The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels

by Various Authors

  There were many loiterers in the churchyard, and many lingerers in the lane that morning. There were groups at the gates and in the porch, and there had been much discussion as to whether my lord would really appear or not. When this discussion was at its height, one good woman suddenly uttered an exclamation.

  “Eh,” she said, “that must be the mother, pretty young thing.” All who heard turned and looked at the slender figure in black coming up the path. The veil was thrown back from her face and they could see how fair and sweet it was, and how the bright hair curled as softly as a child’s under the little widow’s cap.

  She was not thinking of the people about; she was thinking of Cedric, and of his visits to her, and his joy over his new pony, on which he had actually ridden to her door the day before, sitting very straight and looking very proud and happy. But soon she could not help being attracted by the fact that she was being looked at and that her arrival had created some sort of sensation. She first noticed it because an old woman in a red cloak made a bobbing courtesy to her, and then another did the same thing and said, “God bless you, my lady!” and one man after another took off his hat as she passed. For a moment she did not understand, and then she realized that it was because she was little Lord Fauntleroy’s mother that they did so, and she flushed rather shyly and smiled and bowed too, and said, “Thank you,” in a gentle voice to the old woman who had blessed her. To a person who had always lived in a bustling, crowded American city this simple deference was very novel, and at first just a little embarrassing; but after all, she could not help liking and being touched by the friendly warm-heartedness of which it seemed to speak. She had scarcely passed through the stone porch into the church before the great event of the day happened. The carriage from the Castle, with its handsome horses and tall liveried servants, bowled around the corner and down the green lane.

  “Here they come!” went from one looker-on to another.

  And then the carriage drew up, and Thomas stepped down and opened the door, and a little boy, dressed in black velvet, and with a splendid mop of bright waving hair, jumped out.

  Every man, woman, and child looked curiously upon him.

  “He’s the Captain over again!” said those of the on-lookers who remembered his father. “He’s the Captain’s self, to the life!”

  He stood there in the sunlight looking up at the Earl, as Thomas helped that nobleman out, with the most affectionate interest that could be imagined. The instant he could help, he put out his hand and offered his shoulder as if he had been seven feet high. It was plain enough to every one that however it might be with other people, the Earl of Dorincourt struck no terror into the breast of his grandson.

  “Just lean on me,” they heard him say. “How glad the people are to see you, and how well they all seem to know you!”

  “Take off your cap, Fauntleroy,” said the Earl. “They are bowing to you.”

  “To me!” cried Fauntleroy, whipping off his cap in a moment, baring his bright head to the crowd and turning shining, puzzled eyes on them as he tried to bow to every one at once.

  “God bless your lordship!” said the courtesying, red-cloaked old woman who had spoken to his mother; “long life to you!”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Fauntleroy. And then they went into the church, and were looked at there, on their way up the aisle to the square, red-cushioned and curtained pew. When Fauntleroy was fairly seated, he made two discoveries which pleased him: the first that, across the church where he could look at her, his mother sat and smiled at him; the second, that at one end of the pew, against the wall, knelt two quaint figures carven in stone, facing each other as they kneeled on either side of a pillar supporting two stone missals, their pointed hands folded as if in prayer, their dress very antique and strange. On the tablet by them was written something of which he could only read the curious words:

  “Here lyeth ye bodye of Gregorye Arthure Fyrst Earle of Dorincourt Allsoe of Alisone Hildegarde hys wyfe.”

  “May I whisper?” inquired his lordship, devoured by curiosity.

  “What is it?” said his grandfather.

  “Who are they?”

  “Some of your ancestors,” answered the Earl, “who lived a few hundred years ago.”

  “Perhaps,” said Lord Fauntleroy, regarding them with respect, “perhaps I got my spelling from them.” And then he proceeded to find his place in the church service. When the music began, he stood up and looked across at his mother, smiling. He was very fond of music, and his mother and he often sang together, so he joined in with the rest, his pure, sweet, high voice rising as clear as the song of a bird. He quite forgot himself in his pleasure in it. The Earl forgot himself a little too, as he sat in his curtain-shielded corner of the pew and watched the boy. Cedric stood with the big psalter open in his hands, singing with all his childish might, his face a little uplifted, happily; and as he sang, a long ray of sunshine crept in and, slanting through a golden pane of a stained glass window, brightened the falling hair about his young head. His mother, as she looked at him across the church, felt a thrill pass through her heart, and a prayer rose in it too,—a prayer that the pure, simple happiness of his childish soul might last, and that the strange, great fortune which had fallen to him might bring no wrong or evil with it. There were many soft, anxious thoughts in her tender heart in those new days.

  “Oh, Ceddie!” she had said to him the evening before, as she hung over him in saying good-night, before he went away; “oh, Ceddie, dear, I wish for your sake I was very clever and could say a great many wise things! But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and then you will never hurt any one, so long as you live, and you may help many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born. And that is best of all, Ceddie,—it is better than everything else, that the world should be a little better because a man has lived—even ever so little better, dearest.”

  And on his return to the Castle, Fauntleroy had repeated her words to his grandfather.

  “And I thought about you when she said that,” he ended; “and I told her that was the way the world was because you had lived, and I was going to try if I could be like you.”

  “And what did she say to that?” asked his lordship, a trifle uneasily.

  “She said that was right, and we must always look for good in people and try to be like it.”

  Perhaps it was this the old man remembered as he glanced through the divided folds of the red curtain of his pew. Many times he looked over the people’s heads to where his son’s wife sat alone, and he saw the fair face the unforgiven dead had loved, and the eyes which were so like those of the child at his side; but what his thoughts were, and whether they were hard and bitter, or softened a little, it would have been hard to discover.

  As they came out of church, many of those who had attended the service stood waiting to see them pass. As they neared the gate, a man who stood with his hat in his hand made a step forward and then hesitated. He was a middle-aged farmer, with a careworn face.

  “Well, Higgins,” said the Earl.

  Fauntleroy turned quickly to look at him.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed, “is it Mr. Higgins?”

  “Yes,” answered the Earl dryly; “and I suppose he came to take a look at his new landlord.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said the man, his sunburned face reddening. “Mr. Newick told me his young lordship was kind enough to speak for me, and I thought I’d like to say a word of thanks, if I might be allowed.”

  Perhaps he felt some wonder when he saw what a little fellow it was who had innocently done so much for him, and who stood there looking up just as one of his own less fortunate children might have done—apparently not realizing his own importance in the least.

  “I’ve a great deal to thank your lordship for,” he said; “a great deal. I——”

  “Oh,” said Fauntle
roy; “I only wrote the letter. It was my grandfather who did it. But you know how he is about always being good to everybody. Is Mrs. Higgins well now?”

  Higgins looked a trifle taken aback. He also was somewhat startled at hearing his noble landlord presented in the character of a benevolent being, full of engaging qualities.

  “I—well, yes, your lordship,” he stammered, “the missus is better since the trouble was took off her mind. It was worrying broke her down.”

  “I’m glad of that,” said Fauntleroy. “My grandfather was very sorry about your children having the scarlet fever, and so was I. He has had children himself. I’m his son’s little boy, you know.”

  Higgins was on the verge of being panic-stricken. He felt it would be the safer and more discreet plan not to look at the Earl, as it had been well known that his fatherly affection for his sons had been such that he had seen them about twice a year, and that when they had been ill, he had promptly departed for London, because he would not be bored with doctors and nurses. It was a little trying, therefore, to his lordship’s nerves to be told, while he looked on, his eyes gleaming from under his shaggy eyebrows, that he felt an interest in scarlet fever.

  “You see, Higgins,” broke in the Earl with a fine grim smile, “you people have been mistaken in me. Lord Fauntleroy understands me. When you want reliable information on the subject of my character, apply to him. Get into the carriage, Fauntleroy.”

  And Fauntleroy jumped in, and the carriage rolled away down the green lane, and even when it turned the corner into the high road, the Earl was still grimly smiling.

  VIII

  Lord Dorincourt had occasion to wear his grim smile many a time as the days passed by. Indeed, as his acquaintance with his grandson progressed, he wore the smile so often that there were moments when it almost lost its grimness. There is no denying that before Lord Fauntleroy had appeared on the scene, the old man had been growing very tired of his loneliness and his gout and his seventy years. After so long a life of excitement and amusement, it was not agreeable to sit alone even in the most splendid room, with one foot on a gout-stool, and with no other diversion than flying into a rage, and shouting at a frightened footman who hated the sight of him. The old Earl was too clever a man not to know perfectly well that his servants detested him, and that even if he had visitors, they did not come for love of him—though some found a sort of amusement in his sharp, sarcastic talk, which spared no one. So long as he had been strong and well, he had gone from one place to another, pretending to amuse himself, though he had not really enjoyed it; and when his health began to fail, he felt tired of everything and shut himself up at Dorincourt, with his gout and his newspapers and his books. But he could not read all the time, and he became more and more “bored,” as he called it. He hated the long nights and days, and he grew more and more savage and irritable. And then Fauntleroy came; and when the Earl saw him, fortunately for the little fellow, the secret pride of the grandfather was gratified at the outset. If Cedric had been a less handsome little fellow, the old man might have taken so strong a dislike to him that he would not have given himself the chance to see his grandson’s finer qualities. But he chose to think that Cedric’s beauty and fearless spirit were the results of the Dorincourt blood and a credit to the Dorincourt rank. And then when he heard the lad talk, and saw what a well-bred little fellow he was, notwithstanding his boyish ignorance of all that his new position meant, the old Earl liked his grandson more, and actually began to find himself rather entertained. It had amused him to give into those childish hands the power to bestow a benefit on poor Higgins. My lord cared nothing for poor Higgins, but it pleased him a little to think that his grandson would be talked about by the country people and would begin to be popular with the tenantry, even in his childhood. Then it had gratified him to drive to church with Cedric and to see the excitement and interest caused by the arrival. He knew how the people would speak of the beauty of the little lad; of his fine, strong, straight body; of his erect bearing, his handsome face, and his bright hair, and how they would say (as the Earl had heard one woman exclaim to another) that the boy was “every inch a lord.” My lord of Dorincourt was an arrogant old man, proud of his name, proud of his rank, and therefore proud to show the world that at last the House of Dorincourt had an heir who was worthy of the position he was to fill.

  The morning the new pony had been tried, the Earl had been so pleased that he had almost forgotten his gout. When the groom had brought out the pretty creature, which arched its brown, glossy neck and tossed its fine head in the sun, the Earl had sat at the open window of the library and had looked on while Fauntleroy took his first riding lesson. He wondered if the boy would show signs of timidity. It was not a very small pony, and he had often seen children lose courage in making their first essay at riding.

  Fauntleroy mounted in great delight. He had never been on a pony before, and he was in the highest spirits. Wilkins, the groom, led the animal by the bridle up and down before the library window.

  “He’s a well plucked un, he is,” Wilkins remarked in the stable afterward with many grins. “It weren’t no trouble to put HIM up. An’ a old un wouldn’t ha’ sat any straighter when he WERE up. He ses—ses he to me, ‘Wilkins,’ he ses, ‘am I sitting up straight? They sit up straight at the circus,’ ses he. An’ I ses, ‘As straight as a arrer, your lordship!’—an’ he laughs, as pleased as could be, an’ he ses, ‘That’s right,’ he ses, ‘you tell me if I don’t sit up straight, Wilkins!’”

  But sitting up straight and being led at a walk were not altogether and completely satisfactory. After a few minutes, Fauntleroy spoke to his grandfather—watching him from the window:

  “Can’t I go by myself?” he asked; “and can’t I go faster? The boy on Fifth Avenue used to trot and canter!”

  “Do you think you could trot and canter?” said the Earl.

  “I should like to try,” answered Fauntleroy.

  His lordship made a sign to Wilkins, who at the signal brought up his own horse and mounted it and took Fauntleroy’s pony by the leading-rein.

  “Now,” said the Earl, “let him trot.”

  The next few minutes were rather exciting to the small equestrian. He found that trotting was not so easy as walking, and the faster the pony trotted, the less easy it was.

  “It j-jolts a g-goo-good deal—do-doesn’t it?” he said to Wilkins. “D-does it j-jolt y-you?”

  “No, my lord,” answered Wilkins. “You’ll get used to it in time. Rise in your stirrups.”

  “I’m ri-rising all the t-time,” said Fauntleroy.

  He was both rising and falling rather uncomfortably and with many shakes and bounces. He was out of breath and his face grew red, but he held on with all his might, and sat as straight as he could. The Earl could see that from his window. When the riders came back within speaking distance, after they had been hidden by the trees a few minutes, Fauntleroy’s hat was off, his cheeks were like poppies, and his lips were set, but he was still trotting manfully.

  “Stop a minute!” said his grandfather. “Where’s your hat?”

  Wilkins touched his. “It fell off, your lordship,” he said, with evident enjoyment. “Wouldn’t let me stop to pick it up, my lord.”

  “Not much afraid, is he?” asked the Earl dryly.

  “Him, your lordship!” exclaimed Wilkins. “I shouldn’t say as he knowed what it meant. I’ve taught young gen’lemen to ride afore, an’ I never see one stick on more determinder.”

  “Tired?” said the Earl to Fauntleroy. “Want to get off?”

  “It jolts you more than you think it will,” admitted his young lordship frankly. “And it tires you a little, too; but I don’t want to get off. I want to learn how. As soon as I’ve got my breath I want to go back for the hat.”

  The cleverest person in the world, if he had undertaken to teach Fauntleroy how to please the old man who watched him
, could not have taught him anything which would have succeeded better. As the pony trotted off again toward the avenue, a faint color crept up in the fierce old face, and the eyes, under the shaggy brows, gleamed with a pleasure such as his lordship had scarcely expected to know again. And he sat and watched quite eagerly until the sound of the horses’ hoofs returned. When they did come, which was after some time, they came at a faster pace. Fauntleroy’s hat was still off; Wilkins was carrying it for him; his cheeks were redder than before, and his hair was flying about his ears, but he came at quite a brisk canter.

  “There!” he panted, as they drew up, “I c-cantered. I didn’t do it as well as the boy on Fifth Avenue, but I did it, and I staid on!”

  He and Wilkins and the pony were close friends after that. Scarcely a day passed in which the country people did not see them out together, cantering gayly on the highroad or through the green lanes. The children in the cottages would run to the door to look at the proud little brown pony with the gallant little figure sitting so straight in the saddle, and the young lord would snatch off his cap and swing it at them, and shout, “Hullo! Good-morning!” in a very unlordly manner, though with great heartiness. Sometimes he would stop and talk with the children, and once Wilkins came back to the castle with a story of how Fauntleroy had insisted on dismounting near the village school, so that a boy who was lame and tired might ride home on his pony.

  “An’ I’m blessed,” said Wilkins, in telling the story at the stables,—"I’m blessed if he’d hear of anything else! He wouldn’t let me get down, because he said the boy mightn’t feel comfortable on a big horse. An’ ses he, ‘Wilkins,’ ses he, ‘that boy’s lame and I’m not, and I want to talk to him, too.’ And up the lad has to get, and my lord trudges alongside of him with his hands in his pockets, and his cap on the back of his head, a-whistling and talking as easy as you please! And when we come to the cottage, an’ the boy’s mother come out all in a taking to see what’s up, he whips off his cap an’ ses he, ‘I’ve brought your son home, ma’am,’ ses he, ‘because his leg hurt him, and I don’t think that stick is enough for him to lean on; and I’m going to ask my grandfather to have a pair of crutches made for him.’ An’ I’m blessed if the woman wasn’t struck all of a heap, as well she might be! I thought I should ‘a’ hex-plodid, myself!”