A STORY OF A WOODEN HORSE.
CHAPTER V.
A MAN OF SCIENCE.—MAURICE PARTS WITH THE HORSE.—JOURNEY TO NICE.—RETURN HOME.—AN UNEXPECTED VISIT.
At the close of the last chapter I told you that an old gentleman had been looking on from a little distance, while Maurice and Adrienne were discussing the sale of the horse. At last the old gentleman came up to Maurice, and said,—
“Are you going to sell that little wooden horse, whose mechanism is so ingenious?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Maurice, crying while he spoke.
“You seem very sorry to part with it. Tell me exactly why you sell it.”
Maurice pointed to the poor family, sitting there against the railing of the garden; and related all that had passed.
“You are a good boy,” said the gentleman; “listen now: I also wish to help this poor woman. Will you let me join you in the good work? That will not make your merit the less.”
“Oh, I don’t think about my own merit,” said Maurice.
“You are right,” replied the gentleman; “charity does not think of self. I mean to say, if you would practise charity in a true and holy spirit, you must forget yourself completely. You are too young, perhaps, to understand all that; but if you remember my words, they will grow up in your mind as a young tree grows in a good soil. Now, as to helping this poor woman and her children: she wants two hundred francs, you say. I will give her half that sum from myself; and I will lend you another hundred francs, that you may give them to her on your own part. Then instead of selling your clever little horse to this young lady, you shall leave it with me for a time as security for the repayment of the hundred francs. Your mamma gives you money sometimes, I daresay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well; put aside all the money she gives you till you have got together a hundred francs. It won’t take you long. You must do without sugar-plums, and cakes, and many a toy that you would otherwise buy. In less than six months I have no doubt you will have the money. Let me see; this is the twelfth of February: we will fix the twelfth of August as the day when you will bring me the hundred francs and take back your horse.”
“But suppose I have not the money by that time?” urged Maurice.
“Oh, you’ll have it. All I fear is that your father or mother may give it you on purpose to pay me, and not let you save it out of your usual pocket-money. But I will see them or write to them about that. Remember, my dear boy, that an action is only really noble when it requires self-sacrifice of some sort.”
My little readers may imagine with what eagerness Maurice accepted this proposition. Adrienne at first was very angry, and sulked and pouted for a few minutes; then seeing some young friends come into the gardens, she ran off to play with them, and seemed to forget the horse very soon.
The gentleman tore out a leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote on it in pencil a formal acknowledgment of his having received the wooden horse in pledge for a loan of one hundred francs; the horse to be restored within six months on repayment of the money. He signed his name to the paper, and handed it to Maurice.
HE WENT AWAY, LEADING CRESSIDA BY THE BRIDLE.
On reading it, Maurice was surprised to see the name of Duberger. He recognised it as the name of one of the most distinguished members of the Academy of sciences; a name of European celebrity. The little boy looked up at his new friend with an expression of curiosity and admiration, at which the latter seemed both amused and pleased.
Mr. Duberger at that time was not really old—at least not old for a philosopher and man of science. He looked old because his long hair was grey, his figure was stooping, and his dress neglected. But, for all that, his appearance was calculated to inspire respect and sympathy, while his face wore an expression at once of goodness and intelligence. He embraced Maurice, bidding him tell his father and mother all that had happened; he went away leading Cressida by the bridle, and leaving Maurice to give the two hundred francs to the poor woman himself.
Thus at last Maurice and his horse were parted, though after all he was not breaking his promise to Fritz. He had resisted the temptation of exchanging Cressida for Eusèbe’s pretty goat—the gentle, graceful Jeanne. He had resisted persuasions, entreaties, and the offer of many a beautiful toy. Even when his uncle, by way of trying him, pretended that he wished to have the little mechanical horse to amuse him on board ship, Maurice had remembered, and still kept, his promise. Now, he parted with Cressida for the sake of helping a poor family in distress; and Fritz had expressly said that for such an object only Maurice might sell the horse. Besides, was he not to have the horse again in six months?
When he presented the money to the poor woman, she showed some confusion at receiving so large a sum from the hands of a child. Maurice explained to the little girl, who acted as interpreter, that he was not their only benefactor.
“Duberger! Maurice de Roisel!” the poor little girl repeated several times; then continued, “I will teach my brothers to say those two names; we will never forget them; they will be as dear to us as the names of our own father and mother. Our name is Kirchner: our father is Leopold Kirchner, formerly of Nuremburg, where he was a blacksmith well known throughout the city for his skill. Now he is rich, and a proprietor of land in the United States of America, a country beyond the seas a long way from here.”
The mother took Maurice’s two hands in hers, and said some words in German.
“My mother says,” explained the little daughter, “that you are born with divine charity in your heart, and she prays God to lead you by the hand through your life, on the path that leads to heaven. She prays, besides, that happiness may fall on you and all who are dear to you.”
“Pray, above all,” replied my little friend, deeply touched, “that my dear father may be restored to health.”
With these words he took leave of the poor family to whom he had proved such a benefactor, and hastened home, anxious to learn how his father was going on.
“My father!—how is he?” he asked of the servant, as the door was opened.
“My master has been asking for you, sir,” replied the servant; then, seeing the tears in Maurice’s eyes, he added: “but you must not let him see you cry, or he will think he is worse than he really is.”
“The tears come to my eyes in spite of me,” replied my little friend, drying his eyes and checking his tears as well as he could.
Maurice went into his father’s room, which appeared almost dark to him. The poor invalid’s eyes were weak and could not support the light. Maurice, impressed by the silence and darkness of the room, walked as quietly as possible on tiptoe up to his mother, whom he could distinguish sitting by the side of the bed. She was praying silently to herself, but on seeing her little boy, she took him in her arms, and leant with him over his father’s bed, who pressed him to his heart.
“My child, my dear child!”
Maurice could restrain his tears no longer, and his father observed it.
“Why do you cry, my darling boy?” said he; “you think me very ill? But don’t be alarmed; God is all powerful, and may save me yet. Take courage; it will all pass away. I shall be cured before long; and, when the weather gets fine, I will take walks in the Luxembourg gardens with you and Cressida. Do not cry like that, my child, you will make yourself ill.”
My little friend’s emotion was uncontrollable, and he was led out of the room by his mother, while the poor father sank back upon his pillow exhausted with the few words he had spoken.
The next morning, when Jacques came into Maurice’s room to wake him, the first words spoken by the little boy were to inquire after his father. Jacques replied that the doctor, who had been there late the evening before, had declared that his patient was better, and had told Mrs. de Roisel that he had great hope now of his recovery. Maurice felt happier than he had done since he was present at the consultation of the doctors the morning before. Then, as he looked round the room, he saw Cressida’s empty stable, and occupied as his thoughts were by his father, he still felt inclined to shed a tear at the sight.
“Do you know, Jacques,” he said, “I had a dream about Fritz in the night. I thought that I saw him, and I was afraid he would ask me what I had done with Cressida; but instead of that, he took me in his arms, and embraced me, and called me his dear good boy.”
The hope expressed by the doctor that Mr. de Roisel would yet recover proved to be well founded, and when the month of April came on he had regained his strength sufficiently to bear a journey to Nice, so as to escape the sudden changes of temperature to which Paris is subject in the spring. He made the journey, accompanied by his wife and son. Arriving at Nice, they took a pretty villa, having a view of the sea on one side, and, on the other, delicious garden, in which my little friend was surprised to find rose-trees, lilacs, and other plants in full bloom, which at Paris had scarcely begun to bud.
THEY HEARD A GREAT NOISE OF CRACKING OF WHIPS.
The climate of Nice agreed with Mr. de Roisel so well that they stayed there nearly four months, and it was already the beginning of August when the family returned once more to their own home—the pretty comfortable old house where I first introduced Maurice to my little readers. Maurice was heartily glad to be back again at his own country-home, where he had his own little garden, where he knew everybody in the village, and where even the trees in the wood, and the little winding river with its pretty water-lilies, seemed like old friends to him.
The very first day of his arrival at home, the little boy ran off to the cottage of Fritz, to see if he had returned. He found it shut up, and no one in the village had heard anything about him since his departure. Although Maurice felt rather anxious at Fritz’s prolonged absence, it yet afforded him a sort of satisfaction; for he would have been sorry that Fritz, on their first meeting, should find him without the horse. A few days more, and he hoped to be in possession of it again.
In fact he had already collected together, out of the savings of his pocket-money, the sum of a hundred francs; and the day after their arrival at home, his father wrote to Mr. Duberger to say that he should have the pleasure of bringing his little boy, on the twelfth of the month, to pay him a visit and to redeem the horse.
On the morning of the twelfth, my little friend and his father were just preparing to start, when they heard a sound of carriage wheels and horses’ hoofs, accompanied by a great noise of cracking of whips, on the drive leading to the house. A minute afterwards a carriage with four horses and postillions drew up at the door.
From this carriage descended Eusèbe and his father. They were not expected, and never were visitors less wished for. Mr. de Malassise began by making their excuses for arriving so unexpectedly, and explained the reason. He said that Eusèbe had heard only the day before of Maurice’s return, and a violent fancy had seized him suddenly to come and pay a visit to his cousin. It had been impossible to persuade Eusèbe to delay the visit till they could write and give notice of their intention. Eusèbe, he said, had insisted upon starting early that morning; and had he been thwarted, that terrible attack of nervous fever, so much dreaded by his parents, might have come on at last. So they had made the journey with post-horses, and there they were!
It was a sad disappointment to Maurice that his visit to Mr. Duberger should be put off, but there was no alternative; and after all it was only a delay of perhaps a couple of days. Cressida could remain without inconvenience for another forty-eight hours at Mr. Duberger’s.
So thought our little Maurice; but we shall see presently what serious consequences arose from that delay of only a couple of days.