice boy he looked.
“He’s shamefully poor, though! His clothes ain’t even decent!” she remarked to herself.
And certainly the white skin did look through in several places.
“You won’t let him put his nose in anything, will you?” she said quite gently, returning his smile with a very pleasant one of her own.
“Abdiel is too much of a gentleman to do it,” he answered.
“A dog a gentleman!” rejoined the housemaid with a merry laugh, willing to draw him out.
“Abdiel can be hungry and not greedy,” answered Clare, and the young woman was silent.
Miss Tempest and Mrs. Mereweather had all this time been turning over the question of what was to be done with the strange boy. They agreed it was too bad that anyone willing to work should be prevented from earning even a day’s victuals by the bad temper of a gardener. But his mistress did not want to send the man away. She had found him scrupulously honest, as is many a bad-tempered man, and she did not like changes. The cook on her part had taken such a fancy to Clare that she did not want him set to garden-work; she would have him at once into the house, and begin training him for a page. Now Miss Tempest was greatly desiring the same thing, but in dread of what the cook would say, and was delighted, therefore, when the first suggestion of it came from Mrs. Mereweather herself. The only obstacle in the cook’s eyes was that same long, spectral dog. The boy could not be such a fool, however,—she said, not being a lover of animals—as let a wretched beast like that come betwixt him and a good situation!
“It’s all right, Clare,” said Mrs. Mereweather, entering her queendom so radiant within that she could not repress the outshine of her pleasure. “Mis’ess an’ me, we’ve arranged it all. You’re to help me in the kitchen; an’ if you can do what you’re told, an’ are willin’ to learn, we’ll soon get you out of your troubles. There’s but one thing in the way.”
“What is it, please?” asked Clare.
“The dog, of course! You must part with the dog.”
“That I cannot do,” returned Clare quietly, but with countenance fallen and sorrowful. “—Come, Abdiel!”
The dog started up, every hair of him full of electric vitality.
“You don’t mean you’re going to walk yourself off in such a beastly ungrateful fashion—an’ all for a miserable cur!” exclaimed the cook.
“The lady has been most kind to us, and we’re grateful to her, and ready to work for her if she will let us;—ain’t we, Abdiel? But Abdiel has done far more for me than Miss Tempest! To part with Abdiel, and leave him to starve, or get into bad company, would be sheer ingratitude. I should be a creature such as Miss Tempest ought to have nothing to do with: I might serve her as that young butler I told her of! It’s just as bad to be ungrateful to a dog as to any other person. Besides, he wouldn’t leave me. He would be always hanging about.”
“John would soon knock him on the head.”
“Would he, Abdiel?” said Clare.
The dog looked up in his master’s face with such a comical answer in his own, that the cook burst out laughing, and began to like Abdiel.
“But you don’t really mean to say,” she persisted, “that you’d go off again on the tramp, to be as cold and hungry again to-morrow as you were yesterday—and all for the sake of a dog? A dog ain’t a Christian!”
“Abdiel’s more of a Christian than some I know,” answered Clare: “he does what his master tells him.”
“There’s something in that!” said the cook.
“If I parted with Abdiel, I could never hold up my head among the angels,” insisted Clare. “Think what harm it might do him! He could trust nobody after, his goodness might give way! He might grow worse than Tommy!—No; I’ve got to take care of Abdiel, and Abdiel’s got to take care of me!—’Ain’t you, Abby?”
“We can’t have him here in the kitchen nohow!” said the cook in relenting tone.
“Poor fellow!” said the housemaid kindly.
The dog turned to her and wagged his tail
“What wouldn’t I give for a lover like that!” said the housemaid—but whether of Clare or the dog I cannot say.
“I know what I shall do!” cried Clare, in sudden resolve. “I will ask Miss Tempest to have him up-stairs with her, and when she is tired of either of us, we will go away together.”
“A probable thing!” returned the cook. “A lady like Miss Tempest with a dog like that about her! She’d be eaten up alive with fleas! In ten minutes she would!”
“No fear of that!” rejoined Clare. “Abdiel catches all his own fleas!—Don’t you, Abby?”
The dog instantly began to burrow in his fell of hair—an answer which might be taken either of two ways: it might indicate comprehension and corroboration of his master, or the necessity for a fresh hunt. The women laughed, much amused.
“Look here!” said Clare. “Let me have a tub of water—warm, if you please—he likes that: I tried him once, passing a factory, where a lot of it was running to waste. Then, with the help of a bit of soap, I’ll show you a body of hair to astonish you.”
“What breed is he?” asked the housemaid.
“He’s all the true breeds under the sun, I fancy,” returned his master; “but the most of him seems of the sky-blue terrier sort.”
The more they talked with Clare, the better the women liked him. They got him a tub and plenty of warm water. Abdiel was nothing loath to be plunged in, and Clare washed him thoroughly. Taken out and dried, he seemed no more for a lady’s chamber unmeet.
“Now,” said Clare, “will you please ask Miss Tempest if I may bring him on to the lawn, and show her some of his tricks?”
The good lady was much pleased with the cleverness and instant obedience of the little animal. Clare proposed that she should keep him by her.
“But will he stay with me? and will he do what I tell him?” she asked.
Clare took the dog aside, and talked to him. He told him what he was going to do, and what he expected of him. How much Abdiel understood, who can tell! but when his master laid him down at Miss Tempest’s feet, there he lay; and when Clare went with the cook, he did not move, though he cast many a wistful glance after the lord of his heart. When his new mistress went into the house, he followed her submissively, his head hanging, and his tail motionless. He soon recovered his cheerfulness, however, and seemed to know that his friend had not abandoned him.
CHAPTER LV. THE WHEEL RESTS FOR A TIME.
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THAT PART OF THE HUMAN race which is fond of dolls, may now imagine the pleasure of the cook in going to the town in the omnibus to buy everything for a live doll so big as Clare! In a very few days she had him dressed to her heart’s content, and the satisfaction of her mistress, who would not have him in livery, but in a plain suit of dark blue cloth: for she loved blue, all her men-people being, or having been in the navy. Thus dressed, he looked as much of a gentleman as before: his look of refinement had owed nothing to the contrast of his rags. Better clothes make not a few seem commoner.
When Mrs. Mereweather came back from the town the first day, she found that the ragged boy had got her kitchen and scullery as nice and clean, and everything as ready to her hand, as if she had got her work done before she went, which the omnibus would not permit. This rejoiced her much; but being a woman of experience, she continued a little anxious lest his sweet ways should go after his rags, lest his new garments should breed bumptiousness and bad manners. For such a change is no unfrequent result of prosperity. But such had been Mr. Porson’s teaching and example, such Mrs. Person’s management, and such the responsiveness of the boy’s disposition, that the thought never came to him whether this or that was a thing fit for him to do: if the thing was a right thing, and had to be done, why should not he do it as well as another! To earn his own and Abdiel’s bread, he would do anything honest, setting up his back at nothing. But when about a thing, he forgot even his obligation to do it, in the glad endeavour to do it well.
As the days went on, Mrs. Mereweather was not once disappointed in him. He did everything with such a will that both she and the housemaid were always ready to spare and help him. Very soon they began to grow tender over him; and on pretence of his being the earlier drest to open the door, did certain things themselves which he had been quite content to do, but which they did not like seeing him do. Many—I am afraid most boys would have presumed on their generosity, but Clare was nowise injured by it.
Nothing could be kinder than the way his mistress treated him. Having lent him some books, and at once perceived that he was careful of them, she let him have the run of her library when his day’s work was over. For he not only read but respected books. Nothing shows vulgarity more than the way in which some people treat books. No gentleman would write his remarks on the margins of another person’s book; no lady would brush her hair as she read one of her own.
From hungry days and cold nights, Clare and Abdiel found themselves in clover—the phrase surely of some lover of cows!—and they were more than content. Clare had longed so much for work, and had for so many a weary day sought it in vain, that he valued it now just because it was work. And he seemed to know instinctively that a man ranks, not according to the thing he does, but according to the way he does it. In life it is far higher to do an inferior thing well than to do a superior thing passably.
Clare made good use of his privileges, and read much, educating himself none the worse that he did it unconsciously. He read whatever came in his way. He read really—not as most people read, leaving the sentences behind them like so many unbroken nuts, the kernel of whose meaning they have not seen. He learned more than most boys at school, more even than most young men at college; for it is not what one knows, but what one uses, that is the true measure of learning. Whatever he read, he read from the point of practice. In history or romance he saw—not merely what a man ought to be or do, but what he himself must, at that moment, be or do. There is a very common sort of man calling himself practical, but neglecting to practise the most important things, who would laugh at the idea of Clare being practical, seeing he did not trouble his head about money, or “getting on in the world"—what servants call “bettering themselves;” but such a practical man will find he has been but a practical fool. Clare took heed to do what was right, and grow a better man. Such a life is the only really practical one.
People wondered how Miss Tempest had managed to get hold of such a nice-looking page, and the good lady was flattered by their wonder. But she knew the world too well to be sure of him yet. She knew that it is difficult, in the human tree, to distinguish between blossom and fruit. Deeds of lovely impulse are the blossom; unvarying, determined Tightness is the fruit.
CHAPTER LVI. STRATEGY.
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MISS TEMPEST WAS THE LAST of an old family, with scarce a relation, and no near one, in the world. Hence the pieces of personal property that had continued in the possession of various branches of the family after land and money, through fault or misfortune, were gone, had mostly drifted into the small pool of Miss Tempest’s life now slowly sinking in the sands of time, there to gleam and sparkle out their tale of its old splendour. She did not think often of their money-worth: had she done so, she would have kept them at her banker’s; but she valued them greatly both for their beauty and their associations, constantly using as many of them as she could. More than one of her friends had repeatedly tried to persuade her that it was not prudent to have so much plate and so many jewels in the house, for the fact was sure to be known where it was least desirable it should: she always said she would think about it. At times she would for a moment contemplate sending her valuables to the bank; but her next thought—by no means an unwise one—would always be, “Of what use will they be at the bank? I might as well not have them at all! Better sell them and do some good with the money!—No; I must have them about me!”
There are predatory persons in every large town, who either know or are learning to know the houses in it worth the risk of robbing. When it falls to the lot of this or that house to be attempted, one of the gang will make the acquaintance of some servant in it, with the object of discovering beforehand where its treasure lies, and so reducing the time to be spent in it, and the risk of frustration or capture. Often they seduce one of the household to let them in, or hand out the things they want. Any such gang, however, must soon have become convinced that at Miss Tempest’s corruption was impossible, and that they could avail themselves solely of their own internal resources.
