a disappointment, an accident, and a perplexing return.
but the trip to york produced no fruit! some of the tradespeople did, indeed, remember old mrs willis and her granddaughter, but had neither seen nor heard of them since they left. they knew very little about them personally, and nothing whatever of their previous history, as they had stayed only a short time in the town, and had been remarkably shy and uncommunicative—the result, it was thought, of their having “come down” in life.
much disappointed, slidder and i returned to london.
“it is fortunate that we did not tell granny the object of our trip, so that she will be spared the disappointment that we have met with,” said i, as the train neared the metropolis.
my companion made no reply; he had evidently taken the matter much to heart.
we were passing rapidly through the gradually thickening groups of streets and houses which besprinkle the circumference of the great city, and sat gazing contemplatively on back yards, chimney cans, unfinished suburban residences, pieces of waste ground, back windows, internal domestic arrangements, etcetera, as they flew past in rapid succession.
“robin,” said i, breaking silence again, and using the name which had by that time grown familiar, “have you made up your mind yet about taking service with dr mctougall? now that we have got mrs jones engaged and paid to look after granny, she will be able to get on pretty well without you, and you shall have time to run over and see her frequently.”
“h’m! i don’t quite see my way,” returned the boy, with a solemn look. “you see, sir, if it was a page-in-buttons i was to be, to attend on my young lady the guv’ness, i might take it into consideration; but to go into buttons an’ blue merely to open a door an’ do the purlite to wisitors, an’ mix up things with bad smells by way of a change—why, d’ee see, the prospec’ ain’t temptin’. besides, i hate blue. the buttons is all well enough, but blue reminds me so of the bobbies that i don’t think i could surwive it long—indeed i don’t!”
“robin,” said i reproachfully, “i’m grieved at your indifference to friendship.”
“’ow so, sir?”
“have you not mentioned merely your objections and the disadvantages, without once weighing against them the advantages?”
“vich is—?”
“which are,” said i, “being under the same roof with me and with punch, to say nothing of your young lady!”
“ah, to be sure! vell, but i did think of all that, only, don’t you see, i’ll come to be under the same roof with you all in course o’ time w’en you’ve got spliced an’ set up for—”
“slidder,” said i sternly, and losing patience under the boy’s presumption, “you must never again dare to speak of such a thing. you know very well that it is quite out of the question, and—and—you’ll get into a careless way of referring to such a possibility among servants or—”
“no; honour bright!” exclaimed slidder, with, for the first time, a somewhat abashed look in his face; “i wouldn’t for the wealth of the injies say a word to nobody wotsomever. it’s only atween ourselves that i wentur’s to—”
“well, well; enough,” said i; “don’t in future venture to do it even between ourselves, if you care to retain my friendship. now. robin,” i added, as the train slowed, “of course you’ll not let a hint of our reason for going north pass your lips to poor granny or any one; and give her the old message, that i’ll be along to see her soon.”
it was pleasant to return to such a hearty reception as i met with from the doctor’s family. although my absence had been but for a few days, the children came crowding and clinging round me, declaring that it seemed like weeks since i left them. the doctor himself was, as usual, exuberant, and his wife extremely kind. miss blythe, i found, had not yet returned, and was not expected for some time.
but the reception accorded me by the doctor and his family was as nothing to the wild welcome lavished upon me by dumps. that loving creature came more nearly to the bursting-point than i had ever seen him before. his spirit was obviously much too large for his body. he was romping with the mctougall baby when i entered. the instant he heard my voice in the hall he uttered a squeal—almost a yell—of delight, and came down the two flights of stairs in a wriggling heap, his legs taking comparatively little part in the movement. his paws, when first applied to the wax-cloth of the nursery floor, slipped as if on ice, without communicating motion. on the stairs, his ears, tail, head, hair, heart, and tongue conspired to convulse him. only when he had fairly reached me did the hind-legs do their duty, as he bounced and wriggled high into air. powers of description are futile; vision alone is of any avail in such a case. are dogs mortal? is such overflowing wealth of affection extinguished at death? pshaw! thought i, the man who thinks so shows that he is utterly void of the merest rudiments of common sense!
i did not mention the object of my visit to york to the doctor or his wife. indeed, that natural shyness and reticence which i have found it impossible to shake off—except when writing to you, good reader—would in any case have prevented my communicating much of my private affairs to them, but particularly in a case like this, which seemed to be assuming the aspect of a wildly romantic hunt after a lost young girl, more like the plot of a sensational novel than an occurrence in every-day life.
it may be remarked here that the doctor had indeed understood from mrs willis that she had somehow lost a granddaughter; but being rather fussy in his desires and efforts to comfort people in distress, he had failed to rouse the sympathy which would have drawn out details from the old woman. i therefore merely gave him to understand that the business which had called me to the north of england had been unsuccessful, and then changed the subject.
meanwhile dumps returned to the nursery to resume the game of romps which i had interrupted.
after a general “scrimmage,” in which the five chips of the elder mctougall had joined, without regard to any concerted plan, dolly suddenly shouted “’top!”
“what are we to stop for?” demanded harry, whose powers of self-restraint were not strong.
“want a ’est!” said dolly, sitting down on a stool with a resolute plump.
“rest quick, then, and let’s go on again,” said harry, throwing himself into a small chair, while job and jenny sprawled on an ottoman in the window.
seeing that her troops appeared to be exhausted, and that a period of repose had set in, the tall nurse thought this a fitting opportunity to retire for a short recreative talk with the servants in the kitchen.
“now be good, child’n,” she said, in passing out, “and don’t ’urt poor little dumps.”
“oh no,” chorused the five, while, with faces of intense and real solemnity, they assured nurse that they would not hurt dumps for the world.
“we’ll be so dood!” remarked dolly, as the door closed—and she really meant it.
“what’ll we do to him now?” asked harry, whose patience was exhausted.
“tut off him’s head,” cried dolly, clapping her fat little hands.
“no, burn him for a witch,” said jenny.
“oh no! ve’ll skeese him flat till he’s bu’sted,” suggested job.
but jenny thought that would be too cruel, and harry said it would be too tame.
it must not be supposed that these and several other appalling tortures were meant to be really attempted. as job afterwards said, it was only play.
“oh! i’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said jack, who was considerably in advance of the others in regard to education, “we’ll turn him into joan of arc.”
“what’s joan of arc?” asked job.
“it isn’t a what—it’s a who,” cried jack, laughing.
“is it like noah’s ark?” inquired dolly.
“no, no; it’s a lady who lived in france, an’ thought she was sent to deliver her country from—from—i don’t know all what, an’ put on men’s clo’es an’ armour, an’ went out to battle, an’ was burnt.”
“bu’nt!” shouted dolly, with sparkling eyes; “oh, what fun!—we’re goin’ to bu’n you, pompey.” they called him by lilly blythe’s name.
dumps, who sat in a confused heap in a corner, panting, seemed regardless of the fate that awaited him.
“but where shall we find armour?” said harry.
“i know,” exclaimed job, going to the fireplace, and seizing the lid of a saucepan which stood on the hearth near enough to the tall fender to be within reach, “here’s somethin’.”
“capital—a breastplate! just the thing!” cried jack, seizing it, and whistling to dumps.
“and here’s a first-rate helmet,” said harry, producing a toy drum with the heads out.
the strong contrast between my doggie’s conditions of grigginess and humiliation has already been referred to. aware that something unusual was pending, he crawled towards jack with every hair trailing in lowly submission. poor joan of arc might have had a happier fate if she had been influenced by a similar spirit!
“now, sir, stand up on your hind-legs.”
the already well-trained and obedient creature obeyed.
“there,” he said, tying the lid to his hairy bosom; “and there,” he continued, thrusting the drum on his meek head, which it fitted exactly; “now, madame joan, come away—the fagots are ready.”
with harry’s aid, and to the ineffable joy of jenny, job, and dolly, the little dog was carefully bound to the leg of a small table, and bits of broken toys—of which there were heaps—were piled round it for fagots.
“don’t be c’uel,” said dolly tenderly.
“oh no, we won’t be cruel,” said jack, who was really anxious to accomplish the whole execution without giving pain to the victim. the better to arrange some of the fastenings he clambered on the table. dolly, always anxious to observe what was being done, attempted to do the same. jenny, trying to prevent her, pulled at her skirts, and among them they pulled the table over on themselves. it fell with a dire crash.
of course there were cries and shouts from the children, but these were overtopped and quickly silenced by the hideous yellings of dumps. full many a time had the poor dog given yelp and yell in that nursery when accidentally hurt, and as often had it wagged its forgiving tail and licked the patting hands of sympathy; but now the yells were loud and continuous, the patting hands were snapped at, and dumps refused to be comforted. his piercing cries reached my study. i sprang up-stairs and dashed into the nursery, where the eccentric five were standing in a group, with looks of self-condemning horror in their ten round eyes, and almost equally expressive round mouths.
the reason was soon discovered—poor dumps had got a hind-leg broken!
having ascertained the fact, alleviated the pain as well as i could, and bandaged the limb, i laid my doggie tenderly in the toy bed belonging to jenny’s largest doll, which was quickly and heartily given up for the occasion, the dispossessed doll being callously laid on a shelf in the meantime.
it was really quite interesting to observe the effect of this accident on the tender-hearted five. they wept over dumps most genuine tears. they begged his pardon—implored his forgiveness—in the most earnest tones and touching terms. they took turn about in watching by his sick-bed. they held lint and lotion with superhuman solemnity while i dressed his wounded limb, and they fed him with the most tender solicitude. in short, they came out quite in a new and sympathetic light, and soon began to play at sick-nursing with each other. this involved a good deal of pretended sickness, and for a long time after that it was no uncommon thing for visitors to the nursery to find three of the five down with measles, whooping-cough, or fever, while the fourth acted doctor, and the fifth nurse.
the event however, gave them a lesson in gentleness to dumb animals which they never afterwards forgot, and which some of my boy readers would do well to remember. with a laudable effort to improve the occasion, mrs mctougall carefully printed in huge letters, and elaborately illuminated the sentence, “be kind to doggie,” and hung it up in the nursery. thereupon cardboard, pencils, paints, and scissors were in immediate demand, and soon after there appeared on the walls in hideously bad but highly ornamental letters, the words “be kind to cattie.” this was followed by “be kind to polly,” which instantly suggested “be kind to dolly.” and so, by one means or another, the lesson of kindness was driven home.
soon after this event dr mctougall moved into a new house in the same street; i became regularly established as his partner, and robin slidder entered on his duties as page in buttons. it is right to observe here that, in deference to his prejudices, the material of his garments was not blue, but dark grey.
it was distinctly arranged, however, that robin was to go home, as he called it, to be with mrs willis at nights. on no other condition would he agree to enter the doctor’s service; and i found, on talking over the subject with mrs willis herself, that she had become so fond of the boy that it would have been sheer cruelty to part them. in short, it was a case of mutual love at first sight! no two individuals seemed more unlikely to draw together than the meek, gentle old lady and the dashing, harum-scarum boy. yet so it was.
“my dear,”—she always spoke to me now as if i had been her son—“this ‘waif,’ as people would call him, has clearly been sent to me as a comfort in the midst of all but overwhelming sorrow; and i believe, too, that i have been sent to draw the dear boy to jesus. you should hear what long and pleasant talks we have about him, and the bible, and the ‘better land’ sometimes.”
“indeed! i am glad to hear you say so, granny, and also surprised, because, although i believe the boy to be well disposed, i have seldom been able to get him to open his lips to me on religious subjects.”
“ah! but he opens his dear lips to me, doctor, and reads to me many a long chapter out of the blessed word!”
“reads! can he read?”
“ay can he!—not so badly, considering that i only began to teach him two or three months ago. but he knew his letters when we began, and could spell out a few words. he’s very quick, you see, and a dear boy!”
soon afterwards we made this arrangement with robin more convenient for all parties, by bringing mrs willis over to a better lodging in one of the small back streets not far from the doctor’s new residence.
i now began to devote much of my time to the study of chemistry, not only because it suited dr mctougall that i should do so, but because i had conceived a great liking for that science, and entertained some thoughts of devoting myself to it almost exclusively.
in the various experiments connected therewith i was most ably, and, i may add, delightedly, assisted by robin slidder. i was also greatly amused by, and induced to philosophise not a little on the peculiar cast of the boy’s mind. the pleasure obviously afforded to him by the uncertainty as to results in experiments was very great. the probability of a miscarriage created in him intense interest—i will not say hope! the ignorance of what was coming kept him in a constant flutter of subdued excitement, and the astounding results (even sometimes to myself) of some of my combinations, kept him in a perpetual simmer of expectation. but after long observation, i have come to the deliberate conclusion that nothing whatever gave robin such ineffable joy as an explosion! a crash, a burst, a general reduction of anything to instantaneous and elemental ruin, was so dear to him that i verily believe he would have taken his chance, and stood by, if i had proposed to blow the roof off dr mctougall’s mansion. nay, i almost think that if that remarkable waif had been set on a bombshell and blown to atoms, he would have retired from this life in a state of supreme satisfaction.
while my mind was thus agreeably concentrated on the pursuit of science, it received a rude, but pleasing, yet particularly distracting shock, by the return of lilly blythe. the extent to which this governess was worshipped by the whole household was wonderful—almost idolatrous. need i say that i joined in the worship, and that dumps and robin followed suit? i think not. and yet—there was something strange, something peculiar, something unaccountable, about miss blythe’s manner which i could by no means understand.
