"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
Turns his necessity to glorious gain."
WORDSWORTH.
"Jack," said Charlie, "listen!"
He was reading bits out of the numbers to me, whilst I was rigging a
miniature yacht to sail on the dam; and Mrs. Wood's husband was making a
plan of something at another table, and occasionally giving me advice
about my masts and sails. "It's about the South American forests," said
Charlie. "'There every tree has a character of its own; each has its
peculiar foliage, and probably also a tint unlike that of the trees
which surround it. Gigantic vegetables of the most different families
intermix their branches; five-leaved bignonias grow by the side of
bonduc-trees; cassias shed their yellow blossoms upon the rich fronds of
arborescent ferns; myrtles and eugenias, with their thousand arms,
contrast with the elegant simplicity of palms; and among the airy
foliage of the mimosa the ceropia elevates its giant leaves and heavy
candelabra-shaped branches. Of some trees the trunk is perfectly smooth,
of others it is defended by enormous spines, and the whole are often
apparently sustained by the slanting stems of a huge wild fig-tree. With
us, the oak, the chestnut, and the beech seem as if they bore no
flowers, so small are they and so little distinguishable except by
naturalists; but in the forests of South America it is often the most
gigantic trees that produce the most brilliant flowers; cassias hang
down their pendants of golden blossoms, vochisias unfold their singular
bunches; corollas, longer than those of our foxglove, sometimes yellow
or sometimes purple, load the arborescent bignonias; while the chorisias
are covered, as it were, with lilies, only their colours are richer and
more varied; grasses also appear in form of bamboos, as the most
graceful of trees; bauhinias, bignonias, and aroideous plants cling
round the trees like enormous cables; orchideous plants and bromelias
overrun their limbs, or fasten themselves to them when prostrated by the
storm, and make even their dead remains become verdant with leaves and
flowers not their own.'"
Though he could read very well, Charlie had, so far, rather stumbled
through the long names in this description, but he finished off with
fluency, not to say enthusiasm. "'Such are the ancient forests,
flourishing in a damp and fertile soil, and clothed with perpetual
green.'"
I was half-way through a profound sigh when I caught the school-master's
eye, who had paused in his plan-making and was listening with his head
upon his hand.
"What a groan!" he exclaimed. "What's the matter?"
"It sounds so splendid!" I answered, "and I'm so afraid I shall never
see it. I told Father last night I should like to be a sailor, but he
only said 'Stuff and nonsense,' and that there was a better berth
waiting for me in Uncle Henry's office than any of the Queen's ships
would provide for me; and Mother begged me never to talk of it any more,
if I didn't want to break her heart"--and I sighed again.
The school-master had a long smooth face, which looked longer from
melancholy, and he turned it and his arms over the back of the chair,
and looked at me with the watchful listening look his eyes always had;
but I am not sure if he was really paying much attention to me, for he
talked (as he often did) as if he were talking to himself.
"I wanted to be a soldier," he said, "and my father wouldn't let me. I
often used to wish I had run away and enlisted, when I was with
Quarter-master McCulloch, of the Engineers (he'd risen from the ranks
and was younger than me), in Bermuda."
"Bermuda! That's not very far from South America, is it?" said I,
looking across to the big map of the world. "Is it very beautiful, too?"
The school-master's eyes contracted as if he were short-sighted, or
looking at something inside his own head. But he smiled as he answered--
"The poet says,
'A pleasing land of drowsy-head it is,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer sky.'"
"But are there any curious beasts and plants and that sort of thing?" I
asked.
"I believe there were no native animals originally," said the
school-master. "I mean inland ones. But the fowls of the air and the
fishes of the sea are of all lovely forms and colours. And such corals
and sponges, and sea-anemones, blooming like flowers in the transparent
pools of the warm blue water that washes the coral reefs and fills the
little creeks and bays!"
I gasped--and he went on. "The commonest trees, I think, are palms and
cedars. Lots of the old houses were built of cedar, and I've heard of
old cedar furniture to be picked up here and there, as some people buy
old oak out of English farm-houses. It is very durable and deliriously
scented. People used to make cedar bonfires when the small-pox was
about, to keep away infection. The gardens will grow anything, and plots
of land are divided by oleander hedges of many colours."
"Oh--h!" ejaculated I, in long-drawn notes of admiration. The
school-master's eyes twinkled.
"Not only," continued he, "do very gaudy lobsters and quaint cray-fish
and crabs with lanky legs dispute your attention on the shore with the
shell-fish of the loveliest hues; there is no lack of remarkable
creatures indoors. Monstrous spiders, whose bite is very unpleasant,
drop from the roof; tarantulas and scorpions get into your boots, and
cockroaches, hideous to behold and disgusting to smell, invade every
place from your bed to your store-cupboard. If you possess anything,
from food and clothing to books and boxes, the ants will find it and
devour it, and if you possess a garden the mosquitoes will find you and
devour you."
"Oh--h!" I exclaimed once more, but this time in a different tone.
Mr. Wood laughed heartily. "Tropical loveliness has its drawbacks, Jack.
Perhaps some day when your clothes are moulded, and your brain feels
mouldy too with damp heat, and you can neither work in the sun nor be
at peace in the shade, you may wish you were sitting on a stool in your
uncle's office, undisturbed by venomous insects, and cool in a November
fog."
I laughed too, but I shook my head.
"No. I shan't mind the insects if I can get there. Charlie, were those
wonderful ants old Isaac said you'd been reading about, Bermuda ants?"
I did not catch Charlie's muttered reply, and when I looked round I saw
that his face was buried in the red cushions, and that he was (what Jem
used to call) "in one of his tempers."
I don't exactly know how it was. I don't think Charlie was jealous or
really cross, but he used to take fits of fancying he was in the way,
and out of it all (from being a cripple), if we seemed to be very busy
without him, especially about such things as planning adventures. I knew
what was the matter directly, but I'm afraid my consolation was rather
clumsy.
"Don't be cross, Charlie," I said; "I thought you were listening too,
and if it's because you think you won't be able to go, I don't believe
there's really a bit more chance of my going, though my legs _are_ all
right."
"Don't bother about me," said Charlie; "but I wish you'd put these
numbers down, they're in my way." And he turned pettishly over.
Before I could move, the school-master had taken the papers, and was
standing over Charlie's couch, with his right hand against the wall, at
the level of his head, and his left arm hanging by his side; and I
suppose it was his attitude which made me notice, before he began to
speak, what a splendid figure he had, and how strong he looked. He spoke
in an odd, abrupt sort of voice, very different from the way he had been
talking to me, but he looked down at Charlie so intensely, that I think
he felt it through the cushions, and lifted his head.
"When your father has been bringing you down here, or at any time when
you have been out amongst other people, have you ever overheard them
saying, 'Poor chap! it's a sad thing,' and things of that kind, as if
they were sorry for you?"
Cripple Charlie's face flushed scarlet, and my own cheeks burned, as I
looked daggers at the school-master, for what seemed a brutal
insensibility to the lame boy's feelings. He did not condescend,
however, to meet my eyes. His own were still fixed steadily on
Charlie's, and he went on.
"_I've heard it._ My ears are quick, and for many a Sunday after I came
I caught the whispers behind me as I went up the aisle, 'Poor man!'
'Poor gentleman!' 'He looks bad, too!' One morning an old woman, in a
big black bonnet, said, 'Poor soul!' so close to me, that I looked
down, and met her withered eyes, full of tears--for me!--and I said,
'Thank you, mother,' and she fingered the sleeve of my coat with her
trembling hand (the veins were standing out on it like ropes), and said,
'I've knowed trouble myself, my dear. The Lord bless yours to you!'"
"It must have been Betty Johnson," I interpolated; but the school-master
did not even look at me.
"You and I," he said, bending nearer to Cripple Charlie, "have had our
share of this life's pain so dealt out to us that any one can see and
pity us. My boy, take a fellow-sufferer's word for it, it is wise and
good not to shrink from the seeing and pitying. The weight of the cross
spreads itself and becomes lighter if one learns to suffer with others
as well as with oneself, to take pity and to give it. And as one learns
to be pained with the pains of others, one learns to be happy in their
happiness and comforted by their sympathy, and then no man's life can be
quite empty of pleasure. I don't know if my troubles have been lighter
or heavier ones than yours----"
The school-master stopped short, and turned his head so that his face
was almost hidden against his hand upon the wall. Charlie's big eyes
were full of tears, and I am sure I distinctly felt my ears poke
forwards on my head with anxious curiosity to catch what Mr. Wood would
tell us about that dreadful time of which he had never spoken.
"When I was your age," he said bluntly, "I was unusually lithe and
active and strong for mine. When I was half as old again, I was stronger
than any man I knew, and had many a boyish triumph out of my strength,
because I was slender and graceful, and this concealed my powers. I had
all the energies and ambitions natural to unusual vigour and manly
skill. I wanted to be a soldier, but it was not to be, and I spent my
youth at a desk in a house of business. I adapted myself, but none the
less I chafed whenever I heard of manly exploits, and of the delights
and dangers that came of seeing the world. I used to think I could bear
anything to cross the seas and see foreign climes. I did cross the
Atlantic at last--a convict in a convict ship (GOD help any man who
knows what that is!), and I spent the ten best years of my manhood at
the hulks working in chains. You've never lost freedom, my lad, so you
have never felt what it is not to be able to believe you've got it back.
You don't know what it is to turn nervous at the responsibility of being
your own master for a whole day, or to wake in a dainty room, with the
birds singing at the open window, and to shut your eyes quickly and pray
to go on dreaming a bit, because you feel sure you're really in your
hammock in the hulks."
The school-master lifted his other hand above his head, and pressed both
on it, as if he were in pain. What Charlie was doing I don't know, but I
felt so miserable I could not help crying, and had to hunt for my
pocket-handkerchief under the table. It was full of acorns, and by the
time I had emptied it and dried my eyes, Mr. Wood was lifting Charlie in
his arms, and arranging his cushions.
"Oh, thank you!" Charlie said, as he leant back; "how comfortable you
have made me!"
"I have been sick-nurse, amongst other trades. For some months I was a
hospital warder."
"Was that when----" Charlie began, and then he stopped short, and said,
"Oh, I beg your pardon!"
"Yes; it was when I was a convict," said the school-master. "No offence,
my boy. If I preach I must try to practise. Jack's eyes are dropping out
of his head to hear more of Bermuda, and you and I will put our whims
and moods on one side, and we'll all tell travellers' tales together."
Cripple Charlie kept on saying "Thank you," and I know he was very sorry
not to be able to think of anything more to say, for he told me so. He
wanted to have thanked him better, because he knew that Mr. Wood had
talked about his having been a convict, when he did not like to talk
about it, just to show Charlie that he knew what pain, and not being
able to do what you want, feel like, and that Charlie ought not to fancy
he was neglected.
And that was the beginning of all the stories the school-master used to
tell us, and of the natural history lessons he gave us, and of his
teaching me to stuff birds, and do all kinds of things.
We used to say to him, "You're better than the Penny Numbers, for you're
quite as interesting, and we're sure you're true." And the odd thing was
that he made Charlie much more contented, because he started him with so
many collections, whilst he made me only more and more anxious to see
the world.