"Well, if you ain't a queer one! That's the house there, on the top of
that hill. Mind how you go, now."
"All right; you get inside. And I say, Jim," added the boy, leaning
down from his perch, "make yourself comfortable, you know, and don't
bother about me. I want to drive all by myself, and you aren't to help
me a bit, mind."
So the driver got inside, and seating himself among the luggage,
proceeded to make himself "comfortable," as instructed.
Meanwhile my master, as proud as an emperor, lashed his steed into a
canter, and rattled off in the direction of the school.
"That'll astonish some of them caps and gowns, I reckon," I heard cabby
say to himself. "You see, if he don't drive us right up to the front
door, as comfortable as if we was the sheriff of the county."
You may imagine what was the astonishment of the grave and reverend
authorities at Randlebury School when they perceived, coming up the
carriage drive, a cab with a boy of thirteen perched on the box, tugging
at the reins, hallooing to the horse, and making his whip crack like so
many fireworks; while inside, comfortably lounging amid a pile of
luggage, reclined cabby at his ease, grinning from ear to ear.
The young Jehu, perfectly innocent of the sensation he was making,
pursued his triumphant career at full speed up to the very hall door,
pulling up his steed with such a sudden jerk as almost to bring him into
a sitting position, while the piled-up luggage inside fell all about the
cab with the shock, to the imminent risk of cabby's life.
"Well, if that ain't one way of doing it, I don't know what is!"
exclaimed that astonished charioteer, emerging from his precarious
quarters. "Down you jump, young un."
Charlie descended, all jubilant with triumph, and pulling out me,
exclaimed, "We did that three miles in half an hour--not bad, was it?"
In his excitement he had not observed that the door of the house had
opened, and that these words, instead of being addressed to the cabby,
had been spoken to a stately female who stood in the portal before him.
Now however he caught sight of her, and not knowing exactly what was the
proper thing to do under the circumstances, stared at her.
"What do you say, young man?" inquired she, in a solemn voice.
"Oh," said the boy, "I didn't know it was you. I was telling Jim we had
come from the station in half an hour. You know we started at 6.2 by my
watch, and it's just 6.33 now. Would you like to see for yourself,
marm?" added he, preparing to unfasten the chain.
"I know what the time is, young man," replied she sternly; "and pray,
who is Jim?" she asked, looking down in solemn perplexity at this queer
boy.
"Oh, he's the driver is Jim, and he got inside, you know, and I've
driven nearly all the way up by myself; haven't I, Jim?"
"Come inside, sir," said the matron hurriedly, "and don't stand talking
to vulgar cabmen and calling them by their Christian names. Your name
is Charles Newcome, I suppose? Come this way."
Charlie followed her in, his enthusiasm rather damped at this somewhat
frigid greeting, and sorry in his heart he had not been allowed an
opportunity of bidding farewell to his friend the driver.
And now I could hear the little fellow's heart begin to beat quicker as
he found himself at length for the first time in his life inside a
public school. The rows of caps in the corridors, the distant hum of
voices through half-opened doors, the occasional shout from the
playground, and the fleeting vision of a master in cap and gown, all had
for him the deepest and most mysterious interest. As he sat waiting in
the matron's room while that worthy lady went to superintend the
bringing in of his luggage, his mind became full of wonderings and
misgivings. I who lay so near the seat of his emotions could tell what
was going on in his breast. He wondered if the pair of socks lying on
the table with a hole in each heel, which appeared to be waiting their
turn for mending, belonged to the son of the old lady he had met in the
train. He wondered if the footsteps in the passage belonged to the head
master, and whether that awful being was being fetched to punish him for
his crime of driving the cab. He wondered who the boy was who put his
head in at the door and drew it back again. With what reverential eyes
he followed that hero's retreating form, and how he hung on his
whistling.
When would _he_, he wondered, be sufficiently hardy to whistle within
those awful walls? Then he wondered if he was the only new boy, and if
so, whether every one would stare at him and laugh at his new coat. He
wished he'd got his old one on, then he wouldn't have felt so brand-new.
And then--and then...
But here, tired-out with his long journey and the excitement of the day,
a drowsy fit came over him, and without another thought he dropped off
to sleep, where he sat. In this attitude the housekeeper found him when
she returned.
She could not help feeling rather more than a common interest in this
curly-haired, tired-out little fellow, as he sat there in his new
clothes, huddled up, with his little hat slipping from his head, and his
hand clasping his precious six-bladed knife. Accustomed as she was to
boys and their rude ways, this matron had a good deal of softness left
in her heart, and I dare say she thought as she watched Charlie that
afternoon that if she had ever had a son of her own she would have liked
a boy something like the little fellow before her. She went softly up
to him, took his hat from its perilous situation, and, lifting him in
her strong arms so gently as not to wake him, laid him on her own sofa,
and left him there to enjoy his well-merited sleep, while she busied
herself about making tea.
It was at this moment that a calamity befell me, which, in my
inexperience of the ways and natures of watches, I imagined to be
nothing short of fatal. The excitement through which I had passed, and
the rough-and-ready usage to which I had been subjected during the day,
seemed all of a sudden to overpower me. In some unaccountable way I
found my hands caught together in a manner I had never known them to be
before; no effort of mine could disengage them, and the exertion thus
required, added to the fatigues of the day, produced a sort of paralysis
of my whole system without quite losing consciousness. I could feel my
circulation become slower and finally stop; my nerves and energies
became suspended, and my hands grew numb and powerless. Even my heart
ceased to beat, and the little cry of alarm which I gave just before my
powers left me failed to bring me any help. I was ill, very ill indeed;
to me it seemed as if my last moment had come, and I could not bear the
thought of thus early being taken from my young master, whom already I
had learned to love as my best, though my roughest friend.
How long I lay thus, speechless and helpless, I cannot say. Once I was
just conscious of a slight jerk from my chain as he peeped in and
whispered,--
"What are you so quiet about down there?"
Of course I could not answer.
"Do you hear? What are you so quiet about?"
It only added to my misery to know that there was a fellow-being so
close at hand, and yet that I was powerless to make him aware of my
condition. My silence offended him, for he turned away, muttering to
himself,--
"Sulky humbug! I declare some people haven't so much as the manners of
a kitchen clock."
After that I was left to myself, in agony and suspense, to wait the
moment of my dissolution.
A long time passed before my master stirred, and when he did the
housekeeper's tea was cold. She bustled about to make him some more,
and was so kind in buttering his toast and hunting for some jam, that
the drooping spirits of the tired-out boy revived wonderfully. Indeed,
as the meal proceeded he became on friendly and confidential terms even
with so awful a personage as Mrs Packer.
"Would you like to see my knife, ma'am?" he asked.
"Bless me, what a knife it is," cried the lady. "You'll go doing
yourself some harm with it."
"That's what the other old lady in the train said," replied Charlie,
unconscious of wounding the feelings of his hostess, who fondly imagined
she was not more than middle-aged; "but then, you know, she thought it
was a fine knife, and I think so too, don't you? I say, marm, do you
know Tom Drift?"
The change of subject was so sudden that Mrs Packer stared at the boy,
half wondering whether he was not talking in his sleep.
"What about him?" she inquired.
"Oh, only the old lady was his mother, and I promised her--at least she
said--do you know Tom Drift, ma'am?"
"To be sure; he's one of the boys here."
"Yes--I say, ma'am, might I see Tom Drift, do you think? I've got
something to say to him."
Mrs Packer, wholly at a loss to understand her youthful guest, but at
the same time disposed to be indulgent to his little whims, said Tom
would be at lessons now, and she didn't think he would be able to come.
"Wouldn't it do in the morning?"
"Oh no," said Charlie, with the gravest face. "I must see him to-night,
please, if you don't mind."
The housekeeper concluded that Charlie had some important message from
the mother to her son, and therefore rang for a servant, whom she
despatched with a message to Master Drift that some one wanted to see
him.
In a very little time that hero made his appearance; and as he was the
first Randlebury boy Charlie had set eyes on, he appeared for a moment a
very awful and a very sublime personage in that little new boy's eyes.
But Charlie was too intent on his mission to allow himself to be quite
overawed.
"Here's a new boy, Master Drift, wants to speak to you."
"What do you want, young un--eh?"
"Oh, it's all right, Tom Drift; only I saw your mother, you know, in the
train, and she said you were a nice boy, and she sent her love, and I
told her I'd let you know the time whenever you wanted, because you
ain't got a watch, you know, and I have. I say, would you like to know
the time now, Tom Drift?"
All this was rattled out with such eager volubility, that Tom Drift,
hero as he was, was fairly taken aback, and looked quite sheepish, as
the beaming boy proceeded to pull me out of his pocket.
"Well, it's just--hullo!"
He saw in an instant something was wrong.
"Why, it says only half-past six--that must be wrong!"
"It's eight o'clock by the hall clock," said Mrs Packer; "it's just now
struck."
Charlie looked at me, opened me, held me to his ear, and then
exclaimed,--
"Oh! my watch has stopped! My watch has stopped! What shall I do?" and
the poor boy, overwhelmed with his misfortune, held me out appealingly,
and scarcely restrained the tears which started to his eyes.