“Aye, there y’ are,” he said on one occasion when Boy, with some pride, brought for his inspection a beautiful rose-coloured sea-anemone which he had managed to detach from the rocks and carry off in his tin pail, “there y’ are, you see! Now ye’ve made a fellow-creature miserable y’ are as ‘appy as the day is long! Eh, eh, — why, for mussy’s sake, didn’t ye leave it on the rocks in the sun with the sea a-washin’ it an’ the blessin’ of the Lord A’mighty on it? They things are jes’ like human souls — there they stick on a rock of faith and hope maybe, jes’ wantin’ nothin’ but to be let alone; and then by and by someone comes along that begins to poke at ’em and pull ’em about and wake up all their sensitiveness-like— ‘urt ’em as much as possible, that’s the way! — and then they pulls ’em off their rocks, and carries ’em off in a mean little tin pail! Ay, ay, ye may call a tin pail whatever ye please — a pile o’ money or a pile o’ love — it’s nought but a tin pail, not a rock with the sun shinin’ upon it. And o’ course they dies; there ain’t no sense in livin’ in a tin pail.” These remarks being somewhat profound, were rather beyond Boy’s comprehension, but he gathered something of their sense and looked rather wistfully at his sea-trophy.
“Will it die now?” he asked, anxiously.
“Av coorse it will! How’d you like to be took off your own blessed rock and squeeged into a pail? Come now, tell me that! Wouldn’t you kick the bucket over? Hor — hor — hor!” — and the old man laughed hoarsely at what he considered a bright and natural witticism, “ an’ die an’ ‘ave done with it?”
“I suppose I should,” answered Boy, meditatively. “What do you do when you die?”
“I ain’t done it yet,” replied Rattling Jack, rather testily, “but I expec’ when I ‘ave to I’ll do it as well as my betters — stretch out my legs, turn up my toes, shut up my eyes, chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe, and go slick off. There ain’t no particular style o’ doin’ it.”
Boy stood staring, limp with horror, Rattling Jack had been so extremely realistic in his description, — suiting the action to the word and the word to the action, — and at the “chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe” he had made such an appalling noise that Boy felt it would be necessary to run for assistance. But the venerable gentleman soon recovered from his histrionic efforts, and producing his pipe, began stuffing the tobacco well into it with the point of an extremely dirty forefinger.
“Ay, ay, there y’ are,” he went on. “Now, wot are ye goin’ to be yerself when yer tries to knock up a riggin’ in this wide world? There baint no place for boys in this old country, but away wiz yer to’ Meriker and Canada. Ask yer father to send ye away to ‘Meriker; there’s a chance for ev’ry man to make a million there an’ come back a reg’lar bounder. An’ then ye can marry one o’ they foine ladies wots all dress an’ no brains, — simper-simper, slish-slish! — ah, they makes me sick, they do! I tell yer,” — here he turned angrily round upon the astonished boy, “ I tell yer they makes me sick, they do. We don’t see many of ’em ’ere, the Lord be blessed for all ’is mussies, but if ever you goes to Lunnon—”
“I used to live in London,” murmured Boy, apologetically.
Rattling Jack looked at him in a kind of dull wrath.
“You! — you little shaver! Come from Lunnon, do yer? Well, wot in the world is yer doin’ ’ere? Now tell me that.” Here lighting his pipe, he stuck it well between his yellow teeth, and turned round with a fish-like glare in his eye upon the small boy before him. “Wot are yer doin’ ’ere?” he repeated. “Come, now, tell me that.” Boy meditated; finally he said, —
“I’m very sorry I can’t tell you. I really don’t know.”
“Avast there!” said Rattling Jack. “A boy as don’t know where ’e is, nor wot ’e is, nor why ’e is, ain’t no good as I can see. Chuck it!”
Possibly it may have been from the consideration of these scathing remarks of Rattling Jack that Boy was moved one morning to ask his “Muzzy” a perplexing question, which has often presented itself as the profoundest of problems to most of the world’s metaphysicians.
“Mother, what am I?”
Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, who had just settled herself comfortably in an arm-chair to hear him read aloud a short summary prepared by herself of some of the baldest and prosiest facts of our glorious English history, gazed at him with a bland smile.
“Don’t be silly, Boy!”
“I’m not silly,” he answered, with a touch of irritation: “I want to know what I really am — I mean, what is the good of me?”
“What is the good of you?” echoed “Muzzy,” nodding her large head, abstractedly. “Are you not my son?”
“Yes, but I might have been anybody’s son, you see,” said Boy. “That isn’t it at all. I should like to know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“Of course you would,” replied his mother with comfortable composure. “Very natural and very proper. But we can’t decide that just now. When you are older, perhaps, you shall go into the Navy.”
Boy’s face flushed and his delicate brows contracted. His mother did not understand him. But he had found out that it was no use arguing with her.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, and turned at once to his lessons in resigned patience.
It was strange, he thought, but inevitable, that no one could be found to tell him exactly what he wished most to learn. About God, for instance, — who was that Personage really? He was afraid to ask. He had been told that God had made him, and the world, and everything that was in the world, and he was accustomed to say a little form of prayer to this same God every night at bedtime and every morning on rising — the servant Gerty at Hereford Square had taught him to do so, and his “Muzzy” had blandly approved of Gerty’s religious zeal. But he had no real conception as to Whom he was addressing himself. The sweet old story, the grand story of the selfless Christ, had been told him in a sort of vague and inconsequent manner, but he had not understood it a bit. One of his petitions to Heaven, invented by Gerty, ran thus: “Dear Jesus, bless father, bless mother, make me a good boy, and save my soul for Heaven, amen!” But he had no sort of idea what his “soul” was, or why it should be so carefully “saved for Heaven.” What was the good of his soul? And what was Heaven? Often he thought he would ask Rattling Jack, but he hesitated to do so lest that venerable cynic should empty vials of wrath on his defenceless head for being in such a state of ignorance. And so the days went on, and he was fast becoming used to the companionship of the boy-scavengers on the beech and the conversation of Rattling Jack when a sudden and glorious break occurred in the clouds of his dull sky. Major Desmond came down from London unexpectedly to see his father and mother, and to ask that he might be allowed to go to Scotland and stay a whole month with Miss Leslie at a beautiful place she had taken there for the summer on the fairy shores of Loch Katrine. He was amusing himself by the sea as usual, putting helpless baby-crabs into a glass bottle, when his mother’s maid-of-all-work came hurrying down to find him, and, seizing him suddenly by the arm, upset the whole crab family all over the sand. But Boy made no remark of either anger or sorrow as he saw his crawling collection scattered in all directions; they were not the only crabs, he reflected, philosophically — there were a good many more in the sea. And when he heard that Major Desmond was waiting to see him he was very glad, though as a matter of fact he was not quite sure who Major Desmond was, except that he was associated in his mind with an old magic lantern which had fallen out of repair, and was shut up in a cupboard with the worn-out boots of the household. He ran, however, as fast as his little, wiry legs would carry him, moved by curiosity and an eagerness that he could not well explain, but made conscious by the outcoming aura of pleasurable sensations that something agreeable was about to happen. He forgot that he was dirty and untidy, he did not know that he looked neglected, so that he was utterly unaware of the reasons which caused the well-dressed, handsome, burly old gentleman with the white moustache to recoil a step or two
at sight of him, and exclaim “Oh Lord!” accompanying the ejaculation with a low whistle. Major Desmond? — of course he remembered him now! — he was the friend of the far-off vision of his childhood, “Kiss-Letty.” And rising memories began to come, and sent the colour to his face, and the sparkle to his eyes, and the tremulous curve to his lips as he held out his grimy little hand and said, somewhat nervously, —
“How do you do, Major! Has Miss Letty come, too?”
The major recovered from the shock of dismay with which he had at first contemplated the little sea-ragamuffin, and as he caught the look and smile with which Boy accompanied his question he began to breathe again.
“No, she has not come,” he replied, taking a grip of Boy’s thin shoulder with his strong yet gentle hand, “she is in Scotland. I am going over there to shoot. And I want to take you with me if your mother will let you come. How would you like to go, eh?”
Boy remained speechless. He could really have cried for joy at the idea, but he had learnt to control his emotions. One of the special “points” of his mother’s character was the maternal delight she had in refusing him any very special relaxation; she judged that as “discipline,” and used to say it was “a mother’s duty” to see that “her son” was not spoilt. So, remembering this in time, he only smiled and was silent. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, looking narrowly at him, smiled also, condescendingly and complacently.
“Dear Boy! He doesn’t want to leave me,” she said, reverting to her old idea that she had made herself an absolute necessity to his comfort and happiness, “but I really think — yes — I think I should like him to go with you, major. A little change will do him good — he is growing so fast—”
“Yes, by Jove, he is!” agreed Desmond, looking at the little fellow with a doubtful air, “and getting jolly thin on it, too! What do you feed him on, eh? Oh, never mind, we won’t go into it if you’d rather not. A little knocking round in the heather won’t hurt him. Well, ma’am, if you’re agreeable I can take him at once; we can reach London this evening and take the mail train up to-morrow.”
And so, with few words, to Boy’s complete amazement it was all settled. He was told to go and get washed and dressed, and the good-natured maid-of-all-work, hearing these instructions, came to him in his little room and scrubbed him down and helped him into his only decent suit of clothes, still of the “Jack Tar” pattern and made by a country tailor. The country tailor was the only one who had fitted Boy properly; all his other clothes were stitched together loosely by Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, who had “designed” them, as she said with much pride, and “cut” them, alas! on the following of those designs. A few little shirts and socks were crammed hastily into the very portmanteau Major Desmond had given him so long ago, and the maid-of-all-work, perceiving a loose box of toys in a corner, containing she knew not what, put that in also, “for,” she muttered to herself, “they’ll amuse him on a rainy day, and I’ve heard it always rains in Scotland.” And so, before he had time almost to look round, he had said good-bye to his mother, — his father was at the public-house and it was not worth while sending for him, — and was in the train with the major sitting opposite to him — yes, there they were, flying, rushing, flying along to London at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He could hardly believe it; his head was quite confused with the hurry and surprise of it. He felt a little shy, too, and afraid; the pretty confidence of his early days had quite disappeared. He peeped up every now and then at the major, and the major in turn, over the edge of a newspaper, peeped at him.
“By Jove, how the poor little beggar has been allowed to run wild!” thought the good-natured gentleman, whom the passing of years had made more good-natured than ever. “Looks like a ragged wastrel!” Aloud he said, “Boy, old chap, do you know what I’m going to do with you when we get to town?”
Boy smiled trustfully, because the major looked so cheerful.
“No,” he said, “you tell me!”
“I’m going to put you in a mild Turkish bath,” pursued the major. “Know what that is?”
“No!” and Boy laughed.
“Thought not. Well, you’ll know before you go to bed!”
Then came a silence, while the major read his paper and the train rushed on, and Boy began thinking, or rather trying to think, over the rapid and amazing events of the day.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 436
