ON THE THRESHOLD.
MY father sent me to bed early that night, though I was very eager to
stay up, for every word which this man said held my attention. His face,
his manner, the large waves and sweeps of his white hands, his easy air
of superiority, his fantastic fashion of talk, all filled me with
interest and wonder. But, as I afterwards learned, their conversation
was to be about myself and my own prospects, so I was despatched to my
room, whence far into the night I could hear the deep growl of my father
and the rich tones of my uncle, with an occasional gentle murmur from my
mother, as they talked in the room beneath.
I had dropped asleep at last, when I was awakened suddenly by something
wet being pressed against my face, and by two warm arms which were cast
round me. My mother’s cheek was against my own, and I could hear the
click of her sobs, and feel her quiver and shake in the darkness. A
faint light stole through the latticed window, and I could dimly see that
she was in white, with her black hair loose upon her shoulders.
“You won’t forget us, Roddy? You won’t forget us?”
“Why, mother, what is it?”
“Your uncle, Roddy—he is going to take you away from us.”
“When, mother?”
“To-morrow.”
God forgive me, how my heart bounded for joy, when hers, which was within
touch of it, was breaking with sorrow!
“Oh, mother!” I cried. “To London?”
“First to Brighton, that he may present you to the Prince. Next day to
London, where you will meet the great people, Roddy, and learn to look
down upon—to look down upon your poor, simple, old-fashioned father and
mother.”
I put my arms about her to console her, but she wept so that, for all my
seventeen years and pride of manhood, it set me weeping also, and with
such a hiccoughing noise, since I had not a woman’s knack of quiet tears,
that it finally turned her own grief to laughter.
“Charles would be flattered if he could see the gracious way in which we
receive his kindness,” said she. “Be still, Roddy dear, or you will
certainly wake him.”
“I’ll not go if it is to grieve you,” I cried.
“Nay, dear, you must go, for it may be the one great chance of your life.
And think how proud it will make us all when we hear of you in the
company of Charles’s grand friends. But you will promise me not to
gamble, Roddy? You heard to-night of the dreadful things which come from
it.”
“I promise you, mother.”
“And you will be careful of wine, Roddy? You are young and unused to
it.”
“Yes, mother.”
“And play-actresses also, Roddy. And you will not cast your
underclothing until June is in. Young Master Overton came by his death
through it. Think well of your dress, Roddy, so as to do your uncle
credit, for it is the thing for which he is himself most famed. You have
but to do what he will direct. But if there is a time when you are not
meeting grand people, you can wear out your country things, for your
brown coat is as good as new, and the blue one, if it were ironed and
relined, would take you through the summer. I have put out your Sunday
clothes with the nankeen vest, since you are to see the Prince to-morrow,
and you will wear your brown silk stockings and buckle shoes. Be guarded
in crossing the London streets, for I am told that the hackney coaches
are past all imagining. Fold your clothes when you go to bed, Roddy, and
do not forget your evening prayers, for, oh, my dear boy, the days of
temptation are at hand, when I will no longer be with you to help you.”
So with advice and guidance both for this world and the next did my
mother, with her soft, warm arms around me, prepare me for the great step
which lay before me.
My uncle did not appear at breakfast in the morning, but Ambrose brewed
him a dish of chocolate and took it to his room. When at last, about
midday, he did descend, he was so fine with his curled hair, his shining
teeth, his quizzing glass, his snow-white ruffles, and his laughing eyes,
that I could not take my gaze from him.
“Well, nephew,” he cried, “what do you think of the prospect of coming to
town with me?”
“I thank you, sir, for the kind interest which you take in me,” said I.
“But you must be a credit to me. My nephew must be of the best if he is
to be in keeping with the rest of me.”
“You’ll find him a chip of good wood, sir,” said my father.
“We must make him a polished chip before we have done with him. Your
aim, my dear nephew, must always be to be in _bon ton_. It is not a case
of wealth, you understand. Mere riches cannot do it. Golden Price has
forty thousand a year, but his clothes are disastrous. I assure you that
I saw him come down St. James’s Street the other day, and I was so
shocked at his appearance that I had to step into Vernet’s for a glass of
orange brandy. No, it is a question of natural taste, and of following
the advice and example of those who are more experienced than yourself.”
“I fear, Charles, that Roddy’s wardrobe is country-made,” said my mother.
“We shall soon set that right when we get to town. We shall see what
Stultz or Weston can do for him,” my uncle answered. “We must keep him
quiet until he has some clothes to wear.”
This slight upon my best Sunday suit brought a flush to my mother’s
cheeks, which my uncle instantly observed, for he was quick in noticing
trifles.
“The clothes are very well for Friar’s Oak, sister Mary,” said he. “And
yet you can understand that they might seem _rococo_ in the Mall. If you
leave him in my hands I shall see to the matter.”
“On how much, sir,” asked my father, “can a young man dress in town?”
“With prudence and reasonable care, a young man of fashion can dress upon
eight hundred a year,” my uncle answered.
I saw my poor father’s face grow longer.
“I fear, sir, that Roddy must keep his country clothes,” said he. “Even
with my prize-money—”
“Tut, sir!” cried my uncle. “I already owe Weston something over a
thousand, so how can a few odd hundreds affect it? If my nephew comes
with me, my nephew is my care. The point is settled, and I must refuse
to argue upon it.” He waved his white hands as if to brush aside all
opposition.
My parents tried to thank him, but he cut them short.
“By the way, now that I am in Friar’s Oak, there is another small piece
of business which I have to perform,” said he. “I believe that there is
a fighting-man named Harrison here, who at one time might have held the
championship. In those days poor Avon and I were his principal backers.
I should like to have a word with him.”
You may think how proud I was to walk down the village street with my
magnificent relative, and to note out of the corner of my eye how the
folk came to the doors and windows to see us pass. Champion Harrison was
standing outside the smithy, and he pulled his cap off when he saw my
uncle.
“God bless me, sir! Who’d ha’ thought of seein’ you at Friar’s Oak? Why,
Sir Charles, it brings old memories back to look at your face again.”
“Glad to see you looking so fit, Harrison,” said my uncle, running his
eyes over him. “Why, with a week’s training you would be as good a man
as ever. I don’t suppose you scale more than thirteen and a half?”
“Thirteen ten, Sir Charles. I’m in my fortieth year, but I am sound in
wind and limb, and if my old woman would have let me off my promise, I’d
ha’ had a try with some of these young ones before now. I hear that
they’ve got some amazin’ good stuff up from Bristol of late.”
“Yes, the Bristol yellowman has been the winning colour of late. How
d’ye do, Mrs. Harrison? I don’t suppose you remember me?”
She had come out from the house, and I noticed that her worn face—on
which some past terror seemed to have left its shadow—hardened into stern
lines as she looked at my uncle.
“I remember you too well, Sir Charles Tregellis,” said she. “I trust
that you have not come here to-day to try to draw my husband back into
the ways that he has forsaken.”
“That’s the way with her, Sir Charles,” said Harrison, resting his great
hand upon the woman’s shoulder. “She’s got my promise, and she holds me
to it! There was never a better or more hard-working wife, but she ain’t
what you’d call a patron of sport, and that’s a fact.”
“Sport!” cried the woman, bitterly. “A fine sport for you, Sir Charles,
with your pleasant twenty-mile drive into the country and your
luncheon-basket and your wines, and so merrily back to London in the cool
of the evening, with a well-fought battle to talk over. Think of the
sport that it was to me to sit through the long hours, listening for the
wheels of the chaise which would bring my man back to me. Sometimes he
could walk in, and sometimes he was led in, and sometimes he was carried
in, and it was only by his clothes that I could know him—”
“Come, wifie,” said Harrison, patting her on the shoulder. “I’ve been
cut up in my time, but never as bad as that.”
“And then to live for weeks afterwards with the fear that every knock at
the door may be to tell us that the other is dead, and that my man may
have to stand in the dock and take his trial for murder.”
“No, she hasn’t got a sportin’ drop in her veins,” said Harrison. “She’d
never make a patron, never! It’s Black Baruk’s business that did it,
when we thought he’d napped it once too often. Well, she has my promise,
and I’ll never sling my hat over the ropes unless she gives me leave.”
“You’ll keep your hat on your head like an honest, God-fearing man,
John,” said his wife, turning back into the house.
“I wouldn’t for the world say anything to make you change your
resolutions,” said my uncle. “At the same time, if you had wished to
take a turn at the old sport, I had a good thing to put in your way.”
“Well, it’s no use, sir,” said Harrison, “but I’d be glad to hear about
it all the same.”
“They have a very good bit of stuff at thirteen stone down Gloucester
way. Wilson is his name, and they call him Crab on account of his
style.”
Harrison shook his head. “Never heard of him, sir.”
“Very likely not, for he has never shown in the P.R. But they think
great things of him in the West, and he can hold his own with either of
the Belchers with the mufflers.”
“Sparrin’ ain’t fightin’,” said the smith.
“I am told that he had the best of it in a by-battle with Noah James, of
Cheshire.”
“There’s no gamer man on the list, sir, than Noah James, the guardsman,”
said Harrison. “I saw him myself fight fifty rounds after his jaw had
been cracked in three places. If Wilson could beat him, Wilson will go
far.”
“So they think in the West, and they mean to spring him on the London
talent. Sir Lothian Hume is his patron, and to make a long story short,
he lays me odds that I won’t find a young one of his weight to meet him.
I told him that I had not heard of any good young ones, but that I had an
old one who had not put his foot into a ring for many years, who would
make his man wish he had never come to London.
“‘Young or old, under twenty or over thirty-five, you may bring whom you
will at the weight, and I shall lay two to one on Wilson,’ said he. I
took him in thousands, and here I am.”
“It won’t do, Sir Charles,” said the smith, shaking his head. “There’s
nothing would please me better, but you heard for yourself.”
“Well, if you won’t fight, Harrison, I must try to get some promising
colt. I’d be glad of your advice in the matter. By the way, I take the
chair at a supper of the Fancy at the Waggon and Horses in St. Martin’s
Lane next Friday. I should be very glad if you will make one of my
guests. Halloa, who’s this?” Up flew his glass to his eye.
Boy Jim had come out from the forge with his hammer in his hand. He had,
I remember, a grey flannel shirt, which was open at the neck and turned
up at the sleeves. My uncle ran his eyes over the fine lines of his
magnificent figure with the glance of a connoisseur.
“That’s my nephew, Sir Charles.”
“Is he living with you?”
“His parents are dead.”
“Has he ever been in London?”
“No, Sir Charles. He’s been with me here since he was as high as that
hammer.”
My uncle turned to Boy Jim.
“I hear that you have never been in London,” said he. “Your uncle is
coming up to a supper which I am giving to the Fancy next Friday. Would
you care to make one of us?”
Boy Jim’s dark eyes sparkled with pleasure.
“I should be glad to come, sir.”
“No, no, Jim,” cried the smith, abruptly. “I’m sorry to gainsay you,
lad, but there are reasons why I had rather you stayed down here with
your aunt.”
“Tut, Harrison, let the lad come!” cried my uncle.
“No, no, Sir Charles. It’s dangerous company for a lad of his mettle.
There’s plenty for him to do when I’m away.”
Poor Jim turned away with a clouded brow and strode into the smithy
again. For my part, I slipped after him to try to console him, and to
tell him all the wonderful changes which had come so suddenly into my
life. But I had not got half through my story, and Jim, like the good
fellow that he was, had just begun to forget his own troubles in his
delight at my good fortune, when my uncle called to me from without. The
curricle with its tandem mares was waiting for us outside the cottage,
and Ambrose had placed the refection-basket, the lap-dog, and the
precious toilet-box inside of it. He had himself climbed up behind, and
I, after a hearty handshake from my father, and a last sobbing embrace
from my mother, took my place beside my uncle in the front.
“Let go her head!” cried he to the ostler, and with a snap, a crack, and
a jingle, away we went upon our journey.
Across all the years how clearly I can see that spring day, with the
green English fields, the windy English sky, and the yellow,
beetle-browed cottage in which I had grown from a child to a man. I see,
too, the figures at the garden gate: my mother, with her face turned away
and her handkerchief waving; my father, with his blue coat and his white
shorts, leaning upon his stick with his hand shading his eyes as he
peered after us. All the village was out to see young Roddy Stone go off
with his grand relative from London to call upon the Prince in his own
palace. The Harrisons were waving to me from the smithy, and John
Cummings from the steps of the inn, and I saw Joshua Allen, my old
schoolmaster, pointing me out to the people, as if he were showing what
came from his teaching. To make it complete, who should drive past just
as we cleared the village but Miss Hinton, the play-actress, the pony and
phaeton the same as when first I saw her, but she herself another woman;
and I thought to myself that if Boy Jim had done nothing but that one
thing, he need not think that his youth had been wasted in the country.
She was driving to see him, I have no doubt, for they were closer than
ever, and she never looked up nor saw the hand that I waved to her. So
as we took the curve of the road the little village vanished, and there
in the dip of the Downs, past the spires of Patcham and of Preston, lay
the broad blue sea and the grey houses of Brighton, with the strange
Eastern domes and minarets of the Prince’s Pavilion shooting out from the
centre of it.
To every traveller it was a sight of beauty, but to me it was the
world—the great wide free world—and my heart thrilled and fluttered as
the young bird’s may when it first hears the whirr of its own flight, and
skims along with the blue heaven above it and the green fields beneath.
The day may come when it may look back regretfully to the snug nest in
the thornbush, but what does it reck of that when spring is in the air
and youth in its blood, and the old hawk of trouble has not yet darkened
the sunshine with the ill-boding shadow of its wings?