AT PLAY.
When Francis Bramwell, on the morning Crawford left Welford for
Richmond, found himself with little Freddie in his arms inside the
gate of the timber-yard he set the child down, and having closed the
gate, fetched little Frank out of the cottage.
The two children ran to one another. If they had been girls they would
have kissed; being boys, they had things too weighty on their minds to
allow of wasting time over such a frivolous and useless thing as
kissing.
"Come into the van," cried Frank, leading the way at a trot to the old
wheelless barrow.
"It's not a van, but a boat," said Freddie, as they scrambled into it.
"It's a van," said the host, who was dark and small, and wiry; while
the other was tall and fair, and rounded. "Look at the horse,"
pointing between the shafts or handles at nothing.
"But a boat has a horse, too," cried Freddie, "and this is a boat.
Look at the smoke coming up the funnel!" He held his arm erect to do
duty as a funnel.
"It's a van and a boat together," said Frank, trying to compromise
matters in any way so that they might get on, and not keep vegetating
there all day.
"But if it's a van," said Freddie, lowering the funnel, "it will sink
in the water, and we shall get drowned in the canal; and I'm not
allowed to get drowned. Aunt Hetty says I mustn't, and Mrs. Grainger
says I can't, for it is only dead dogs that get drowned in the canal."
Freddie knew more about boats and the canal than he did about vans.
They had lived near the canal before coming to their new house.
Frank, on the other hand, knew very little of boats or canals. "Well,
let us play it's an elephant," suggested he, making a second attempt
to arrange matters and get to work. Time was being wasted in a barren
academic dispute, and time was precious.
"But you can't get into an elephant."
"Well, a whale." He was desperate, and drew on his memory of a
Scripture story-book with coloured plates.
"What's a whale?" Freddie's library did not contain that book.
"A great big fish, with a roar as big as a steamboat whistle." Frank
was combining imagination and experience of a voyage across the
Atlantic.
"Hurrah!" cried Freddie wildly. "It's a steamboat; and I'm the man
that whistles," and he uttered a shrill scream.
"We're off!" shouted the other boy, frantically seizing his cap and
waving it like mad. The fact that you ought to shriek, and shriek
frequently, when playing at steamboat, and that there was no
satisfactory precedent for shrieking when you were in a whale's
inside, overcame Frank completely, and he at once handselled his new
craft with a shriek of overwhelming vigour and piercing force.
Bramwell leaned against a wall at the further end of the yard, and
watched the children at play. He had no fear or concern for their
safety. No danger could befall them here; the walls were high, and he
had seen that the doors were firm and secure. He was experiencing the
birth of a new life. Every word and shout and cry of his boy seemed to
put fresh strength and motive into his body and brain.
A week ago he had had absolutely nothing to live for.
Now he was gradually recovering the zest of life. He felt that he had
not only to eat and breathe, but to work and plan as well. He had
regarded that islet as a graveyard, and that cottage as a tomb. The
islet had now become the playground of his child, and the cottage the
home and sanctuary of his boy.
A week ago he had had nothing to think of but his miserable and
wrecked self. Now he had nothing to think of but his young and
innocent and beautiful son. Himself and his own wretched life had died
and been buried, and from the ashes of his dead self had risen the
child full of youth and health and vital comeliness.
A week ago he had felt old beyond the mortal span of man, and worn
beyond the thought of struggle, almost beyond the power of endurance.
Now he felt less old than his years, with dexterity and strength for
the defence of his child, an irresistible athlete.
He had not begun to plan for the future yet, but plans seemed easy
when he should will to consider them. His spirit was in a tumult of
delight and anticipation. He did not care to define his thoughts, and
he could not express them in words. He had been raised from a vault to
a hilltop; and the magnificence and splendour of the prospect overcame
him with joy. He sat upon his pinnacle, satisfied with the sense of
enlargement and air. He knew that what he contemplated was made up of
details, but he had no eye for detail now. It would be time enough to
examine later. The vast flat horizon and the boundless blue above his
head, and the intoxicating lightness and purity of the atmosphere,
were all that he took heed of now.
A week ago the present had been a dull, dark, straight, unsheltered
road, leading nowhere, with no spot of interest, no resting-place, no
change of light. His thoughts had been an agony to him. The present
then weighed him down like a cope of lead. To-day he dallied in a land
of gardens and vineyards, and arbours and fountains, and streams and
lakes, and statues and temples, where the air was heavy with perfumes
and rich with the waverings of melodious song. Through this land he
would wander for a while, healing his tired eyes with the sight of the
trees and the flowers and the temples, soothing his weary travel-worn
feet with the delicious coolness of the water of the streams, and
drinking in through his hungry ears the voices of the birds and the
tones of the harpists and the words of the unseen singers in the green
alleys and marble fanes.
He had eschewed poetry as an art; he was enjoying it now as a gift.
At last he awoke from his reverie, shook himself, and went up to the
old barrow, in which the children were still playing with unabated
vigour.
"Well," he said, "where is the steamboat going now?"
"'Tisn't a steamboat now," said Freddie, who was the more ready and
free of speech; "it's a gas-house, and I'm charging the retorts. Frank
never saw them charging the retorts, but I did often with my father."
"Then Frank shall go one day and see."
"I'll take him," said Freddie, "I know Mr. Grainger and nearly all the
men. When they draw the retorts they throw water on the coke, and then
such steam! Aunt Hetty won't let me throw water on the fire. If she
did, I could make as good steam as the men, and then we'd have plenty
of gas. Shouldn't we?"
"Plenty, indeed. It seems to me your Aunt Hetty is very good to you."
"Sometimes," said the boy cautiously. "But she won't let me make gas.
Mrs. Grainger let me throw some water on the fire last night before I
went to bed."
"And did you get any gas?"
"Lots, only it all went up the chimney and about the kitchen; and
there are no pipes for it in our new house. There were in the old
house. If you haven't pipes there's no use in making gas, for it gets
wet and won't burn. Have you pipes?"
"No."
"If you had pipes I'd make some for you. They make tar at the works,
too."
"Indeed!"
"I can make tar."
"Can you? And how do you make tar, Freddie?"
"With water, and blacklead and soap. Only Aunt Hetty won't let me.
I'll show Frank how to make tar."
"I'd be very much obliged to you if you would."
"I can make lots of things, and I'll show Frank how to make all of
them. Have you got a cat?"
"I'm sorry to say we have not. Perhaps you could make one for us?"
"Make a cat! No; I couldn't. Nobody could make a cat."
"Why not?"
"Because they scrape you awfully. We had a cat in the other house, and
we took it to this house and it ran away, and Mrs. Grainger says it
will never come back. And it needn't have run away, because when I
grow big I am going to fish in the canal and catch fish for it. Cats
like fish."
"And can you make fish?"
"I never tried. The water in our house is clean water, and no use for
making fish. You can only make fish out of canal water."
"O, I see."
"Have you a canary?"
"No."
"We had; but Jack, that was our cat's name, ate the canary's head off,
and then he couldn't fly, although his wings were all right. Jack
never ate his wings. I think Jack is gone back to eat the wings."
"He must have been a wicked cat to eat the poor bird!"
"No, he wasn't wicked, for he was all black except his nose, and that
was white; and Mrs. Grainger says a black cat isn't wicked when he has
a white nose."
"And did you cry when Jack went away?"
"No, I didn't; but I often cried when we had him, for he used to
scrape me when I wanted to make a horse or him to tow my Noah's ark."
"And did you ever get him to tow it?"
"Only once, and then he towed it only a little bit. And then he jumped
out of the window with it, and we could not find my Noah's ark ever
again. And father said he must have eaten the Noah's ark as well as
the canary, and that was how he got his nails!"
"But he scraped you before he ate your ark?"
"Yes, but there was a toy-shop near our other house, and Jack would
steal anything. I told Mrs. Grainger, and she said that she once knew
a toy-shop cat, and the toy-shop people gave it away, and it wouldn't
eat anything but monkeys on sticks and hairy lambs, and the people had
to choke it, as they were too poor to get it its proper food."
"Mrs. Grainger seems to be a very remarkable person."
"She isn't; she's Mr. Grainger's wife. Grainger has no clothes on him
when he's at the works, and Mrs. Grainger has a wart on her forehead.
Mrs. Grainger told me the reason Mr. Grainger doesn't wear any
clothes, or hardly any, when he's at the works is because he's so
proud of his skin; he doesn't wear suspenders, but keeps his trousers
up with a belt when he's not at the works. But at home, you would
think he's an African black; but Mrs. Grainger says he isn't. Father
gives Mrs. Grainger his old boots----"
"That is very good of your father."
"When they're worn out."
"Well, is the retort charged?"
All this time the boy was working hard at filling an imaginary scoop
with coal, and pouring the coal from it into imaginary retorts. Frank
was sitting on the edge of the barrow watching him intently.
"O, yes. They're all charged now."
"Well, I must leave you for a little while. You will be good boys when
I am away. Take care of yourselves."
"O, yes!"
"And, Freddie, you will teach Frank to be a good boy?"
"Oh, yes, I'll teach him that, too! But I must have a book."
"Must have a book? You don't mean to say you know how to read?"
"No, but the way to be a good boy is to sit down on a chair at a table
and look at pictures in a book. I hate books. Frank, it's Noah's ark
now and we're the beasts."
The man moved away, and entered the cottage. He felt elated to an
extraordinary degree.
For more than two years he had been dwelling alone with blighting
memories. Yesterday and to-day he was experiencing sensations.
Something was now entering his life. Formerly everything had been
going out, going out from a life already empty.
That day he had been confused and put out by so simple a thing as that
girl's invitation to spend an hour in a house not a hundred yards from
his own. It was the first invitation of the kind he had received since
his voluntary exile from the world. The world had been dead to him. He
had almost forgotten there was such a state of existence as that in
which ordinary people live. All his own experience seemed no more real
than the memory of a dream, out of which the light and colour were
fading slowly but surely.
The invitation to Crawford's House had for him made the fading
half-forgotten world spring out of its dim retirement into light
before his eyes. It suddenly forced upon his mind the fact that there
were bright and happy people still moving about in the streets and
fields. She, for instance, the girl who had spoken to him, was bright
and seemed happy; very bright and very happy, now that he recalled her
face and words and manner.
There were thousands in the world as bright and happy as she.
Thousands, nay, millions.
Were there millions in the world as bright and happy as she? Hardly;
for she was as bright a being as he had ever met in his life. No doubt
he thought this because hers was the first sunny face of woman he had
seen for a long time. For a time, that looking back now seemed
immemorial: he had been dwelling in the gloomy caverns of Pluto; the
voice of his boy called him forth from the hideous bowels of the
earth, and, lo! no sooner did he emerge from darkness than the first
being he saw was this Hebe.
But stay! What was this she had said to him? He had been confused and
dull-headed at the time. She had confused him by asking him to do her
a favour. Of late he had not been asked by any one to grant a favour.
He had lost all intercourse with gracious ways.
O, yes! he remembered now. She had invited him to go over and spend an
hour with her brother. And what folly! he had promised. He must have
been stupid when he told her he would go. Why, if he went, who would
mind Frank? The child could not be left in the cottage by himself.
In due time, Mrs. Grainger, whose services had been engaged for that
day, called for young Freddie. Bramwell bore the boy along the stage
and placed him gently in that good woman's arms. While crossing the
bay he left Frank in the timber-yard; but when he came back he took
his own son in his arms and carried him into the cottage.