Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

"And it was you who were playing as I came in," he went on, noticing the violin; "I was wondering who was playing so well. How jolly it must be to play! I wish I could, but I should never have patience to learn. Who taught you?"

"I picked it up myself, sir," Harry replied, "from a book father bought me. You see I have plenty of time on my hands; I don't get out much, except just along the street, for I can't very well get across crossings by myself. The wheels go well enough on a level, but I cannot push them up a curb-stone. But what with reading and fiddling the days pass quickly enough, especially when mother is at home; she is out two or three days a week, and then the time seems rather long."

"I should think so," Frank said; "I should go mad if I were laid up entirely. I am awfully sorry for you. If you are fond of books I shall be glad to let you have some; I have got no end of them, and there they stand on my shelf unopened from year's end to year's end. What sort of books do you like best? Sea stories, or Indians, or what?"

"I should like any story-books, sir," Harry replied, his eyes brightening up with pleasure; "I have read a few which father has picked up for me at the bookstalls, and I have gone through and through them until I could almost say them by heart. And then tales of travel and history, – oh, I love history! to read what people did hundreds of years ago, and how nations grew up step by step, just like children, it is splendid!"

"I am afraid," Frank said, with a laugh, "that I don't care so much for history as you do. Names are hard enough to remember, but dates are awful; I would rather do the toughest bit of construing than have a page of Greek history to get up. Well, I will certainly look you up some books on history and some travels, and will send you some of Marryat's stories. I suppose you do not care for schoolbooks; I have got a barrow-load that I shall never want again."

"Oh yes, sir," Harry said eagerly, "I think I should like those best of all. Have you a Virgil, sir? I do like Virgil, and all that story about the siege of Troy. I only had it for a fortnight. Father bought it for me, and then one of the little ones managed somehow to take it out and lose it; she ran out with it for a bit of fun, and we suppose sat down on a doorstep and forgot it."

"But, bless me," Frank exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you read Virgil in Latin! You are a rum fellow. How on earth did you learn it?"

"I have taught myself, sir," Harry said. "Father is awfully good, and often picks up books for me at old bookstalls. Of course sometimes he gets things I can't make out. But he got twelve once for a shilling, and there was a Latin Grammar and Dictionary among them; and when I had learned the Grammar, it was very easy with the Dictionary to make out the sense of some of the Latin books. But of course I often come across things that I don't understand. I think sometimes if some one would explain them to me once or twice, so that I could really understand how the rules in the Grammar are applied, I could get on faster."

"Well, you are a rum fellow!" Frank exclaimed again. "I wish I liked learning as you do, for though I am in the Sixth at Westminster, I own that I look upon the classics as a nuisance. Well, now, look here; I have got an hour at present with nothing special to do, so if you like we will have a go at it together. What have you got here?" and he walked across to a shelf on which were a number of books. "Oh! here is a Cæsar; suppose we take that; it's easy enough generally, but there are some stiffish bits now and then. Let's start off from the beginning, and perhaps I may be able to make things clear for you a bit."

In spite of Mrs. Holl's protestations that Harry ought not to trouble the gentleman, the two lads were soon deep in their Cæsar. Frank found, to his surprise, that the cripple boy had a wonderful knack of grasping the sense of passages, but that never having been regularly taught to construe, he was unable to apply the rules of grammar which he had learned. Frank taught him how to do this, how to take a sentence to pieces, how to parse it word by word, and to see how each word depended upon the others, so that even if absolutely in ignorance of the meaning of any one word in a sentence, he could nevertheless parse them unerringly in the order in which they would be rendered in English – could determine the value of each, and their bearing upon one another.

This was quite a revelation to Harry; his face flushed with eagerness and excitement, and so interested were both lads in their work, that the hour was far exceeded before the lesson came to an end by Mrs. Holl interfering bodily in the matter by carrying off the Dictionary, and declaring that it was a shame that Harry should give so much trouble.

"It is no trouble at all, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, laughing. "You see one is accustomed a little to teaching, as one often gives one's fag, or any other little chap who asks, a construe, or explains his lesson to him. But I can tell you that there are precious few of them who take it all in as quickly as your son does. Now that I have made myself at home, I will come in sometimes when school begins again, if you will let me, for half an hour and read with Harry. But I don't think he will want any help long. Still, it may help to show him the regular way of getting at things. And now I must hurry off. You will ask Evan to think over what I have said. Here is my address. I wrote it down in case I should find no one in. If he makes up his mind about it before I come again, he had better call on me there; the best time would be between nine and eleven in the morning; I have always finished breakfast by nine, and I have put off my holiday task so long, that I must stick at it regularly two hours a day till school begins again, so he will be pretty sure to find me between nine and eleven. Will you tell your husband not to worry himself about seeing me? I don't want to be thanked, for it was, as I told you, a sort of partnership business between your boy and me."

"Now I call that a downright nice sort of young chap," Mrs. Holl said, as their visitor departed, "good-hearted and good-natured, without no sort of nonsense. He just sits himself down and makes himself at home as if he was one of the family, and I was able to go on with my washing just as if he hadn't been here."

For a time Harry did not answer.

"So, that's a gentleman," he said at last, in a low voice, as if thinking aloud; "I have never spoken to a gentleman before."

"Well, lad," Sarah Holl said, "there ain't much difference between the gentry and other sorts. I don't see very much of them myself in the houses I goes to, but I hears plenty about them from the servants' talk; and, judging from that, a great many of them 'as just as nasty and unpleasant ways as other people."

"I suppose," Harry said thoughtfully, "there can't be much difference in real nature between them and us; there must, of course, be good and bad among them; but there is more difference in their way of talking than I expected."

"Well, of course, Harry; they have had education, that accounts for it; just the same as you, who have educated yourself wonderful, talks different to John and me and the rest of us."

"Yes," Harry said; "but I am not talking about mistakes in grammar; it's the tone of voice, and the way of speaking that's so different. Now why should that be, mother?"

"I suppose a good deal of it," Mrs. Holl answered, "is because they are brought up in nusseries, and they can't run about the house, or holloa or shout to each other in the streets. D' ye see they are taught to speak quiet, and they hear their fathers and mothers, and people round them, speaking quiet. You dun't know, Harry, how still it is in some of them big houses, you seem half afraid to speak above a whisper."

"Yes, but I don't think he spoke lower than I do, mother, or than the rest of us. O mother!" he went on, after a while, "isn't he good? Just to think of his spending an hour and a half sitting here, showing me how to construe. Why, I see the whole thing in a different way now; he has made clear all sorts of things that I could not understand; and he said he would come again too, and I am quite sure that when he says a thing he means to do it. I don't believe he could tell a lie if he tried. And is he not good-looking too?"

"He is a pleasant-looking young chap," Mrs. Holl replied, "but I should not call him anything out of the way. Now I should call you a better-looking chap than he is, Harry."

"O mother, what an idea!" Harry exclaimed, quite shocked at what seemed to him a most disrespectful comparison to his hero.

"It ain't no idea at all," Mrs. Holl rejoined stoutly; "any one with eyes in his head could see that if you was dressed the same as he is you would be a sight the best-looking chap of the two."

"Ah mother!" Harry said, laughing, "you remind me of an old saying I saw in a book the other day, 'A mother's geese are all swans.'"

"I am sure," Mrs. Holl said, in an aggrieved voice, "you ain't no goose, Harry, and if any one else said so I should give them a bit of my mind sharp enough."

Harry did not attempt to argue with her, but with a little laugh turned to his books again, and was soon deep in the mysteries of Cæsar.

The next day a carrier's cart stopped before Mrs. Holl's house, to the great amazement of the neighbourhood – for such an occurrence had not been known in the memory of the oldest inhabitant in the street, and quite a crowd of children collected to witness the delivery of a square heavy box of considerable weight at the door.

Harry was almost beside himself with delight as he took out the treasures it contained; and as fully half were story-books, his delight was shared by the rest of the young Holls. It was evening when the cart arrived, and John was just enjoying his first pipe, and he once more uttered the sentiment he had expressed so often during the last four days, "I should like to shake that young chap by the hand."

CHAPTER IV.

AN ADOPTED CHILD

A FEW days after school had commenced Frank Norris called in again at the Holls'. It was a bright day, and Harry had gone out in his box, and Mrs. Holl was alone.

"Harry will be sorry he is out, sir," was her first greeting to Frank; "he has been looking forward to your coming again. You don't know, sir, how much good you have done him. The boy has generally wonderful good spirits, considering his condition; still, though he don't say nought, I can see sometimes that he isn't never quite happy except when he is working away with his books or playing on that fiddle of his.

"Evan has been and spent all the money as was given him that day at the Serpentine in buying a new fiddle for him. I don't see much in the thing myself, and it seems to me they must have cheated Evan altogether, for it ain't a new un, but an old, brown, dirty-looking thing, as looks as if it had been made nigh fifty years; and they goes and charges him thirty-eight shillings for it, and pretended to make a favour of it, while John only paid seven and sixpence for the one he had before, which was a beautiful new shiny one.

"However, Harry seems delighted with it, and says it's beautiful soft, and mellow. But what he means I don't know, though I do allow it ain't so squeaky as the other; and sometimes when Harry is playing soft on it, it does sound beautiful. Still, thirty-eight shillings is a big price for an old thing like that."

"Old fiddles are always worth more than new ones, Mrs. Holl. Do you know there are some fiddles two or three hundred years old which could not be bought for less than three or four hundred pounds?"

"My gracious!" Mrs. Holl exclaimed, "three or four hundred pounds for such a thing as a fiddle. I calls it downright wicked."

"He is a wonderful boy that son of yours, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, changing the subject; "a regular genius I should call him. What a pity it is that he is a cripple!"

"Ay, that it is," Mrs. Holl agreed, "and he is a wonderful chap, is Harry. But he ain't no son of mine, Mr. Norris, though he don't know it himself, and I shouldn't like him to be told."

"Then what relation is he, Mrs. Holl, if it is not an impertinent question?"

"He ain't no sort of relation at all, sir," the woman answered.

"Then how came you to bring him up, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked in surprise.

"Well, sir, it was a very simple matter. But if so be as you care to hear it, I will tell you just how it happened." And, leaning against the mantelpiece, with the red light of the fire thrown up into her face, Mrs. Holl went on very slowly, and speaking as though she almost saw what she was relating.

"Well, sir, it were an evening in April – a cold bitter day. I was sitting here between light and dark, drinking my tea with John, who was just come home from work – John is my husband, you see, sir – when we heard a noise outside in the street. We went out to see what was the matter, and we found a poor young creature, with a baby in her arms, had fallen down in a faint like.

"She was a pretty young thing, sir; and though her dress was poor and torn, she looked as if she had not been always so. Some one says, 'Take them to the workhouse.' 'No!' says I – for my heart yearned towards the poor young thing – 'bring her in here; mayn't we, John?' says I. Well, sir, John did not say nothing, 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."