CHILDREN WILL BE CHILDREN.
The "boys of Sker," as we always called those rough fellows over at
Newton, were rabbiting in the warren; according to their usual practice,
on a Sunday afternoon. A loose unseemly lot of lads, from fifteen up to
two-and-twenty years of age, perhaps, and very little to choose between
them as to work and character. All, however, were known to be first-rate
hands at any kind of sporting, or of poaching, or of any roving
pleasure.
Watkin, the sixth and youngest boy, was of a different nature. His
brothers always cast him off, and treated him with a high contempt, yet
never could despise him. In their rough way, they could hardly help a
sulky sort of love for him.
The seventh and last child had been a girl--a sweet little creature as
could be seen, and taking after Watkin. But she had something on her
throat from six months up to six years old; and when she died, some
three months back, people who had been in the house said that her mother
would sooner have lost all the boys put together, if you left Watkin out
of them. How that was I cannot say, and prefer to avoid those subjects.
But I know that poor black Evan swore no oath worth speaking of for one
great market and two small ones, but seemed brought down to sit by
himself, drinking quietly all day long.
When we came to the ancient hall (or kitchen, as now they called it),
for a moment I was vexed--expecting more of a rush, perhaps, than I was
entitled to. Knowing how much that young child owed me for her
preservation, and feeling how fond I was of her, what did I look for but
wild delight at seeing "old Davy" back again? However, it seems, she had
taken up with another and forgotten me.
Watkin, the youngest boy of Sker, was an innocent good little fellow,
about twelve years old at that time. Bardie had found this out already;
as quickly as she found out my goodness, even by the moonlight. She had
taken the lead upon Watkin, and was laying down the law to him, upon a
question of deep importance, about the manner of dancing. I could dance
a hornpipe with anybody, and forward I came to listen.
"No, no, no! I tell 'a. 'E mustn't do like that, Yatkin. 'E must go
yound and yound like this; and 'e must hold 'a cothes out, same as I
does. Gardy là! 'E must hold 'a cothes out all the time, 'e must."
The little atom, all the time she delivered these injunctions, was
holding out her tiny frock in the daintiest manner, and tripping
sideways here and there, and turning round quite upon tiptoe, with her
childish figure poised, and her chin thrown forward; and then she would
give a good hard jump, but all to the tune of the brass jew's-harp which
the boy was playing for his very life. And all the while she was doing
this, the amount of energy and expression in her face was wonderful. You
would have thought there was nothing else in all the world that required
doing with such zeal and abandonment. Presently the boy stopped for a
moment, and she came and took the knee of his trousers, and put it to
her pretty lips with the most ardent gratitude.
"She must be a foreigner," said I to myself: "no British child could
dance like that, and talk so; and no British child ever shows
gratitude."
As they had not espied us yet, where we stood in the passage-corner, I
drew Bunny backward, and found her all of a tremble with eagerness to go
and help.
"More pay," said little missy, with a coaxing look; "more pay, Yatkin!"
"No, no. You must say 'more play, please, Watkin.'"
"See voo pay, Yatkin; I 'ants--more pay!" The funny thing laughed at
herself while saying it, as if with some comic inner sense of her own
insatiability in the matter of play.
"But how do you expect me to play the music," asked Watkin, very
reasonably, "if I am to hold my clothes out all the time?"
"Can't 'a?" she replied, looking up at him with the deepest
disappointment; "can't 'a pay and dance too, Yatkin? I thought 'a could
do anything. I 'ants to go to my dear mama and papa and ickle bother."
Here she began to set up a very lamentable cry, and Watkin in vain tried
to comfort her, till, hearing us, she broke from him.
"Nare's my dear mama, nare's my dear mama coming!" she exclaimed, as she
trotted full speed to the door. "Mama! mama! here I is. And 'e mustn't
scold poor Susan."
It is out of my power to describe how her little flushed countenance
fell when she saw only me and Bunny. She drew back suddenly, with the
brightness fading out of her eager eyes, and the tears that were in them
began to roll, and her bits of hands went up to her forehead, as if she
had lost herself, and the corners of her mouth came down; and then with
a sob she turned away, and with quivering shoulders hid herself. I
scarcely knew what to do for the best; but our Bunny was very good to
her, even better than could have been hoped, although she came of a
kindly race. Without standing upon ceremony, as many children would have
done, up she ran to the motherless stranger, and, kneeling down on the
floor, contrived to make her turn and look at her. Then Bunny pulled out
her new handkerchief, of which she was proud, I can tell you, being the
first she had ever owned, made from the soundest corner of mother
Jones's old window-blind, and only allowed with a Sunday frock; and
although she had too much respect for this to wet it with anything
herself, she never for a moment grudged to wipe poor Bardie's eyes with
it. Nay, she even permitted her--which was much more for a child to
do--to take it into her own two hands and rub away at her eyes with it.
Gradually she coaxed her out of the cupboard of her refuge, and sitting
in some posture known to none but women children, without a stool to
help her, she got the little one on her lap, and stroked at her, and
murmured to her, as if she had found a favourite doll in the depth of
trouble. Upon the whole, I was so pleased that I vowed to myself I would
give my Bunny the very brightest halfpenny I should earn upon the
morrow.
Meanwhile, the baby of higher birth--as a glance was enough to show
her--began to relax and come down a little, both from her dignity and
her woe. She looked at Bunny with a gleam of humour, to which her wet
eyes gave effect.
"'E call that a ponkey-hankerchy? Does 'a call that a ponkey-hankerchy?"
Bunny was so overpowered by this, after all that she had done, and at
the air of pity wherewith her proud ornament was flung on the floor,
that she could only look at me as if I had cheated her about it. And
truly I had seen no need to tell her about mother Jones and her blind.
Then these little ones got up, having sense of a natural discordance of
rank between them, and Bunny no longer wiped the eyes of Bardie, nor
Bardie wept in the arms of Bunny. They put their little hands behind
them, and stood apart to think a bit, and watched each other shyly. To
see them move their mouths and fingers, and peep from the corners of
their eyes, was as good as almost any play without a hornpipe in it. It
made no difference, however. Very soon they came to settle it between
them. The low-born Bunny looked down upon Bardie for being so much
smaller, and the high-born Bardie looked down upon Bunny for being so
much coarser. But neither was able to tell the other at all what her
opinion was; and so, without any further trouble, they became very
excellent playmates.
Doing my best to make them friends, I seized the little stranger, and
gave her several good tosses-up, as well as tickles between them; and
this was more than she could resist, being, as her nature shows,
thoroughly fond of any kind of pleasure and amusement. She laughed, and
she flung out her arms, and every time she made such jumps as to go up
like a feather. Pretty soon I saw, however, that this had gone on too
long for Bunny. She put her poor handkerchief out of sight, and then
some fingers into her mouth, and she looked as black as a dog in a
kennel. But Bardie showed good-nature now, for she ran up to Bunny and
took her hand and led her to me, and said very nicely, "Give this ickle
gal some, old Davy. She haven't had no pay at all. Oh, hot boofley
buckens oo's got! Jolly, jolly! Keel song grand!"
This admiration of my buttons--which truly were very handsome, being on
my regulation-coat, and as good as gilt almost, with "Minotaur" (a kind
of grampus, as they say) done round them--this appreciation of the navy
made me more and more perceive what a dear child was come ashore to us,
and that we ought to look alive to make something out of her. If she had
any friends remaining (and they could scarcely have all been drowned),
being, as she clearly was, of a high and therefore rich family, it might
be worth ten times as much as even my boat had been to me, to keep her
safe and restore her in a fat state when demanded. With that I made up
my mind to take her home with me that very night, especially as Bunny
seemed to have set up a wonderful fancy to her. But man sees single, God
sees double, as our saying is, and her bits of French made me afraid
that she might after all be a beggar.
"Now go and play, like two little dears, and remember whose day it is,"
I said to them both, for I felt the duty of keeping my grandchild up to
the mark on all religious questions; "and be sure you don't go near the
well, nor out of sight of the house at all, nor pull the tails of the
chickens out, nor throw stones at the piggy-wiggy," for I knew what
Bunny's tricks were. "And now, Watty, my boy, come and talk to me, and
perhaps I will give you a juneating apple from my own tree under the
Clevice."
Although the heat was tremendous now (even inside those three-feet
walls), the little things did as I bade them. And I made the most of
this occasion to have a talk with Watkin, who told me everything he
knew. His mother had not been down since dinner, which they always got
anyhow; because his father, who had been poorly for some days, and
feverish, and forced to lie in bed a little, came to the top of the
stairs, and called, requiring some attendance. What this meant I knew as
well as if I had seen black Evan there, parched with thirst and with
great eyes rolling after helpless drunkenness, and roaring, with his
night-clothes on, for a quart of fresh-drawn ale.
But about the shipwrecked child Watty knew scarce anything. He had found
her in his bed that morning--Moxy, no doubt, having been hard pushed
(with her husband in that state) what to do. And knowing how kind young
Watty was, she had quartered the baby upon him. But Watkin, though
gifted with pretty good English (or "Sassenach," as we call it) beyond
all the rest of his family, could not follow the little creature in her
manner of talking; which indeed, as I found thereafter, nobody in the
parish could do except myself, and an Englishwoman whose word was not
worth taking.
"Indeed and indeed then, Mr Llewellyn," he went on in English, having an
evident desire to improve himself by discourse with me, "I did try, and
I did try; and my mother, she try too. Times and times, for sure we
tried. But no use was the whole of it. She only shakes her head, and
thinks with all her might, as you may say. And then she says 'No! I'se
not hot you says. I'se two years old, and I'se Bardie. And my papa he be
very angy if 'e goes on so with me. My mama yoves me, and I yove her,
and papa, and ickle bother, and everybody. But not the naughty bad man,
I doesn't.' That isn't true English now, I don't think; is it then, Mr
Llewellyn?"
"Certainly not," I answered, seeing that my character for good English
was at stake.
"And mother say she know well enough the baby must be a foreigner. On
her dress it is to show it. No name, as the Christians put, but marks
without any meaning. And of clothes so few upon her till mother go to
the old cupboard. Rich people mother do say they must be; but dead by
this time, she make no doubt."
"Boy," I replied, "your mother, I fear, is right in that particular. To
me it is a subject of anxiety and sorrow. And I know perhaps more about
it than any one else can pretend to do."
The boy looked at me with wonder and eagerness about it. But I gave him
a look, as much as to say, "Ask no more at present." However, he was so
full of her that he could not keep from talking.
"We asked who the naughty bad man was, but she was afraid at that, and
went all round the room with her eyes, and hid under mother's apron. And
dreadful she cried at breakfast about her mama and her own spoon. To my
heart I feel the pain when she does cry; I know I do. And then of a
sudden she is laughing, and no reason for it! I never did see such a
baby before. Do you think so, Mr Llewellyn?"