Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California. Henty George Alfred
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but he took the baby out of her arms and gave it to me, and then he upped and took the poor young creature – she were no great weight, sir – and carried her into the house, and laid her on the bed, as it might be by the window there.
"Well, sir, that bed she never left; she came round a little, and lived some days, but her mind were never rightly itself again. She would lay there, with her baby beside her, and sing songs to herself; I don't know what about, for it were some foreign language. She were very gentle and quiet like, but I don't think she ever knew where she was, or anything about it. She were very fond of baby, and would take it in her arms, and hush it, and talk to it. She faded and faded away, and the doctor said nothing could be done for her; it made my heart ache, sir, and if you will believe me, I would go upstairs and cry by the hour.
"The thought of the little baby troubled me too. I had lost my first little one, sir, and I could not a-bear the thought of the little thing going to the workhouse. So one day I says to John, 'John, when that poor mother dies, for God's sake don't 'ee send the little baby to the workhouse; He has taken away our own little one, and may be He has sent this one for us to love in his place. Let us take him as our own.' John, he did not say nothing, but he up and gived me a great kiss, and said, 'Sairey, you're a good woman!' which of course, sir," Mrs. Holl put in apologetically, "is neither here nor there, for any mother would have done the same; but it's John's way when he's pleased. That very same night the baby's mother died."
Standing with her rough honest face lit up by the bright fire-glow she related it, simply, and as a matter of course, all unconscious of the good part she had taken in it, assuming no credit to herself, or seeing that she deserved any.
When she had finished there was a little silence. Frank passed his hand furtively across his eyes, and then shook Mrs. Holl warmly by the hand, saying, "Your husband was right, Mrs. Holl, you are a good woman."
Mrs. Holl looked completely amazed, and stammered out, "Lor' bless you, sir! there wasn't anything out of the way in what I did, and there's scores and scores would do the like. Having just lost my own little one, my heart went out to the poor little thing, and it seemed sent natural like, to fill up the place of the little angel who was gone from us. Bless your heart, sir, there weren't nothing out of the way in that, nothing at all, and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy's a good boy, and a clever boy, and he is a comfort and a help to us; a better boy never lived. But we have always grieved sorely over the accident."
"Then he was not originally lame, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked.
"Dear me! no, sir, not till he were six years old. It happened this way. I was laid up at the time – I was just confined of Mary, she is my eldest girl – and somehow Harry he went out in the street playing. I don't rightly know how it happened; but never shall I forget when they brought him in, and said that a cart had run over him. John, he was in – which was lucky, for I think I lost my head like, and went clean out of my mind for a bit, for I loved him just like my own. They did not think he would have lived at first, for the cart had gone over the lower part of his body and broke one of his thigh-bones, and the other leg up high. It was a light cart I have heard tell, or it must have killed him.
"He were in bed for months, and, if you will believe me, if ever there was a patient little angel on earth, it was surely Harry. He never complained, and his chief trouble was for my sake. At last he got well; but the doctors said he would never walk again, for they thought there was some damage done to his spine; and sure enough he never has walked. He is always cheerful, and keeps up wonderful, considering.
"He has always been given to reading. John made a shift to teach him his letters, and then the children of the neighbours, they lent him their schoolbooks, and taught him what they knew, and in a short time, bless you, sir, he knew more than them all! He would sit and read for hours together. He is wonderful clever, Harry is."
"Well, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, rising, "I am very much obliged to you for your story; but I must be going now, or else I shall be late for school. Tell Harry I am sorry I missed him, and will look in again soon. Have you thought anything further of what I said about Evan?"
"Yes, sir, and thank you most kindly; but father thinks he had better wait another year or so, till he gets a bit older and steadier. As for them books as you was kind enough to send Harry, the boy must thank you hisself; except when he is playing on his fiddle he is always reading at them, and it is as much as I can do to get him outside the doors. He was never very fond of it, for he thinks people look at him; but since those books has come I have regular to take them away from him, put his cap on his head, and push him outside the door. He will be in a taking that he has missed you to-day."
"Well, good-bye, Mrs. Holl, I haven't a moment to lose," and Frank, putting on his hat, made off at a sharp run to school, only arriving just in time to say prayers.
Frank Norris, although a Sixth town boy, was not head of Richards', as Johnstone had been longer in that form, and was consequently senior to him. Johnstone was, however, small and slightly built, and cared little for rowing, cricket, or football. He had gained his place in the Sixth by sheer hard work rather than by talent. He was fussy and irritable, with a strong sense of the importance of his position as a Sixth town boy and head of Richards'. Between him and Frank there was no cordiality, for it irritated him that the latter was upon all occasions appealed to, and his advice asked in everything relating to games, and all matters of dispute referred to him. Frank, on the other hand, although he at all times gave way to Johnstone in house matters, was constantly annoyed by his continual self-assertion and his irritation at trifles. They were the only two Sixth town boys at Richards', but there were three Upper 'Shells,' Harris, Travers, and James, and these ranked almost with the Sixth, for the great demarcation of the School was between the Upper and Under 'Shells,' the former having the right to fag.
Frank and Johnston had each a small room of their own; the three Upper "Shells" had a room together, but they used Frank's study almost as much as their own; one or other would generally come in to work with him in the evening, and it was here that councils were held as to house matters or knotty points connected with field or water.
"I wish Trafalgar Square wasn't out of bounds," Harris said one evening.
They had finished the work for the next day, and had gathered for a chat in Frank's room before turning into bed. Frank was sitting in a rickety arm-chair by the fire, Harris on the table, and the other two on the bed.
"Why do you wish so, Harris?" Frank said.
"Why, I should like to go up to see those rows they have pretty nearly every day. Thompson, the home boarder, told me he saw a regular fight there yesterday evening between the police and the Chartists."
"Well, it's no use wishing, because bounds begin at the gate in Dean's Yard. I never could understand myself why we should be allowed to go the other way, down the slums, as far as we please, where there is every chance of getting into a row, while we are not allowed to walk quietly up Parliament Street; then we may go along the other way, by the new Houses of Parliament, to Westminster Bridge, and across the bridge to baths; but we may not go out from Dean's Yard and walk across in front of the Abbey to the Bridge. I expect when the rules were made there were no houses built beyond us, and there were fields extending back from the river, while the other way led up to the Court. But I should certainly like to go up and see one of those Chartist riots. However, I don't think it can be done; it would be setting a bad example to the young uns, and the chances are ten to one we should run against one of the masters."
"Hardly likely, I should think," Travers said; "it would be shocking bad luck to run against one of them in a crowd like that."
"Well, you see, Travers, we are so preciously conspicuous in these tail-coats; of course it's the custom, and I stick up for old customs; still, I do think it's a ridiculous thing that we should be obliged to wear tail-coats. Of course the jackets for the fellows under the Upper 'Shell' are all right, but one cannot go on wearing jackets higher than that; still, I do think they might let us wear cutaways; tail-coats were all right when every one else wore tail-coats, but in our days it is absurd to wear a coat which nobody else wears except for an evening dress. You can tell a fellow a mile off as a Westminster boy by his coat."
"It has its advantages," James said. "Look how Johnstone would lose his importance without his tails,