And now, dear reader, we must take a leap together of three years. For
remember, I am not setting myself to record the life of any one person,
or the events which happened at any one place. I am writing my own
life--or those parts of it which are most memorable--and therefore it
behoves me not to dwell unduly on times and scenes in which I was not
personally interested.
I had a very close connection with the events that rendered Charlie's
first term at school so exciting, but after that, for three years, I
pursued the even tenor of my way, performing some twenty-six thousand
two hundred and eighty revolutions, unmarked by any incident, either in
my own life or that of my master worthy of notice.
By the end of those three years, however, things were greatly changed at
Randlebury. Charlie, not far from his sixteenth birthday, was now a
tall, broad-shouldered fellow, lording it in the Upper Fifth, and the
hero of the cricket field of which he himself had once been a cadet. In
face he was not greatly altered. Still the old curly head and bright
eyes. He _was_ noticed occasionally to stroke his chin abstractedly;
and some envious detractors went so far as to rumour that, in the lowest
recesses of his trunk he had a razor, wherewith on divers occasions, in
dread secret, he operated with slashing effect. Be this as it might,
Charlie was growing up. He had a fag of his own, who alternately quaked
and rejoiced beneath his eye; he wore a fearful and wonderful stick-up
collar on Sundays, and, above all, he treated me with a careless
indifference which contrasted wonderfully with his former enthusiasm,
and betokened only too significantly the advance of years on his young
head.
True, he wound me up regularly; but he often left me half the day under
his pillow; and though once in a fit of artistic zeal he set himself to
hew out a C.N. in startling characters on my back, with the point of a
bodkin, he never polished me now as he was once wont to do.
All this was painful to me, especially the operation with the bodkin,
but I still rejoiced to call him master, and to know that though years
had changed his looks, and sobered his childish exuberance, the same
true heart still beat close to mine, and remained still as warm and
guileless as when little Charlie Newcome, with me in his pocket, first
put his foot forth into the world.
There were two besides myself who could bear witness at the end of these
three years that time had not changed the boy's heart. These two, I
need hardly say, were Tom Drift and Jim Halliday.
To Tom, Charlie had become increasingly a friend of the true kind. Ever
since the day at Gurley races, the influence of the younger boy had
grown and overshadowed the elder, confirming his unstable resolutions,
animating his sluggish mind with worthy ambitions, and giving to his
pliant character a tone coloured by his own honesty and uprightness.
Just as a pilot will safely steer the ship amid shoals and rocks out
into the deeper waters, so Charlie, by his quiet influence, had given
Tom's life a new direction towards honour and usefulness.
Once, and once only, during those three years had he shown a disposition
to hark back on his old discreditable ways, and that was the result of a
casual meeting with Gus one summer during the holidays, with whom, he
afterwards confessed to Charlie, he was induced to forget for a time his
better resolutions in the snares of a billiard-room. But the
backsliding was repented of almost as soon as committed, and, to
Charlie's anxious eyes, appeared to leave behind no bad result.
Jim was the same downright outspoken boy as ever. He had yielded,
surlily at first, to the admission of Tom Drift into the confidence and
friendship of himself and his chum, but by degrees, moved by Charlie's
example, he had become more hearty, and now these three boys were the
firmest friends in Randlebury.
One day, as Charlie was sitting in his study attempting, with many
groans, to make sense out of a very obscure passage in Cicero, his fag
entered and said,--
"Newcome, there's a parcel for you down at Trotter's."
"Why didn't you bring it up, you young muff?" inquired his lord.
"Because it's got to be signed for, and he wouldn't let me do that for
you."
"Like your cheek to think of such a thing. What's it like?"
"Oh, it's in a little box. I say, Newcome, shall we go and get it?"
"I can't go at present; it'll wait, I suppose," said Charlie, with the
air of a man who was daily in the habit of receiving little boxes by the
carrier.
But for all that he could not wholly conceal his curiosity.
"What size box?" he asked presently.
"About the size of a good big pill-box."
"All that? I dare say I can fetch that up by myself," said Charlie.
Size of a large pill-box! It could not be anything so very important
after all. So he turned again to his Cicero, and sent the fag about his
business.
Presently, however, that youth returned with a letter for Charlie. It
ran thus:
"Dear Young Scamp,
"People always say bachelor uncles are fools, and I think they are
right. I've sent you a proof of my folly in a little box, which ought
to reach you about the same time as this letter. You've done nothing
to deserve a present from me, and a box on the ears would be much
better bestowed. Never mind. Take care of this little gift for me,
in memory of the jolly Christmas you and I last spent together, and
when you are not kicking up a row with your cronies at Randlebury or
have nothing better to do, think of your affectionate
"Uncle Ralph."
Much to the fag's astonishment, Charlie, having perused this letter,
slammed up Cicero, and seizing the cap from off his (the fag's) head, as
being most ready to hand, dashed out of school in the direction of the
village.
"Trot!" he exclaimed, as he reached the establishment of that familiar
merchant, "hand up that little box, you old villain! Do you hear?"
The long-suffering Trotter, to whom this address was comparatively
polite in its phraseology, was not long in producing the parcel, in
acknowledgment of which Charlie gave his sign manual in lordly
characters upon the receipt; and then, burning with impatience, yet
trying hard to appear unconcerned, walked swiftly back to the school.
The fag was hanging about his study, scarcely less curious than himself.
"Hook it!" cried his master, putting the parcel down on the table and
taking out his penknife to cut the string.
Still the inquisitive fag lingered. Whereupon Charlie, taking him
kindly yet firmly by the collar of his coat, conveyed him to the open
window, whence he gently dropped him a distance of six feet to the
earth.
Privacy being thus secured, he turned again to his parcel and opened it.
Imagine his delight and my agony when there came to light a splendid
gold watch and chain! I turned faint with jealousy, and when a second
glance showed me that the interloper was no other than the identical
gold repeater whom I had known and dreaded in my infancy, I was ready to
break my mainspring with vexation. To me the surprise had brought
nothing but foreboding and despair, and already I felt myself discarded
for my rival; but to Charlie it brought a rapture of delight which
expressed itself in a whoop which could be heard half over the school.
"What on earth's the row?" said a head looking in at the door; "caught
cold, or what?"
"Come here, Jim, this moment; look at this!"
And Jim came and looked, and as he looked his eyes sparkled with
admiration.
"My eye, Charlie, what a beauty!" said he, taking up the treasure in his
hand. His thumb happened to touch the spring on the handle, and
instantly there came a low melodious note from inside the repeater--One,
two, three, and then a double tinkle twice repeated.
"That's striking," observed Jim, who was occasionally guilty of a pun.
"Why, it's a repeater!"
"So it is! Did you ever know such a brick as that uncle of mine?"
"It's a pity your people can't think of anything else but watches for
presents. Why, what a donkey you made of yourself about that silver
turnip when you first had it! Don't you remember? What's to become of
it, by the by?"
"How do I know? I say, Jim, this one wasn't got for nothing." And then
the boys together investigated the wonders of the new watch, peeping at
its works and making it strike, till I was quite sick of hearing it.
But then I was jealous. There was no more Cicero for Charlie that day.
He was almost as ridiculous, though not so rough, with his new treasure
as he had been with me. He turned me out of my pocket to make room for
it; and then half a dozen times a minute pulled it out and gloated over
it. At night he put us both under his pillow, little dreaming of the
sorrow and disappointment that filled my breast.
Where were all the old days now? Who would admire or value _me_, a
poor, commonplace silver drudge, now that this grand, showy rival had
come and taken my place? In my anger and excitement my heart beat fast
and loud, so loud that presently I heard a voice beside me saying,--
"Gently, there, if you please; no one can hear himself speak with that
noise."
"I've more right to be here than you," I growled.
"That is as our mutual master decides; but surely I have heard your
voice before! Let me look at you."
And he edged himself up, so as to get a peep at my shabby face.
"To be sure--my young friend the three-guinea silver watch? How do you
do, my little man?"
This patronage was intolerable, and I had no words to reply.
"Ah! you find it difficult to converse. You must indeed be almost worn
out after the work you have had. I am indeed astonished to see you
alive at all. I am sure, in my master's name, I may be allowed to thank
you for your praiseworthy exertions in his service. We are both much
obliged to you, and hope we shall show ourselves not unmindful of
your--"
"Brute!" was all I could shriek, so mad was I, Whether my rival would
have pursued his discourse I cannot say, but at that instant a hand came
fumbling under the pillow. It passed me by, and sought the repeater,
and next moment the tinkling chimes sounded half-past eleven.
It was as much as I could endure to be thus slighted and triumphed over.
"Contemptible creature!" I exclaimed; "you may think you've a fine
voice, but, like a simpering schoolgirl, you can't sing till you're
pressed!" I had him there, surely!
"Better that than having no voice at all, like some people, or using it
when no one wants to hear it, like others." I suppose he thought he had
me there, the puppy!
He went on chiming at intervals during the night, and of course my
master had very little rest in consequence.
The next day Charlie and Jim had a solemn confabulation as to the
disposal of me.
"It's no use wasting it, you know," said Jim. "Pity you haven't got a
young brother to pass it on to."
"Suppose you take it," said the generous Charlie.
"No, old man, I don't want it. I'm not so mad about tickers as you.
But, I tell you what, Charlie, you might like Tom to have it. He's
leaving, you know, and it would be a nice reminder of Randlebury."
"Just what I thought directly the new one came," exclaimed Charlie,
"only then I remembered we had a row about this very watch three years
ago, and I'm afraid he wouldn't like it."
"Try. Old Tom would be quite set up with a watch."
Charlie proceeded that same day in quest of Tom, whom he found packing
up his books and chemicals in a large trunk.
To him my master exhibited his new treasure, greatly to Drift's delight.
"Why, Charlie," he said, "I don't know much about watches, but I'm
certain that's worth twenty pounds."
"No!" exclaimed Charlie; "you don't mean that."
"Yes, I do; but, for all that, I'll back your old turnip to keep as good
time as it."
"It's always gone well, the old one. I'm glad you like it, Tom."
"I always liked it, you know."
"Why?"
"Well, I've known it as long as I've known you, and if it hadn't been
for it things might have been different."
"Yes," said Charlie, "it was the cause of all the row three years ago."
"And if it hadn't been for that row I should have gone to the bad long
ago. That was a lucky row for me, Charlie, thanks to you."
"Don't say that, old man, because it's a cram."
"I say, Tom," added Charlie nervously, coming to his point, "will you do
me a favour?"
"Anything in the world. What is it?"
"Take my old watch, Tom. It's not worth much, you know, but it may be
useful, and it will help to remind you of old days. Will you, Tom?"
Tom's lips quivered as he took me from Charlie's outstretched hand.
"Old boy," said he, "I'd sooner have this than anything else in the
world. Somehow I feel I can't go wrong as long as I have it."
Charlie was beyond measure delighted to find his present accepted with
so little difficulty.
"Oh, Tom," he said, "I am glad to think you'll have it, and I know
you'll think of me when you use it."
"Won't I?" said Tom. "I say, Charlie, I wish you were coming to London
with me."
"So do I. Never mind, we'll often write, and you'll promise to let me
know how you are getting on, won't you?"
"Yes."
"And you'll call and see my father pretty often, won't you?"
"Yes."
"And you'll keep yourself free for a week's jaunt at Easter?"
"Yes."
They had much more talk that evening, which lasted till late. What they
talked about it is not for me to repeat, and if it were it would
probably not interest my reader. He would perhaps be disappointed to
find that a considerable part of it related to a new suit of Tom's, just
arrived from the tailor's, and that another part had reference to Tom's
intention to prevail on his landlady in London to allow him to support a
bull-dog puppy on her premises. These subjects, deeply interesting to
the two friends, would not improve with repetition; and neither would
the rest of their talk, which was chiefly a going over of old times, and
a laying of many a wondrous scheme for the future. Suffice it to say,
on this last evening the two boys unbosomed themselves to one another,
and if Tom Drift went off to bed in a sober and serious frame of mind,
it was because he and Charlie both had thought and felt a great deal
more than they had spoken during the interview. The packing went on at
the same time as the talk, and then the two friends separated, only to
meet once more on the morrow for a hurried farewell.
"Let's have a last look at him," said Charlie, as Tom was getting into
the cab to go.
Tom took me out and handed me to him. Long and tenderly my dear young
master looked at me, then, patting me gently with his hand as if I were
a child, he said,--
"Good-bye, and be good to Tom Drift; do you hear?"
If a tick could express anything, my reply at that moment must have
satisfied him his parting wish would not be forgotten. Then returning
me to my new master, he said,--
"Good-bye, old boy; joy go with you. We'll hear of you at the head of
your profession before Jim and I have left school."
"Not quite so soon," replied Tom, laughing.
Then came a last good-bye, and the cab drove off. As it turned the
corner of the drive Tom leaned out of the window and held me out in his
hand.
Long shall I remember that parting glimpse. He was standing on the
steps with Jim waving his hands. The sun shone full on him, lighting up
his bright face and curly head. I thought as I looked, "Where could one
find his equal?"--_Sans peur et sans reproche_--"matchless for
gentleness, honesty, and courage," and felt, as the vision faded from
me, that I should never see another like him. And I never did.
Little, however, did I dream in what strange way I was next to meet
Charlie Newcome.