The neighbours wondered a little, and some looked severely on this deed of kindness of Mr. Boyd's.
The person who looked most severely at it was Miss Amelia Pinckney, who kept a small haberdasher's and milliner's shop opposite Mr. Boyd's. Now neighbours in the Yarmouth rows, especially opposite neighbours, are very near neighbours indeed; and if it was almost possible to shake hands over the heads of the passers-by from the upper windows, it was quite possible to hear what was said, especially in summer, when the narrow casements were thrown open to admit what air was stirring.
Thus Miss Pinckney's voice, which was neither soft nor low, reached many ears in the near vicinity, and Mr. Boyd was well aware that she had called him "a foolish old fellow," adding that "the workhouse was the place for the child, and that she had no patience with his folly."
Truth to tell, Miss Pinckney had but little patience with any one. She had, as she conceived, done a noble deed by allowing her stepsister and her boy to take up their abode with her. But for this deed she took out very heavy interest; and poor Mrs. Harrison, who was, as her sister continually reminded her, "worse than a widow"—a deserted wife—had to pay dearly for the kindness which had been done her. Many a time she had determined to leave the uncongenial roof, and go forth to face the world alone; but then she was penniless, and although she worked, and worked hard too, to keep herself and her boy, by executing all Miss Pinckney's millinery orders, and acting also as general servant as well as shopwoman of the establishment, still she was never allowed to forget that she was under an obligation to her sister, and that she ought to be "thankful for all her mercies!"
"It is not as if it was only yourself, Patience. Think what it is to have a boy like yours! Enough to drive one mad, with his monkey tricks and his impudence. I don't say that I regret taking you in. Blood is thicker than water, and you are my poor father's child, though he had cause to rue the day he married your silly mother—he never had a day's peace after that."
Such sentiments, expressed with freedom and without intermission, were a trial in themselves; but lately things had assumed a far more serious aspect.
Jack had been a mere baby when first he and his mother had been taken in by Miss Pinckney. But eleven years had changed the baby of two years old into a strong, self-willed boy of thirteen, impatient of control, setting all his aunt's rules at defiance, and coming in from school every day, more antagonistic, and more determined, as he said, to "pay the old auntie back in her own coin."
In vain Mrs. Harrison had remonstrated; in vain she had striven to keep the peace. For ever before her eyes was the dread that Jack would carry his oft-repeated threat into execution, and go to sea. Then, indeed, the light of her stricken life would finally go from her, and she would have nothing left to live for!
Jack was a boy likely, in spite of all his faults, to fill a mother's heart with pride. He was the picture of merry, happy boyhood, with a high spirit, which was like a horse without a bridle, and carried him away beyond all bounds of tongue and temper. But to his mother he could be gentle and penitent, acknowledging his faults, and showing real sorrow at having grieved her by warfare with his aunt. There was an excellent boys' school in Yarmouth, where he made good progress with his lessons, and was a favourite with his school-fellows; and the master, though often irritated by his tricks and carelessness, found it hard to be angry with him, or to inflict the punishment he deserved.
It is possible that Jack would have been able to get on more peaceably at home, had there not been another person frequently at his aunt's home with whom he waged a perpetual warfare. This person was a tall, meagre-looking young man, a clerk in an Excise office, who made great profession of being better than his neighbours.