In the fulness of her heart Mrs Thornton told this story at least four times in the year, almost in the same words, and always exhibiting the rings. Her kindly counsels, and the cogent reasons which she urged to Christopher why he should become a scholar, at length awoke his slumbering energies. For the first time, he stood dux of his class, and once there, he stood like a nail driven into a wall, which might not be removed. His teacher, who was a man of considerable knowledge and reading (though perhaps not what those calling themselves learned would call a man of learning—for learned is a very vague word, and is as frequently applied where real ignorance exists, as to real knowledge)—that teacher who had formerly said that Christopher could not be a Spaniard, because that he had not solidity enough within him—now said that he believed he was one, and not a descendant of Don Quixote; but, if of anybody, a descendant of him who gave the immortal Don "a local habitation and a name;" for he now predicted that Christopher May would be a genius.
But, though the orphan at length rose to the head of his class, and though he passed from one class to another, he was still the same wild, boisterous, and daring boy, when they ran shouting from the school, cap in hand, and waving it over their heads, like prisoners relieved from confinement. If there was a quarrel to decide in the whole school, the orphan Christopher was the umpire. If a weak boy, or a cowardly boy, was threatened by another, Christopher became his champion. If a sparrow's nest was to be robbed, to achieve which a tottering gable was to be climbed, he did the deed; yea, or when a football match was to be played on Eastern E'en (or, as it was there called, Pancake Tuesday), if the orphan once got the ball at his foot, no man could again touch it.
His birth-day was not known; but he could scarce have completed his thirteenth year when his best friend died. Good, kind-hearted Jenny Thornton—than whom a better woman never breathed—was gathered with the dead; and her last request to her husband was, that he would continue to be the friend and protector of the poor orphan, and especially that he would take care of the rings which had been found upon his mother's hand. Now Peter was so overwhelmed with grief at the idea of being parted from her who, for twenty years, had been dearer to him than his own existence, that he could scarce hear her dying words. He followed her coffin like a broken-hearted man; and he sobbed over her grave like a weaned child on the lap of its mother. But many months had not passed when it was evident that the orphan Christopher was the only sincere mourner for Jenny Thornton. The widower was still in the prime and strength of his days, being not more than two-and-forty. He was a prosperous man—one who had had a cheap farm and a good one; and it was believed that Peter was able to purchase the land which he rented. Many, indeed, said that the tenant was a better man than his master—by a "better man," meaning a richer man.
Fair maidens, therefore, and widows to boot, were anxious to obtain the vacant hand of the wealthy widower. Some said that Peter would never forget Jenny, and that he would never marry again, for that she had been to him a wife amongst a thousand: and they spoke of the bitterness of his grief.
"Ay," said others, "but we ne'er like to see the tears run owre fast down the cheeks of a man. They show that the heart will soon drown its sorrow. Human nature is very frail; and a thing that we thought we would love for ever last year, we find that we only occasionally remember that we loved it this. If there be a real mourner for the loss of Mrs Thornton, it's the poor, foreign orphan laddie. Peter, notwithstanding all his greeting at the grave, will get another wife before twelve months go round."
They who said so were in the right. Poor Jenny had not been in her grave eleven months and twenty days, when Peter led another Mrs Thornton from the altar. When he had brought her home, he introduced to her the orphan Christopher.
"Now, dear," said he, "here is a laddie—none know whom he belongs to. I found him one morning, when he was a mere infant, screaming on the breast o' his dead mother. Since then I have brought him up. My late wife was very fond o' him—so, indeed, was I; and it is my request that ye will be kind to him. Here," added he, "are two rings which his mother had upon her fingers when I found her a cold corpse. Poor fellow, if anything ever enable him to discover who his parents were, it will be them, though there is but little chance that he ever will. However, I have been as a father to him for more than ten years, and I trust, love, that ye will act towards him as a mother. Come forward, Christopher," continued he, "and welcome your new mother."
The boy came forward, hanging his head, and bashfully stretched out his hand towards her; but the new-made Mrs Thornton had his mother's jewelled ring in her hand, and she observed him not. He stood with his eyes now bent upon the ground, now upon her, and again upon his mother's ring, as she turned it round and round.
"Well," said she, addressing her husband, and still turning it round as she spoke, "it is, indeed, a beautiful ring—a very beautiful ring!"
"I am glad ye think so," said he; "she had been a bonny woman that wore it."