BERTIE’S NEW FRIENDS.
THE friendship between the children in the two adjoining houses, begun
under rather exceptional circumstances, led to a considerable degree of
intimacy as the summer wore on.
The Squire encouraged the friendship, as likely to be of advantage to
Bertie. Sir Walter Arbuthnot had no objection to it, and his wife soon
became convinced that her children could take no harm from associating
with the little waif.
So Bertie went as often as he chose to the other house, and his
nurseries were always open to his new friends, so that hardly a day
passed without a meeting at one place or the other.
Bertie was fond of Phil, whose constant flow of high spirits and
imperturbable good humor made him a favorite everywhere; but Queenie was
not always quite so easy to get on with, and although she fascinated him
by her imperious ways, and made him do her bidding submissively and
gladly, yet he was not sure that he was very fond of her always.
Queenie was undeniably disobedient. Phil often broke rules and
disregarded his parents’ commands; but then, with him this was the
result rather of thoughtlessness than of downright, deliberate
disobedience. I do not say that he would always deny himself a wish
because he remembered just in the midst of his fun that its attainment
would necessitate a breach of rule. Phil was lax in his ideas on such
subjects, as are many boys of his age; but he was not in the least
deceitful, and he would never lay plans and plot and scheme to evade
detection, as his little sister often did; and if reminded at the outset
that what he meditated doing involved disobedience, he would often
abandon the idea of his own accord.
Queenie, however, loved her own way, and hated control too much to be as
amenable. She had a deeply-rooted belief that rules were only made in
order to be broken, and that, so long as she could break them without
detection, it was all quite right and fair. She had been spoiled from
her babyhood, and it was perhaps no great wonder that she had come to
look upon herself as a person of such great importance that she could
hardly do wrong; still, from some cause or another, this was the view
she held, and it led her into many faults, of which not the least was
disobedience.
Bertie, who, without quite knowing why, was always very determined not
to disobey anybody who had the right to command him, noticed this
failing of Queenie’s very much, and it troubled him a good deal, but he
had not spoken of it, for he knew now by experience that the little lady
was very intolerant of criticism, and that to offer it would be pretty
sure to provoke a quarrel.
The Squire’s rules were few; but they were scrupulously obeyed by
Bertie. It is true he had forced his way into the library again and
again after having been told not to go there without leave; but that had
seemed to be with him a matter rather of instinct than a voluntary act.
The library was the one place where, from the first moment, he had
seemed at home, and his haunting of the room appeared to be something
rather outside of his own will.
In other matters Bertie was perfectly docile and obedient. Mrs.
Pritchard was loud in his praises, and Queenie many times held him up to
rather merciless ridicule, because he insisted on returning home at the
time he had been told, or declined to share in some escapade because he
thought the Squire would not approve of it. But Bertie, in spite of his
quiet ways and dislike to anything like a quarrel, could be firm enough
when he chose, and Queenie soon learned to know that he could “hold his
own” against her, as Phil called it, if he meant to do so.
This often annoyed the little girl at the moment; but it made her
respect Bertie the more in her heart, and the children were very good
friends, in spite of their little differences, and the companionship of
playmates of his own age and station was of undoubted advantage to the
lonely boy.
Still, it may be doubted whether Bertie’s happiest hours were not those
spent by him alone with David wandering over the sandhills, or watching
with a sense of reverent expectancy for the daily turning of the tide.
All the child’s deeper thoughts were locked away in his own breast when
he was playing with Queenie and Phil; but they were brought out quite
naturally when David and he were alone together, and many earnest talks
were held by the margin of the wide-flowing sea, and many prayers went
up from two faithful, patient little hearts, that the great loving
Father above, who never forgot to preserve the fisherman’s cottage from
danger, would look down and “remember Bertie again.”
For as the weeks rolled silently away, it seemed as if Bertie would
never “remember himself.” His health improved gradually, and he was
active and merry, though always in a quiet way; but no gleam from the
past ever lighted up his mind; he was still as ignorant of his real name
and state in life as he had been when he lay unconscious in the
fisherman’s cottage, and the vague impressions that used sometimes to
flit across his brain were growing now more rare and more faint.
Dr. Lighton sometimes shook his head and looked disturbed as he heard
from time to time of the state of the case. One day he began a sort of
half apology to the Squire for having, so to speak, imposed upon him the
charge of the child; but he was not allowed to go far in his speech.
“Don’t name it, Lighton, I beg you. It is a matter of no moment to me.
The child is welcome to his food and shelter. He is no trouble to me,
and the servants seem to enjoy having him.”
“Well, but there is the future to consider,” said Dr. Lighton. “You are
very generous and kind, but if this oblivion of the past continues, what
of the future?”
The Squire waved his hand as if to dismiss the subject.
“The future, I find, generally manages to take care of itself. I have no
doubt he will eventually remember something by which we can identify
him; and if not, why, I must do what I can; I am ready to take my
chance.”
“You are very good,” said the young doctor. “I had no idea of letting
you in for anything so serious.”
The Squire would not let him say more.
“The house is big enough for us both,” he said, rather curtly, “and that
is all that matters. He is welcome to stay till he is claimed.”
So Bertie stayed on in the unquestioning confidence of childhood, and at
times he would almost forget that all his life had not been spent at the
old Manor House.
For the most part Bertie was happy enough in the society of little
companions not much older than himself; but he had his own troubles to
bear, as all of us have, and one of these was of a rather curious
nature.
The boating excursions to which Phil had so eagerly looked forward
became in due course a reality. The fisherman, David’s father, and his
two big sons, returned from their long excursion in search of herrings,
and they were quite ready to take out parties of pleasure in their large
boat, or to let the little one to the boys to row themselves along the
coast, provided David were of the party.
Bertie had looked forward as impatiently as anybody for the time to come
when they could go out sailing or rowing over the sea he loved so well;
and yet, when the day came, and he found himself in the boat, gliding
over the shining water, he was seized with a horrible and unconquerable
sense of terror; his agitation became so great that the boat had to be
put back to land, so that he could be put ashore and no determination on
his own part, or persuasions or ridicule from others, ever induced him
to repeat the experiment. Again and again he made up his mind that it
was all nonsense, and that he _would_ conquer himself, and again and
again the first sight of the boat would bring back all the nameless
horrors which he could neither understand nor drive away. The very
thought of trusting himself to those frail timbers was agony to him, and
nothing could bring him to the point of entering the boat again.
Phil and Queenie laughed at him, and David was quite distressed that he
should miss all the pleasant hours the rest spent upon the water; but
they were all kind each in a different way, and Bertie was allowed to
please himself in peace until the other big brothers came from school,
and with them his troubles began.
Walter, Bernard, and Ralph Arbuthnot were strong lads, high-spirited,
full of fun and mischief, and quite determined, like most boys fresh
from school, to get all the fun out of the holidays that they possibly
could. They were not hard-hearted or unkindly boys, but they loved to
tease and to play tricks on anybody who gave them the chance, and they
found in little Bertie a sort of victim whom they sadly plagued, without
having any idea of the pain they inflicted upon him.
He took it all so quietly that they fancied he did not feel it. When
they laughed at him for being nameless and homeless, a sort of “outcast”
and “vagabond,” he never made any reply, and they had no notion that
their taunts cut into his very heart and brought back all that sense of
misery and desolation that he had gradually been outgrowing with time.
They liked the little boy in reality, although he was so different from
themselves that they could not help poking fun at him. They had no wish
to be unkind, but they did not understand him in the least, and had no
idea that he was not as careless and “thick-skinned” as themselves.
It was some time before they discovered Bertie’s horror of the water.
The arrival of a very favorite uncle soon after the commencement of the
holidays took up a great deal of their time and attention; and so long
as Uncle Fred was available to play tennis or cricket or take long walks
or rides with them, they wanted nothing else, and the boating was given
up for a season.
Mr. Frederick Arbuthnot was always very kind to Bertie whenever the
child appeared, but the little boy rather shunned the Court just now,
for he dreaded the banter of the bigger boys, and he fancied that he was
not wanted by any one.
He returned to his old pastime of wandering over the sandhills alone or
with David; but a sort of melancholy had come over him, and he often
felt unspeakably lonely and desolate. The only thing that seemed to do
him any good was to repeat again and again the words of unchanging
promise that he had learned from David’s card that Sunday long ago.
One day, as the two boys were sitting together under the shadow of the
boat, they heard the sound of trampling footsteps and many voices, and
the whole party from the big house rushed down to the shore and
proceeded unceremoniously to lay hands upon the boat, ordering David to
run and fetch oars and rudder whilst they launched the craft.
Bertie stood aside and watched them run the boat down to the water. He
learned from Queenie that Uncle Fred was coming down shortly, and was
going to take them a long sail or row, and she asked Bertie if he would
not like to come too.
“You know we shall be _quite_ safe with Uncle Fred. He was once a sailor
himself.”
But Bertie shook his head with a troubled look. He would so much have
liked to go, had it not been for his fears; but he dared not. He knew he
should be miserable as soon as he felt himself upon the water.
Phil came up at the moment to make the same suggestion that Queenie had
done, and the attention of the other boys was attracted, and they
learned for the first time Bertie’s horror of the water.
“Why, that must never be allowed to go on!” cried Walter, with a twinkle
in his eye. “Bertie will grow up a pitiful coward if we don’t take him
in hand. Little boys who are afraid must get over their fears. Come
along, Bertie, and get into that boat at once. I’ll guarantee you shall
be safe.”
But Bertie shrank back, looking pale and scared.
“I don’t want to,” he said, quickly.
“Little boys can’t always do what they want,” quoth Bernard,
sententiously; “we were brought up to believe that, if you weren’t.
Don’t you be a fool, Bertie, or you’ll never be good for anything.”
“If you once get over the funks, you’ll enjoy it like anything,” urged
Phil. “Don’t be silly, Bertie; they’ll make you do it, and you’d better
go peaceable than not.”
Bertie was horribly frightened; an unreasoning panic had seized him; he
made a rush to try and escape, but nothing could have been more fatal to
his hopes than that. He was caught in two minutes, and the excitement of
the chase and of his opposition made his captors absolutely determined
now to work their will upon him. A very little is enough to rouse a
boy’s instincts of tyranny, and to the Arbuthnots, who did not know what
nerves were, Bertie’s cowardice seemed utterly despicable. Indeed, they
firmly believed that they were doing him a real service in putting it
down with a firm hand.
“Here he is!” cried Walter, who was holding the prisoner in an iron
clasp. “This sort of thing won’t do, you know. Who has a piece of
whip-cord?”
Two or three pieces were speedily produced, and the boys proceeded
deliberately to tie Bertie’s hands and feet firmly together. His
terrified struggles only served to strengthen their purpose and to draw
the knots tighter, whilst the sight of his obvious fear convinced them
that they were doing the best thing possible in teaching him how foolish
it was.
Queenie and Phil took no part in the matter. They were rather sorry for
Bertie, but both thought their own brothers perfectly right in their
estimate of the case; and when Walter and Bernard took the captive up
bodily, carried him down to the water’s edge, and deposited him in the
boat, they could not help joining in the triumphant laugh that was
raised, and they thought Bertie quite stupid and bad-tempered not to
enjoy the joke himself.
Uncle Fred had not as yet appeared, and some instinct warned the boys
that Bertie’s “lesson” had better be concluded before his arrival. David
was just coming from the hut with his load, and the boys ran to meet him
and took the oars from him, for they were not quite certain what he
might do if Bertie appealed to him for help.
Bertie, however, lay quite still, his face as white as death, his eyes
fixed with terrified intensity upon the dancing water that was ruffled
to-day by a fresh breeze. When the boys pushed out into deep water, he
only shivered convulsively, but did not utter a sound.
The big lads were rather disappointed. They expected more of a “scene,”
and betrayed the nature of their true feelings by trying to add to the
child’s silent yet visible terror; for, had they only been actuated by
the wish to benefit him, they might surely have dispensed with any such
unnecessary demonstration.
Queenie and Phil had remained on shore, and the big boys felt themselves
entire masters of the situation.
“Can you swim, Bertie?” asked Walter.
The child shook his head, but said nothing.
“Because, you know, you should learn. It would help you better than
anything to overcome your foolish terror. Now I’ve heard that there’s
nothing like being pitched into deep water at once to teach a fellow to
swim, especially when he’s small.”
“To be sure that’s the way!” cried Ralph. “I know I read in a book that
little niggers were always taught that way. I don’t believe it ever
fails.”
“We might try, any way,” suggested Bernard, gravely; “and there’s no
time like the present. You see, if it should fail, no great harm would
be done. People always come up three times before they drown, and we
could catch hold of him when he came up if he could not manage to swim.
It’s a nice warm day, and I always think the sea is more buoyant when
it’s a little rough.”
The boat was rocking very much with the combined roughness of the sea
and the restlessness of the boys. Bertie could not hold by anything, for
the whip-cord resisted his most violent efforts to free himself, and in
his terror he fancied every moment that he should be rolled out into the
green, terrible water. Of course there was not the least danger of this,
but fear knows no laws, and the horror of his position was almost more
than the child’s nerves could stand. There was water, too, at the bottom
of the boat, and the lapping of the waves against the sides made him
certain that it leaked and that they would soon be swamped.
But the idea of being thrown overboard was the most awful of all, and he
was firmly convinced that his tormentors were quite capable of doing
what they proposed. So that when Ralph sprang towards him, making the
boat lurch horribly, he was certain his last moment had come, and,
uttering a stifled cry, he fell back senseless.
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