Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

For the first mile or two, being early, they had the road a good deal to themselves; but as they drew near to the race-course, it became crowded by numbers of persons who came in from by-paths, and they were overtaken by carriages of every kind, so that Mrs. Morrison soon lost sight of George entirely, and became very uneasy lest Richard should receive some rude push, or be driven from her side by intervening travellers. This, however, did not occur, for the little fellow managed his donkey so exactly by her directions, that the bustle, though continually increasing, never put him out of the way, and they reached the course in perfect safety.

  When Mrs. Morrison had arrived at the place where she purposed stopping, she looked round in vain for her eldest son, whom she now really wanted; but as she could not see him, Richard went to seek the servant, to whom a holiday had been granted, and was not long before he found him, as the man was on the look-out for them. The cattle were given to his charge, and he was also told to look round for George, and direct him to the place where they were.

  “Why ye’ll be quite ‘sheamed on him, ma’am, I ‘shure ye, for I had a gliff of him a bit since, an he was covered wi’ dust; besides, he had a new green jacket on, and old brown trousers — he won’t look fit to be seen beside you and his brothers.”

  “Foolish boy! this comes of his being in such haste; but you must send him, James, for he will be very hungry.”

  Mrs. Morrison now produced from her basket cold tongue and ham, gooseberry tarts, and cowslip wine, and the little boys were heartily regaled; but the anxious mother was too much occupied with gazing round for George to secure her own comfort. Before she had the satisfaction of descrying him, the press of company increased, the race had begun, and her more immediate object was placing the children in a position to see what was going forward.

  They were pretty children, and very neatly dressed, and, even in their extreme eagerness to gaze at the race, showed a great fear of intercepting the view of their dear mamma. This circumstance drew the attention of a lady of high rank, whose carriage was in the same line with them, and she directed her servant to place them, with their mother’s leave, on her coachbox, by which means they were greatly elevated, and saw both the race and the whole course in perfection.

  Whilst in this situation, George and his brothers recognised each other, but they had no chance of approaching, or even speaking to one another. George was still on horseback, closely jammed in with a body of other persons, also mounted, and it was in vain he raised himself in the stirrups, or put his head forward, for not one foot of the course could he see; and so far were the mob around him from pitying his condition or aiding his efforts, that every time he pushed forward, either himself or poor old Gray got a cut from some of their whips. A melancholy shake of the head was the only signal he could make to the children, whose situation he naturally envied.

  When the race was over, the children were returned, with commendation of their persons and behaviour, to their mother, to whom they offered the cakes and fruit given them by the grand lady, whose little son, called Lord Frederick, had sat with them, and told them a great deal about the horses and the company. Their innocent delight gladdened the heart of their mother, which was also relieved by their information of her eldest son’s safety, for which she had been several hours experiencing the most distressing solicitude.

  The man now brought Captain and Dapple, which were well fed and rested, and they all set off home in high spirits, trying, but in vain, to discover, in the moving mass around them, poor George.

  This they were the less likely to do, because Mrs. Morrison judged it prudent to keep quiet in her humble vehicle, until the coaches and six, with their outriders, and the cavalcade of proudly-mounted gentlemen, had galloped off. She then proceeded leisurely for about a mile, when she could safely quicken her pace, and proceed by a pleasant twilight towards her own happy home, fondly hoping that George had used as much expedition to reach as he had done to leave it.

  When Mr. Morrison learnt from Giles that the race people were returning, he walked out towards the road to welcome his beloved wife and family, being all day subject to certain misgivings as to George’s conduct. He had only gone a little way when he perceived him coming at a tolerably smart trot, but without a hat, and his clothes so soiled, that he had been evidently rolled in the dust. Mr. Morrison, in great alarm, rushed forward, and, seizing the bridle, cried: “What has happened? where are your mother and the boys?”

  “They are coming, I dare say, within a little distance, father. Nothing has happened to them; the boys, I’m certain, have had a fine time of it.”

  “Then what has happened to you, that you come back in such a trim? and the poor old horse, too, is sadly distressed — tell me the truth.”

  “Why father,” said George, bursting into tears, “I have had all kinds of misfortunes.”

  “Well, never mind, don’t cry; you set out with a resolution to act like a man, and take care both of yourself and the family — let me hear what has befallen you?”

  “You see, in the first place, I pushed on a little, and there came in such crowds of people, that I was separated from my mother, and the horse grew vicious and starty, so that I had great difficulty with him, which some bad people increased by putting an umbrella before his eyes; in short, he fairly flung me, but I must say he stood stock still afterwards.”

  “Humph! that was for taking him from his corn. Well! what came next?”

  “Oh! papa, my trousers were torn and my leg cut, and when I put my hand in my pocket to get my handkerchief to tie round it, both that and my purse were gone — yes! all my money that I have been saving so long.”

  “I expected as much — go on.”

  “Well, then I wanted my mother exceedingly, but I got into such a crowd that it was impossible for me, hurt as I was and the horse unwilling to go, to get out of it, and the race came on, and the pressure increased, and I saw nothing, only that little Will and Dick were mounted on the top of a fine coach, where two footmen took care of them and another boy, and they were eating grapes whilst I was dying for hunger and thirst.”

  “And did you see none of our friends and neighbours to whom you could mention your situation?”

  “I saw Farmer Browne, and Mr. Simpson, and John Davy; but they all seemed to think I had played truant, and come unknown to you, because — because, it seems, I forgot in my hurry to put on my new trousers and my Wellingtons.”

  “I cannot blame them; you had every appearance of being such, as it was not likely a boy at your age should have been sent to a race-course alone, or seen by such a mother as yours half-dressed, or mounted by me on a horse so ill-appointed as old Gray must appear. I pity the old creature much more than you, who, in forsaking your mother and forfeiting your promise, have seriously offended me.”

  George wept again as he dismounted and gave the horse to Giles, and Mr. Morrison saw with sincere pity that he walked with pain; but he took no farther notice of him, whilst he ordered a good mash to be made for old Gray, saying, “The poor beast has not had a morsel of food the whole day, it appears.”

  “Yes, father, he has had a trifle, for though I lost all my silver, I had two-pence in my jacket pocket, so I bought him an oat-cake at Sally Lamb’s, and she gave the poor thing some water; so then he came home freely as you saw.”

  Mr. Morrison was touched to the heart with this proof of good feeling in a boy, who, it was his consolation to know, possessed many excellent qualities, though they were all obscured too frequently by that bustling volatility and desire of independence which had turned a day of pleasure into one of pain. Just then his wife and the children came up to the door, both the travellers and their cattle perfectly well, and the boys eager to relate their adventures to their affectionate father. As it was nearly dark, Mrs. Morrison did not see her son’s condition, and she could not forbear exclaiming: “George! George! what a day of anxiety have you given me!”

  “And that anxiety must be succeeded, my dear, by some trouble, for Georg
e requires your skill for a wounded leg; and as he has had no food since breakfast, nor any amusement to divert him from the sense of his sufferings, we must, for the present, forget his faults. I am the more ready to do this, because he has tried to make some reparation to my old horse; so I hope in time he may do it to his own mother.”

  In the next moment poor George was sobbing in his mother’s arms, and folded to her bosom.

  “Come, come, my dear, let us go in and get our invalid to bed. I trust he will rise all the wiser for his late troubles, and be persuaded henceforward not to make ‘more haste than good speed.’”

  LEASIDE COTTAGE.

  My dear little Fanny, I promised to tell you the story of the two children we saw yesterday evening near that pretty neat cottage, whose low walls of rough grey stone, slated roof, and old round chimney, are so covered with a tissue of ivy, rose, and jessamine, that the little dwelling looks more like a silvan bower than a structure built up of common masonry.

  Come a little farther on, and the cottage will be visible close to us (while we remain unseen, and, if we speak low, unheard) from that next opening in the green lane. Yes, there it is; and at the door, just within that honeysuckle porch, sits a lady employed in needlework, and at her feet two children, a boy and girl (the same we saw yesterday), reading together in the open Bible, which they hold between them. The boy is reading aloud — hark! — about the infant Samuel; and he holds his little sister’s hand in his, sometimes guiding her small forefinger as he reads along the line of Holy Writ, and then her eyes (before fixed on his face) look downward for a while, as if following the passive index. That lady, who ever and anon looks off her work, to gaze so fondly on the two children, is very plainly dressed, you see, in the simplest and homeliest garb; and yet you cannot doubt for a moment that she is a lady, and has seen better days, and has been very fair in her youth. Even now she is hardly past the prime of life, though the soft brown hair, smoothly and evenly parted aside under her thick muslin cap, is already streaked with grey, and there are more lines and hollows in that mild pale face than the hand of Time has imprinted there. My dear child, if you live to be a woman, you will perhaps learn from experience that the hand of Sorrow marks deeper than that of Time, great workman as he is, and often forestalls his leisurely operation. Too often, I had nearly said; but that would be a senseless and misapplied expression, since the work of Time and Sorrow are equally subordinate to the Almighty will, which ordereth all things — all circumstances of good and evil, exactly at such times, in such proportions, as often or as seldom as He knows to be most expedient for us. But for that poor lady’s entire trust in His wisdom and goodness, she would be an object of painful compassion, my dear Fanny; for her life has been one of sadly diversified affliction. She wears mourning, you see, and all her remaining days she will continue to wear those sad sable weeds, put on many years ago for a beloved husband, who was taken from her by violent death in the third year of their union, under circumstances which left her the destitute mother of one helpless infant, and soon to become the parent of a second, who came untimely into the world, a weak and sickly babe, some few weeks after her father had been committed to the grave. — But come away, my Fanny, a little farther back into the green lane, where we shall not only find a convenient seat on those timber-logs, but I shall be able to go on with my little story without any danger of attracting observation from the cottage.

  Little Harry Morton is just ten years old, as fine and promising a boy, you saw, as either of your own dear brothers; but he does not look so happy as they do, poor fellow! and that sweet little girl, who was sitting beside him, is only one year younger than himself, though such a small, delicate, fairy creature. She is not so blooming as you are, my little Fanny; and her large blue eyes do not sparkle so merrily as yours; yet did you not think they were beautiful in spite of a slight dimness, a mistiness, over them, when they were fixed just now upon her brother’s face? — Alas, my dear child! those poor eyes but seemed to look on what they never must behold. Little Emily Morton will never see her brother’s face again, till they meet hereafter angels in heaven; she is blind, stone blind; and that brother whom she loves so dearly, who loves her better than his own life — that gentle tender-hearted boy, who would not hurt a fly, nor willingly tread upon a worm — he was the unhappy cause of his sister’s calamity.

  Now you do not wonder that Harry Morton looks more serious and thoughtful than is natural at his years, than your own happy brothers, whose childhood has never known the hardships and premature cares which, from his earliest recollection, have been the lot of that poor boy, and still less any such dreadful affliction as that which has fallen like a mildew on the tender blossoms of his young life.

  Never did brother and sister love more tenderly than those two fatherless children love one another. Nursed in the lap of adversity, in the shadow, as it were, of their mother’s sorrow, and helpless sharers in her bitter cup, they clung more fondly to her and to each other, as you may have seen two young lambs, frightened by a thunder-storm, close cowering together into the fleeces of the mother ewe. There were many points of dissimilarity between the children, both in person and character; Harry being, as you observed, a fine robust boy, with eyes black as night, and curls of the same raven hue clustering thick over his high white forehead; and his little sister, a delicate fair creature, small of her age, and constitutionally nervous and fearful, while her brother’s nature was as fearless as gentle.

  These dissimilarities, physical and moral, seemed but to draw closer together the hearts of those young creatures, and to impress a more tender character to their mutual affection. It was Harry’s pride and joy to be the protector and teacher as well as the playmate of his sister, and the delicate and timid little girl was never quite happy or at ease except she could press her soft cheek close to Harry’s shoulder, or slip her small hand in his, or at least keep near him, or in sight of him, or within hearing of his voice. And if this tender and touching union was blissful to the two innocent children, how soothing and consolatory was it to their widowed mother, whose impaired constitution made it but too probable that her fatherless little ones might at no long distant period be left to struggle through the world orphans indeed. Sometimes the fond parent would speak to her darlings, young as they were, of the time when they might be left alone together;—”and then,” she would say, “you, my Harry, must be the father as well as brother of your little sister; and then your Father which is in heaven, who feeds the young ravens, and clothes the lilies of the field, will never forsake you, my children, while you love Him and keep His commandments.” At such times the little Emily would hide her face in her mother’s bosom in all the tearful agony of infant grief, while Harry, struggling manfully to suppress his sobs and keep in the swelling tears, would clasp his arms round the necks of his mother and sister, and press on the fair head of the latter as it lay in Mrs. Morton’s bosom a kiss that was at once the pledge and seal of an accepted trust — a promise that needed not the interpretation of speech to be perfectly intelligible.

  Mrs. Morton’s precarious life was spared from year to year, and the industry of her own hands, eking out a small pension (that of an officer’s widow) maintained the little family of love above actual want, and there was content and peace at Leaside cottage.

  Such was the state of things under its humble roof till about twelve months ago, when Harry had attained his ninth and Emily her eighth year. I have told you that, from the unfortunate circumstances of her birth, the little girl was constitutionally tender and nervous to a degree that it was sometimes painful to witness. Mrs. Morton sedulously strove, by cautiously-exerted influence, gentle remonstrance, and tender encouragement, to counteract this morbid tendency in the mind of her dear little girl, and to impart a more healthful tone to its fine organization; and she was more than seconded in this endeavour by the young Harry, who, with a thoughtfulness beyond his years, and a tenderness finely tempering his spirited impetuous nature, would reason with
his little sister with unwearied patience on the unreasonableness of her terrors, soothing her with affectionate gentleness when they were too powerful for control, or, by dint of coaxing and perseverance, sometimes prevailing on her to face the bugbear, conjured up by her nervous fancy, to encounter for a moment the terrors of darkness, or to search out the unknown cause of some mysterious sound, appalling to her young imagination because unaccounted for.

  What would not Emily do and suffer for the love of Harry? And how strikingly is it exemplified in the most timid natures, those of loving childhood and devoted woman, that “perfect love casteth out fear.” Oh! were we, indeed, devoted with such perfect love to Him who is the Father and Brother of us all; yea, “the friend that sticketh closer than a brother;” how cheerfully for His sake should we undergo all trials; how dearly for his sake should we love our fellow creatures; how should we “think of Him by day and meditate by night;” and how should we “cast out all fear” (having our hope in Christ) of that awful, but (to the humble believer) not tremendous hour, when He shall call us hence to be with Him for ever and ever. “Little children! love one another” — was the commandment of Jesus to His disciples. Are not all Christians His disciples? Should we not all love one another? And if we did so, and acted up to the spirit of that merciful commandment, how should we mutually lighten our several burthens, while travelling towards our Father’s house!

  I have told you, my Fanny, with what more than brotherly love Harry Morton watched over his timid little sister, striving with unwearied patience to instil into her a portion of his own healthful firmness; and he was not unsuccessful on the whole.

  By the time Emily had nearly attained her eighth year, Harry began to pride himself on the effects of his gentle discipline, and to call her, half jesting, half seriously, his “brave little sister.” And Emily’s coward heart began to disguise its latent infirmity, and, in part at least, by degrees to surmount it. She no longer trembled and turned pale at some mysterious cracking of the old boards in the stillness of a winter’s evening; and when she was laid at night on the side of the bed, to which Mrs. Morton’s occupations prevented her retiring for many after hours, the little girl no longer shrank under the counterpane in an agony of terror at she knew not what, nor peeped out from time to time at the fantastic shadows in the moonlight, nor (overpowered with fear) called aloud to Harry in the adjoining chamber to come and protect her from what she would perhaps have called, had she known how to express her sensations, the powers of darkness. Now, provided the door were open, or even the least bit ajar between her and her brother, Emily could shut her eyes in peace whether in moonshine or in darkness (to keep them open was still too magnanimous an effort for her doubtful courage) and drop asleep in the middle of the little hymn she was murmuring to herself on the pillow. But one cause of dread still operated in unmitigated force on Harry’s little pupil. He had striven in vain, by reasoning and tenderness, to soothe her during the terrors of a thunder-storm; and even the sensible considerate Harry did not reflect that the electric state of the atmosphere might physically affect his little sister’s nervous temperament, and that in fact he might expose her to real danger by inducing her to front the awful beauty of the storm.