THE TINSMITH'S--THE BEAVER BONNETS--A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING--I FAIL
TO SECURE A SISTER--RUBENS AND THE DOLL
Oakford was not a large town. It only boasted of one street, "to be
called a street," as Mr. Buckle phrased it, though two or three lanes,
with more or less pretentious rows of houses, and so forth, ran at
right angles to the High Street. The High Street was a steep hill. It
was tolerably broad, very clean, pebbled and picturesque. The "Crown
Inn" was an old house with an historical legend attached to it.
Several of the shops were also in very old houses, with overhanging
upper stories and most comfortable window seats. Mr. Buckle's was one
of these.
The air of the place was keen, but very healthy, and I seemed to gain
strength with every hour of my stay. With strength, all my interest in
the novelty of the situation woke afresh, and I was delighted with
everything, but especially with the shop.
On the subject of the saddlery business, I must confess that a
difference of opinion existed between myself and my excellent nurse.
She jealously maintained my position as a "young gentleman" and
lodger, against the familiarity into which the Buckles and I fell by
common consent. She served my meals in separate state, and kept
Jemima as well as herself in attendance on my wants. She made my
sitting-room as comfortable as she could, and here it was her wish
that I should sit, when in the house, "like a young gentleman." My
wish, on the contrary, was to be in the shop, and as much as possible
like a grown-up saddler. It did seem so delightful to be always
working at that nice-smelling leather, and to be able to make for
oneself unlimited straps, whips, and other masculine appendages. I was
perfectly happy with spare fragments, cutting out miniature saddles
and straps, stamping lines, punching holes, and mislaying the good
saddler's tools in these efforts; whilst my thoughts were occupied
with many a childish plan for inducing my father to apprentice me to
the worthy Mr. Buckle.
I was a good deal taken with Mr. Buckle's apprentice, a rosy-cheeked
young man, whose dress and manners I endeavoured as much as possible
to imitate. I strutted in imitation of his style of walking down the
High Street, and about this time Nurse Bundle was wont to say she
"couldn't think what had come to" my hat, that it was "always stuck on
one side." Pondering the history of Dick Whittington and the fair
Alice, I said one day to Jemima Buckle,
"I suppose you and Andrew will marry, and when Mr. Buckle dies you
will have the shop?"
"Me marry the 'prentice!" said Miss Jemima. And I discovered how
little I knew of the shades of "caste" in Oakford.
Jemima used often to take me out when Nurse Bundle was otherwise
engaged, and we were always very good friends. One day, I remember,
she was going to a shop about half way up the High Street, and I
obtained leave to go with her. Mrs. Bundle was busy superintending the
cooking of some special delicacy for her "young gentleman's" dinner,
and Jemima and I set forth on our errand. It was to a tinsmith's shop,
where a bath had been ordered for my accommodation.
Ah! through how many years that steep street, with its clean, sunny
stones, its irregular line of quaint old buildings, and the distant
glimpse of big trees within palings into which it passed at the top,
where the town touched the outskirts of some gentleman's place, has
remained on my mind like a picture! Getting a little vague after a few
years, and then perhaps a little altered, as fancy almost
involuntarily supplied the defects of memory; but still that steep
street, that tinsmith's shop--_the_ features of Oakford!
I have since thought that Jemima must have had some special attraction
to the tinsmith's, her errands there were so many, and took so much
time. This occasion may be divided into three distinct periods. During
the first, I waited in that state of vacant patience whereby one
endures other people's shopping. During the second, I walked round all
the cans, pans, colanders, and graters, and took a fancy to a tin mug.
It was neither so valuable nor so handsome as the silver mug with
dragon handles given me by my Indian godfather, but it was a novelty.
When I looked closer, however, I found that it was marked, in plain
figures, fourpence, which at that time was beyond my means; so I
walked to the door, that I might solace the third period by looking
out into the street. As I looked, there came down the hill a fine,
large, sleek donkey, led by an old man-servant, and having on its back
what is called a Spanish saddle, in which two little girls sat side
by side, the whole party jogging quietly along at a foot's pace in the
sunshine. I may say here that my experience of little girls had been
almost entirely confined to my cousins, and that I was so overwhelmed
and impressed by the loveliness of these two children, and by their
quaint, queenly little ways, that time has not dimmed one line in the
picture that they then made upon my mind. I can see them now as
clearly as I saw them then, as I stood at the tinsmith's door in the
High Street of Oakford--let me see, how many years ago? ("Never mind,"
says my wife; "go on with the story, my dear," and I go on.)
The child who looked the older, but was, as I afterwards discovered,
the younger of the two, was also the less pretty. And yet she had a
sweet little face, hair like spun gold, and blue-grey eyes with dark
lashes. She wore a grey frock of some warm material, below which
peeped her indoors dress of blue. The outer coat had a quaint cape
like a coachman's, which was relieved by a broad white crimped frill
round her throat. Her legs were cased in knitted gaiters of white
wool, and her hands in the most comical miniatures of gloves. On her
fairy head she wore a large bonnet of grey beaver, with a frill
inside. (My wife explains that it was a "cap-front," adorned with
little bunches of ribbon, and having a cap attached to it, the whole
being put on separately before the bonnet. Details which seem to amuse
my little daughters, and to have less interest for my sons.) But it
was her sister who shone on my young eyes like a fairy vision. She
looked too delicate, too brilliant, too utterly lovely, for anywhere
but fairy-land. She ought to have been kept in tissue-paper, like the
loveliest of wax dolls. Her hair was the true flaxen, the very fairest
of the fair. The purity and vividness of the tints of red and white in
her face I have never seen equalled. Her eyes were of speedwell blue,
and looked as if they were meant to be always more or less brimming
with tears. To say the truth, her face had not half the character
which gave force to that of the other little damsel, but a certain
helplessness about it gave it a peculiar charm. She was dressed
exactly like the other, with one exception; her bonnet was of white
beaver, and she became it like a queen.
At the tinsmith's door they stopped, and the old man-servant, after
unbuckling a strap which seemed to support them in their saddle,
lifted each little miss in turn to the ground. Once on the pavement,
the little lady of the grey beaver shook herself out, and proceeded to
straighten the disarranged overcoat of her companion, and then, taking
her by the hand, the two clambered up the step into the shop. The
tinsmith's shop boasted of two seats, and on to one of these she of
the grey beaver with some difficulty climbed. The eyes of the other
were fast filling with tears, when from her lofty perch the sister
caught sight of the man-servant, who stood in the doorway, and she
beckoned him with a wave of her tiny finger.
"Lift her up, if you please," she said, on his approach. And the other
child was placed on the other chair.
The shopman appeared to know them, and though he smiled, he said very
respectfully,
"What article can I show you this morning, ladies?"
The fairy-like creature in the white beaver, who had been fumbling in
her miniature glove, now timidly laid a farthing on the counter, and
then turning her back for very shyness on the shopman, raised one
small shoulder, and inclining her head towards it, gave an appealing
glance at her sister out of the pale-blue eyes. That little lady, thus
appealed to, firmly placed another farthing on the board, and said in
the tiniest but most decided of voices,
"TWO FLAT IRONS, IF YOU PLEASE."
Hereupon the shopman produced a drawer from below the counter, and set
it before them. What it contained I was not tall enough to see, but
out of it he took several tiny flat irons of triangular shape, and
apparently made of pewter, or some alloy of tin. These the grey beaver
examined and tried upon a corner of her cape with inimitable gravity
and importance. At last she selected two, and keeping one for herself,
gave the other to her sister.
"Is it a nice one?" the little white-beavered lady inquired.
"Very nice."
"_Kite_ as nice as yours?" she persisted.
"Just the same," said the other, firmly. And having glanced at the
corner to see that the farthings were both duly deposited, she rolled
abruptly over on her seat, and scrambled off backwards, a manoeuvre
which the other child accomplished with more difficulty. The coats and
capes were then put tidy as before, and the two went out of the shop
together hand in hand.
Then the old man-servant lifted them into the Spanish saddle, and
buckled the strap, and away they went up the steep street, and over
the brow of the hill, where trees and palings began to show, the
beaver bonnets nodding together in consultation over the flat irons.