"You won't see a prettier pair, I think, this summer's day, sir," said the good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr. Sedley, with his umbrella, walked by the side of the children, who enjoyed each other and the pony enormously. In later years they often talked of that first meeting.
But this is anticipating our story, for between the time of their first ride together, and the time when circumstances brought them together again, the little chaps saw nothing of one another for a number of years, during which the incidents of their lives differed as widely as did the lives of their parents.
About the time when the little boys first met, Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet, father of Pitt and Rawdon Crawley, died, and Rebecca and her husband hastened to Queen's Crawley, the old family home, where Rebecca had once been governess, to shed a last tear over the departed Baronet. Rebecca was not bowed down with grief, we must confess, but keenly alive to the benefits which might come to herself and Rawdon if she could please Sir Pitt Crawley, the new Baronet, and Lady Jane his wife, a simple-minded woman mostly absorbed in the affairs of her nursery. This interest aroused Becky's private scorn, but the first thing that clever little lady did was to attack Lady Jane at her vulnerable point. After being conducted to the apartments prepared for her, and having taken off her bonnet and cloak, Becky asked her sister-in-law in what more she could be useful.
"What I should like best," she added, "would be to see your dear little nursery," at which the two ladies looked very kindly at each other, and went to the nursery hand in hand.
Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years old, as the most charming little love in the world; and the boy, Pitt Blinkie Southdown, a little fellow of two years, pale, heavy-eyed, and large-headed, she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in size, intelligence and beauty.
The funeral over, Rebecca and her husband remained for a visit at Queen's Crawley, which assumed its wonted aspect. Rawdon senior received constant bulletins respecting little Rawdon, who was left behind in London, and sent messages of his own. "I am very well," he wrote. "I hope you are very well. I hope mamma is very well. The pony is very well. Grey takes me to ride in the Park. I can canter. I met the little boy who rode before. He cried when he cantered. I do not cry."
Rawdon read these letters to his brother, and Lady Jane, who was delighted with them, gave Rebecca a banknote, begging her to buy a present with it for her little nephew.
Like all other good things, the visit came to an end, and one night the
London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into Piccadilly, and
Briggs had made a beautiful fire on the hearth in Curzon Street, and
little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.
At this time he was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attaching himself to all who were good to him: to the pony, to Lord Southdown, who gave him the horse; to the groom who had charge of the pony; to Molly the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night and with good things from the dinner; to Briggs, his meek, devoted attendant, whom he plagued and laughed at; and to his father especially. Here, as he grew to be about eight years old, his attachment may be said to have ended. The beautiful mother vision had faded away after a while. During nearly two years his mother had scarcely spoken to the child. She disliked him. He had the measles and the whooping cough. He bored her. One day when he was standing at the landing-place, having crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound of his mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne, the drawing-room door opening suddenly discovered the little spy, who but a moment before had been rapt in delight and listening to the music.
His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes on the ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the inner room, and fled down below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of grief.