JACK AND HIS MASTER.
"No carriage! Are you quite sure? Mrs. Wyndham told me that she would send to meet this train."
I looked anxiously at the station-master as I spoke. I was feeling tired, having had a very long journey; and now, to find that I had the prospect of a good walk before me was not pleasant.
"I'll go and have another look, mum," he said civilly as he turned away; "it may have driven up since the train came in. It weren't there before, I know that."
Presently he returned, and shook his head.
"There's nothing from the Hall," he remarked; "nothing to be seen nowhere."
I looked round despairingly, first at the deserted-looking little country station with its gay flower-beds, decorated with ornamental devices in dazzling white stones, then at the long, white country road, stretching away in the distance with the July sun beating down upon it, and sighed. The outlook was not cheering.
"Is there no inn near at which I could find some sort of conveyance?" I asked, though without much hope of receiving a satisfactory reply.
"None but the White Hart at Teddington, and that's a matter of four miles off," he replied. "It would take less time to send to the Hall."
"How far off is that?" I inquired.
"It's two miles and a bit. By the fields it's less, but as you are a stranger in these parts, I take it, mum, you'd do better to keep to the road if you think of walking," he answered.
"It seems to me the best thing to do," I replied with resignation.
"Well, it's a beautiful afternoon for a walk, if it is a bit hot," he said consolingly, and, retiring to his office, left me to my own devices.
I started very slowly, determined not to waste any energy, with that long and hot walk before me.
Strolling gently on I fell to thinking over my past life—the quiet, peaceful life in the country rectory, where I had lived for so many years, and which had only ended with the death of my dear old father two months ago. Now middle-aged—yes, I called myself middle-aged, though I daresay you at the age of eight, ten, fourteen (what is it?) would have called me a Methuselah—now I had to earn my own living, and start a fresh life. I don't want to make you sad, for I am quite of the opinion that it is better to make people laugh than cry, but I will confess that as I walked along that sunny afternoon, with the recollection of my great sorrow still fresh in my mind, the tears came to my eyes. You see, my father and I loved each other so much, and he was all that I had in the world; I had no brothers and sisters to share my sorrow with me.
I had gone some distance on my way, when I heard the sound of loud and bitter sobbing. Hastening my steps, I turned a bend of the road, and saw a little boy lying full length on the roadside, his face buried in the dusty, long grass, as he gave vent to the loud and uncontrolled grief which had attracted my attention; whilst a few yards off stood a little wire-haired fox-terrier, regarding him with a perplexed and wondering eye.
"What is the matter, dear?" I asked the distressed little mortal, whose tears were flowing so fast.
But he only mumbled something unintelligible, then burst into renewed sobs.
"Get up from that dusty grass and tell me what it is all about," I said encouragingly, as I stooped down and took hold of his hand.
He rose slowly from the ground and looked at me doubtfully, half sobbing the while; then I saw how pretty he was. Such a pretty little boy, but oh! such a dirty one. He had the sweetest violet eyes, the prettiest golden curls, the most rosy of rosy checks that you can imagine, and he was dressed in the dearest little white-duck sailor's suit that any little boy ever wore. But at that moment the violet eyes were all swollen with crying, the golden curls were all tumbled and tossed, the rosy cheeks all smudged where dirty fingers had been rubbing away the tears, whilst as for the white-duck suit—well, to be accurate, I ought not to call it white. But as the small person inside of it had apparently been recklessly rolling on the ground, it was not surprising that something of its original purity had departed.
"What is the matter?" I asked again.
"I took Jack out for a walk and he runned away and I runned after him, but he wouldn't stop!" he sobbed vehemently.
Then, leaving go of my hand, he made a sudden dash towards the truant, who as suddenly ran off. My small friend wept afresh.
"He thinks that you are playing with him," I said; "that's why he runs away. Wait a moment!" seeing he made a movement as if he were again about to chase the dog.
"Look!" I went on, and going gently towards Jack, I picked him up and placed him beside his little master.
"Come along, you little beggar!" the indignant little fellow exclaimed, and, seizing hold of the cause of the commotion, he walked, or rather staggered, off with him.
Poor Jack! He did look so unhappy. I think you would have been as sorry for him if you had seen him, as I was. Hugged closely in his master's arms, his hind-legs hanging down in a helpless, dislocated fashion, he gazed after me piteously over his master's shoulder, as if to say, "Can you do nothing to help me?"
He looked so funny and so miserable I could not help laughing. "What!" you say with some surprise, "and you were crying a little while before?"
Yes, my dear child; yet I could laugh in spite of that, for, you know, there is no better way of drying our own tears than to wipe away the tears of another—though they be but the ready tears of a little child.
So I laughed, and I laughed very heartily too.
"Wait," I said. "I fancy Jack is as uncomfortable as you, and that looks to me very uncomfortable. Supposing we see if both you and he cannot get home in an easier fashion. Why don't you put him on the ground? I think if you were to walk back quietly Jack would follow you now."
My new acquaintance wrinkled his dirty little tear-stained countenance doubtfully.
"P'r'aps he'll run away, 'cause he's runned away often and often whilst he's been out with me, and I sha'n't be able to catch him," he said woefully.
"Put him down and see," I suggested. And Jack was dropped on the ground, though as much I fancy from necessity as choice, since his weight was evidently becoming too much for his master.
"Are you far from home?" I asked.
"A long, long way," he replied forlornly. "All the way from Skeffington."
"That's where I'm going," I said, "so we can go together."
"Are you the lady what's coming to live with my Granny?" he asked, slipping his hand confidingly in mine, as we turned our steps homewards.
"Yes," I replied.
"I'm called Chris, but my proper name is Christopher," he stated, pronouncing it slowly and with some difficulty.
"It's very pretty," I answered, smiling at the diminutive little figure by my side, "but a very long name for such a little person."
"That's not my only name," he said proudly. "Did you think it was?"
And he laughed pityingly at my ignorance.
"What is your other?" I inquired, as I was intended to.
"Why, I have two others," he answered with still greater pride. "Three names altogether. Christopher, that's only like myself; and Godfrey, that's like my Uncle Godfrey; and Wyndham, that's like my Uncle Godfrey and my Granny too. All our names is Wyndham. What's your name?"
"Baggerley."
"Beggarley! That's something like what Uncle Godfrey calls me. He says I'm a little beggar."
"Baggerley, not Beggarley," I corrected him.
"But I would like to call you Beggarley, 'cause then you'd be called something the same as me. Mayn't I?"
A suspicious tremble in his voice warned me to give way, unless I was prepared for another outcry from that healthy little pair of lungs. The tears were evidently still near the surface. I therefore weakly yielded.
"Very well, dear," I replied in a resigned voice; and Chris, brightening at once, continued his conversation.
"I'm seven years of age. How old are you?" he next remarked, regarding me with interest.
"Too old to tell my age," I replied evasively.
"As old as my Granny?"
"I don't think so."
"Then how old?"
"Chris, you shouldn't ask so many questions," I said, with a touch of severity.
"I only wanted to know if you was too old to play with me," he said, looking at me reproachfully out of his great violet eyes.
"I will certainly play with you if you are a good boy," I replied, in a mollified voice.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" he exclaimed, dancing by my side with pleasure; "'cause I have no one to play with me. Granny is too old, and Briggs says when she runs it makes her legs ache as if they will break."
"I will run a little sometimes, but I can't promise to do much," I said cautiously.
"Oh, you needn't always run," he said, encouragingly. "There is one or two games where you needn't hardly move. Just a little tiny bit, you know. Will you play at trains?"
"What is it?"
"Oh, such a nice game! and you needn't run unless you like. I'll be the train and the engine, and you can be the guard and the steam-engine whistle. Then you need only walk about at the station and take the tickets, and just scream high up in your head like this" (and Chris gave vent to a loud and piercing scream—so unexpectedly loud and piercing that I almost started). "That's like the steam-engine goes, you know," he explained.
"I couldn't do that," I said with decision, when I had recovered from the shock.
"Then p'r'aps you'd like to play at lame horses," he suggested. "You needn't scream then, only jog up and down as if you'd got a stone in your foot. I'll be the coachman, but I won't make you run fast, 'cause it would be very cruel of me if you had a stone in your foot; wouldn't it?" he continued, virtuously.
"Very," I agreed, as we turned into the lodge-gates of Skeffington, and pursued our way up the drive.
"There's my Granny," he remarked presently, leaving go of my hand and running towards an old lady, who, with her work-table by her side and her knitting in her lap, was dozing comfortably in a big wicker chair on the shady side of the lawn.
"Granny! Granny!" shouted Chris excitedly, and at the top of his voice. "Here's the lady what's coming to live with you."
At the sound of his voice the old lady gave a nervous jump, opened her eyes, and, replacing her spectacles which had fallen off her nose, arose, looking round as she did so with a bewildered air.
"Miss Baggerley, I presume," she said with an old-fashioned courtesy of manner, and advancing towards me with outstretched hand. "But how is it that you are walking? Was not the carriage at the station to meet you?"
"No, she walked all the way; and she didn't know the way, and I showed it to her," Chris put in eagerly. "I showed it to her all myself."
"The carriage was not at the station. But it was not of the slightest consequence, I assure you," I replied, as soon as Chris allowed me to speak.
"But two miles and a half in this hot sun, and after your long journey too!" Mrs. Wyndham said apologetically. "I am most distressed, I am indeed. I have a new coachman who is not very bright. He has doubtless made some stupid mistake. Dear me, how unfortunate!"
"It didn't matter, 'cause I found her and I showed her the way," Chris reiterated with pride.
"Hush, my dear child!" Granny said gently. Then, for the first time becoming fully aware of his very unkempt condition, "What have you been doing, my darling?" she exclaimed with surprise; "and what do you mean by saying you met Miss Baggerley? Where did you meet her?"
"I took Jack for a walk and he runned away, and was such a naughty little dog. And I felled down and hurted myself, and I cried," Chris concluded with much pathos, as he saw Granny shake her head at the account of his doings.
"My darling, it was very wrong of you to leave the garden," she said. "You know when Briggs left you, she never thought for a moment that you would go outside the gates. And, oh, how dirty you are! Your nice white suit is all black! Miss Baggerley, I fear you met a disobedient, a very disobedient little boy indeed."
"I hurted myself very much," Chris remarked, in the most pathetic of voices.
Granny relented. "Where did you hurt yourself, my dear child?" she asked, with some anxiety.
"On my knee, and on my face, and on my hand," he replied still with melancholy.
"Go at once, darling, to Briggs, and ask her to bathe all your bruises with warm water," she said. "Or, if they are very bad, tell her that she will find some lotion in my room."
"Wasn't Jack a naughty little dog?" he asked, recovering, as he held up a smudgy little face to be kissed.
"I'm afraid it was someone else who was naughty," she answered, with an attempt at severity; "yes, very naughty indeed. But we'll say no more about it, for I think you are sorry; are you not, my Chris?"
"Very, very sorry, Granny," he replied, but more cheerfully than penitently, as he ran off, relieved at the matter ending in so easy and pleasant a fashion.
"I'm afraid I spoil him dreadfully," Granny said, looking fondly after the retreating little figure. 'You're ruining the little beggar'; that's what my son Godfrey tells me. But then my Chris has no father or mother, so I feel very tenderly towards him. He has such a lovable nature too, it is difficult not to spoil him. You have doubtless seen that for yourself already, have you not?
"And now, my dear," she added kindly, "I'm sure you must want your tea after your long journey, and that hot walk afterwards. It was a most unfortunate mistake about the carriage. I cannot tell you how distressed, how very distressed, I am about it."