CHAPTER XXIX.
NELLO’S JOURNEY.
RANDOLPH MUSGRAVE drove from the door of his father’s house with a sigh of relief, yet of anxiety. He had not done what he meant to do, and affairs were more critical than when he went to Penninghame a few weeks before; but it was something at least to be out of the troubled atmosphere, and he had arranged in his own mind what he should do, which was in its way a gain, as soon as the breath was out of the old man’s body,—but when would that be? It was not to be desired, Randolph said to himself piously, that his father should linger long; his life was neither of use nor comfort to any one, and no pleasure, no advantage to himself. To lie there speechless, motionless, as much shut out of all human intercourse as if he were already in his coffin—what could any one desire but that, as soon as might be, it should come to an end?
He did not pay very much attention to his small companion. For the moment, Nello, having been thus secured and brought within his power, had no further importance, and Randolph sat with knitted brows pondering all he was to do, without any particular reference to the child. Nello had left the Castle easily enough; he had parted from Mary and from Lilias without any lingering of emotion, getting over it as quickly as possible. When it came to that he was eager to be off, to set out into the world. The little fellow’s veins were full of excitement; he expected to see, he did not know what wonderful things, what objects of entrancing interest, as soon as he got outside the little region where everything was known to him. “Good-bye, Mary—good-bye, Lily,” he said, waving his hand. He had his own little portmanteau with his name on it, a new little silver watch in his pocket—what could child want more? Lily, though she was his sister, was not a sensation like that watch. He took it out, and turned it round and round, and opened the case, and wound it up—he had wound it up twice this morning already, so that one turn of the key was all that was practicable. Nothing at the Castle, nothing in the society of Lily, was equal to this. He compared his watch with the clock at the druggist’s in the village and found it fast: he compared it with the clock at the station and found that slow. He did not take any notice of his uncle, nor his uncle of him; each was indifferent, though partly hostile, to the other. Randolph was at his ease because he had this child, this troublesome atom, who might do harm though he could do no good, in his power; but Nello was at his ease through pure indifference. He was not at the moment frightened of his uncle, and no other sentiment in regard to him had been developed in his mind. As calm as if Randolph had been a cabbage, Nello sat by his side, and looked at his watch. The watch excited him, but his uncle——. Thus they went on, an unsympathetic pair. Nello stood about on the platform and looked at everything, while Randolph took the tickets. He was slightly hurt to hear that a half-ticket was still enough for himself, and moved away at once to the other side of the station, where the locomotive enthralled him. He stood and gazed at it with transport. What he would have given to have travelled there with the man who drove it, and left Uncle Randolph behind! But still Nello took his place in the train with much indifference to Uncle Randolph. He was wholly occupied with what was going on before and about him: the rush across country, trees and fields flying by, and the stations where there was always something new, the groups of people standing about, the rush of some for the train, the late arrival just as the doors were shut of those who were too late. These last made Nello laugh, their blank looks were so funny—and yet he was sorry for them; for what a thing it must be, he thought, to see other people go rushing out over the world to see everything, while you yourself were left dull at home! He remembered once himself being left with Martuccia in the still, deserted house when all the others had gone to the festa; how he thought the day would never end—and Martuccia thought so too. This made him sorry, very sorry, for the people who had lost their train. It did not occur to Nello that it might be no festa he was going to, or they were going to. What could any one want more than the journey itself? If you wearied of seeing the trains rush past, and counting the houses, now on one side, now on another, there was the endless pleasure of dashing up to one station after another, where Nello could look down with fine superiority on the people who were not going, on the children above all, who looked up envious, and envied him, he felt sure.
By and by, however, though he would not confess it to himself, the delights of the journey began to pall: his little eyes grew fatigued with looking, and his little mind with the continuous spectacle of those long, flying breadths of country; and even the stations lost their charm. He would have liked to have somebody to talk to, and cast one or two wistful glances to see whether Uncle Randolph was practicable, but found no encouragement in that countenance, pre-occupied, and somewhat lowering by nature, which appeared now and then in the wavering of the train, over the newspaper his uncle was reading. What a long time it took to read that paper! How it crackled when it was opened out! How tired Nello grew of seeing it opposite to him! And he began to grow cramped with sitting; his limbs wanted stretching, his mind wanted change; and he began to be hungry. Randolph, who scorned the poor refreshments of the railway, and thought it better to wait for his meal till he reached home, did not think of the difference between himself and the child. They travelled on and on through the dulness of the afternoon. Nello, who had been so excited, felt disposed to sleep, but was too proud to yield to it; and then he began to think of his sister and the home he had left. It is natural, it is selfish, to remember home when we miss its comforts: but if that is not of the higher nature of love, it is yet the religion of the weak, and not despised by the great Succourer who bids men call upon Him in time of trouble. Nello’s heart, when he began to feel tired and famished, recurred, with a pathetic trust in the tenderness and in the certainty of the well-being that abode there, to his home.
When they stopped at a lively, bustling junction to change their direction, things mended a little. Nello ventured to buy himself a cake, his uncle not interfering, as they waited. “You will spoil your stomach with that sweet stuff,” Randolph said, but he allowed the child to munch. And they had half-an-hour to wait, which of itself was something. Nello walked about, imitating Randolph’s longer stride, though he did not accompany his uncle; and though he felt forlorn and very small among the crowd, marched about and looked at everything as the gentlemen did, recovering his spirits a little. And suddenly, with a great glow of pleasure all over him, Nello spied, among the strangers who were hurrying to and fro, a face he had seen before; it is true it was only the face of the countryman who had accosted him in the Chase, and with whom he had but a small acquaintance, but even this was something in the waste of the unknown that surrounded him. The boy rushed up to him with a gleam of joy upon his small countenance. “I say, have you come from—home?”
“Yes, my little gentleman,” said Wild Bampfylde. “I’m taking a journey like you, but I like best to tramp on my two legs. I’m going no farther in your carriages, that give you the cramp. I reckon you’re tired too.”
“A little,” said Nello; “but that’s no matter. What have you in your basket?—is it another rabbit? I gave mine to Lily. They would not let me bring it, though I wanted to bring it. School, you know,” said the boy, seriously, “is not like home. You have to be just like as if you were grown up there. Little—you cannot help being little; but you have to be like as if you were grown up there.”
“Ay, ay, that’s the way to take it,” said the countryman, looking down with a twinkle in his eye, half smiling, half sad, at the small creature beside him. “The thing is to be a man, and to mind that you must stand up like a man, whatever happens. If one hits you, you must hit him again, and be sure not to cry.”
“Hit me!” said Nello—“cry? Ah, you do not know the kind of school I am going to—for you are not a gentleman,” he added, looking with superb condescension at his adviser. “I like you just the same,” said Nello, “but you are not a gentleman, are you? and how can you know?”
“The Lord forbid!” said Bampfylde, “one’s enough in a family. It would be ill for us, and maybe for you too, if I were a gentleman. Look you here, my little man. Look at the bonnie bird in this basket—it’s better than your rabbit. A rabbit, though it’s one o’ God’s harmless creatures, has little sense, and cannot learn; but this bonnie thing is of use to God and man, as well as being bonnie to look at. Look at him! what a bonnie head he has, and an eye as meaning as your own.”
“A pigeon!” said Nello, with a cry of delight. “Oh, I wish I might have him! Do you think I might have him? I could put him under the seat, and nobody would see the basket; and then when we got there—— ”
“Ay, that’s the question—when you got there?”
“I would say—it was my—fishing-basket,” said Nello. “He said they went fishing; and nobody would know. I would say Mary had—put things in it: nobody would ever find out, and I would keep it in my room, and buy seed for it and give it water, and it would live quite comfortable. And it would soon come to know me, wouldn’t it? and hop about and sit on my shoulder. Oh, let me have it; won’t you let me have it? Look here, I have a great deal of money,” cried Nello, turning out his pocket; “five shillings to spend, and a sovereign Mary gave me. I will give you money for it, as much money as ever you please—— ”
“Whisht, my little lad; put back your money and keep it safe, for you’ll have need of it. I brought the bird to give you. If they’re kind folks they’ll let you keep him. You must keep him safe, and take care he has his meat every day; and if they’re unkind to you or treat you bad, put you his basket in the window and open the lid, and, puff! he’ll flee away and let your friends know.”
“But I should not like him to flee away. I would like him to stay with me always, and sit on my shoulder, and eat out of my hand.”
“My little gentleman,” said Bampfylde. “I’m afraid your uncle will hear us. Try to understand. If you’re ill-used, if they’re unkind, let the bird fly, and he’ll come and tell us. Mind now, what I’m saying. He’ll come and tell us. Did you never read in your story-books—— ”
“Then it is an enchanted bird,” said Nello, looking down, very gravely, into the basket. Lily had read to him of such things. He was not very much surprised: but a bird that some day would turn into a young prince did not attract him so much as one that would hop on his shoulder without ulterior object. He looked down at it very seriously, with more respect perhaps, but not so warm an interest. His little face had lost its animation. How Lily would have glowed and brightened at the thought! But Nello was no idealist. He preferred a real pigeon to all the enchanted princes in the world.
“Nay,” said Bampfylde, with a gleam of a smile across his dark face, “it’s no fairy, but it’s a carrier. Did you never hear of that? And when you let it fly it will fly to me, and let me know that you are wanting something—that they’re not kind to you, or that you’re wanting to be away.”
“Oh, they’ll be kind,” said Nello, carelessly; “I would rather he would stay with me, and never, never fly away.”
“I’ll put him in the carriage for you,” said Bampfylde, hurriedly, “for here’s somebody coming. And don’t you let any one know that you were speaking to me, or ever saw me before. And God bless you, my little gentleman!” said the vagrant, suddenly disappearing among the crowd.
While Nello stood staring after him, Randolph came up, and tapped him sharply on the shoulder.
“What are you staring at? Have you seen any one you know?”
It was Nello’s first lesson in deceiving.
“I—I was looking at a man—with wild beasts,” he said.
“With wild beasts!—in the station?—here?”
“Yes, white rabbits and pigeons—and things; at least,” said Nello to himself, “he once had a white rabbit, if he hasn’t got one now.”
“Rabbits!” said Randolph. “Come along, here is our train. It is late; and before I have got you settled, and got back here again, and am able to think of myself, it will be midnight, I believe. You children don’t know what a trouble you are. I shall have lost my day looking after you. I should have been at home now but for you; and little gratitude I am likely to get, when all is done.”
This moved Nello’s spirit, for of all things in the world there is nothing that so excites opposition among great and little, as a claim upon our gratitude. Anything and everything else the mind may concede, but even a child kicks against this demand. Nello’s feelings towards his uncle were not unkind; but, little as he was, instinct woke in him an immediate resistance.
“It was not me that did it,” he said; “it was you. I should have stayed at home, and when the old gentleman is better he would have come out and played with me. And Mary would have let me stay. I like home,” said Nello, “and perhaps I shall not like school; but if I don’t like it,” he added, brightening and forgetting the secret he had been so sworn to keep, “I know how to get away.”
“How shall you get away?” said Randolph. But he was so sure of this matter, which was in his own hands, that he did not wait for any answer. “They will take care of that at school,” he said; “and it will be the worse for you, my boy, if you make yourself disagreeable. Come along, or we shall miss the train.”
Nello saw that the basket had been placed under his seat as he got in; and as the train swept away from the station, he caught a glimpse of the lonely figure of his new friend, standing among the little crowd that watched the departure. Bampfylde made a warning gesture to the child, who, forgetful of precaution, nodded and waved his hand in reply.
“Who is that?” cried Randolph, suspiciously, getting up to cast a searching look behind.
“Oh, it is the man with the wild beasts,” Nello said.
And then came another silent sweep through the green smooth country, which was not like the hilly north. It was all Nello could do to keep himself from pulling his basket from beneath the seat, and examining his new treasure. He could hear it rustling and fluttering its wings against the wickerwork. Oh, to be able to take it out, to give it some crumbs of biscuit which were still in his pocket, to begin to train it to know him! Nello only restrained himself painfully, by the thought that if he betrayed his own secret thus, his pigeon might be taken from him. How eager he was now to be there! “Are there many more stations?” he asked, anxiously; then counted them on his fingers—one, two, three. And how delighted he was when they came at last to the little place, standing alone in a plain, with no other house visible that Nello could see (but he did not look; he was so anxious about his pigeon), which was their journey’s end. A kind of farmer’s shandry, half cart, half gig, with a rough horse, and a rougher driver, was in waiting. Nello got his basket out with his own hands, and put his little great-coat over it, so that no one could see. His heart beat loudly with fright, lest his uncle should hear the sounds beneath the cover—the rustle and flutter. But Randolph’s mind was otherwise engaged. As for the boy, he thought of nothing but this treasure, which he was so happy to feel in his arms. He could carry it so, quite comfortably, with the little great-coat over it; he neither remarked the rudeness of the jolting vehicle, nor the bare country, with here and there a flat line of road running between turnip and potato fields. When they came to the house—a new, square house, in the middle of the fields—Nello thought nothing about it one way or another. He thought, “I wonder which will be my window; I wonder where I can keep the bird.” That was all. His little soul, all eagerness after his new delight, had room for nothing more.
Randolph and his charge were taken into a plain room, very simply furnished and not over-dainty in point of cleanness, where the principal of the school, a man in rusty black, came to receive them. There was nothing repulsive in his looks, nothing more in any way than the same plain unvarnished rusticity and homeliness which showed in his house. The school was intended for farmers’ sons, and the education was partly industrial—honest, simple training, without either deceit or villany involved, though not at all suitable for Nello. It was with reluctance even that so young a boy had been accepted at all; and the schoolmaster looked at him with doubtfulness, as the slim little curled darling, so different from his other pupils, came in, hugging his basket.
“He’s young, and he’s small,” said Mr. Swan.
“Very young, and small for his age,” Randolph echoed. “All the more reason why he should lead an out-of-door life, and learn that he is a boy, and will one day be a man.”
Then Nello was put into the hands of the principal’s wife, while Randolph gave further directions.
“His case is quite peculiar,” the uncle said. “He is an orphan, or as good as an orphan, and I took him from the hands of ladies who were making a fool of the boy. What he wants is hardening. You must not be led away by his delicate looks; he is a strong boy, and he wants hardening. Send him out to the fields, let him learn to work like the rest, and don’t listen to any complaints. Above all, don’t let him send complaints home.”
“I never interfere with what they write home,” said honest Mr. Swan.
“But you must in this case. If he sends home a complaining letter, his aunt will rush here next morning and take him away. I am his uncle, and I won’t permit that—and a family quarrel is what will follow, unless you will exercise your discretion. Keep him from writing, or keep him from grumbling. You will be the saving of the boy.”
“It is a great responsibility to undertake. I should not have undertaken it, had I known—— ”
“I am sure you have too serious a sense of the good that can be done, to shrink from responsibility,” said Randolph; “but, indeed, are we not all responsible for everything we touch? If you find him too much for you, write to me. Don’t write to what he calls ‘home.’ And do not let him be taken away without my authority. I have to protect him from injudicious kindness. A parcel of women—you know what harm they can do to a boy, petting and spoiling him. He will never be a man at all, if you don’t take him in hand.”
With these arguments, Randolph overcame the resistance of the schoolmaster, and with redoubled injunctions that it was himself that was to be communicated with, in case of anything happening to Nello, went away. He was in haste to get back for his train; and “No, no,” he said, “you need not call the boy—the fewer partings the better. I don’t want to upset him. Tell him I was obliged to hurry away.”
And it would be impossible to describe with what relief Randolph threw himself into the clumsy shandry, to go away. He had got the boy disposed of—for the moment at least—where no harm could happen to him, but also where he could do no harm. If his grandfather regained his consciousness, and, remembering that freak of his dotage, called again for the boy, it would be out of Mary’s power to spoil everything by humouring the old man, and reviving all those images which it would be much better to make an end of. And when the Squire’s life was over, how much easier to take all those measures which it was so advisable to take, without the little interloper about, whom foolish people would no doubt insist on calling the heir. The heir! Let him stay here, and get a little strength and manhood, to struggle for his rights, if he had any rights. More must be known of him than any one knew as yet, Randolph said to himself, before he, for one, would acknowledge him as the heir.
Nello was taken into Mrs. Swan’s parlour, and there had some bread and butter offered to him, which he accepted with great satisfaction. The bread was dry and the butter salt, but he was hungry, which made it very agreeable.
“You’ll have your tea with the rest at six,” said Mrs. Swan; “and now come I’ll show you where you are to sleep. What is that you’re carrying?”
“A basket,” said Nello, in the mildest tone; and she asked no further questions, but led him upstairs, not however to the little bedroom of which the child had been dreaming, where he could keep his new pet in safety, but to a long dormitory, containing about a dozen beds.
“This is yours, my little man, and you must be tidy and keep your things in order. There are no nurses here, and the boys are a bit rough; but you will soon get used to them. Put down your things here; this chair is yours, and that washing-stand, and—— ”
“Must I sleep there?” cried Nello. It was not so much the little bed—the close neighbourhood of the other boys—that appalled him; but where was there a window for his bird? “Mayn’t I have that bed?” he said, pointing to one which stood near the window at the end of the room.
“I daresay,” said Mrs. Swan; “why that is for the head boy, and you are the least, and the last. It is only by a chance that there is room for you at all here.”
“But I don’t want to be here,” said Nello. “Oh, mayn’t I be by the window? The head boy hasn’t got a——. What would it matter to him? but I want to be there. I want to be at the window.”
“My little master, you’ll be where I choose to place you,” said Mrs. Swan, becoming irritated. “We allow no self-will, and no rebellion here.”
“But what shall I do with my——.” Nello did not venture to name the name of the bird. He crept up to the head of the little bed which was to be allotted to him, and surveyed the blank wall tearfully. There was but a very little space between him and the next bed, and he was in the middle of the room, the darkest part of it. Nello began to cry. He called upon Mary, and upon Martuccia, in his heart. Neither of them would suffer him to be treated so. “Oh, mayn’t I go to another room where there is a window?” he cried, through his tears.
“My word, that one is a stubborn one; you will have your hands full with him,” said Mrs. Swan, leaving Nello to have his cry out, which experience had taught her was the best way. She found her husband very serious, and full of care, thinking over the charge he had received.
“It’s a gentleman’s son, not one of the commoner sort,” he said; “but why they should have brought him to me—such a little fellow—is more than I can see.”
Nello sat by his little bed and cried. His heart was full, and his little frame worn out. In the state of depression which had followed upon the delight of the morning, novelty had departed, and strangeness had come in its place—a very different matter; everything was strange wherever he turned: and no place to put his pigeon! By and by the vacant spaces would fill, and boys—boys whom he did not know—big boys, rough boys, and that head boy, who had the window—would pour in; and he had no place to put his bird.
Nello’s tears fell like summer rain upon the precious basket, till the storm had worn itself out. Then, first symptom of amelioration, his ear was caught by the rustle of the bird in the cage. He took it up, then placed it in his lap, then opened the cover a little way, and, entrancing moment! saw it—the glossy head, the keen little eye gleaming at him, the soft, ruffled feathers. It made a small dab at him as he peered in—and oh, how delighted, how miserable, how frightened was Nello! He drew back from the tiny assault, then approached his head closer, and took from his pocket a bit of his bread and butter, which he had saved on purpose. Then he sat down on the floor, a small creature, scarcely visible, hidden between the beds, betraying himself only by the reverberation of the sobs which still shook his little bosom from time to time, entranced over his bird. The pigeon gurgled its soft coo, as it picked up the crumbs. The little boy, after his trouble, forgot everything but this novel delight; a thing all his own, feeding from his hand already, looking up at him sidelong, with that glimmer of an eye, with a flutter towards him if it could but have got loose. No doubt when he set it free it would come upon his shoulder directly. Nello lost himself and all his grief in pleasure. He forgot even that he had not a window in which to hang his bird.
By and by, however, there came a rush and a tramp of feet, and eleven big boys, earthy and hot from the field where they had been working, came pouring in. They filled the room like a flood, like a whirlwind, catching Nello upon their surface as the stream would catch a straw. One of the big, hobnailed fellows stumbled over him as he sat on the floor.
“Hallo, what’s here?” he cried; “what little kid are you?” seizing the child by the shoulders. He did not mean any harm, but grasped the little boy’s shoulder with the grip of a playful ploughman. Then there was a rush of the whole band to see what it was. The new boy! but such a boy—a baby—a gentleman baby—a creature of a different order.
“Let’s see him,” they cried, tumbling over each other, while Nello, dragged to his feet, stood shrinking, confronting them, making trial of all the manhood he possessed. He would not cry; he drew back against his bed, and doubled his little fist, his heart heaving, his lip quivering.
“I have done no harm,” said Nello, with a sob in his voice; and the head boy called out, good-humouredly enough, though the thunder of his boyish bass sounded to Nello like the voice of doom, to “let him be.”
“What’s he got there?” he asked.
The basket was snatched from the child’s hand, notwithstanding his resistance. Nello gave a great cry when it was taken from him.
“Oh, my bird, my pigeon, my bird!—you are not to hurt my bird.”
“Give it here,” said the head boy.
But the first who had seized the treasure held it fast.
“I’ve got it, and I’ll keep it,” he cried.
“Give it here!” shouted the other.
The conflict and the cloud of big forms, and the rough voices and snatchings, filled Nello with speechless dismay. He leaned back against his bed, and watched with feelings indescribable the basket which contained his treasure pulled and dragged about from one to another. First the handle gave way, then the lid was torn off, as one after another snatched at it. Oh, why was Nello so small and weak, and the others so big and strong!
“Give it here!” shouted the head boy; but in the midst of the scuffle, something happened which frightened them all—the bird got loose, carefully as it had been secured, flew up over their heads, fluttered for a moment, driven wild by the cloud of arms stretched out to catch it, and then, with a sweep of its wings, darted out through the open window, and was seen no more.