"Much would have more, and lost all."--_English Proverb_.
"Learn you to an ill habit, and ye'll ca't custom."
_Scotch Proverb_.
The lane was full of colour that autumn, the first autumn of the
convict's return. The leaves turned early, and fell late, and made the
hedges gayer than when the dog-roses were out; for not only were the
leaves of all kinds brighter than many flowers, but the berries (from
the holly and mountain-ash to the hips and haws) were so thick-set, and
so red and shining, that, as my dear mother said, "they looked almost
artificial."
I remember it well, because of two things. First, that Jem got five of
the largest hips we had ever seen off a leafless dog-rose branch which
stuck far out of the hedge, and picked the little green coronets off, so
that they were smooth and glossy, and egg-shaped, and crimson on one
side and yellow on the other; and then he got an empty chaffinch's nest
close by and put the five hips into it, and took it home, and persuaded
Alice our new parlourmaid that it was a robin redbreast's nest with eggs
in it. And she believed it, for she came from London and knew no better.
The second thing I remember that autumn by, is that everybody expected a
hard winter because of the berries being so fine, and the hard winter
never came, and the birds ate worms and grubs and left most of the hedge
fruits where they were.
November was bright and mild, and the morning frosts only made the
berries all the glossier when the sun came out. We had one or two
snow-storms in December, and then we all said, "Now it's coming!" but
the snow melted away and left no bones behind. In January the snow lay
longer, and left big bones on the moors, and Jem and I made a slide to
school on the pack track, and towards the end of the month the mill-dam
froze hard, and we had slides fifteen yards long, and skating; and
Winter seemed to have come back in good earnest to fetch his bones away.
Jem was great fun in frosty weather; Charlie and I used to die of
laughing at him. I think cold made him pugnacious; he seemed always
ready for a row, and was constantly in one. The January frost came in
our Christmas holidays, so Jem had lots of time on his hands; he spent
almost all of it out of doors, and he devoted a good deal of it to
fighting with the rough lads of the village. There was a standing
subject of quarrel, which is a great thing for either tribes or
individuals who have a turn that way. A pond at the corner of the lower
paddock was fed by a stream which also fed the mill-dam; and the
mill-dam was close by, though, as it happened, not on my father's
property. Old custom made the mill-dam the winter resort of all the
village sliders and skaters, and my father displayed a good deal of
toleration when those who could not find room for a new slide, or wished
to practise their "outer edge" in a quiet spot, came climbing over the
wall (there was no real thoroughfare) and invaded our pond.
Perhaps it is because gratitude is a fatiguing virtue, or perhaps it is
because self-esteem has no practical limits, that favours are seldom
regarded as such for long. They are either depreciated, or claimed as
rights; very often both. And what is common in all classes is almost
universal amongst the uneducated. You have only to make a system of
giving your cast-off clothes to some shivering family, and you will not
have to wait long for an eloquent essay on their shabbiness, or for an
outburst of sincere indignation if you venture to reserve a warm jacket
for a needy relative. Prescriptive rights, in short, grow faster than
pumpkins, which is amongst the many warnings life affords us to be just
as well as generous. Thence it had come about that the young roughs of
the village regarded our pond to all winter intents and purposes as
theirs, and my father as only so far and so objectionably concerned in
the matter that he gave John Binder a yearly job in patching up the wall
which it took them three months' trouble to kick a breach in.
Our neighbours were what is called "very independent" folk. In the
grown-up people this was modified by the fact that no one who has to
earn his own livelihood can be quite independent of other people; if he
would live he must let live, and throw a little civility into the
bargain. But boys of an age when their parents found meals and hobnailed
boots for them whether they behaved well or ill, were able to display
independence in its roughest form. And when the boys of our
neighbourhood were rough, they were very rough indeed.
The village boys had their Christmas holidays about the same time that
we had ours, which left them as much spare time for sliding and skating
as we had, but they had their dinner at twelve o'clock, whilst we had
ours at one, so that any young roughs who wished to damage our pond were
just comfortably beginning their mischief as Jem and I were saying grace
before meat, and the thought of it took away our appetites again and
again.
That winter they were particularly aggravating. The December frost was
a very imperfect one, and the mill-dam never bore properly, so the boys
swarmed over our pond, which was shallow and safe. Very few of them
could even hobble on skates, and those few carried the art no farther
than by cutting up the slides. But thaw came on, so that there was no
sliding, and then the young roughs amused themselves with stamping holes
in the soft ice with their hobnailed heels. When word came to us that
they were taking the stones off our wall and pitching them down on to
the soft ice below, to act as skaters' stumbling-blocks for the rest of
that hard winter which we expected, Jem's indignation was not greater
than mine. My father was not at home, and indeed, when we had complained
before, he rather snubbed us, and said that we could not want the whole
of the pond to ourselves, and that he had always lived quietly with his
neighbours and we must learn to do the same, and so forth. No action at
all calculated to assuage our thirst for revenge was likely to be taken
by him, so Jem and I held a council by Charlie's sofa, and it was a
council of war. At the end we all three solemnly shook hands, and
Charlie was left to write and despatch brief notes of summons to our
more distant school-mates, whilst Jem and I tucked up our trousers,
wound our comforters sternly round our throats, and went forth in
different directions to gather the rest.
(Having lately been reading about the Highlanders, who used to send
round a fiery cross when the clans were called to battle, I should have
liked to do so in this instance; but as some of the Academy boys were no
greater readers than Jem, they might not have known what it meant, so we
abandoned the notion.)
There was not an Academy boy worth speaking of who was in time for
dinner the following day; and several of them brought brothers or
cousins to the fray. By half-past twelve we had crept down the field
that was on the other side of our wall, and had hidden ourselves in
various corners of a cattle-shed, where a big cart and some sail-cloth
and a turnip heap provided us with ambush. By and by certain familiar
whoops and hullohs announced that the enemy was coming. One or two
bigger boys made for the dam (which I confess was a relief to us), but
our own particular foes advanced with a rush upon the wall.
"They hevn't coomed yet, hev they?" we heard the sexton's son say, as he
peeped over at our pond.
"Noa," was the reply. "It's not gone one yet."
"It's gone one by t' church. I yeard it as we was coming up t' lane."
"T' church clock's always hafe-an-hour fasst, thee knows."
"It isn't!"
"It is."
"T' church clock's t' one to go by, anyhow," the sexton's son
maintained.
His friend guffawed aloud.
"And it's a reight 'un to go by too, my sakes! when thee feyther shifts
t' time back'ards and for'ards every Sunday morning to suit hissen."
"To suit hissen! To suit t' ringers, ye mean!" said the sexton's son.
"What's thou to do wi' t' ringers?" was the reply, enforced apparently
by a punch in the back, and the two lads came cuffing and struggling up
the field, much to my alarm, but fortunately they were too busy to
notice us.
Meanwhile, the rest had not been idle at the wall. Jem had climbed on
the cart, and peeping through a brick hole he could see that they had
with some difficulty disengaged a very heavy stone. As we were turning
our heads to watch the two lads fighting near our hiding-place, we heard
the stone strike with a heavy thud upon the rotten ice below, and it was
echoed by a groan of satisfaction from above.
("Ready!" I whispered.)
"You'll break somebody's nose when it's frosted in," cried Bob Furniss,
in a tone of sincere gratification.
"Eh, Tim Binder! there'll be a rare job for thee feyther next spring,
fettling up this wall, by t' time we've done wi' it."
"Let me come," we heard Tim say. "Thou can't handle a stone. Let me
come. Th' ice is as soft as loppered milk, and i' ten minutes, I'll fill
yon bit they're so chuff of skating on, as thick wi' stones as a
quarry."
("Now!" I said.)
Our foes considerably outnumbered us, but I think they were at a
disadvantage. They had worked off a good deal of their steam, and ours
was at explosion point. We took them by surprise and in the rear. They
had had some hard exercise, and we were panting to begin. As a matter of
fact those who could get away ran away. We caught all we could, and
punched and pummelled and rolled them in the snow to our hearts'
content.
Jem never was much of a talker, and I never knew him speak when he was
fighting; but three several times on this occasion, I heard him say very
stiffly and distinctly (he was on the top of Tim Binder), "I'll fettle
thee! I'll fettle thee! I'll fettle thee!"
The battle was over, the victory was ours, but the campaign was not
ended, and thenceforward the disadvantages would be for us. Even real
warfare is complicated when men fight with men less civilized than
themselves; and we had learnt before now that when we snowballed each
other or snowballed the rougher "lot" of village boys, we did so under
different conditions. _We_ had our own code of honour and fairness, but
Bob Furniss was not above putting a stone into a snowball if he owed a
grudge.
So when we heard a rumour that the bigger "roughs" were going to join
the younger ones, and lie in wait to "pay us off" the first day we came
down to the ice, I cannot say we felt comfortable, though we resolved to
be courageous. Meanwhile, the thaw continued, which suspended
operations, and gave time, which is good for healing; and Christmas
came, and we and our foes met and mingled in the mummeries of the
season, and wished each other Happy New Years, and said nothing about
the pond.
How my father came to hear of the matter we did not know at the time,
but one morning he summoned Jem and me, and bade us tell him all about
it. I was always rather afraid of my father, and I should have made out
a very stammering story, but Jem flushed up like a turkey-cock, and gave
our version of the business very straightforwardly. The other side of
the tale my father had evidently heard, and we fancied he must have
heard also of the intended attack on us, for it never took place, and
we knew of interviews which he had with John Binder and others of our
neighbours; and when the frost came in January, we found that the stones
had been taken out of the pond, and my father gave us a sharp lecture
against being quarrelsome and giving ourselves airs, and it ended
with--"The pond is mine. I wish you to remember it, because it makes it
your duty to be hospitable and civil to the boys I allow to go on it.
And I have very decidedly warned them and their parents to remember it,
because if my permission for fair amusement is abused to damage and
trespass, I shall withdraw the favour and prosecute intruders. But the
day I shut up my pond from my neighbours, I shall forbid you and Jack to
go on it again unless the fault is more entirely on one side than it's
likely to be when boys squabble."
My father waved our dismissal, but I hesitated.
"The boys won't think we told tales to you to get out of another fight?"
I gasped.
"Everybody knows perfectly well how I heard. It came to the sexton's
ears, and he very properly informed me."
I felt relieved, and the first day we had on the ice went off very
fairly. The boys were sheepish at first and slow to come on, and when
they had assembled in force they were inclined to be bullying. But Jem
and I kept our tempers, and by and by my father came down to see us,
and headed a long slide in which we and our foes were combined. As he
left he pinched Jem's frosty ear, and said, "Let me hear if there's any
real malice, but don't double your fists at every trifle. Slide and let
slide! slide and let slide!" And he took a pinch of snuff and departed.
And Jem was wonderfully peaceable for the rest of the day. A word from
my father went a long way with him. They were very fond of each other.
I had no love of fighting for fighting's sake, and I had other interests
besides sliding and skating; so I was well satisfied that we got through
the January frost without further breaches of the peace. Towards the end
of the month we all went a good deal upon the mill-dam, and Mr. Wood
(assisted by me as far as watching, handing tools and asking questions
went) made a rough sledge, in which he pushed Charlie before him as he
skated; and I believe the village boys, as well as his own
school-fellows, were glad that Cripple Charlie had a share in the winter
fun, for wherever Mr. Wood drove him, both sliders and skaters made way.
And even on the pond there were no more real battles that winter. Only
now and then some mischievous urchin tripped up our brand-new skates,
and begged our pardon as he left us on our backs. And more than once,
when "the island" in the middle of the pond was a very fairyland of
hoar-frosted twigs and snow-plumed larches, I have seen its white
loveliness rudely shaken, and skating round to discover the cause, have
beheld Jem, with cheeks redder than his scarlet comforter, return an
"accidental" shove with interest; or posed like a ruffled robin
redbreast, to defend a newly-made slide against intruders.