A fugitive fine day which had strayed into the month from the
approaching spring appeared the next morning, and Miss Alicia was
uplifted by the enrapturing suggestion that she should join her new
relative in taking a walk, in fact that it should be she who took him
to walk and showed him some of his possessions. This, it had revealed
itself to him, she could do in a special way of her own, because during
her life at Temple Barholm she had felt it her duty to “try to do a
little good” among the villagers. She and her long-dead mother and
sister had of course been working adjuncts of the vicarage, and had
numerous somewhat trying tasks to perform in the way of improving upon
“dear papa's” harrying them into attending church, chivying the mothers
into sending their children to Sunday-school, and being unsparing in
severity of any conduct which might be construed into implying lack of
appreciation of the vicar or respect for his eloquence.
It had been necessary for them as members of the vicar's family--always,
of course, without adding a sixpence to the household bills--to supply
bowls of nourishing broth and arrowroot to invalids and to bestow the
aid and encouragement which result in a man of God's being regarded with
affection and gratitude by his parishioners. Many a man's career in the
church, “dear papa” had frequently observed, had been ruined by lack of
intelligence and effort on the part of the female members of his family.
“No man could achieve proper results,” he had said, “if he was hampered
by the selfish influence and foolishness of his womenkind. Success in
the church depends in one sense very much upon the conduct of a man's
female relatives.”
After the deaths of her mother and sister, Miss Alicia had toiled on
patiently, fading day by day from a slim, plain, sweet-faced girl to
a slim, even plainer and sweeter-faced middle-aged and at last elderly
woman. She had by that time read aloud by bedsides a great many chapters
in the Bible, had given a good many tracts, and bestowed as much
arrowroot, barley-water, and beef-tea as she could possibly
encompass without domestic disaster. She had given a large amount of
conscientious, if not too intelligent, advice, and had never failed to
preside over her Sunday-school class or at mothers' meetings. But
her timid unimpressiveness had not aroused enthusiasm or awakened
comprehension. “Miss Alicia,” the cottage women said, “she's well
meanin', but she's not one with a head.” “She reminds me,” one of them
had summed her up, “of a hen that lays a' egg every day, but it's too
small for a meal, and 'u'd never hatch into anythin'.”
During her stay at Temple Barholm she had tentatively tried to do a
little “parish work,” but she had had nothing to give, and she was
always afraid that if Mr. Temple Barholm found her out, he would be
angry, because he would think she was presuming. She was aware that the
villagers knew that she was an object of charity herself, and a person
who was “a lady” and yet an object of charity was, so to speak, poaching
upon their own legitimate preserves. The rector and his wife were rather
grand people, and condescended to her greatly on the few occasions of
their accidental meetings. She was neither smart nor influential enough
to be considered as an asset.
It was she who “conversed” during their walk, and while she trotted
by Tembarom's side looking more early-Victorian than ever in a neat,
fringed mantle and a small black bonnet of a fashion long decently
interred by a changing world, Tembarom had never seen anything
resembling it in New York; but he liked it and her increasingly at every
moment.
It was he who made her converse. He led her on by asking her questions
and being greatly interested in every response she made. In fact, though
he was quite unaware of the situation, she was creating for him such an
atmosphere as he might have found in a book, if he had had the habit of
books. Everything she told him was new and quaint and very often rather
touching. She related anecdotes about herself and her poor little past
without knowing she was doing it. Before they had talked an hour he had
an astonishing clear idea of “poor dear papa” and “dearest Emily” and
“poor darling mama” and existence at Rowcroft Vicarage. He “caught
on to” the fact that though she was very much given to the word
“dear,”--people were “dear,” and so were things and places,--she never
even by chance slipped into saying “dear Rowcroft,” which she would
certainly have done if she had ever spent a happy moment in it.
As she talked to him he realized that her simple accustomedness to
English village life and all its accompaniments of county surroundings
would teach him anything and everything he might want to know. Her
obscurity had been surrounded by stately magnificence, with which
she had become familiar without touching the merest outskirts of its
privileges. She knew names and customs and families and things to be
cultivated or avoided, and though she would be a little startled and
much mystified by his total ignorance of all she had breathed in since
her birth, he felt sure that she would not regard him either with
private contempt or with a lessened liking because he was a vandal pure
and simple.
And she had such a nice, little, old polite way of saying things. When,
in passing a group of children, he failed to understand that their hasty
bobbing up and down meant that they were doing obeisance to him as lord
of the manor, she spoke with the prettiest apologetic courtesy.
“I'm sure you won't mind touching your hat when they make their little
curtsies, or when a villager touches his forehead,” she said.
“Good Lord! no,” he said, starting. “Ought I? I didn't know they were
doing it at me.” And he turned round and made a handsome bow and grinned
almost affectionately at the small, amazed party, first puzzling, and
then delighting, them, because he looked so extraordinarily friendly.
A gentleman who laughed at you like that ought to be equal to a
miscellaneous distribution of pennies in the future, if not on the spot.
They themselves grinned and chuckled and nudged one another, with stares
and giggles.
“I am sorry to say that in a great many places the villagers are not
nearly so respectful as they used to be,” Miss Alicia explained. “In
Rowcroft the children were very remiss about curtseying. It's quite sad.
But Mr. Temple Barholm was very strict indeed in the matter of demanding
proper respectfulness. He has turned men off their farms for incivility.
The villagers of Temple Barholm have much better manners than some even
a few miles away.”
“Must I tip my hat to all of them?” he asked.
“If you please. It really seems kinder. You--you needn't quite lift it,
as you did to the children just now. If you just touch the brim lightly
with your hand in a sort of military salute--that is what they are
accustomed to.”
After they had passed through the village street she paused at the end
of a short lane and looked up at him doubtfully.
“Would you--I wonder if you would like to go into a cottage,” she said.
“Go into a cottage?” he asked. “What cottage? What for?”
He had not the remotest idea of any reason why he should go into a
cottage inhabited by people who were entire strangers to him, and Miss
Alicia felt a trifle awkward at having to explain anything so wholly
natural.
“You see, they are your cottages, and the people are your tenants,
and--”
“But perhaps they mightn't like it. It might make 'em mad,” he argued.
“If their water-pipes had busted, and they'd asked me to come and look
at them or anything; but they don't know me yet. They might think I was
Mr. Buttinski.”
“I don't quite--” she began. “Buttinski is a foreign name; it sounds
Russian or Polish. I'm afraid I don't quite understand why they should
mistake you for him.”
Then he laughed--a boyish shout of laughter which brought a cottager
to the nearest window to peep over the pots of fuchsias and geraniums
blooming profusely against the diamond panes.
“Say,” he apologized, “don't be mad because I laughed. I'm laughing
at myself as much as at anything. It's a way of saying that they might
think I was 'butting in' too much--pushing in where I wasn't asked. See?
I said they might think I was Mr. Butt-in-ski! It's just a bit of fool
slang. You're not mad, are you?”
“Oh, no!” she said. “Dear me! no. It is very funny, of course. I'm
afraid I'm extremely ignorant about--about foreign humor” It seemed more
delicate to say “foreign” than merely “American.” But her gentle little
countenance for a few seconds wore a baffled expression, and she said
softly to herself, “Mr. Buttinski, Butt-in--to intrude. It sounds quite
Polish; I think even more Polish than Russian.”
He was afraid he would yell with glee, but he did not. Herculean
effort enabled him to restrain his feelings, and present to her only an
ordinary-sized smile.
“I shouldn't know one from the other,” he said; “but if you say it
sounds more Polish, I bet it does.”
“Would you like to go into a cottage?” she inquired. “I think it might
be as well. They will like the attention.”
“Will they? Of course I'll go if you think that. What shall I say?” he
asked somewhat anxiously.
“If you think the cottage looks clean, you might tell them so, and ask a
few questions about things. And you must be sure to inquire about Susan
Hibblethwaite's legs.”
“What?” ejaculated Tembarom.
“Susan Hibblethwaite's legs,” she replied in mild explanation. “Susan is
Mr. Hibblethwaite's unmarried sister, and she has very bad legs. It is a
thing one notices continually among village people, more especially the
women, that they complain of what they call `bad legs.' I never quite
know what they mean, whether it is rheumatism or something different,
but the trouble is always spoken of as `bad legs' And they like you to
inquire about them, so that they can tell you their symptoms.”
“Why don't they get them cured?”
“I don't know, I'm sure. They take a good deal of medicine when they can
afford it. I think they like to take it. They're very pleased when the
doctor gives them `a bottle o' summat,' as they call it. Oh, I mustn't
forget to tell you that most of them speak rather broad Lancashire.”
“Shall I understand them?” Tembarom asked, anxious again. “Is it a sort
of Dago talk?”
“It is the English the working-classes speak in Lancashire. 'Summat'
means 'something.' 'Whoam' means 'home.' But I should think you would be
very clever at understanding things.”
“I'm scared stiff,” said Tembarom, not in the least uncourageously; “but
I want to go into a cottage and hear some of it. Which one shall we go
into?”
There were several whitewashed cottages in the lane, each in its own
bit of garden and behind its own hawthorn hedge, now bare and wholly
unsuggestive of white blossoms and almond scent to the uninitiated. Miss
Alicia hesitated a moment.
“We will go into this one, where the Hibblethwaites live,” she decided.
“They are quite clean, civil people. They have a naughty, queer, little
crippled boy, but I suppose they can't keep him in order because he is
an invalid. He's rather rude, I'm sorry to say, but he's rather sharp
and clever, too. He seems to lie on his sofa and collect all the gossip
of the village.”
They went together up the bricked path, and Miss Alicia knocked at
the low door with her knuckles. A stout, apple-faced woman opened it,
looking a shade nervous.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hibblethwaite,” said Miss Alicia in a kind but
remote manner. “The new Mr. Temple Barholm has been kind enough to come
to see you. It's very good of him to come so soon, isn't it?”
“It is that,” Mrs. Hibblethwaite answered respectfully, looking him
over. “Wilt tha coom in, sir?”
Tembarom accepted the invitation, feeling extremely awkward because Miss
Alicia's initiatory comment upon his goodness in showing himself had
“rattled” him. It had made him feel that he must appear condescending,
and he had never condescended to any one in the whole course of his
existence. He had, indeed, not even been condescended to. He had met
with slanging and bullying, indifference and brutality of manner, but he
had not met with condescension.
“I hope you're well, Mrs. Hibblethwaite,” he answered. “You look it.”
“I deceive ma looks a good bit, sir,” she answered. “Mony a day ma legs
is nigh as bad as Susan's.”
“Tha 'rt jealous o' Susan's legs,” barked out a sharp voice from a
corner by the fire.
The room had a flagged floor, clean with recent scrubbing with
sandstone; the whitewashed walls were decorated with pictures cut
from illustrated papers; there was a big fireplace, and by it was a
hard-looking sofa covered with blue-and-white checked cotton stuff. A
boy of about ten was lying on it, propped up with a pillow. He had a big
head and a keen, ferret-eyed face, and just now was looking round the
end of his sofa at the visitors. “Howd tha tongue, Tummas!” said his
mother. “I wunnot howd it,” Tummas answered. “Ma tongue's th' on'y thing
about me as works right, an' I'm noan goin' to stop it.”
“He's a young nowt,” his mother explained; “but, he's a cripple, an' we
conna do owt wi' him.”
“Do not be rude, Thomas,” said Miss Alicia, with dignity.
“Dunnot be rude thysen,” replied Tummas. “I'm noan o' thy lad.”
Tembarom walked over to the sofa.
“Say,” he began with jocular intent, “you've got a grouch on, ain't
you?”
Tummas turned on him eyes which bored. An analytical observer or a
painter might have seen that he had a burning curiousness of look, a
sort of investigatory fever of expression.
“I dunnot know what tha means,” he said. “Happen tha'rt talkin'
'Merican?”
“That's just what it is,” admitted Tembarom. “What are you talking?”
“Lancashire,” said Tummas. “Theer's some sense i' that.”
Tembarom sat down near him. The boy turned over against his pillow and
put his chin in the hollow of his palm and stared.
“I've wanted to see thee,” he remarked. “I've made mother an' Aunt Susan
an' feyther tell me every bit they've heared about thee in the village.
Theer was a lot of it. Tha coom fro' 'Meriker?”
“Yes.” Tembarom began vaguely to feel the demand in the burning
curiosity.
“Gi' me that theer book,” the boy said, pointing to a small table heaped
with a miscellaneous jumble of things and standing not far from him.
“It's a' atlas,” he added as Tembarom gave it to him. “Yo' con find
places in it.” He turned the leaves until he found a map of the world.
“Theer's 'Meriker,” he said, pointing to the United States. “That
theer's north and that theer's south. All th' real 'Merikens comes from
the North, wheer New York is.”
“I come from New York,” said Tembarom.
“Tha wert born i' th' workhouse, tha run about th' streets i' rags, tha
pretty nigh clemmed to death, tha blacked boots, tha sold newspapers,
tha feyther was a common workin'-mon--and now tha's coom into Temple
Barholm an' sixty thousand a year.”
“The last part's true all right,” Tembarom owned, “but there's some
mistakes in the first part. I wasn't born in the workhouse, and though
I've been hungry enough, I never starved to death--if that's what
`clemmed' means.”
Tummas looked at once disappointed and somewhat incredulous.
“That's th' road they tell it i' th' village,” he argued.
“Well, let them tell it that way if they like it best. That's not going
to worry me,” Tembarom replied uncombatively.
Tummas's eyes bored deeper into him.
“Does na tha care?” he demanded.
“What should I care for? Let every fellow enjoy himself his own way.”
“Tha'rt not a bit like one o' th' gentry,” said Tummas. “Tha'rt quite a
common chap. Tha'rt as common as me, for aw tha foine clothes.”
“People are common enough, anyhow,” said Tembarom. “There's nothing much
commoner, is there? There's millions of 'em everywhere--billions of 'em.
None of us need put on airs.”
“Tha'rt as common as me,” said Tummas, reflectively. “An' yet tha
owns Temple Barholm an' aw that brass. I conna mak' out how th' loike
happens.”
“Neither can I; but it does all samee.”
“It does na happen i' 'Meriker,” exulted Tummas. “Everybody's equal
theer.”
“Rats!” ejaculated Tembarom. “What about multimillionaires?”
He forgot that the age of Tummas was ten. It was impossible not to
forget it. He was, in fact, ten hundred, if those of his generation had
been aware of the truth. But there he sat, having spent only a decade
of his most recent incarnation in a whitewashed cottage, deprived of the
use of his legs.
Miss Alicia, seeing that Tembarom was interested in the boy, entered
into domestic conversation with Mrs. Hibblethwaite at the other side
of the room. Mrs. Hibblethwaite was soon explaining the uncertainty
of Susan's temper on wash-days, when it was necessary to depend on her
legs.
“Can't you walk at all?” Tembarom asked. Tummas shook his head. “How
long have you been lame?”
“Ever since I wur born. It's summat like rickets. I've been lyin' here
aw my days. I look on at foak an' think 'em over. I've got to do summat.
That's why I loike th' atlas. Little Ann Hutchinson gave it to me onct
when she come to see her grandmother.”
Tembarom sat upright.
“Do you know her?” he exclaimed.
“I know her best o' onybody in th' world. An' I loike her best.”
“So do I,” rashly admitted Tembarom.
“Tha does?” Tummas asked suspiciously. “Does she loike thee?”
“She says she does.” He tried to say it with proper modesty.
“Well, if she says she does, she does. An' if she does, then yo an'
me'll be friends.” He stopped a moment, and seemed to be taking Tembarom
in with thoroughness. “I could get a lot out o' thee,” he said after the
inspection.
“A lot of what?” Tembarom felt as though he would really like to hear.
“A lot o' things I want to know about. I wish I'd lived th' life tha's
lived, clemmin' or no clemmin'. Tha's seen things goin' on every day o'
thy loife.”
“Well, yes, there's been plenty going on, plenty,” Tembarom admitted.
“I've been lying here for ten year',” said Tummas, savagely. “An' I've
had nowt i' th' world to do an' nowt to think on but what I could mak'
foak tell me about th' village. But nowt happens but this chap gettin'
drunk an' that chap deein' or losin' his place, or wenches gettin'
married or havin' childer. I know everything that happens, but it's nowt
but a lot o' women clackin'. If I'd not been a cripple, I'd ha' been
at work for mony a year by now, 'arnin' money to save by an' go to
'Meriker.”
“You seem to be sort of stuck on America. How's that?”
“What dost mean?”
“I mean you seem to like it.”
“I dunnot loike it nor yet not loike it, but I've heard a bit more about
it than I have about th' other places on th' map. Foak goes there to
seek their fortune, an' it seems loike there's a good bit doin'.”
“Do you like to read newspapers?” said Tembarom, inspired to his query
by a recollection of the vision of things “doin'” in the Sunday Earth.
“Wheer'd I get papers from?” the boy asked testily. “Foak like us hasn't
got th' brass for 'em.”
“I'll bring you some New York papers,” promised Tembarom, grinning a
little in anticipation. “And we'll talk about the news that's in them.
The Sunday Earth is full of pictures. I used to work on that paper
myself.”
“Tha did?” Tummas cried excitedly. “Did tha help to print it, or was it
th' one tha sold i' th' streets?”
“I wrote some of the stuff in it.”
“Wrote some of th' stuff in it? Wrote it thaself? How could tha, a
common chap like thee?” he asked, more excited still, his ferret eyes
snapping.
“I don't know how I did it,” Tembarom answered, with increased cheer and
interest in the situation. “It wasn't high-brow sort of work.”
Tummas leaned forward in his incredulous eagerness.
“Does tha mean that they paid thee for writin' it--paid thee?”
“I guess they wouldn't have done it if they'd been Lancashire,” Tembarom
answered. “But they hadn't much more sense than I had. They paid me
twenty-five dollars a week--that's five pounds.”
“I dunnot believe thee,” said Tummas, and leaned back on his pillow
short of breath.
“I didn't believe it myself till I'd paid my board two weeks and bought
a suit of clothes with it,” was Tembarom's answer, and he chuckled as he
made it.
But Tummas did believe it. This, after he had recovered from the shock,
became evident. The curiosity in his face intensified itself; his
eagerness was even vaguely tinged with something remotely resembling
respect. It was not, however, respect for the money which had been
earned, but for the store of things “doin'” which must have been
required. It was impossible that this chap knew things undreamed of.
“Has tha ever been to th' Klondike?” he asked after a long pause.
“No. I've never been out of New York.”
Tummas seemed fretted and depressed.
“Eh, I'm sorry for that. I wished tha'd been to th' Klondike. I want to
be towd about it,” he sighed. He pulled the atlas toward him and found a
place in it.
“That theer's Dawson,” he announced. Tembarom saw that the region of
the Klondike had been much studied. It was even rather faded with the
frequent passage of searching fingers, as though it had been pored over
with special curiosity.
“There's gowd-moines theer,” revealed Tummas. “An' theer's welly newt
else but snow an' ice. A young chap as set out fro' here to get theer
froze to death on th' way.”
“How did you get to hear about it?”
“Ann she browt me a paper onet.” He dug under his pillow, and brought
out a piece of newspaper, worn and frayed and cut with age and usage.
“This heer's what's left of it.” Tembarom saw that it was a fragment
from an old American sheet and that a column was headed “The Rush for
the Klondike.”
“Why didna tha go theer?” demanded Tummas. He looked up from his
fragment and asked his question with a sudden reflectiveness, as though
a new and interesting aspect of things had presented itself to him.
“I had too much to do in New York,” said Tembarom. “There's always
something doing in New York, you know.”
Tummas silently regarded him a moment or so.
“It's a pity tha didn't go,” he said. “Happen tha'd never ha' coom
back.”
Tembarom laughed the outright laugh.
“Thank you,” he answered.
Tummas was still thinking the matter over and was not disturbed.
“I was na thinkin' o' thee,” he said in an impersonal tone. “I was
thinkin' o' t' other chap. If tha'd gon i'stead o' him, he'd ha' been
here i'stead o' thee. Eh, but it's funny.” And he drew a deep breath
like a sigh having its birth in profundity of baffled thought.
Both he and his evident point of view were “funny” in the Lancashire
sense, which does not imply humor, but strangeness and the
unexplainable. Singular as the phrasing was, Tembarom knew what he
meant, and that he was thinking of the oddity of chance. Tummas had
obviously heard of “poor Jem” and had felt an interest in him.
“You're talking about Jem Temple Barholm I guess,” he said. Perhaps the
interest he himself had felt in the tragic story gave his voice a tone
somewhat responsive to Tummas's own mood, for Tummas, after one more
boring glance, let himself go. His interest in this special subject
was, it revealed itself, a sort of obsession. The history of Jem Temple
Barholm had been the one drama of his short life.
“Aye, I was thinkin' o' him,” he said. “I should na ha' cared for th'
Klondike so much but for him.”
“But he went away from England when you were a baby.”
“Th' last toime he coom to Temple Barholm wur when I wur just born. Foak
said he coom to ax owd Temple Barholm if he'd help him to pay his debts,
an' th' owd chap awmost kicked him out o' doors. Mother had just had me,
an' she was weak an' poorly an' sittin' at th' door wi' me in her arms,
an' he passed by an' saw her. He stopped an' axed her how she was doin'.
An' when he was goin' away, he gave her a gold sovereign, an' he says,
`Put it in th' savin's-bank for him, an' keep it theer till he's a big
lad an' wants it.' It's been in th' savin's-bank ever sin'. I've got
a whole pound o' ma own out at interest. There's not many lads ha' got
that.”
“He must have been a good-natured fellow,” commented Tembarom. “It was
darned bad luck him going to the Klondike.”
“It was good luck for thee,” said Tummas, with resentment.
“Was it?” was Tembarom's unbiased reply. “Well, I guess it was, one way
or the other. I'm not kicking, anyhow.”
Tummas naturally did not know half he meant. He went on talking about
Jem Temple Barholm, and as he talked his cheeks flushed and his eyes
lighted.
“I would na spend that sovereign if I was starvin'. I'm going to leave
it to Ann Hutchinson in ma will when I dee. I've axed questions about
him reet and left ever sin' I can remember, but theer's nobody knows
much. Mother says he was fine an' handsome, an' gentry through an'
through. If he'd coom into th' property, he'd ha' coom to see me
again I'll lay a shillin', because I'm a cripple an' I canna spend his
sovereign. If he'd coom back from th' Klondike, happen he'd ha' towd me
about it.” He pulled the atlas toward him, and laid his thin finger
on the rubbed spot. “He mun ha' been killed somewheer about here,” he
sighed. “Somewheer here. Eh, it's funny.”
Tembarom watched him. There was something that rather gave you the
“Willies” in the way this little cripple seemed to have taken to the
dead man and worried along all these years thinking him over and asking
questions and studying up the Klondike because he was killed there. It
was because he'd made a kind of story of it. He'd enjoyed it in the way
people enjoy stories in a newspaper. You always had to give 'em a kind
of story; you had to make a story even if you were telling about a
milk-wagon running away. In newspaper offices you heard that was the
secret of making good with what you wrote. Dish it up as if it was a
sort of story.
He not infrequently arrived at astute enough conclusions concerning
things. He had arrived at one now. Shut out even from the tame drama
of village life, Tummas, born with an abnormal desire for action and a
feverish curiosity, had hungered and thirsted for the story in any
form whatsoever. He caught at fragments of happenings, and colored and
dissected them for the satisfying of unfed cravings. The vanished man
had been the one touch of pictorial form and color in his ten years of
existence. Young and handsome and of the gentry, unfavored by the owner
of the wealth which some day would be his own possession, stopping
“gentry-way” at a cottage door to speak good-naturedly to a pale young
mother, handing over the magnificence of a whole sovereign to be saved
for a new-born child, going away to vaguely understood disgrace, leaving
his own country to hide himself in distant lands, meeting death amid
snow and ice and surrounded by gold-mines, leaving his empty place to be
filled by a boot-black newsboy--true there was enough to lie and think
over and to try to follow with the help of maps and excited questions.
“I wish I could ha' seen him,” said Tummas. “I'd awmost gi' my sovereign
to get a look at that picture in th' gallery at Temple Barholm.”
“What picture?” Tembarom asked. “Is there a picture of him there?”
“There is na one o' him, but there's one o' a lad as deed two hundred
year' ago as they say wur th' spit an' image on him when he wur a lad
hissen. One o' th' owd servants towd mother it wur theer.”
This was a natural stimulus to interest and curiosity.
“Which one is it? Jinks! I'd like to see it myself. Do you know which
one it is? There's hundreds of them.”
“No, I dunnot know,” was Tummas's dispirited answer, “an' neither does
mother. Th' woman as knew left when owd Temple Barholm deed.”
“Tummas,” broke in Mrs. Hibblethwaite from the other end of the room,
to which she had returned after taking Miss Alicia out to complain about
the copper in the “wash-'us'--” “Tummas, tha'st been talkin' like a
magpie. Tha'rt a lot too bold an' ready wi' tha tongue. Th' gentry's
noan comin' to see thee if tha clacks th' heads off theer showthers.”
“I'm afraid he always does talk more than is good for him,” said Miss
Alicia. “He looks quite feverish.”
“He has been talking to me about Jem Temple Barholm,” explained
Tembarom. “We've had a regular chin together. He thinks a heap of poor
Jem.”
Miss Alicia looked startled, and Mrs. Hibblethwaite was plainly
flustered tremendously. She quite lost her temper.
“Eh,” she exclaimed, “tha wants tha young yed knocked off, Tummas
Hibblethwaite. He's fair daft about th' young gentleman as--as was
killed. He axes questions mony a day till I'd give him th' stick if he
wasna a cripple. He moithers me to death.”
“I'll bring you some of those New York papers to look at,” Tembarom said
to the boy as he went away.
He walked back through the village to Temple Barholm, holding Miss
Alicia's elbow in light, affectionate guidance and support, a little to
her embarrassment and also a little to her delight. Until he had taken
her into the dining-room the night before she had never seen such a
thing done. There was no over-familiarity in the action. It merely
seemed somehow to suggest liking and a wish to take care of her.
“That little fellow in the village,” he said after a silence in which it
occurred to her that he seemed thoughtful, “what a little freak he is!
He's got an idea that there's a picture in the gallery that's said to
look like Jem Temple Barholm when he was a boy. Have you ever heard
anything about it? He says a servant told his mother it was there.”
“Yes, there is one,” Miss Alicia answered. “I sometimes go and look at
it. But it makes me feel very sad. It is the handsome boy who was a page
in the court of Charles II. He died in his teens. His name was Miles
Hugo Charles James. Jem could see the likeness himself. Sometimes for a
little joke I used to call him Miles Hugo.”
“I believe I remember him,” said Tembarom. “I believe I asked Palford
his name. I must go and have a look at him again. He hadn't much better
luck than the fellow that looked like him, dying as young as that.”