"Have I been and killed mother too? Will mother die, sir, do you think, the same as my father did, through me?"
"No, my dear boy. Your mother will soon be well again, when she sees you. She keeps on calling 'Tommy, Tommy!' But they say that you refuse to go to her."
"They told me, sir, that she never would bear the sight of me again, as long as she lived. And she keeps on saying, 'Wicked Tommy, wicked Tommy, why ever were you born?' And I wish I never had been, sir."
"Listen to me for a moment, Tommy. Not one word of that is true. What she may have said at first, I cannot tell, and you must not think of; for she cannot have known what she said. I am sure, that you have a tender heart, and not a bitter one, my child. You have been afflicted heavily, and you blame yourself unjustly. Your only fault was sudden and thoughtless joy; and your mother sees that now. She wants you to forgive her, for she behaved unkindly, and she feels it. And if you wish to make her well, go up, and see her, and give her a kiss, and let her talk, while you say little. Then she will get some sleep to-night; she has not had a wink, since her sad shock. And to-morrow, she will be well almost, and able to face her sorrow calmly, for her illness is more of the mind than body. But go, and do what I told you first; and then I will take you to the door."
Thus it was that this good man saved us, or me at least, from black despair, and consequent insanity; for who can be sane, when hope is dead? Everything came to pass, exactly as he had foretold it; though I will not attempt to describe what passed, between dear mother and myself. Such matters are more for the heart, than tongue. Enough, that when she was quite worn out, with feeling things, and talking of them, she fell into a smiling sleep, and I smoothed the bows of her night-cap, and tried not to believe how pale she was, and how many little sheaves of silver grief had set up in her fine dark hair.
Then, when she was fast asleep, after having managed, with my help, to get through a calf's sweetbread—which Mr. Cope himself went all the way to Mr. Chumps, to fetch for us—and there was no likelihood of her wanting me till morning, my tutor said,
"Tommy, you look respectable; which could hardly be said of you just now. Get your nightclothes, and whatever you want, and reverse the accustomed walk. Come with me to Kentish Town and I will bring you back in a day or two. But I cannot give you much time to get ready, and you will have to walk six miles an hour."
If he had told me to take his hand, for an urgent appointment with the Devil, I should have done it, without two thoughts; but the only engagement he had to keep, was with his congregation. This was at eight o'clock in the evening; and counting me, and a baby, there were eight of us there for the good of it, without including the minister. This made me think, with a turn of tears, of a story my father used to tell, of his asking the Clerk at some church, why the Vicar had service at five o'clock of an afternoon on week-days, instead of seven, or eight, or nine. "Lord bless you, sir," the Clerk replied, "if we was to go into them long hours, we should never keep up with the time of day; five is our number at the outside, and no more." And although the joke was very small, it made me smile, as a bad joke does; when I never expected to have another smile. The service, moreover, did me good; though I never heard a word of it.
He put me with the other boys, next day; and they were very kind to me, knowing the trouble that I was in. Jack Windsor was not there now; because Mr. Cope had plainly told his father, that he found it useless to go on with him, unless there were any downright need of a standard to pass—and it must be a low one—for the Army, or for medicine, or for Holy Orders. For all lower purposes, his tutor said that he was quite up to the average; he could write and spell, quite well enough, and was up to the mark in arithmetic. But of Latin and Greek, if by great pressure, any more were ground into him, there was no chance of it staying longer, than the time his nails (which he was always biting) would take to grow, if he left off. Mr. Windsor answered loftily—for, together with his wife, he had always taken Jack to be a wonder—that he considered his son too good, by a d—d sight, for any of the lines of life Mr. Cope had been kind enough to mention, and he would take away poor Jack that day, and put him into his own office; where he would learn life, instead of burying dead languages.
Now, my dear father was in the habit of speaking his mind quite plainly; but he never would have spoken like that, so rudely; and sooner would he have bitten his tongue, very severely, I am sure, than have sworn, in the presence of a parson!