“Nay, sir, it isn’t,” said Beth—she always said “sir” to him, whatever his title was—“It’s gone half-past seven.” And she beamed and nodded, perfectly at ease in this solemn assembly. With her (who counted of course as one of it) there were eight in that little stuffy room, where we fidgeted and sat and read. And what would not I give, who with one other alone survive from those evenings, to have an hour of them again, in that inconvenient proximity, surrounded by the huge love of a family so devoted and critical of each other, with the two amongst them whom nobody criticized, my mother with her spectacles on her forehead, and Beth looking in at the door?
Then jaundice descended on me like the blur of a London fog, and through the depression of it, there seemed no ray that could penetrate. But my mother managed to effect that entry, as of course she always would, and she came back one dripping afternoon from Grasmere, with a packet in her hand.
“As it’s all so hopeless,” she said, “I bought some lead soldiers. Oh, do let us have a battle.”
She poured a torrent of these metal warriors on to a table by my bed. There were cannons with springs that shot out peas, and battalions of infantry, and troops of cavalry. It was she, you must understand, who wanted to play soldiers, and to a jaundiced cynic of twenty that necessarily was quite irresistible. Who could have resisted a mother who asked you at her age to play soldiers? We shot down regiments at a time, for when you enfilade a line of lead soldiers with a pea, if you hit the end man, he topples against the next one, and the next against the next, till there are none left standing. The peas flew about the room, rattled against washing-basins and tapped at the window-panes, and I felt much better. Then we bombarded Beth who came to know if I wouldn’t like some dinner, and as I wouldn’t, it was time to go to sleep.
“A nice little bit of beef,” began Beth.
“If you say beef again, I shall be sick,” said the invalid.
“Nay, you won’t,” said Beth hopefully.
Then to my mother:
“Eh, dear, do go and dress,” she said, “or you’ll keep everybody waiting.”
My mother shot a final pea.