John Halifax, Gentleman

CHAPTER III

When I was young, and long after then, at intervals, I had the very useless, sometimes harmful, and invariably foolish habit of keeping a diary. To me, at least, it has been less foolish and harmful than to most; and out of it, together with much drawn out of the stores of a memory, made preternaturally vivid by a long introverted life, which, colourless itself, had nothing to do but to reflect and retain clear images of the lives around it—out of these two sources I have compiled the present history.

Therein, necessarily, many blank epochs occur. These I shall not try to fill up, but merely resume the thread of narration as recollection serves.

Thus, after this first day, many days came and went before I again saw John Halifax—almost before I again thought of him. For it was one of my seasons of excessive pain; when I found it difficult to think of anything beyond those four grey-painted walls; where morning, noon, and night slipped wearily away, marked by no changes, save from daylight to candle-light, from candle-light to dawn.

Afterwards, as my pain abated, I began to be haunted by occasional memories of something pleasant that had crossed my dreary life; visions of a brave, bright young face, ready alike to battle with and enjoy the world. I could hear the voice that, speaking to me, was always tender with pity—yet not pity enough to wound: I could see the peculiar smile just creeping round his grave mouth—that irrepressible smile, indicating the atmosphere of thorough heart-cheerfulness, which ripens all the fruits of a noble nature, and without which the very noblest has about it something unwholesome, blank, and cold.

I wondered if John had ever asked for me. At length I put the question.

Jael "thought he had—but wasn't sure. Didn't bother her head about such folk."

"If he asked again, might he come up-stairs?"

"No."

I was too weak to combat, and Jael was too strong an adversary; so I lay for days and days in my sick room, often thinking, but never speaking, about the lad. Never once asking for him to come to me; not though it would have been life to me to see his merry face—I longed after him so.

At last I broke the bonds of sickness—which Jael always riveted as long and as tightly as she could—and plunged into the outer world again.

It was one market-day—Jael being absent—that I came down-stairs. A soft, bright, autumn morning, mild as spring, coaxing a wandering robin to come and sing to me, loud as a quire of birds, out of the thinned trees of the Abbey yard. I opened the window to hear him, though all the while in mortal fear of Jael. I listened, but caught no tone of her sharp voice, which usually came painfully from the back regions of the house; it would ill have harmonised with the sweet autumn day and the robin's song. I sat, idly thinking so, and wondering whether it were a necessary and universal fact that human beings, unlike the year, should become harsh and unlovely as they grow old.

My robin had done singing, and I amused myself with watching a spot of scarlet winding down the rural road, our house being on the verge where Norton Bury melted into "the country." It turned out to be the cloak of a well-to-do young farmer's wife riding to market in her cart beside her jolly-looking spouse. Very spruce and self-satisfied she appeared, and the market-people turned to stare after her, for her costume was a novelty then. Doubtless, many thought as I did, how much prettier was scarlet than duffle grey.

Behind the farmer's cart came another, which at first I scarcely noticed, being engrossed by the ruddy face under the red cloak. The farmer himself nodded good-humouredly, but Mrs. Scarlet-cloak turned up her nose. "Oh, pride, pride!" I thought, amused, and watched the two carts, the second of which was with difficulty passing the farmer's, on the opposite side of the narrow road. At last it succeeded in getting in advance, to the young woman's evident annoyance, until the driver, turning, lifted his hat to her with such a merry, frank, pleasant smile.

Surely, I knew that smile, and the well-set head with its light curly hair. Also, alas! I knew the cart with relics of departed sheep dangling out behind. It was our cart of skins, and John Halifax was driving it.

"John! John!" I called out, but he did not hear, for his horse had taken fright at the red cloak, and required a steady hand. Very steady the boy's hand was, so that the farmer clapped his two great fists, and shouted "Bray-vo!"

But John—my John Halifax—he sat in his cart, and drove. His appearance was much as when I first saw him—shabbier, perhaps, as if through repeated drenchings; this had been a wet autumn, Jael had told me. Poor John!—well might he look gratefully up at the clear blue sky to-day; ay, and the sky never looked down on a brighter, cheerier face, the same face which, whatever rags it surmounted, would, I believe, have ennobled them all.

I leaned out, watching him approach our house; watching him with so great pleasure that I forgot to wonder whether or no he would notice me. He did not at first, being busy over his horse; until, just as the notion flashed across my mind that he was passing by our house—also, how keenly his doing so would pain me—the lad looked up.

A beaming smile of surprise and pleasure, a friendly nod, then all at once his manner changed; he took off his cap, and bowed ceremoniously to his master's son.

For the moment I was hurt; then I could not but respect the honest pride which thus intimated that he knew his own position, and wished neither to ignore nor to alter it; all advances between us must evidently come from my side. So, having made his salutation, he was driving on, when I called after him,

"John! John!"

"Yes, sir. I am so glad you're better again."

"Stop one minute till I come out to you." And I crawled on my crutches to the front door, forgetting everything but the pleasure of meeting him—forgetting even my terror of Jael. What could she say? even though she held nominally the Friends' doctrine—obeyed in the letter at least, 'Call no man your master'—what would Jael say if she found me, Phineas Fletcher, talking in front of my father's respectable mansion with the vagabond lad who drove my father's cart of skins?

But I braved her, and opened the door. "John, where are you?"

"Here" (he stood at the foot of the steps, with the reins on his arm); "did you want me?"

"Yes. Come up here; never mind the cart."

But that was not John's way. He led the refractory horse, settled him comfortably under a tree, and gave him in charge to a small boy. Then he bounded back across the road, and was up the steps to my side in a single leap.

"I had no notion of seeing you. They said you were in bed yesterday." (Then he HAD been inquiring for me!) "Ought you to be standing at the door this cold day?"

"It's quite warm," I said, looking up at the sunshine, and shivering.

"Please go in."

"If you'll come too."

He nodded, then put his arm round mine, and helped me in, as if he had been a big elder brother, and I a little ailing child. Well nursed and carefully guarded as I had always been, it was the first time in my life I ever knew the meaning of that rare thing, tenderness. A quality different from kindliness, affectionateness, or benevolence; a quality which can exist only in strong, deep, and undemonstrative natures, and therefore in its perfection is oftenest found in men. John Halifax had it more than any one, woman or man, that I ever knew.

"I'm glad you're better," he said, and said no more. But one look of his expressed as much as half-a-dozen sympathetic sentences of other people.

"And how have you been, John? How do you like the tan-yard? Tell me frankly."

He pulled a wry face, though comical withal, and said, cheerily, "Everybody must like what brings them their daily bread. It's a grand thing for me not to have been hungry for nearly thirty days."

"Poor John!" I put my hand on his wrist—his strong, brawny wrist. Perhaps the contrast involuntarily struck us both with the truth—good for both to learn—that Heaven's ways are not so unequal as we sometimes fancy they seem.

"I have so often wanted to see you, John. Couldn't you come in now?"

He shook his head, and pointed to the cart. That minute, through the open hall-door, I perceived Jael sauntering leisurely home from market.

Now, if I was a coward, it was not for myself this time. The avalanche of ill-words I knew must fall—but it should not fall on him, if I could help it.

"Jump up on your cart, John. Let me see how well you can drive. There—good-bye, for the present. Are you going to the tan-yard?"

"Yes—for the rest of the day." And he made a face as if he did not quite revel in that delightful prospect. No wonder!

"I'll come and see you there this afternoon."

"No?"—with a look of delighted surprise. "But you must not—you ought not."

"But I WILL!" And I laughed to hear myself actually using that phrase. What would Jael have said?

What—as she arrived just in time to receive a half-malicious, half-ceremonious bow from John, as he drove off—what that excellent woman did say I have not the slightest recollection. I only remember that it did not frighten and grieve me as such attacks used to do; that, in her own vernacular, it all "went in at one ear, and out at t'other;" that I persisted in looking out until the last glimmer of the bright curls had disappeared down the sunshiny road—then shut the front door, and crept in, content.

Between that time and dinner I sat quiet enough even to please Jael. I was thinking over the beautiful old Bible story, which latterly had so vividly impressed itself on my mind; thinking of Jonathan, as he walked "by the stone Ezel," with the shepherd-lad, who was to be king of Israel. I wondered whether he would have loved him, and seen the same future perfection in him, had Jonathan, the king's son, met the poor David keeping his sheep among the folds of Bethlehem.

When my father came home he found me waiting in my place at table. He only said, "Thee art better then, my son?" But I knew how glad he was to see me. He gave token of this by being remarkably conversible over our meal—though, as usual, his conversation had a sternly moral tone, adapted to the improvement of what he persisted in considering my "infant" mind. It had reference to an anecdote Dr. Jessop had just been telling him—about a little girl, one of our doctor's patients, who in some passionate struggle had hurt herself very much with a knife.

"Let this be a warning to thee, my son, not to give way to violent passions." (My good father, thought I, there is little fear.) "For, this child—I remember her father well, for he lived at Kingswell here; he was violent too, and much given to evil ways before he went abroad—Phineas, this child, this miserable child, will bear the mark of the wound all her life."

"Poor thing!" said I, absently.

"No need to pity her; her spirit is not half broken yet. Thomas Jessop said to me, 'That little Ursula—'"

"Is her name Ursula?" And I called to mind the little girl who had tried to give some bread to the hungry John Halifax, and whose cry of pain we heard as the door shut upon her. Poor little lady! how sorry I was. I knew John would be so infinitely sorry too—and all to no purpose—that I determined not to tell him anything about it. The next time I saw Dr. Jessop I asked him after the child, and learned she had been taken away somewhere, I forgot where; and then the whole affair slipped from my memory.

"Father," said I, when he ceased talking—and Jael, who always ate her dinner at the same time and table as ourselves, but "below the salt," had ceased nodding a respectful running comment on all he said—"Father?"

"Well, my son."

"I should like to go with thee to the tan-yard this afternoon."

Here Jael, who had been busy pulling back the table, replacing the long row of chairs, and re-sanding the broad centre Sahara of the room to its dreary, pristine aridness, stopped, fairly aghast with amazement.

"Abel—Abel Fletcher! the lad's just out of his bed; he is no more fit to—"

"Pshaw, woman!" was the sharp answer. "So, Phineas, thee art really strong enough to go out?"

"If thou wilt take me, father."

He looked pleased, as he always did when I used the Friends' mode of phraseology—for I had not been brought up in the Society; this having been the last request of my mother, rigidly observed by her husband. The more so, people said, as while she lived they had not been quite happy together. But whatever he was to her, in their brief union, he was a good father to me, and for his sake I have always loved and honoured the Society of Friends.

"Phineas," said he (after having stopped a volley of poor Jael's indignations, beseechings, threats, and prognostications, by a resolute "Get the lad ready to go")—"Phineas, my son, I rejoice to see thy mind turning towards business. I trust, should better health be vouchsafed thee, that some day soon—"

"Not just yet, father," said I, sadly—for I knew what he referred to, and that it would never be. Mentally and physically I alike revolted from my father's trade. I held the tan-yard in abhorrence—to enter it made me ill for days; sometimes for months and months I never went near it. That I should ever be what was my poor father's one desire, his assistant and successor in his business, was, I knew, a thing totally impossible.

It hurt me a little that my project of going with him to-day should in any way have deceived him; and rather silently and drearily we set out together; progressing through Norton Bury streets in our old way, my father marching along in his grave fashion, I steering my little carriage, and keeping as close as I could beside him. Many a person looked at us as we passed; almost everybody knew us, but few, even of our own neighbours, saluted us; we were Nonconformists and Quakers.

I had never been in the town since the day I came through it with John Halifax. The season was much later now, but it was quite warm still in the sunshine, and very pleasant looked the streets, even the close, narrow streets of Norton Bury. I beg its pardon; antiquaries hold it a most "interesting and remarkable" place: and I myself have sometimes admired its quaint, overhanging, ornamented house-fronts—blackened, and wonderfully old. But one rarely notices what has been familiar throughout life; and now I was less struck by the beauty of the picturesque old town than by the muddiness of its pathways, and the mingled noises of murmuring looms, scolding women, and squabbling children, that came up from the alleys which lay between the High Street and the Avon. In those alleys were hundreds of our poor folk living, huddled together in misery, rags, and dirt. Was John Halifax living there too?

My father's tan-yard was in an alley a little further on. Already I perceived the familiar odour; sometimes a not unpleasant barky smell; at other times borne in horrible wafts, as if from a lately forsaken battle-field. I wondered how anybody could endure it—yet some did; and among the workmen, as we entered, I looked round for the lad I knew.

He was sitting in a corner in one of the sheds, helping two or three women to split bark, very busy at work; yet he found time to stop now and then, and administered a wisp of sweet hay to the old blind mare, as she went slowly round and round, turning the bark mill. Nobody seemed to notice him, and he did not speak to anybody.

As we passed John did not even see us. I asked my father, in a whisper, how he liked the boy.

"What boy?—eh, him?—Oh, well enough—there's no harm in him that I know of. Dost thee want him to wheel thee about the yard? Here, I say, lad—bless me! I've forgot thy name."

John Halifax started up at the sharp tone of command; but when he saw me he smiled. My father walked on to some pits where he told me he was trying an important experiment, how a hide might be tanned completely in five months instead of eight. I stayed behind.

"John, I want you."

John shook himself free of the bark-heap, and came rather hesitatingly at first.

"Anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Don't call me 'sir'; if I say 'John,' why don't you say 'Phineas'?"

And I held out my hand—his was all grimed with bark-dust.

"Are you not ashamed to shake hands with me?"

"Nonsense, John."

So we settled that point entirely. And though he never failed to maintain externally a certain gentle respectfulness of demeanour towards me, yet it was more the natural deference of the younger to the elder, of the strong to the weak, than the duty paid by a serving-lad to his master's son. And this was how I best liked it to be.

He guided me carefully among the tan-pits—those deep fosses of abomination, with a slender network of pathways thrown between—until we reached the lower end of the yard. It was bounded by the Avon only, and by a great heap of refuse bark.

"This is not a bad place to rest in; if you liked to get out of the carriage I'd make you comfortable here in no time."

I was quite willing; so he ran off and fetched an old horserug, which he laid upon the soft, dry mass. Then he helped me thither, and covered me with my cloak. Lying thus, with my hat over my eyes, just distinguishing the shiny glimmer of the Avon running below, and beyond that the green, level Ham, dotted with cows, my position was anything but unpleasant. In fact, positively agreeable—ay, even though the tan-yard was close behind; but here it would offend none of my senses.

"Are you comfortable, Phineas?"

"Very, if you would come and sit down too."

"That I will."

And we then began to talk. I asked him if he often patronised the bark-heap, he seemed so very much at home there.

"So I am," he answered, smiling; "it is my castle—my house."

"And not unpleasant to live at, either."

"Except when it rains. Does it always rain at Norton Bury?"

"For shame, John!" and I pointed to the bluest of autumn skies, though in the distance an afternoon mist was slowly creeping on.

"All very fine now, but there's a fog coming over Severn; and it is sure to rain at nightfall. I shall not get my nice little bit of October evening."

"You must spend it within doors then." John shook his head. "You ought; it must be dreadfully cold on this bark-heap after sunset."

"Rather, sometimes. Are you cold now? Shall I fetch—but I haven't anything fit to wrap you in, except this rug."

He muffled it closer round me; infinitely light and tender was his rough-looking boy's hand.

"I never saw anybody so thin as you; thinner much since I saw you. Have you been very, very ill, Phineas? What ailed you?"

His anxiety was so earnest, that I explained to him what I may as well explain here, and dismiss, once for all; the useless topic, that from my birth I had been puny and diseased; that my life had been a succession of sicknesses, and that I could hope for little else until the end.

"But don't think I mind it; John;" for I was grieved to see his shocked and troubled look. "I am very content; I have a quiet home, a good father, and now I think and believe I have found the one thing I wanted—a good friend."

He smiled, but only because I did. I saw he did not understand me. In him, as in most strong and self-contained temperaments, was a certain slowness to receive impressions, which, however, being once received, are indelible. Though I, being in so many things his opposite, had none of this peculiarity, but felt at once quickly and keenly, yet I rather liked the contrary in him, as I think we almost always do like in another those peculiarities which are most different from our own. Therefore I was neither vexed nor hurt because the lad was slow to perceive all that he had so soon become, and all that I meant him to become, to me. I knew from every tone of his voice, every chance expression of his honest eyes, that he was one of those characters in which we may be sure that for each feeling they express lies a countless wealth of the same, unexpressed, below; a character the keystone of which was that whereon is built all liking and all love—DEPENDABLENESS. He was one whom you may be long in knowing, but whom the more you know the more you trust; and once trusting, you trust for ever.

Perhaps I may be supposed imaginative, or, at least, premature in discovering all these characteristics in a boy of fourteen; and possibly in thus writing of him I may unwittingly be drawing a little from after-experience; however, being the truth, let it stand.

"Come," said I, changing the conversation, "we have had enough of me; how goes the world with you? Have you taken kindly to the tan-yard? Answer frankly."

He looked at me hard, put both his hands in his pockets, and began to whistle a tune.

"Don't shirk the question, please, John. I want to know the real truth."

"Well, then, I hate the tan-yard."

Having relieved his mind by this ebullition, and by kicking a small heap of tan right down into the river, he became composed.

"But, Phineas, don't imagine I intend to hate it always; I intend to get used to it, as many a better fellow than I has got used to many a worse thing. It's wicked to hate what wins one's bread, and is the only thing one is likely to get on in the world with, merely because it's disagreeable."

"You are a wise lad of your age, John."

"Now don't you be laughing at me." (But I was not, I was in solemn earnest). "And don't think I'm worse than I am; and especially that I'm not thankful to your good father for giving me a lift in the world—the first I ever really had. If I get one foot on the ladder, perhaps I may climb."

"I should rather believe so," answered I, very confidently. "But you seem to have thought a good deal about these sort of things."

"Oh, yes! I have plenty of time for thinking, and one's thoughts travel fast enough lying on this bark-heap—faster than indoors. I often wish I could read—that is, read easily. As it is, I have nothing to do but to think, and nothing to think of but myself, and what I should like to be."

"Suppose, after Dick Whittington's fashion, you succeeded to your master's business, should you like to be a tanner?"

He paused—his truthful face betraying him. Then he said, resolutely, "I would like to be anything that was honest and honourable. It's a notion of mine, that whatever a man may be, his trade does not make him—he makes his trade. That is—but I know I can't put the subject clear, for I have not got it clear in my own head yet—I'm only a lad. However, it all comes to this—that whether I like it or not, I'll stick to the tanning as long as I can."

"That's right; I'm so glad. Nevertheless"—and I watched him as he stood, his foot planted firmly, no easy feat on the shifting bark-heap, his head erect, and his mouth close, but smiling—"Nevertheless, John, it's my opinion that you might be anything you liked."

He laughed. "Questionable that—at least at present. Whatever I may be, I am just now the lad that drives your father's cart, and works in your father's tan-yard—John Halifax, and very much at your service, Mr. Phineas Fletcher."

Half in fun, half in earnest, he uncovered his fair locks, with a bow so contradictory to the rest of his appearance, that I involuntarily recalled the Greek Testament and "Guy Halifax, Gentleman." However, that could be no matter to me, or to him either, now. The lad, like many another, owed nothing to his father but his mere existence—Heaven knows whether that gift is oftenest a curse or a boon.

The afternoon had waned during our talk; but I was very loth to part with my friend. Suddenly, I thought of asking where his home was.

"How do you mean?"

"Where do you live? where do you take your meals and sleep?"

"Why, as to that, I have not much time for eating and drinking. Generally I eat my dinner as I go along the road, where there's lots of blackberries by way of pudding—which is grand! Supper, when I do get it, I like best on this bark-heap, after the men are away, and the tan-yard's clear. Your father lets me stay."

"And where is your lodging, then? Where do you sleep?"

He hesitated—coloured a little. "To tell the truth—anywhere I can. Generally, here."

"What, out-of-doors?"

"Just so."

I was much shocked. To sleep out-of-doors seemed to me the very lowest ebb of human misery: so degrading, too—like a common tramp or vagabond, instead of a decent lad.

"John, how can you—why do you—do such a thing?"

"I'll tell you," said he, sitting down beside me in a dogged way, as if he had read my thoughts, guessed at my suspicions, and was determined to show that he feared neither—that he would use his own judgment, and follow his own will, in spite of anybody. "Look here. I get three shillings a week, which is about fivepence a day; out of that I eat threepence—I'm a big, growing lad, and it's hard to be hungry. There's twopence left to pay for lodging. I tried it once—twice—at the decentest place I could find, but—" here an expression of intolerable disgust came over the boy's face—"I don't intend to try that again. I was never used to it. Better keep my own company and the open air. Now you see."

"Oh, John!"

"Nay—there's no need to be sorry. You don't know how comfortable it is to sleep out of doors; and so nice to wake in the middle of the night and see the stars shining over your head."

"But isn't it very cold?"

"No—not often. I scoop out a snug little nest in the bark and curl up in it like a dormouse, wrapped in this rug, which one of the men gave me. Besides, every morning early I take a plunge and a swim in the stream, and that makes me warm all day."

I shivered—I who feared the touch of cold water. Yet there with all his hardships, he stood before me, the model of healthy boyhood. Alas! I envied him.

But this trying life, which he made so light of, could not go on. "What shall you do when winter comes?"

John looked grave. "I don't know: I suppose I shall manage somehow—like the sparrows," he answered, perceiving not how apposite his illustration was. For truly he seemed as destitute as the birds of the air, whom ONE feedeth, when they cry to Him.

My question had evidently made him thoughtful; he remained silent a good while.

At last I said: "John, do you remember the woman who spoke so sharply to you in the alley that day?"

"Yes. I shall never forget anything which happened that day," he answered, softly.

"She was my nurse once. She is not such a bad woman, though trouble has sharpened her temper. Her biggest boy Bill, who is gone off for a soldier, used to drive your cart, you know."

"Yes?" said John, interrogatively; for I was slow in putting forth my plans—that is, as much of them as it was needful he should know.

"Sally is poor—not so very poor, though. Your twopence a night would help her; and I dare say, if you'll let me speak to her, you might have Bill's attic all to yourself. She has but one other lad at home: it's worth trying for."

"It is indeed. You are very kind, Phineas." He said no more words than these—but their tone spoke volumes.

I got into my little carriage again, for I was most anxious not to lose a day in this matter. I persuaded John to go at once with me to Sally Watkins. My father was not to be seen; but I ventured to leave word for him that I was gone home, and had taken John Halifax with me: it was astonishing how bold I felt myself growing, now that there was another beside myself to think and act for.

We reached Widow Watkins' door. It was a poor place—poorer than I had imagined; but I remembered what agonies of cleanliness had been inflicted on me in nursery days; and took hope for John.

Sally sat in her kitchen, tidy and subdued, mending an old jacket that had once been Bill's, until, being supplanted by the grand red coat, it descended upon Jem, the second lad. But Bill still engrossed the poor mother's heart—she could do nothing but weep over him, and curse "Bonyparty." Her mind was so full of this that she apparently failed to recognise in the decent young workman, John Halifax, the half-starved lad she had belaboured with her tongue in the alley. She consented at once to his lodging with her—though she looked up with an odd stare when I said he was "a friend" of mine.

So we settled our business, first all together, then Sally and I alone, while John went up to look at his room. I knew I could trust Sally, whom I was glad enough to help, poor woman! She promised to make him extra-comfortable, and keep my secret too. When John came down she was quite civil to him—even friendly.

She said it would really be a comfort to her, that another fine, strapping lad should sleep in Bill's bed, and be coming in and out of her house just like her poor dear boy.

I felt rather doubtful of the resemblance, and indeed half-angry, but John only smiled.

"And if, maybe, he'd do a hand's turn now and then about the kitchen—I s'pose he bean't above it?"

"Not a bit!" said John Halifax, pleasantly.

Before we left I wanted to see his room; he carried me up, and we both sat down on the bed that had been poor Bill's. It was nothing to boast of, being a mere sacking stuffed with hay—a blanket below, and another at top; I had to beg from Jael the only pair of sheets John owned for a long time. The attic was very low and small, hardly big enough "to whip a cat round," or even a kitten—yet John gazed about it with an air of proud possession.

"I declare I shall be as happy as a king. Only look out of the window!"

Ay, the window was the grand advantage; out of it one could crawl on to the roof, and from the roof was the finest view in all Norton Bury. On one side, the town, the Abbey, and beyond it a wide stretch of meadow and woodland as far as you could see; on the other, the broad Ham, the glittering curve of Severn, and the distant country, sloping up into "the blue bills far away." A picture, which in its incessant variety, its quiet beauty, and its inexpressibly soothing charm, was likely to make the simple, everyday act of "looking out o' window," unconsciously influence the mind as much as a world of books.

"Do you like your 'castle,' John?" said I, when I had silently watched his beaming face; "will it suit you?"

"I rather think it will!" he cried in hearty delight. And my heart likewise was very glad.

Dear little attic room! close against the sky—so close, that many a time the rain came pattering in, or the sun beating down upon the roof made it like a furnace, or the snow on the leads drifted so high as to obscure the window—yet how merry, how happy, we have been there! How often have we both looked back upon it in after days!

CHAPTER IV

Winter came early and sudden that year.

It was to me a long, dreary season, worse even than my winters inevitably were. I never stirred from my room, and never saw anybody but my father, Dr. Jessop, and Jael. At last I took courage to say to the former that I wished he would send John Halifax up some day.

"What does thee want the lad for?"

"Only to see him."

"Pshaw! a lad out o' the tan-yard is not fit company for thee. Let him alone; he'll do well enough if thee doesn't try to lift him out of his place."

Lift John Halifax out of his "place"! I agreed with my father that that was impossible; but then we evidently differed widely in our definition of what the "place" might be. So, afraid of doing him harm, and feeling how much his future depended on his favour with his master, I did not discuss the matter. Only at every possible opportunity—and they were rare—I managed to send John a little note, written carefully in printed letters, for I knew he could read that; also a book or two, out of which he might teach himself a little more.

Then I waited, eagerly but patiently, until spring came, when, without making any more fruitless efforts, I should be sure to see him. I knew enough of himself, and was too jealous over his dignity, to wish either to force him by entreaties, or bring him by stratagem, into a house where he was not welcome, even though it were the house of my own father.

One February day, when the frost had at last broken up, and soft, plentiful rain had half melted the great snow-drifts, which, Jael told me, lay about the country everywhere, I thought I would just put my head out of doors, to see how long the blessed spring would be in coming. So I crawled down into the parlour, and out of the parlour into the garden; Jael scolding, my father roughly encouraging. My poor father! he always had the belief that people need not be ill unless they chose, and that I could do a great deal if I would.

I felt very strong to-day. It was delicious to see again the green grass, which had been hidden for weeks; delicious to walk up and down in the sunshine, under the shelter of the yew hedge. I amused myself by watching a pale line of snowdrops which had come up one by one, like prisoners of war to their execution.

But the next minute I felt ashamed of the heartless simile, for it reminded me of poor Bill Watkins, who, taken after the battle of Mentz, last December, had been shot by the French as a spy. Poor, rosy, burly Bill! better had he still been ingloriously driving our cart of skins.

"Have you been to see Sally lately?" said I, to Jael, who was cutting winter cabbages hard by; "is she getting over her trouble?"

"She bean't rich, to afford fretting. There's Jem and three little 'uns yet to feed, to say nought of another big lad as lives there, and eats a deal more than he pays, I'm sure."

I took the insinuation quietly, for I knew that my father had lately raised John's wages, and he his rent to Sally. This, together with a few other facts which lay between Sally and me, made me quite easy in the mind as to his being no burthen, but rather a help to the widow—so I let Jael have her say; it did no harm to me nor anybody.

"What bold little things snowdrops are—stop, Jael, you are setting your foot on them."

But I was too late; she had crushed them under the high-heeled shoe. She was even near pulling me down, as she stepped back in great hurry and consternation.

"Look at that young gentleman coming down the garden; and here I be in my dirty gown, and my apron full o' cabbages."

And she dropped the vegetables all over the path as the "gentleman" came towards us.

I smiled—for, in spite of his transformation, I, at least, had no difficulty in recognising John Halifax.

He had on new clothes—let me give the credit due to that wonderful civiliser, the tailor—clothes neat, decent, and plain, such as any 'prentice lad might wear. They fitted well his figure, which had increased both in height, compactness, and grace. Round his neck was a coarse but white shirt frill; and over it fell, carefully arranged, the bright curls of his bonny hair. Easily might Jael or any one else have "mistaken" him, as she cuttingly said, for a young gentleman.

She looked very indignant, though, when she found out the aforesaid "mistake."

"What may be thy business here?" she said, roughly.

"Abel Fletcher sent me on a message."

"Out with it then—don't be stopping with Phineas here. Thee bean't company for him, and his father don't choose it."

"Jael!" I cried, indignantly. John never spoke, but his cheek burnt furiously.

I took his hand, and told him how glad I was to see him—but, for a minute, I doubt if he heard me.

"Abel Fletcher sent me here," he repeated, in a well-controlled voice, "that I might go out with Phineas; if HE objects to my company, it's easy to say so."

And he turned to me. I think he must have been satisfied then.

Jael retired discomfited, and in her wrath again dropped half of her cabbages. John picked them up and restored them; but got for thanks only a parting thrust.

"Thee art mighty civil in thy new clothes. Be off, and be back again sharp; and, I say, don't thee be leaving the cart o' skins again under the parlour windows."

"I don't drive the cart now," was all he replied.

"Not drive the cart?" I asked, eagerly, when Jael had disappeared, for I was afraid some ill chance had happened.

"Only, that this winter I've managed to teach myself to read and add up, out of your books, you know; and your father found it out, and he says I shall go round collecting money instead of skins, and it's much better wages, and—I like it better—that's all."

But, little as he said, his whole face beamed with pride and pleasure. It was, in truth, a great step forward.

"He must trust you very much, John," said I, at last, knowing how exceedingly particular my father was in his collectors.

"That's it—that's what pleases me so. He is very good to me, Phineas, and he gave me a special holiday, that I might go out with you. Isn't that grand?"

"Grand, indeed. What fun we'll have! I almost think I could take a walk myself."

For the lad's company invariably gave me new life, and strength, and hope. The very sight of him was as good as the coming of spring.

"Where shall we go?" said he, when we were fairly off, and he was guiding my carriage down Norton Bury streets.

"I think to the Mythe." The Mythe was a little hill on the outskirts of the town, breezy and fresh, where Squire Brithwood had built himself a fine house ten years ago.

"Ay, that will do; and as we go, you will see the floods out—a wonderful sight, isn't it? The river is rising still, I hear; at the tan-yard they are busy making a dam against it. How high are the floods here, generally, Phineas?"

"I'm sure I can't remember. But don't look so serious. Let us enjoy ourselves."

And I did enjoy, intensely, that pleasant stroll. The mere sunshine was delicious; delicious, too, to pause on the bridge at the other end of the town, and feel the breeze brought in by the rising waters, and hear the loud sound of them, as they poured in a cataract over the flood-gates hard by.

"Your lazy, muddy Avon looks splendid now. What masses of white foam it makes, and what wreaths of spray; and see! ever so much of the Ham is under water. How it sparkles in the sun."

"John, you like looking at anything pretty."

"Ah! don't I!" cried he, with his whole heart. My heart leaped too, to see him so happy.

"You can't think how fine this is from my window; I have watched it for a week. Every morning the water seems to have made itself a fresh channel. Look at that one, by the willow-tree—how savagely it pours!"

"Oh, we at Norton Bury are used to floods."

"Are they ever very serious?"

"Have been—but not in my time. Now, John, tell me what you have been doing all winter."

It was a brief and simple chronicle—of hard work, all day over, and from the Monday to the Saturday—too hard work to do anything of nights, save to drop into the sound, dreamless sleep of youth and labour.

"But how did you teach yourself to read and add up, then?"

"Generally at odd minutes going along the road. It's astonishing what a lot of odd minutes one can catch during the day, if one really sets about it. And then I had Sunday afternoons besides. I did not think it wrong—"

"No," said I; decisively. "What books have you got through?"

"All you sent—Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and the Arabian Nights. That's fine, isn't it?" and his eyes sparkled.

"Any more?"

"Also the one you gave me at Christmas. I have read it a good deal."

I liked the tone of quiet reverence in which he spoke. I liked to hear him own, nor be ashamed to own—that he read "a good deal" in that rare book for a boy to read—the Bible.

But on this subject I did not ask him any more questions; indeed, it seemed to me, and seems still, that no more were needed.

"And you can read quite easily now, John?"

"Pretty well, considering." Then, turning suddenly to me: "You read a great deal, don't you? I overheard your father say you were very clever. How much do you know?"

"Oh—nonsense!" But he pressed me, and I told him. The list was short enough; I almost wished it were shorter when I saw John's face.

"For me—I can only just read, and I shall be fifteen directly!"

The accent of shame, despondency, even despair, went to my very heart.

"Don't mind," I said, laying my feeble, useless hand upon that which guided me on so steady and so strong; "how could you have had time, working as hard as you do?"

"But I ought to learn; I must learn."

"You shall. It's little I can teach; but, if you like, I'll teach you all I know."

"O Phineas!" One flash of those bright, moist eyes, and he walked hastily across the road. Thence he came back, in a minute or two, armed with the tallest, straightest of briar-rose shoots.

"You like a rose-switch, don't you? I do. Nay, stop till I've cut off the thorns." And he walked on beside me, working at it with his knife, in silence.

I was silent, too, but I stole a glance at his mouth, as seen in profile. I could almost always guess at his thoughts by that mouth, so flexible, sensitive, and, at times, so infinitely sweet. It wore that expression now. I was satisfied, for I knew the lad was happy.

We reached the Mythe. "David," I said (I had got into a habit of calling him "David;" and now he had read a certain history in that Book I supposed he had guessed why, for he liked the name), "I don't think I can go any further up the hill."

"Oh! but you shall! I'll push behind; and when we come to the stile I'll carry you. It's lovely on the top of the Mythe—look at the sunset. You cannot have seen a sunset for ever so long."

No—that was true. I let John do as he would with me—he who brought into my pale life the only brightness it had ever known.

Ere long we stood on the top of the steep mound. I know not if it be a natural hill, or one of those old Roman or British remains, plentiful enough hereabouts, but it was always called the Mythe. Close below it, at the foot of a precipitous slope, ran the Severn, there broad and deep enough, gradually growing broader and deeper as it flowed on, through a wide plain of level country, towards the line of hills that bounded the horizon. Severn looked beautiful here; neither grand nor striking, but certainly beautiful; a calm, gracious, generous river, bearing strength in its tide and plenty in its bosom, rolling on through the land slowly and surely, like a good man's life, and fertilising wherever it flows.

"Do you like Severn still, John?"

"I love it."

I wondered if his thoughts had been anything like mine.

"What is that?" he cried, suddenly, pointing to a new sight, which even I had not often seen on our river. It was a mass of water, three or four feet high, which came surging along the midstream, upright as a wall.

"It is the eger; I've often seen it on Severn, where the swift seaward current meets the spring-tide. Look what a crest of foam it has, like a wild boar's mane. We often call it the river-boar."

"But it is only a big wave."

"Big enough to swamp a boat, though."

And while I spoke I saw, to my horror, that there actually was a boat, with two men in it, trying to get out of the way of the eger.

"They never can! they'll assuredly be drowned! O John!"

But he had already slipped from my side and swung himself by furze-bushes and grass down the steep slope to the water's edge.

It was a breathless moment. The eger travelled slowly in its passage, changing the smooth, sparkling river to a whirl of conflicting currents, in which no boat could live—least of all that light pleasure-boat, with its toppling sail. In it was a youth I knew by sight, Mr. Brithwood of the Mythe House, and another gentleman.

They both pulled hard—they got out of the mid-stream, but not close enough to land; and already there was but two oars' length between them and the "boar."

"Swim for it!" I heard one cry to the other: but swimming would not have saved them.

"Hold there!" shouted John at the top of his voice; "throw that rope out and I will pull you in!"

It was a hard tug: I shuddered to see him wade knee-deep in the stream—but he succeeded. Both gentlemen leaped safe on shore. The younger tried desperately to save his boat, but it was too late. Already the "water-boar" had clutched it—the rope broke like a gossamer-thread—the trim, white sail was dragged down—rose up once, broken and torn, like a butterfly caught in a mill-stream—then disappeared.

"So it's all over with her, poor thing!"

"Who cares?—We might have lost our lives," sharply said the other, an older and sickly-looking gentleman, dressed in mourning, to whom life did not seem a particularly pleasant thing, though he appeared to value it so highly.

They both scrambled up the Mythe, without noticing John Halifax: then the elder turned.

"But who pulled us ashore? Was it you, my young friend?"

John Halifax, emptying his soaked boots, answered, "I suppose so."

"Indeed, we owe you much."

"Not more than a crown will pay," said young Brithwood, gruffly; "I know him, Cousin March. He works in Fletcher the Quaker's tan-yard."

"Nonsense!" cried Mr. March, who had stood looking at the boy with a kindly, even half-sad air. "Impossible! Young man, will you tell me to whom I am so much obliged?"

"My name is John Halifax."

"Yes; but WHAT are you?"

"What he said. Mr. Brithwood knows me well enough: I work in the tan-yard."

"Oh!" Mr. March turned away with a resumption of dignity, though evidently both surprised and disappointed. Young Brithwood laughed.

"I told you so, cousin. Hey, lad!" eyeing John over, "you've been out at grass, and changed your coat for the better: but you're certainly the same lad that my curricle nearly ran over one day; you were driving a cart of skins—pah! I remember."

"So do I," said John, fiercely; but when the youth's insolent laughter broke out again he controlled himself. The laughter ceased.

"Well, you've done me a good turn for an ill one, young—what's-your-name, so here's a guinea for you." He threw it towards him; it fell on the ground, and lay there.

"Nay, nay, Richard," expostulated the sickly gentleman, who, after all, WAS a gentleman. He stood apparently struggling with conflicting intentions, and not very easy in his mind. "My good fellow," he said at last, in a constrained voice, "I won't forget your bravery. If I could do anything for you—and meanwhile if a trifle like this"—and he slipped something into John's hand.

John returned it with a bow, merely saying "that he would rather not take any money."

The gentleman looked very much astonished. There was a little more of persistence on one side and resistance on the other; and then Mr. March put the guineas irresolutely back into his pocket, looking the while lingeringly at the boy—at his tall figure, and flushed, proud face.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen, nearly."

"Ah!" it was almost a sigh. He turned away, and turned back again. "My name is March—Henry March; if you should ever—"

"Thank you, sir. Good-day."

"Good-day." I fancied he was half inclined to shake hands—but John did not, or would not, see it. Mr. March walked on, following young Brithwood; but at the stile he turned round once more and glanced at John. Then they disappeared.

"I'm glad they're gone: now we can be comfortable." He flung himself down, wrung out his wet stockings, laughed at me for being so afraid he would take cold, and so angry at young Brithwood's insults. I sat wrapped in my cloak, and watched him making idle circles in the sandy path with the rose-switch he had cut.

A thought struck me. "John, hand me the stick and I'll give you your first writing lesson."

So there, on the smooth gravel, and with the rose-stem for a pen, I taught him how to form the letters of the alphabet and join them together. He learned them very quickly—so quickly, that in a little while the simple copy-book that Mother Earth obliged us with was covered in all directions with "J O H N—John."

"Bravo!" he cried, as we turned homeward, he flourishing his gigantic pen, which had done such good service; "bravo! I have gained something to-day!"

Crossing the bridge over the Avon, we stood once more to look at the waters that were "out." They had risen considerably, even in that short time, and were now pouring in several new channels, one of which was alongside of the high road; we stopped a good while watching it. The current was harmless enough, merely flooding a part of the Ham; but it awed us to see the fierce power of waters let loose. An old willow-tree, about whose roots I had often watched the king-cups growing, was now in the centre of a stream as broad as the Avon by our tan-yard, and thrice as rapid. The torrent rushed round it—impatient of the divisions its great roots caused—eager to undermine and tear it up. Inevitably, if the flood did not abate, within a few hours more there would be nothing left of the fine old tree.

"I don't quite like this," said John, meditatively, as his quick eye swept down the course of the river, with the houses and wharves that abutted on it, all along one bank. "Did you ever see the waters thus high before?"

"Yes, I believe I have; nobody minds it at Norton Bury; it is only the sudden thaw, my father says, and he ought to know, for he has had plenty of experience, the tan-yard being so close to the river."

"I was thinking of that; but come, it's getting cold."

He took me safe home, and we parted cordially—nay, affectionately—at my own door.

"When will you come again, David?"

"When your father sends me."

And I felt that HE felt that our intercourse was always to be limited to this. Nothing clandestine, nothing obtrusive, was possible, even for friendship's sake, to John Halifax.

My father came in late that evening; he looked tired and uneasy, and instead of going to bed, though it was after nine o'clock, sat down to his pipe in the chimney-corner.

"Is the river rising still, father? Will it do any harm to the tan-yard?"

"What dost thee know about the tan-yard!"

"Only John Halifax was saying—"

"John Halifax had better hold his tongue."

I held mine.

My father puffed away in silence till I came to bid him good-night. I think the sound of my crutches on the floor stirred him out of a long meditation, in which his ill-humour had ebbed away.

"Where didst thee go out to-day, Phineas?—thee and the lad I sent."

"To the Mythe:" and I told him the incident that had happened there. He listened without reply.

"Wasn't it a brave thing to do, father?"

"Um!"—and a few meditative puffs. "Phineas, the lad thee hast such a hankering after is a good lad—a very decent lad—if thee doesn't make too much of him. Remember; he is but my servant; thee'rt my son—my only son."

Alas! my poor father, it was hard enough for him to have such an "only son" as I.

In the middle of the night—or else to me, lying awake, it seemed so—there was a knocking at our hall door. I slept on the ground flat, in a little room opposite the parlour. Ere I could well collect my thoughts, I saw my father pass, fully dressed, with a light in his hand. And, man of peace though he was, I was very sure I saw in the other—something which always lay near his strong box, at his bed's head at night. Because ten years ago a large sum had been stolen from him, and the burglar had gone free of punishment. The law refused to receive Abel Fletcher's testimony—he was "only a Quaker."

The knocking grew louder, as if the person had no time to hesitate at making a noise. "Who's there?" called out my father; and at the answer he opened the front door, first shutting mine.

A minute afterwards I heard some one in my room. "Phineas, are you here?—don't be frightened."

I was not—as soon as his voice reached me, John's own familiar voice. "It's something about the tan-yard?"

"Yes; the waters are rising, and I have come to fetch your father; he may save a good deal yet. I am ready, sir"—in answer to a loud call. "Now, Phineas, lie you down again, the night's bitter cold. Don't stir—you'll promise?—I'll see after your father."

They went out of the house together, and did not return the whole night.

That night, February 5, 1795, was one long remembered at Norton Bury. Bridges were destroyed—boats carried away—houses inundated, or sapped at their foundations. The loss of life was small, but that of property was very great. Six hours did the work of ruin, and then the flood began to turn.

It was a long waiting until they came home—my father and John. At daybreak I saw them standing on the doorstep. A blessed sight!

"O father! my dear father!" and I drew him in, holding fast his hands—faster and closer than I had done since I was a child. He did not repel me.

"Thee'rt up early, and it's a cold morning for thee, my son. Go back to the fire."

His voice was gentle; his ruddy countenance pale; two strange things in Abel Fletcher.

"Father, tell me what has befallen thee?"

"Nothing, my son, save that the Giver of all worldly goods has seen fit to take back a portion of mine. I, like many another in this town, am poorer by some thousands than I went to bed last night."

He sat down. I knew he loved his money, for it had been hardly earned. I had not thought he would have borne its loss so quietly.

"Father, never mind; it might have been worse."

"Of a surety. I should have lost everything I had in the world—save for—Where is the lad? What art thee standing outside for? Come in, John, and shut the door."

John obeyed, though without advancing. He was cold and wet. I wanted him to sit down by the fireside.

"Ay! do, lad," said my father, kindly.

John came.

I stood between the two—afraid to ask what they had undergone; but sure, from the old man's grave face, and the lad's bright one—flushed all over with that excitement of danger so delicious to the young—that the peril had not been small.

"Jael," cried my father, rousing himself, "give us some breakfast; the lad and me—we have had a hard night's work together."

Jael brought the mug of ale and the bread and cheese; but either did not or could not notice that the meal had been ordered for more than one.

"Another plate," said my father, sharply.

"The lad can go into the kitchen, Abel Fletcher: his breakfast is waiting there."

My father winced—even her master was sometimes rather afraid of Jael. But conscience or his will conquered.

"Woman, do as I desired. Bring another plate, and another mug of ale."

And so, to Jael's great wrath, and to my great joy, John Halifax was bidden, and sat down to the same board as his master. The fact made an ineffaceable impression on our household.

After breakfast, as we sat by the fire, in the pale haze of that February morning, my father, contrary to his wont, explained to me all his losses; and how, but for the timely warning he had received, the flood might have nearly ruined him.

"So it was well John came," I said, half afraid to say more.

"Ay, and the lad has been useful, too: it is an old head on young shoulders."

John looked very proud of this praise, though it was grimly given. But directly after it some ill or suspicious thought seemed to come into Abel Fletcher's mind.

"Lad," suddenly turning round on John Halifax, "thee told me thee saw the river rising by the light of the moon. What wast THEE doing then, out o' thy honest bed and thy quiet sleep, at eleven o'clock at night?"

John coloured violently; the quick young blood was always ready enough to rise in his face. It spoke ill for him with my father.

"Answer. I will not be hard upon thee—to-night, at least."

"As you like, Abel Fletcher," answered the boy, sturdily. "I was doing no harm. I was in the tan-yard."

"Thy business there?"

"None at all. I was with the men—they were watching, and had a candle; and I wanted to sit up, and had no light."

"What didst thee want to sit up for?" pursued my father, keen and sharp as a ferret at a field-rat's hole, or a barrister hunting a witness in those courts of law that were never used by, though often used against, us Quakers.

John hesitated, and again his painful, falsely-accusing blushes tried him sore. "Sir, I'll tell you; it's no disgrace. Though I'm such a big fellow I can't write; and your son was good enough to try and teach me. I was afraid of forgetting the letters; so I tried to make them all over again, with a bit of chalk, on the bark-shed wall. It did nobody any harm that I know of."

The boy's tone, even though it was rather quick and angry, won no reproof. At last my father said gently enough—

"Is that all, lad?"

"Yes."

Again Abel Fletcher fell into a brown study. We two lads talked softly to each other—afraid to interrupt. He smoked through a whole pipe—his great and almost his only luxury, and then again called out—

"John Halifax."

"I'm here."

"It's time thee went away to thy work."

"I'm going this minute. Good-bye, Phineas. Good day, sir. Is there anything you want done?"

He stood before his master, cap in hand, with an honest manliness pleasant to see. Any master might have been proud of such a servant—any father of such a son. My poor father—no, he did not once look from John Halifax to me. He would not have owned for the world that half-smothered sigh, or murmured because Heaven had kept back from him—as, Heaven knows why, it often does from us all!—the one desire of the heart.

"John Halifax, thee hast been of great service to me this night. What reward shall I give thee?"

And instinctively his hand dived down into his pocket. John turned away.

"Thank you—I'd rather not. It is quite enough reward that I have been useful to my master, and that he acknowledges it."

My father thought a minute, and then offered his hand. "Thee'rt in the right, lad. I am very much obliged to thee, and I will not forget it."

And John—blushing brightly once more—went away, looking as proud as an emperor, and as happy as a poor man with a bag of gold.

"Is there nothing thou canst think of, Phineas, that would pleasure the lad?" said my father, after we had been talking some time—though not about John.

I had thought of something—something I had long desired, but which seemed then all but an impossibility. Even now it was with some doubt and hesitation that I made the suggestion that he should spend every Sunday at our house.