Now so pleasant and easy is it to tread the primrose path, that after
the first difficulty of being silent about her new playmate was got
over, Carrie never thought about the matter, and it became quite a daily
thing that the children met and walked together while Patty and Peter
sauntered in the rear, very much occupied with each other.
Phil was a curious boy, of great strength of character: a hot-tempered,
domineering child, horribly clever for his age, very imaginative, and
withal sadly spoilt. Peter, it is true, held his young master in very
scant reverence, and would speak to him at times with great sharpness,
but his was the only control that was ever exercised over the child.
Carrie, who had no temper at all, was frightened almost out of her
little judgment the first time she saw Phil in one of his worst fits of
anger. They were walking in St. James’ Park, and Phil began to throw
stones into the water at the water-fowl, spluttering his fine new velvet
suit at each splash.
‘Mustn’t be after that game, Master Phil,’ said Peter, and Phil
continued his stone-throwing with aristocratic indifference.
‘Did you hear, Master Phil? You’re spoilin’ them new clothes,’ said
Peter, and approaching to where Phil stood he forcibly removed the
stones from his hands. Phil’s face was convulsed in a moment with horrid
passion. He fell on his knees on the walk and scraped up the mud and
gravel in handfuls, pelting the stately Mr. Peter’s calves in futile
anger.
‘I shall do as I please, Peter; you are a servant, and you shall not
stop me throwing stones—there—and there—and there.’ He emphasised
each word with another handful of gravel.
Carrie drew away to Patty’s side, shocked into silence. Patty said
‘Lor’,’ and Peter smiled.
‘’E’s a little imp,’ he said; ‘there’s but the one way to manage him,’
And with that he lifted Phil suddenly to his feet, shook him sharply,
and boxed his ears till the child began to cry.
‘There, that’ll settle you,’ he said. He pushed poor Phil before him
along the path, and stooped down to brush from his immaculate stockinged
legs the marks of this ignoble conflict.
Carrie, being admonished by Patty to rejoin her companion, advanced
rather timidly towards him. Phil was quite white now, and shook all
over.
‘I think I shall go home now, Peter,’ he said in a very humble little
voice; ‘I feel most terribly tired—will you take me home?’
‘Yes, Master Phil,’ said Peter, quite pleasantly, and with adieux to
Carrie and Patty, they walked off together up the Mall.
‘Lor’! what a life Mr. Peter do lead with the boy!’ said Patty occultly.
Carrie was silent, and watched the retreating forms of the little Phil
and the mighty Peter till they became merged in the throng.
As they came to see more and more of each other the children’s
intercourse assumed a definite character, which one often notices in
childish friendships. Phil, as the elder and more original-minded of the
two, assumed as it were command, led the conversation, and Carrie,
deeply admiring his powers of mind, and quite content to be commanded,
took all her ideas from him. Phil indeed was vastly entertaining to her
after the pre-occupied silence of Patty, but sometimes his views rather
startled her childish fancy.
They had gone far afield one fine day in late autumn—even to the
Park—a world of delight to the children, and Peter and Patty, having
seated themselves under one of the trees, Phil and Carrie followed the
example of their elders and sat down also.
‘I wish God would come,’ said Phil suddenly, gazing up through the
branches above him. ‘Do you not, Carrie?’
‘No—o,’ admitted the feeble-minded Carrie.
‘I do, and I shall tell you why. Peter took me to his meeting-house,
where they pray without a book, and they prayed, “_Rend the heavens and
come down_.” Well, since that I’ve lain down whenever I’ve got a chance
and looked up into the sky. ’Tis too bright to look into nicely most
days, but if God were to make a rent in that blue bit we see’ (he
pointed up as he spoke, and Carrie glanced upwards, half expecting to
see some Beatific Vision), ‘if He were to make a hole to come down
through, you know, we should see something brighter than that behind, I
believe. And then He’d come down—oh, like that!’ Phil brought his hands
together with a crack that made Carrie jump.
‘I’d be frightened,’ she said, taking a reassuring peep at the placid
blue that smiled above them. It showed no signs of cracking open, she
thought.
‘Pooh,’ said Phil contemptuously. ‘I believe you had rather that the
other God came—the Jesus God. He is quite different, and will not come
the same way at all. I fancy He’d _walk_ into the town: coming the
Richmond way perhaps, about the blossomy time of the year. We would just
be walking along Piccadilly perhaps, and we’d see every one turning to
look, and . . .’
Phil’s imagination gave out here; he had not given enough of thought to
the subject to visualise it perfectly, so he returned to his former and
more favourite imagining—
‘Now what pleases me about t’other God coming would be the noise—drums,
and bugles. Don’t you love ’em, Carrie? I went with my father to the
Horse Guards t’other day. Oh, you should have heard it! Well, God will
have gold bugles of course—the ones I heard were just tin, I think—and
the gold bugles and God’s drums together, they’d make a noise no one
could get away from. Now what do you suppose every one we know would do?
I wonder what my father would do? Peter would come running up the back
stair to look after _me_—I’m sure of that—in case I was afraid. Not
that I would be,’ he added hastily.
‘When do you think it will happen?’ asked Carrie, very much awed, though
Phil had finished off with a shrill little twirl of laughter.
‘Oh, perhaps next week, or perhaps to-night, Peter says. I believe God
will come down on the gilt top of St. Paul’s myself. Such a fine place
to land on from the sky,’ continued the little prophet, inspired as all
prophets are by a credulous audience. ‘He’d—He’d—oh, I don’t know what
I was going to say. Carrie, look round the tree and see if Peter is
kissing Patty, for I want to climb the tree, and ’tis safe to begin if
he’s doing that.’
Carrie obediently reconnoitred; ‘I think he’s going to,’ she reported.
‘He has his arm round her waist, and he always begins that way.’
‘Come on then,’ said the prophet, leaving the Second Advent
unceremoniously behind him, as he addressed himself to the ascent of a
very smutty tree-trunk, much to the detriment of his own and Carrie’s
finery.