HUMPHRY AND HIS MOTHER.
The resolution once formed, young Humphry hastened to convey the glad
tidings to his mother, and as he rode along he kept talking to himself
all the way, running over the many “fine things” he meant to do for the
future, and dreaming that some day he might perhaps become distinguished
for his learning and wisdom. He amused himself, too, by speculating as
to what he would do with his money if he ever got to be rich. He would
have his little brother John well educated then, and comfortably started
in life. Yes! and he would give up his share in the property at Varfell
to his mother and sisters—_that_ he would do first of all; and if he
grew to be a very wealthy man, he would give a certain sum of money to
the Grammar-school, so that the boys might have a holiday every year on
his birthday—he would like to be able to do _that_, for then he would be
remembered by them as long as the school lasted. Further, he would give
something a year to his aunt Sampson’s Phillis, and his aunt Millett’s
maid as well. Poor Mary Launder and Betty White should get something,
too; and he would have a number of old pensioners besides, that had known
him when he was young. He would take care, moreover, that his pony Derby
and his dog Chloe wanted for nothing in their old age, and wherever he
might be he would have a box of apples sent him at Christmas from the
tree he had planted in the garden when he was a little fellow.[13]
On reaching the humble farm at Varfell, Humphry found his mother seated
beside a table, the top of which was black with a hillock of little
skirts and bodies that she had been busy making up for the children’s
week-day wear. The quick eye of the boy could distinguish as he glanced
at the pile of mourning that the gloss of the bombazeen was dulled in
places with the tears that had fallen upon it.
Humphry, from a sense of the grief that pervaded the house, had entered
the room so softly that his presence was unperceived by the widow, and
for a minute or two he stood watching his mother as she sat there with
her flooded eyes fixed intently on the large carved oak-chair (her late
husband’s handiwork) that stood beside the mantel-piece. Her cheek rested
on her hand, and it was plain by the fixedness of her gaze that the seat
was no longer empty to her, and that her mind was far away in the past.
The sight of that sad wife, widowed almost in her youth, was sufficient
to have touched many a stouter heart than young Humphry’s. The widow’s
hair was still unsilvered by age, and its blackness contrasted forcibly,
and even painfully, with the close white muslin cap that half concealed
it. The dead black of the crape made her cheek as pale as marble, while
the tears that dewed her eyes gave them an almost glassy look, so that
they seemed jettier than usual. Her face, though young in years, was
prematurely old in expression, for the features, which were naturally
well formed, were pinched; and there was an air of mild resignation over
the countenance that told you the poor woman had long ago learnt to bear
affliction, almost without complaint. Nor did it need a second glance to
discern the tenderness and affection of her nature[14]—for though there
was a settled melancholy in her face, there was still so much kindliness
in its expression that the heart could not help extending to her the
sympathy that it knew she would be the first to afford to others who had
seen as much trouble as she herself had in the course of the few years
that had passed over her head.
Humphry drew towards his mother’s chair, and resting against the back
curled his arm gently about her neck. So unexpected, however, was the
embrace, that the widow shrieked with alarm as she was suddenly roused
from her melancholy reverie.
The next moment, pleased at the idleness of her fright, she clasped the
pet boy to her; and while the tears gushed from her eyes she kissed him
again and again, as though she loved him the more now that he and her
other children were all that she had left to engross her affection.
“What! in tears again, mother?” said Humphry, in a tone of kindly
remonstrance. “Nay, do not grieve,” he added, as the widow rested her
head on his bosom, “I have come to promise you that I will do all in my
power for my brother and sisters.”[15]
“But what can _you_ do, Humphry, my good lad?” asked the mother, as she
looked up through her tears and smiled at the youth. “It will take you
some years before you can earn a livelihood, and even then perhaps you
will gain only sufficient for your own wants. What is to become of my
little ones is more than I can bear to think of. How you, too, Humphry,
are to be put out in the world, I’m sure I cannot say. My means, when all
the debts are paid, will be only £100 a-year, if that.”
“There, there; have no trouble on my account, mother,” returned the lad.
“I’ve made up my mind to lay aside all my idle habits, and to set hard to
work at something directly—though I cannot tell what, just now; and you
shall see I won’t be long before I make you all happy here.”
The mother half laughed at the sanguineness of her son, and said, when
she had kissed him for his kindness, “But you talk like a boy, Humphry.
You don’t know how hard it is to earn money yet.”
“Yes I _do_, mother,” replied the determined youth, as he pressed her
hand. “But I feel I have the power in me, and I’ll _do_ it, you shall
see—all by myself too—aye, _that_ I will, if I have to study night and
day. You don’t know what a lesson poor father’s death has been to me. I
never saw you in grief before, and all this last week my mind has been
at work, for your tears were more than I could bear. Not a night of late
has past but I have reproached myself over and over again that I had
wasted the last year of my life, instead of doing something that would
have given me the power to help you at such a time as this. When I heard
Mr. Tonkin, too, talking with you the other day about the money you would
have to live upon, and heard him say that it was high time I should cease
being a burden to you—yes, those were his words, mother—a _burden_” (and
the boy would have turned away from the widow, but she held his hand), “I
felt the blood rush into my face with shame, and a new spirit came over
me. I didn’t say anything to you, mother, at the time, because I thought
I could hardly trust myself; but I went on thinking I _was_ a burden to
you, and the heaviest burden of all, too. So I kept brooding and brooding
it over, until at last I made a solemn determination that, instead of a
burden, I would be a _help_ to you and my brother and sisters for the
future. I have sworn it, mother! I have promised my poor father to do
so this very day—alone among the rocks I made the vow, and I’m sure he
heard me, for I feel as I never felt before, and I _know_ I’ve the power
to do as I have said.”
The mother in her delight hugged the boy passionately to her bosom, and
as her tears fell thick and hot upon him she said through her sobs, “You
_have_ the power, I know, Humphry; and if this sad bereavement which has
come upon us all does but stir you to make use of the genius that is in
you, it will be indeed almost a recompense for the heavy loss we have
sustained. When you were but a child, I used to tell your dear father of
the bright hopes I had of you, Humphry, and that I was sure you would be
very clever some day; though he, poor man! only smiled at my words, and
thought it was my over-fondness that made me fancy as much, saying all
mothers did the same. But _I_ knew differently, Humphry; I could see you
were not like other children, and even from an infant there was hardly
anything babyish about you. When you were only five years old you made
rhymes of your own, and used to recite them in the Christmas gambols, and
I knew there was no little thing of that age that could do the same thing
in these parts.”
“Yes, I’ve often heard you say so, mother,” added the boy, smiling at the
youthful reminiscence.
“You were a very forward child—from a baby I may say, Humphry,” continued
the proud mother, as she passed her fingers through the lad’s hair,
and brushed it from his forehead—for she half forgot her sorrow as the
recollection of her pet boy’s feats stole, one after another, across her
mind. “Why, you were only nine months old when you walked off, all by
yourself; and you could speak as well, and fluently, as a little man,
before you were two years of age. Shall I tell you, too, what you said
when your sister Kitty was born? little sharp thing as you were! The
servant had been assuring you day after day, that when the baby came
you’d be no longer petted in the way you had been—for then, as the maid
said, ‘your nose would be put out of joint.’ This seemed to make a great
impression upon you, for directly you saw little Kitty you put your
chubby fat hand up to your face, and cried, ‘Mamma! my nose not out of
joint at all.’”
“Did I?” laughed Humphry.
“Yes, that you did,” said the mother. “Ay, and before you had learned
to write you used to copy the figures in ‘Æsop’s Fables,’ and print
the names of them in big letters underneath. I really think, too, you
couldn’t have been more than four years old when you could recite a
good part of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ All I know is, you did so before you
could read well the book; for your memory was so great, that anything
you had heard once or twice you could repeat, almost without a mistake,
afterwards; and when you were sent to Mr. Bushell’s school—you remember
old Mr. Bushell, Humphry—you made such rapid progress there in your
reading and writing, that though you were only six years of age, the old
gentleman, against his own interest, recommended your poor father to
remove you to the Grammar-school.[16]
“When you could read, too, I often watched you at your books, and saw
you turn over the pages so fast, that I fancied you were merely counting
them, or hunting for pictures; but on talking to you about the book I
used to find, to my astonishment, that you had read it through in that
short time, and that you really knew all about it, and could give a much
better account of it than children who might have taken hours, or perhaps
days, to get through it.”
Humphry drew closer to his mother, and pressed her hand between his palms
as he looked up in her face, and smiled with delight to hear her run
over all the feats of his youthful genius; for with the history of each
little wonder he felt the faith he wished to have in his own powers grow
stronger in him, and he shook his head proudly as he inwardly thought of
the greater wonders he would achieve in the time to come.
“Go on, mother,” he said, as he seated himself on the stool at the
widow’s feet, “tell me some more things I used to do when I was a little
fellow—tell me some more, they fill me with the same hope as you say
they did you, and I want to have all the trust I can in myself; for I’ve
made up my mind to be a great man, and if I doubt my power to accomplish
the task I have set myself, I shall, perhaps, give it up almost at the
first difficulty. Tell me something more, mother; I want all the faith in
myself you can give.”
“I wish I could give you as much confidence in your own powers, Humphry,
as I have in them,” returned the widow, “though now you begin to speak
with all the aspirations I have longed to see coming upon you; and for
the last year I cannot tell you how grieved I have been to behold one, of
whom I had formed such high hopes, giving himself up to pleasures that
serve to breed only habits of thoughtless amusement rather than wise
reflection.”
“I know I have pained you, mother,” added Humphry, “but it’s all at an
end now. You remember when I was at the Grammar-school, how Mr. Coryton
used to pull my ears for not minding the lessons he set me. But do you
know, mother, I have often thought, that though I learnt little at Mr.
Coryton’s school, it was, perhaps, better after all that I should have
been left to teach myself; for what we learn from our own liking, we
seldom forget; and I am sure I remember more about the books I have had
from Mr. Tonkin, and that I used to read through one after the other as
fast as I could get them, than all the Latin and Greek I was forced to
get by heart at school.”[17]
“Ah, but Mr. Coryton,” interrupted the mother, “was a man little fitted
for teaching youth, Humphry. He was careless about the boys’ studies,
and often very severe for the slightest faults. I remember once you went
to school, unknown to me, with a large plaster on each ear, and when Mr.
Coryton asked you ‘what was the matter with your ears,’ you told him
‘that you had put the plasters on to prevent a mortification.’ But if you
didn’t stand very well with the master, you were at least in high favour
with the boys, Humphry, for you used to do the Latin and English verses
for half the school; and as for writing valentines and love-verses, why
I am sure your play-time was mostly taken up with scribbling rhymes to
first Miss This and then Miss That for some little urchin in a jacket,
who fancied himself to be smitten with the young lady. Then of an evening
you were always to be found under the balcony of the Star Inn—for you
were sheltered there—with a group of boys round about you; and, if there
happened to be a cart on the spot, you would be sure to mount it, and
there you’d remain narrating all kinds of romantic stories to the little
mob of school-fellows who came regularly to listen to you. I never knew
such a boy for story-telling as you were, Humphry! I have many a time
heard you make up the strangest kind of tales out of your own head; and
while I was in the parlour at work, I used to listen to you, as you
and young Batten sat out in the porch, with your arms curled round each
other’s necks, and you would be there hour after hour; for you were never
tired of inventing, nor he tired of listening to the stories of wonder
and terror you both delighted in.”
“I can remember it all well, mother,” added Humphry. “And do you
recollect how fond I was of making fire-works, and how Kitty used to
help me till her fingers were as black as sticks of liquorice with the
gunpowder; and how we used to mix up the composition for our squibs and
crackers on the spring-boards of old Dr. Tonkin’s chamber-horse that
stood in the empty room, when we lived at Penzance, and that the poor old
gentleman used to take his exercise upon in wet weather?”
“Yes, _that_ I do, Humphry,” smiled Mrs. Davy; “and many a time you have
nearly frightened me out of my wits with your ‘thunder-powder,’ as you
called it, which you used to delight in putting under the chairs, so that
the moment any one sat down, there was such an explosion that everybody
in the room felt as though all their bones had been suddenly broken.
Your poor father only perceived in such tricks an idle, thoughtless
disposition; but women see more keenly into character than men, and I
not only recollected, but knew, the quick boy you were, and how rapidly
you could acquire anything to which you applied yourself; besides, I
had noticed your inventive turn from a child, and the force of your
imagination in the stories you made up and the poems you had written—for
at twelve you had composed an epic that I have by me still—and all these
things gave me assurances that one day you would take a foremost place
among the great men of the country. A mother’s heart may have led me to
have these hopes of you, Humphry; my understanding, however, convinced
me that they were not mere dreams begotten by affection, but conclusions
calmly come to after narrowly watching—as a mother only can watch—every
little turn and trait in your character.”
“No, mother!” burst out the boy; “they are _not_ dreams, but clear
foreseeings; and you yourself shall witness the realisation of them
before many years have passed.”
“God grant that I may live to do so, my boy,” murmured the widow, as
she raised her eyes to heaven. “‘Life,’ as some wise man says, ‘has few
better things to give than a talented son,’ and it seems to me there
can be no greater pleasure to a mother’s heart than to witness the
genius which she has watched bud and expand from year to year ripen into
excellent wisdom, and come to be acknowledged and reverenced by the world
at large—no joy more exquisite to a woman’s nature than that which she
must surely experience on finding that the mind which she had tended
from its very dawn—catching up the first glimpses of intellect, and
garnering them in her bosom as household wonders and bright things of
promise—has fulfilled all her best hopes, and that the visions she had
formed of the fame and honour that were to attend her boy in after-life
have not been mere dreams of her admiration or her pride. But rather,
that the being whom she has loved, and wished to have loved by others,
lives to be at length praised and esteemed by all, for the talents and
virtues that she was the first to notice and to foster. This, Humphry,
is the brightest and sweetest reward a woman can meet with in her old
age; and, having reaped it, she parts from life with a sense of duty
fulfilled, and a feeling that the affection with which she welcomed her
child into existence, and the care with which she tended him in his
youth, have not been unprofitably bestowed, but repaid her in the richest
coin the world can offer to a parent.”
Humphry for a while remained in silence, while his mother’s words sank
deep into his soul; then he said, softly, “May it be my proud lot,
mother, to render you such a reward. I am thankful to the Creator that
I have passed through the most dangerous portion of my life with few
errors, and I hope to devote myself for the future to pursuits useful to
mankind, and which in after years may perhaps obtain for me the applause
of enlightened men.”[18]
The widow laid her hand on the boy’s head as he sat at her feet, and she
said, solemnly, “My blessing be on you, my son. May God give you strength
to maintain your noble purpose!”
Then she threw her arms about him, and bursting into a flood of tears,
cried, “Oh, my boy! my boy! you know not how happy you have made me.
Your words are like oil to my wounded heart. Sometimes, of late, I have
wondered why it should please Providence to visit me so sorely—_me_, who
never knowingly injured any one in thought or act. And yet, even almost
in my infancy, I was deprived of father and mother at one blow, so that
the very features of my parents are unremembered by me, and the blessing
of their love a joy I was scarcely allowed to taste. And now, before my
own children are able to help themselves, he who would have been their
best protector is snatched from me, and I again am alone in life, bereft
of the love and care I had hoped to share for years to come, and left
with five young children, and only a woman’s arm to shield them from the
buffetings of the world. It needs no little faith in the goodness of God,
Humphry, to believe that there is a _mercy_ in all this; and often, in
the bitterness of my tribulation, I have been wicked enough to doubt it:
for I, with my mind distempered by suffering, could discover no trace of
kindness in it all. But _now_ I see the purpose of my affliction. It was
to stir you, Humphry, to be a protector to your brother and sisters—to
develop the high and noble nature with which you had been gifted, and
to raise up to me a son, the glory of whose future renown should be
something like a recompense to me for the partner I have lost—a son who
should be the means of contributing not only to the comfort and happiness
of my children, but to the welfare of mankind at large. Yes! I understand
the reason of my trials now: and look you, my dear boy, how good comes
of evil. The first privation I and your aunts suffered was the means of
creating for us such a friend as is seldom met with in this world; I
mean Mr. Tonkin, who was not only a father to me and my sisters, but has
extended his goodness to our children—for you, Humphry, have passed more
of your time with him than under your poor father’s roof. And now, no
sooner is my husband taken from me than _you_—the giddy boy, who had of
late been so absorbed in pleasure that I had almost begun to think the
hopes I had formed were nothing but a mother’s vanity—become quickened
in an instant with a new nature, as if suddenly exalted into manhood,
instinct with generous purposes and noble determinations; and, though you
are but a mere youth in years, ready to supply the place of a father to
your brother and sisters, and a friend and protector to me.”