[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
VOL. XX.--NO. 997.] FEBRUARY 4, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]
A BRIDAL SONG.
[Illustration: “GOD SPEED THEE!”]
Oh, happy bride!
Heaven’s sunlight wraps thee in a golden gleam,
And in thine eyes the light of love supreme,
And in thy heart the dawning of a dream,
And what beside!
Hopes reaching wide,
Out into the new life unbegun,
Into the untrodden ways thy feet may run
And the dim future only known by One--
The One Who died.
And a sweet pride
That thou art chosen the whole world above,
And girt about with mightiness of love,
Which waits to cherish thee as tend’rest dove
Till death divide.
And there abide
In thy full heart most sweet-sad memories
Of one who smiles on thee from out the skies,
Thy best belovèd, now in Paradise,
Thy earliest guide;
At whose dear side
Thy girlhood’s opening flower sweetly grew,
Till death transplanted her into the blue;
There to watch over thee with love more true
And purified.
In the untried
And varying life which waits thee, rosy-hued,
God speed thee! and give daily grace renewed,
And bless with all His large beatitude
Thy marriage-tide.
Though thou be tried
And troubled oftentimes in this new life,
Christ wall be with thee through the calm and strife,
Help thee to beautify the name of wife,
Oh, happy bride!
_All rights reserved._]
“OUR HERO.”
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the
Dower House,” etc.
CHAPTER XIX.
ORDERED TO BITCHE.
Roy forgot everything except the affair on hand. He dashed upstairs and
into the salon at a headlong pace, knocking over a chair as he entered.
It fell with a crash, and Roy stopped short. Denham was on the sofa, no
one else being present except Lucille, who, with her bonnet on, as if
she were going out, had just taken an empty cup from his hand.
“Roy, you unkind boy,” she said, turning with a look of positive anger.
“How you can do it!”
“O I’m sorry. I didn’t remember. Isn’t Den better?”
“Not remember! But you ought to remember. So without thought. It is
selfishness.”
For Lucille to be seriously displeased with Roy was an event so new in
his experience, that Roy gazed with astonished eyes.
“No matter,” interposed Denham. “Had a good time, Roy?”
“I’ve seen lots of people. Den, I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean----”
“No, of course not. It’s all right.”
“Where is my father?” Roy asked in a subdued voice.
“Gone out--but ten minutes since,” said Lucille. “General Cunningham
sent to see him on business. And Colonel Baron has to go with him
somewhere, and cannot return soon. So dinner is put off till six.”
“And mamma?”
“Mrs. Baron had a call to pay in the same direction. Captain Ivor
thought he might get half-an-hour’s sleep. Roy, be good, I entreat.
Do not fidget, and knock over chairs, and talk, talk, talk, without
ending.”
Roy nodded, and Lucille moved towards the door, adding, as she went, “I
also have to see someone, but I shall be back soon.”
Roy sat down in a favourite attitude, facing the back of a chair, and
wondering what to do next. Would it be right to tell Denham what had
happened? Would it be wrong to put off telling? Curtis had enjoined him
to speak at once; but Curtis had not known the posture of affairs. The
matter might be of consequence, or it might not. Roy was disquieted,
but not seriously uneasy; and he hesitated to worry Denham without
cause.
“Seen anybody?” asked Ivor.
“Yes; numbers.”
Then a break.
“Found Curtis?”
“Yes. And Carey too. Would you like to hear all about it?”
“By-and-by, I think. It will keep.”
Silence again, and Roy debated afresh. What if his action should mean
bringing Curtis into trouble? That thought had considerable weight.
Three times he formed with his lips the preliminary “I say, Den!” and
three times he refrained. The third time some slight sound escaped him,
for Denham asked drowsily, “Anything you want?”
“Lucille told me not to talk. Does it matter?”
Ivor did not protest, as Roy had half hoped. He was evidently dropping
off, and Roy decided that a short delay was unavoidable. He took up
a volume that lay near; and, being no longer a book-hater, he became
absorbed in its contents. General Wirion, chips of wood, the Imperial
nose, and irate landladies, faded out of his mind. The matter was no
doubt a pity, but after all it meant only--so Roy supposed--a pull
upon his father’s purse. Boys are apt to look upon parental purses as
unlimited in depth.
Denham was sound asleep, and Roy kept as motionless as any girl; not
that girls are always quiet. An hour passed; another half-hour; and he
began to grow restless. Might it be possible to slip away?
Gruff voices and heavy trampling feet, in the hall below, broke into
the stillness, and Denham woke up. “This is lazy work,” he said
wearily. “Roy--here yet! What time is it?”
“Nearly five. Dinner isn’t till six. Head any better?”
“Yes. I’m wretched company for you to-day. Different to-morrow, I hope.”
“You can’t help it. You’ve just got to get rested--that’s all. I say,
what a noise they are making downstairs. Frenchmen do kick up such a
rumpus about everything.”
The door opened hurriedly, and Lucille came in, wearing still her
bonnet, as if just returned from a walk.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I do not know what it means, but I must
tell. I have no choice. O it surely must be a mistake, it cannot be
truly----”
Lucille startled herself no less than her listeners by a sharp sob. She
caught Roy’s arm with both hands, holding him fast. “Roy--Roy--what is
it that you have done? O what have you done?” she cried.
“Is it that bosh about the cast? O I know. They want to be paid, I
suppose. Lucille, Den has been asleep, and I’ve been as quiet as
anything--and then for you to come in like this! Den, you just keep
still, and I’ll go and speak to them. I’ll settle it all. I know my
father will pay.”
“No, no, no--stay--you must not go,” panted Lucille. “Stay--it is the
gendarmes! And they come to arrest you--to take you away!”
The word “gendarmes” acted as an electric shock, bringing Denham to his
feet in a moment.
“What is it all about? I do not understand.” He touched Roy on the
shoulder, with an imperative--“Tell me.”
“It was only--I’d have told you before, only I didn’t like to bother
you. It was at Curtis’. There was a bust of Boney on the mantelshelf,
and I just shied bits of wood at it, in fun. And I said ‘_À bas
Napoléon_,’ or something of that sort; and then I threw a ball,
and the idiotic thing tumbled down and broke into pieces. And the
landlady--she’s a regular out-and-out virago--happened that very
moment to come in, and she saw and heard. And she vowed she would tell
of it. Curtis tried to explain things away, and I offered to pay,
but she wouldn’t listen. She went on shrieking at us, and said it
was an insult to the Emperor, and Wirion should know of it. She’s a
Bonapartist--worse luck! Curtis made me hurry off, and said I was to
tell my father at once. But he was out, and you--you know----” with a
glance at Lucille, who wrung her hands, while Ivor said,
“Roy, were you utterly mad?”
“I--don’t know. Was it very stupid? Will it matter, do you think? I’m
sorry about you--most. I thought they would wait till to-morrow; but
I suppose they want me to go and pay directly. Is that it?” looking
towards Lucille.
“No, no, no,” she answered, again wringing her hands. “It is to
take--to take Roy--to the citadel!”
“To the citadel!” Roy opened his eyes. “O I say, what a farce! For
knocking down a wretched little image, not worth fifty sous!”
“For breaking a bust of the Emperor, and for shouting--‘_À bas_----’”
Lucille could not finish.
“You mean--that they will keep him there to-night?” Denham said.
She looked at him with eyes that were almost wild with fear.
“Oui--oui--the citadel to-night! And to-morrow--they say--to Bitche.”
“To--Bitche!” whispered Roy. He grew white, for that word was a sound
of terror in the ears of English prisoners, and his glance went in
appeal to Ivor.
“Stay here, Roy. I will speak to them.”
Ivor crossed the room with his rapid resolute stride, and went out,
meeting the gendarmes half-way downstairs. Lucille clutched Roy’s arm
again, half in reproach, half in protection. “Ah, my poor boy! mon
pauvre garçon! how could you? Ah, such folly! As if there were not
already trouble enough! Ah, my unhappy Roy!”
“Shut up, Lucille! You needn’t jaw a fellow like that! It can’t mean
anything really, you know. Wirion just thinks he can screw a lot of
money out of my father. And that’s the worst of it,” declared Roy, in
an undertone. “I hate to have done such a stupid thing--and I hate the
worry of it for Den, just now when he’s like this. But you know they
couldn’t really send me to Bitche only for smashing a paltry image. It
would be ridiculous.”
“Ah, Roy! even you little know--you--what it means to be under a
despot, such as--but one may not dare to speak.”
Lucille’s tears came fast. They stood listening. From the staircase
rose loud rough voices, alternating with Ivor’s not loud but masterful
tones. That he was prisoner, and that they had power to arrest him too,
if they chose, made not a grain of difference in his bearing. It was
not defiant or excited, but undoubtedly it was haughty; and Lucille,
just able to see him from where she stood, found herself wondering--did
he wish to go to prison with Roy? She could almost have believed it.
“Eh bien, messieurs. Since l’Empéreur sees fit to war with schoolboys,
so be it,” she heard him say sternly in his polished French. “To me, as
an Englishman, it appears that his Majesty might find a foe more worthy
of his prowess.”
“But, ah, why make them angry?” murmured Lucille.
A few more words, and Denham came back. One look at his face made
questions almost needless.
“Then I am to go, Den?”
“I fear--no help for it. The men have authority. You will have to spend
to-night in the citadel. But I am coming with you, and I shall insist
upon seeing Wirion himself.”
“But you--you cannot! You are ill!” remonstrated Lucille. “Will not
Colonel Baron go? Not you.”
He put aside the objection as unimportant.
“Roy must take a few things with him--not more than he can carry
himself. I hope it may be only for the one night. They allow us twenty
minutes--not longer. That is a concession.”
“I will put his things together for him,” Lucille said quickly.
“One moment. May I beg a kindness?”
“Anything in the world.”
“If Colonel Baron does not return before we start--and he will
not--would you, if possible, find him, and beg him to come at once to
the citadel? Then, Mrs. Baron----”
Ivor’s set features yielded slightly; for the thought of Roy’s mother
without her boy was hard to face. Lucille watched him with grieved eyes.
“I will tell her, but not everything--not yet as to Bitche, for that
may be averted. I will stay with her--comfort her--do all that I am
able. Is this what you would ask?”
“God bless you!” he said huskily, and she hurried away.
“Den, must I go with those fellows really?” asked Roy, beginning to
understand what he had brought upon himself. “I never thought of that.
Can’t you manage to get me off? Won’t they let me wait--till my father
comes back?”
“They will consent to no delay. He will follow us soon. And, Roy, I
must urge you to be careful what you say. Any word that you may let
slip without thinking will be used against you. I hoped that you had
learnt that lesson.”
A listener, overhearing Denham with the gendarmes, might have
questioned whether he had learnt it himself; but Roy was in no
condition of mind to be critical. Dismay grew in his face.
“And if you can’t get me off---- If I am sent to Bitche----” with
widening gaze.
“If you are”--with much more of an effort than Roy could imagine--“then
you will meet it like a man. Whatever comes, you must be brave and true
through all. Keep up heart, and remember that it is only for a time.
And, my boy, never let yourself say or do what you would be ashamed to
tell your father.”
“Or--you”--with a catch of his breath.
“Or me!”--steadily. “Remember always that you are an Englishman--that
you are your father’s son--that you are my friend--and that your duty
to God comes first. For your mother’s sake, bear patiently. Don’t make
matters worse by useless anger. And--think how she will be praying for
you!”
Denham could hardly say the words. Roy’s lips quivered.
“Yes, I will! Only, if you could get me off!”
“My dear boy, if they would take me in your stead----”
“Den, I’m so sorry! I’m not frightened, you know--only it’s horrid to
have to go! Just when you’ve come and all! And it would have been so
jolly! And it’s such a bother for you, too! I do wish I hadn’t done it!”
Ten minutes later the two started--Roy under the gendarme-escort, Ivor
keeping pace with them.
Lucille then hastened away on her sorrowful mission, leaving a message
with old M. Courant, in case either Colonel or Mrs. Baron should return
during her absence--not the same message for Mrs. Baron as for the
Colonel.
Half-an-hour’s search brought her into contact with the latter, and she
poured forth a breathless tale. Heavier and heavier grew the cloud upon
his face. He knew too well the uses that might be made of Roy’s boyish
escapade. At the sound of that dread word--“Bitche”--a grey shadow came.
“Captain Ivor went with Roy to the citadel. He ought not--he has been
so suffering all day--but he would not let Roy go alone. And he asked,
would you follow them as soon as possible? For me, I will find Mrs.
Baron, and will stay with her.”
The Colonel muttered words of thanks, and went off at his best speed.
Would he and Captain Ivor be able to do anything? Would they even be
admitted to the presence of the autocratic commandant? Denham might
talk of insisting; but prisoners had no power to insist. If he did, he
might only be thrown into prison himself! Was that what he wanted--to
go with the boy?
“Ah, j’espère que non!” Lucille muttered fervently.
And if they were admitted, what then? Would money purchase Roy’s
immunity from punishment? General Wirion’s known cupidity gave some
ground for hope. Yet, would he neglect such an opportunity for
displaying Imperialist zeal?
Lucille put these questions to herself as she flew homeward. On the way
she met little Mrs. Curtis, and for one moment stopped in response to
the other’s gesture.
“Is it true?” Mrs. Curtis asked, with a scared look. “They tell me Roy
has been arrested. Is it so? My husband could do nothing. The landlady
was off before he could speak to her again. He thought that Roy and the
Colonel would be coming round directly, and so he waited in. But they
did not come. And now two gendarmes are quartered in our lodgings, and
Hugh may not stir without their leave. It is horrid! But--Roy?”
“I cannot wait! Roy is taken to the citadel! I have to see to his
mother! Do not keep me, Madame.” And again Lucille sped homeward.
As she had half hoped, half dreaded, she found Mrs. Baron indoors
before herself, alone in the salon, and uneasy at Captain Ivor’s
absence.
“He ought not to have gone out,” she said. “He will be seriously ill
if he does not let himself rest. It is Roy’s doing, I suppose--so
thoughtless of Roy! I must tell Denham that I will not have him spoil
my boy in this way. It is not good for Roy, and Denham will suffer for
it. You do not know where he is gone?”
“Oui!” faltered Lucille, and Mrs. Baron looked at her.
“You have been crying! What is it?”
As gently as might be, Lucille broke the news of what had happened; and
Mrs. Baron seemed stunned. Roy--her Roy--in the hands of the pitiless
gendarmes! Roy imprisoned in the citadel! Lucille made no mention of
Bitche; but too many prisoners had been passed on thither for the idea
not to occur to Mrs. Baron.
“And it was I who brought him to France! It was I who would not let him
be sent home when he might have gone! O Roy, Roy!” she moaned. Lucille
had hard work to bring any touch of comfort to her.
Hour after hour crept by. Once a messenger arrived with a pencil note
from Colonel Baron to his wife--
“Do not sit up if we are late. We are doing what we can. I cannot
persuade Denham to go back.”
Not sit up! Neither Mrs. Baron nor Lucille could dream of doing
anything else. This suspense drew them together, and Lucille found
herself to be one with the Barons in their trouble.
Nine o’clock, ten o’clock, and at length eleven o’clock. Soon after
came a sound of footsteps. Not of bounding, boyish steps. No Roy came
rushing gaily into the room. Lucille had found fault with him that
afternoon for his noisy impulsiveness; but now, from her very heart,
she would have welcomed his merry rush. Only Colonel Baron and Ivor
entered.
The Colonel’s face was heavily overclouded, while Denham’s features
were rigid as iron, and entirely without colour.
“Roy?” whispered Mrs. Baron.
Deep silence answered the unspoken question. Colonel Baron stood with
folded arms, gazing at his wife. Denham moved two or three paces away,
and rested one arm on the back of a tall chair, as if scarcely able to
keep himself upright.
“Roy!” repeated Mrs. Baron, her voice sharpened and thinned. “You have
not brought--Roy!”
A single piercing laugh rang out. She stopped the sound abruptly with
one quick indrawing of her breath, and waited.
Colonel Baron tried to speak, and no sound came. Denham remained
motionless, not even attempting to raise his eyes.
“Oui!” Lucille said restlessly. “Il est--il est----”
The Colonel managed a few short words. There was no possibility of
softening what had to be said.
“To-night--the citadel. To-morrow--to Bitche!”
“To Bitche!” echoed Lucille. “Ah-h!”
To Bitche--that terrible fortress-prison, the nightmare of Verdun
prisoners! Their Roy to be sent to Bitche! Mrs. Baron swayed slightly
as if on the verge of fainting. Roy, her petted and idolised
darling--her boy, so tenderly cared for--to be hurried away to Bitche!
Lucille hardly could have told which of the two she was watching with
the more intense attention--Mrs. Baron, stunned and wordless, or
Denham, with his fixed still face of suffering.
“And nothing--nothing--can be done?” she asked.
“We have tried everything!” the Colonel answered gloomily.[1]
(_To be continued._)
[1] Actual fact: A young fellow at Verdun, prisoner on parole, was
closely imprisoned for knocking down a bust of the Emperor in his
lodgings.
A RAMBLE ABOUT CHILDHOOD.
BY MRS. MOLESWORTH.
No true child-lover would maintain that all children are equally
lovable, or indeed, in some--though, I think, rare instances--lovable
at all.
But in this, speaking for myself, I detect no inconsistency, no
falsity to one’s colours. For the qualities or deficiencies which
make a child unlovable may be summed up in one word; they are such as
make it unchildlike. And this, not necessarily, if at all, as regards
a child’s mental qualities. It is the moral side of child-nature
that attracts--the heart, the spirit. For painful as it is to meet
with precocity of mind in some instances, especially the precocity
of the kind forced upon the children of the poor not unfrequently,
this, unchildlike as it is, is by no means incompatible with
great sweetness and beauty of the moral character, great power of
affection, delightful candour, even that most exquisite of childlike
possessions--trustfulness.
Yes, the root of a child’s nature, the essential groundwork of it, to
be lovely and lovable, must be childlike. But a literal meaning must be
given to the pretty adjective. I would not even altogether eliminate
from it certain qualities which might, strictly speaking, be perhaps
more correctly described as _childish_, seeing that if we limited
the word too narrowly, we should lose others of the great charms of
children, their queer, delightful inconsistencies and exaggerations,
their quaint originality, their grotesque imaginings, all of which, in
more or less degree, a real child, even a dull or stupid one, possesses.
Take, for example, the unconscious egoism, almost amounting, logically
speaking, to “arrogance,” of most children. The world, nay, the
universe, is their own little life and surroundings; their house and
family are the rules, the proper thing, all others exceptions. It is
not, in most instances, till childhood is growing into a phase of the
past, that the sense of comparison is really developed, or that the
young creatures take in that other circumstances or conditions besides
their own may be what _should_ be, that they themselves do not hold a
monopoly of the model existence.
There is something pretty as well as absurd in this--to my mind, at
least, in certain directions, something almost sacred, which it would
be desecration to touch with hasty or careless fingers; which, one
almost grieves to know, must pass, like all illusions, however sweet
and innocent, when its day is over.
To recall some recollections of my own childish beliefs--if the egotism
may be pardoned, on the ground that one’s own experiences of this
nature cannot but be the most trustworthy. I often smile to myself,
with the smile “akin to tears,” when I look back to some of the faiths,
the first principles, of my earliest years.
Foremost among these was the belief in the absolute perfection of
my father and mother. I thought that they could not do wrong, that
they knew _everything_. I remember feeling extremely surprised and
perplexed on some occasions when, having involuntarily--for I,
like most children, but seldom expressed or alluded to my deepest
convictions--allowed this creed of mine to escape me, the subjects of
it--though not without a smile--endeavoured tenderly to correct my
estimate of them.
“There are many, many things I do not know about, my little girl,” my
father would say, adding once, I remember--for this remark impressed
me greatly--“I only know enough to begin to see that I am exceedingly
ignorant.” And my mother was even more emphatic in her deprecation of
our nursery fiat that “mamma was quite, quite good.”
Not that these protestations shook our faith. In my own case I know
that the unconscious arrogance with regard to family conditions
extended to ludicrous details. I thought that the Christian names of
my parents were the only correct ones for papas and mammas; I believed
that the order in which we children stood--there were six of us, boy,
girl, boy, girl, boy, girl--was the appointed order of nature, that all
deviation from these and other particulars of the kind was abnormal and
incorrect, and I viewed with condescending pity the playmates whose
brothers and sisters were wrongly arranged, or whose parents suffered
under “not right” names.
Gradually, of course, these queer, childish “articles of belief”
faded--melted away in the clearer vision of experience and developing
intellect. But they left a something behind them which I should be
sorry to be without; and they left too, I think, a certain faculty
of penetration into infant inner life, which circumstances have
shown themselves kindly in preserving and deepening. I have learnt to
feel since that nearly all children have their own odd and original
theories of things, though many forget, as life advances, to remember
about their own childhood’s beliefs and imaginings. And this is not
unnatural, when we take into account the rarity and difficulty of
obtaining a child’s full confidence, for uncommunicated, unexpressed
thoughts are apt to die away from want of word-clothing. One really
learns more about children from the revelations of grown-up men and
women who “remember,” and have cherished their remembrances, than from
the children of the moment themselves.
Still, queer ideas crop out to others sometimes. Not often--if it
happened oftener we should be less struck by their oddity, by their
grotesque originality. A few which, in some instances, not without
difficulty and the exertion of some amount of diplomacy, I have
succeeded in extracting--no, that is not the right word for a matter
of such fairylike delicacy--in drawing out, as the bee draws the honey
from the tiny flowers--occur to me as I write, and may be worth mention.
A small boy of my acquaintance, after a fit of extreme penitence for
some little offence against his grandmother, whom he was very fond of,
added to his “so very sorry,” “never do it again, never, never,” the
unintelligible assurance, “I will be always good to you, dear little
granny, always; and when you have to go round all the houses, I’ll see
that our cook gives you lots and lots of scraps--very nice ones--and
nice old boots and shoes, and everything you want. I’ll even”--with a
burst of enthusiastic devotion--“I’ll even go round with you my own
self.”
Grandmother expressed her sense of the intended good offices, but
gingerly, with my assistance, set to work to find out what the little
fellow meant--what in the world he had got into his head; and it was
no easy task, I can assure you. But at last we succeeded. It appeared
that the confusion in the boy’s mind arose from the, in a sense, double
meaning of the word “old.” He associated it, naturally enough, with the
idea of poverty, material worthlessness, in conjunction with that of
age and long-livedness. Every human being, he believed, had to descend,
“when you gets very old,” to a state of beggardom; his dear granny,
like everybody else, would have to wander from door to door with a
piteous tale of want; but from his door she should never be repulsed;
nay indeed, he himself would take her by the hand and lead her on the
painful round. Nor did he murmur at this strange order of things; to
him it was a “has-to-be,” accepted like the darkness that follows the
day; like the gradual out-at-toe condition of his own little worn-out
shoes; and I greatly doubt if our carefully-worded explanation of his
mistake carried real conviction with it. I strongly suspect that he
remained on the look-out for granny in her new _rôle_ for a good many
months, or even years, to come.
Some other curious childish beliefs recur to my memory. I knew a little
girl who cherished as an undoubted article of faith a legend--how
originated who can say?--perhaps suggested by some half poetical talk
of her elders about the aging year, the year about to bid us farewell
and so on, perhaps entirely evolved out of her own fantastic little
brain--that on the 31st of December the “old year” took material human
form and strolled about the world in the guise of an aged man, though
unrecognised by the uninitiated crowd. She had the habit on this day
of taking up her quarters in a corner of the deep, old-fashioned
window-sill of her nursery, and there, in patient silence, gazing down
into the street till Mr. Old-year should have passed by. Nor were her
hopes disappointed. She always caught sight of him and nodded her own
farewell, unexpectful of any response.
“He couldn’t say good-bye to everybody; he wouldn’t have time,” was her
explanation to the little sister to whom she at last confided her odd
fancy, and through whose indiscretion it leaked out to the rest of the
nursery group.
“But how do you know him?” she was asked. “Is he always dressed the
same?”
“Oh, no,” was the reply, “he sometimes wears a black coat and sometimes
a brown; and one year he had a blue one with brass buttons. That was
the first year I saw him, and I have never missed him since. He has
always white hair, and he walks slowly, looking about him. I always
know him, almost as well as you’d know Santa Claus if he came along the
street, though, of course, he never does. _He_ comes down chimneys, and
I don’t think children ever do see him, for they’re always asleep.”
The little woman was, wisely I think, left undisturbed in her innocent
fancy. How many more times she ensconced herself in her window on the
31st of December I cannot say. The belief in the poor Old-year’s lonely
wandering interested her for the time and did her no harm, then gently
faded, to be revived perhaps as a story of “When mother was a little
girl,” when mother came to have little girls of her own to beg for her
childish reminiscences.
This personification of abstract ideas is a peculiarity, a speciality
of children, as it was no doubt of the children of the world’s
history--our remote ancestors. And I have noticed that among abstract
ideas that of _time_ has a particular fascination for imaginative
little people. Many years ago I happened to be staying in a country
house when a group of children arrived from town to spend their summer
holiday with the uncle and aunt to whom it belonged. Entering the
room where these little sisters were quartered, early in the morning
after their journey, I was surprised to find the trio wide awake,
each sitting up in her cot, in absolute silence as if listening for
something.
I too stood silent and still for a minute or two, till yielding to
curiosity I turned to the nearest bed, which happened to be that of the
youngest, a girl of five or six.
“What is it, Francie?” I inquired. “Are you trying to hear the church
bells”--for it was Sunday morning--“or what?”
With perfect seriousness she turned to me as she replied--
“No, auntie dear. We are listening to _time passing_. We can always
hear it when we first come to the country. In London there is too much
noise. Meg”--her mature sister of ten--“taught us about it. So we
always try to wake early the first morning on purpose to hear it.”
Another friend of mine, now an elderly, if not quite an old, woman,
had a curious fancy when a very young child, in connection with which
there is a pretty anecdote of the poet Wordsworth, which may make the
story worth relating. This little girl believed that during the night
before a birthday a miraculous amount of “growing” was done, and on the
morning on which her elder brother attained the age of six, she, his
junior by two years, flew into the nursery when he was being dressed,
expecting to see a marvellous transformation. But--to her immense
disappointment--there stood her dear Jack looking precisely as he had
done when she bade him good-night the evening before. Maimie’s feelings
were too much for her.
“Oh, Jack,” she cried, bursting into tears, “why haven’t you growed
big? I thought you’d be kite a big boy this morning.”
Jack and nurse stared at her. I am afraid they called her a silly girl,
but however that may have been, her disappointment was vivid enough for
the remembrance of it to have lasted through well nigh half a century,
and her tears flowed on. Just then came a tap at the door, followed by
the entrance of the cook, a north countrywoman and a great favourite
with the children. A glance at her showed Maimie that she was weeping,
and when their old friend threw her arms around the little people, and
kissed them, amidst her sobs Maimie felt certain that the source of her
grief was the same as of her own.
“Is you crying ’cos Jack hasn’t growed for his birthday?” asked the
little girl. But Hannah shook her head.
“I don’t know what you mean, my sweet one,” said the old woman. “I’m
crying because I’ve got to leave you. This very morning I’m going, and
I’ve come to say good-bye.”
This startling announcement checked Maimie’s tears, or if they flowed
again it was from a different cause.
“Oh, dear Hannah,” the two exclaimed, “why must you go if it makes you
so unhappy? Doesn’t mamma want you to stay?”
“Oh, yes, dearie,” was the reply, “but it’s my duty to go to my old
mistress. She’s ill now and sad, and she thinks Hannah can nurse her
better than anyone else.”
So with tender farewells to the children she was never to see again,
poor Hannah went her way.
Her “old mistress” was Miss Dorothy Wordsworth. And though Jack and
Maimie never saw the faithful servant any more, they heard from, or
rather of, her before long. For only a few weeks had passed when one
morning the postman brought a small parcel directed to themselves, and
a letter to Jack, Hannah’s particular pet. The letter and the addresses
were in a queer, somewhat shaky hand-writing, that of Mr. Wordsworth
himself, now an aged man, for it was within a few years of his death;
the parcel contained a tempting-looking volume, bound in red and
gold--“Selections for the young”--of the laureate’s poems, with Jack’s
name inscribed therein, and even more gratifying, from the kindly
thoughtfulness it displayed, a little silk neckerchief in tartan--the
children’s own tartan, for they belonged to a Scotch clan--for Maimie.
And the letter, written to the old servant’s dictation, for she could
not write herself, told of her consultation with her master as to the
most appropriate presents to choose for her little favourites.
Almost more touching than the trustfulness of children is their
extraordinary endurance--a quality often, I fear, carried to a painful
and even dangerous point. It has its root, I suspect, in their innate
trust, their belief that whatever their elders deem right must be so;
also perhaps, in a certain almost fatalistic acceptance of things as
they are. But on few subjects connected with childhood have I felt more
strongly than on this. No parent is justified in “taking for granted”
the moral qualifications, even the suitability of the persons in charge
of their little boys and girls, however unexceptionable may be the
references and recommendations they bring. It takes tact and gives
trouble, but it is among the first of the duties of mothers especially
to make sure on such points for themselves. For besides their trust
in their elders and their natural resignation to the conditions about
them, there is an extreme sense of loyalty in most children, a horror
of “tell-taling,” such as are often far too slightly appreciated or
taken into account.
As these remarks are professedly a “ramble” I may be forgiven for
reverting to that beautiful trustfulness, by relating an incident
which, though trivial in the extreme, has never faded from my memory.
We were returning, late at night, or so at least it seemed to me, from
some kind of juvenile entertainment at Christmas time. It was a stormy
evening; I was a very little girl, and since infancy, high wind has
always frightened me, and that night it was blowing fiercely. I was
already trembling, when the carriage suddenly stopped. My father at
once sprang out, for there was no second man on the box; there was
nothing wrong, only the coachman’s hat had blown off! He got down and
ran back for it, and my father replaced him and drove on slowly, for
the wind had made the horse restless.
“Oh, mamma,” I exclaimed, “I am so frightened. The coachman has gone
away.”
“Yes, darling,” said my mother, “but don’t you see papa is driving?”
I shall never forget the impression of absolute comfort and
fearlessness that came over me at her words.
“Papa is driving,” I repeated to myself. “We are quite, quite safe.”
And all through the many years since that winter night, the impression
has never faded; often and often it has returned to me as a suggestion
of the essential beauty of trust, the germ of the “perfect love”
towards which we strive.
Not _a propos_ of the foregoing reminiscences, yet not, I hope, _mal
a propos_ in a roundabout paper, two anecdotes of a different kind,
of children, recur to me, showing the odd directions that their
cogitations sometimes take.
A little boy of my acquaintance, partly perhaps from nervousness, was
subject to violent fits of crying, most irritating and perplexing to
deal with. Once started--often by some absurdly trivial cause--there
was literally no saying when Charley would leave off. One day, after an
unusually long and exhausting attack, to his mother’s great relief, the
floods gave signs of abating; she left the room to fetch him a glass of
water. On her return the sobs had subsided.
“Oh, Charley,” she said, with natural but ill-advised expression of her
feelings, “you have really worn me out. If ever you have children of
your own, who cry like you, I hope you will remember your poor mother.”
Forthwith, to her dismay, the wails and tears burst out again, and it
was not till some time had elapsed that the child would listen to her
repeated inquiries as to what in the world he was crying for now. At
last came the little looked-for reply.
“It wasn’t because of this morning,” (what had started the fit I do
not remember) “I’d left off crying about that. It was you thinking I
would bring up my children so badly.”
Anecdote No. 2 relates to a more exalted personage than Master Charley.
Several years ago I was gratified by hearing from a friend then
resident in Italy and acquainted with the Court circle, that one of my
earliest books for children, _Carrots_, had found great favour in the
eyes of the young Crown Prince, then a mere boy. His exact sentiments
on the subject were conveyed to me in a letter written at his request.
The story had amused and interested him at a moment when he was
specially in want of entertainment, for it was just at the date of the
death of his grandfather, the great Victor Emanuel, and his little
namesake had not been allowed to go out riding or driving as usual for
several days. He did not know how he would have passed the time but for
_Carrots_, he said. He wished Mrs. Molesworth to know this, and he also
wished to make a request to her. Would she write another book as soon
as possible--(not, as one might have expected, of further details of my
little hero’s boyhood, but)--to tell how “Carrots” brought up his own
children when he became a big man and was married!
ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.
BY JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of “Sisters
Three,” etc.