"Can you hear me?"
He looked yes.
"Do you know me?"
He looked yes, even yet more plainly.
"I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You recollect the Major?"
Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before.
"And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson--his godson--is
with us. Do you hear? My grandson."
The fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only creep
near it and fall.
"Do you know who my grandson is?"
Yes.
"I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying I
said to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.' He
has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he had
drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?"
Yes.
"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what I
say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He has
no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side
of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more
than I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and
misery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent
cradle I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep
from him, for his mother's sake, and for his own."
He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his
eyes.
"Now rest, and you shall see him."
So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straight
about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the
Major might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for my
thoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and was
startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by
the eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known
him a little while ago.
There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and repugnance
and I don't know what. So I went up to him and I led him to the bedside,
and when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the Major did the
like.
"O Lord" I says "Thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferings
and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. If this dying man is
truly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him!"
The Major says "Amen!" and then after a little stop I whispers him, "Dear
old friend fetch our beloved boy." And the Major, so clever as to have
got to understand it all without being told a word, went away and brought
him.
Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy when he
stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. And O so
like his dear young mother then!
"Jemmy" I says, "I have found out all about this poor gentleman who is so
ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. And as he wants to see all
belonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for you."
"Ah poor man!" says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his hands
with great gentleness. "My heart melts for him. Poor, poor man!"
The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I was not
that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist them.
"My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow-
creetur lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day, which I
think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheek
against his forehead and say, 'May God forgive you!'"
"O Gran," says Jemmy with a full heart, "I am not worthy!" But he leaned
down and did it. Then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of my
sleeve at last, and I believe he was a-trying to kiss me when he died.
* * * * *
There my dear! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and it's
worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are pleased to
like it.
You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of Sens,
but no we didn't find that. I found myself that I never looked up at the
high tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again when
that fair young creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like a
mother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as I can't
express. And every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in the
courtyard made friends with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away
with them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by
rampagious cart-horses,--with heads and without,--mud for paint and ropes
for harness,--and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and
every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume
every other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-
crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As to
the Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a
little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and
whenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who it
was,--the military character with the tags, or the inn-servants at their
supper in the courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country
people a starting home after market,--down rushes the Major to clink his
glass against their glasses and cry,--Hola! Vive Somebody! or Vive
Something! as if he was beside himself. And though I could not quite
approve of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways
of the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancing
at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's shop my
opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead off
with a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a little
uneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that were set up by the
other dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says "What are
they ever calling out Jemmy?" Jemmy says, "They're calling out Gran,
Bravo the Military English! Bravo the Military English!" which was very
gratifying to my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major was
known by.
But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony
of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the golden and
rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadows
of the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and
what do you think we did there? My dear, if Jemmy hadn't brought some
other of those stories of the Major's taking down from the telling of
former lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk Street, and if he didn't bring 'em
out with this speech:
"Here you are Gran! Here you are godfather! More of 'em! I'll read.
And though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, I know you won't disapprove
of my making 'em over to Gran; will you?"
"No, my dear boy," says the Major. "Everything we have is hers, and we
are hers."
"Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jackman
Lirriper," cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. "Very well then
godfather. Look here. As Gran is in the Legacy way just now, I shall
make these stories a part of Gran's Legacy. I'll leave 'em to her. What
do you say godfather?"
"Hip hip Hurrah!" says the Major.
"Very well then," cries Jemmy all in a bustle. "Vive the Military
English! Vive the Lady Lirriper! Vive the Jemmy Jackman Ditto! Vive
the Legacy! Now, you look out, Gran. And you look out, godfather.
_I'll_ read! And I'll tell you what I'll do besides. On the last night
of our holiday here when we are all packed and going away, I'll top up
with something of my own."
"Mind you do sir" says I.