Little Lord Fauntleroy [abridged]: Für den Schulgebrauch bearbeitet

CHAPTER XI.
ANXIETY IN AMERICA.

When Mr. Hobbs’s young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle and become Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realise that the Atlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had spent so many agreeable hours in his society, he began to feel very lonely indeed. At first it seemed to Mr. Hobbs that Cedric was not really far away, and would come back again; that some day he would look up from his paper and see the lad standing in the doorway, in his white suit and red stockings, and with his straw hat on the back of his head, and would hear him say in his cheerful little voice: “Hello, Mr. Hobbs! This is a hot day—isn’t it?” But as the days passed on and this did not happen, Mr. Hobbs felt very dull and uneasy. He did not even enjoy his newspaper as much as he used to. He would take out his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription; “From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me.” At night, when the store was closed, he would light his pipe and walk slowly along until he reached the house where Cedric had lived, on which there was a sign that read, “This House to Let”; and he would stop near it and look up and shake his head, and puff at his pipe very hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again.

This went on for two or three weeks before a new idea came to him. He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipes before he arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. He would go to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, and his idea was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the way of talking things over.

“Want a shine, sir?”

The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest.

“Yes,” he said.

Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the sign and from the sign to Dick.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“From a friend o’ mine,” said Dick,—“a little feller. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He’s in England now. Gone to be one o’ those lords.”

“Lord—Lord—” asked Mr. Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, “Lord Fauntleroy—Goin’ to be Earl of Dorincourt!”

Dick almost dropped his brush.

“Why, boss!” he exclaimed, “d’ye know him yerself?”

“I’ve known him,” answered Mr. Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, “ever since he was born. We were lifetime acquaintances—that’s what we were.”

It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled the splendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed the inside of the case to Dick.

“’When this you see, remember me,’” he read. “That was his parting keepsake to me. I’d ha’ remembered him,” he went on, shaking his head, “if he hadn’t given me a thing. He was a companion as any man would remember.”

It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company.

This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick went up to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gave him a chair tilted against the door, near a barrel of apples, and after his young visitor was seated, he made a jerk at them with the hand in which he held his pipe, saying:

“Help yerself.”

Then they read, and discussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe very hard and shook his head a great deal.

He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from Dick’s visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the small back room; they had biscuits and cheese and sardines, and other things out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles of ginger ale, and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast.

“Here’s to him!” he said, lifting his glass, “an’ may he teach ’em a lesson—earls an’ markises an’ dooks an’ all!”

After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was much more comfortable and less desolate. They read the Penny Story Gazette, and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habits of the nobility and gentry which would have surprised those despised classes if they had realised it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a book-store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library. He went to a clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him.

“I want,” he said, “a book about earls.”

“What!” exclaimed the clerk.

“A book,” repeated the grocery-man, “about earls.”

“I’m afraid,” said the clerk, looking rather queer, “that we haven’t what you want.”

“Haven’t?” said Mr. Hobbs, anxiously. “Well, say markises then—or dooks.”

“I know of no such book,” answered the clerk.

Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor,—then he looked up.

“None about female earls?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid not,” said the clerk, with a smile.

“Well,” exclaimed Mr. Hobbs, “I’ll be jiggered!”

He was just going out of the store, when the clerk called him back and asked him if a story in which the nobility were chief characters would do. Mr. Hobbs said it would—if he could not get an entire volume devoted to earls. So the clerk sold him a book called The Tower of London, written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and he carried it home.

When Dick came they began to read it. It was a very wonderful and exciting book, and the scene was laid in the reign of the famous English queen who is called by some people Bloody Mary. And as Mr. Hobbs heard of Queen Mary’s deeds and the habit she had of chopping people’s heads off, putting them to the torture, and burning them alive, he became very much excited. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Dick.

“Why, he ain’t safe!” he said. “He ain’t safe! If the women folks can sit up on their thrones an’ give the word for things like that to be done, who’s to know what’s happening to him this very minute?”

“Well,” said Dick, though he looked rather anxious himself; “ye see this ’ere un isn’t the one that’s bossin’ things now. I know her name’s Victory, an’ this un here in the book,—her name’s Mary.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; “so it is,—but still it doesn’t seem as if ’twas safe for him over there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don’t keep the Fourth o’ July!”

He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until he received Fauntleroy’s letter and had read it several times, both to himself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about the same time, that he became composed again.

But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read and re-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. And they spent days over the answers they sent, and read them over almost as often as the letters they had received.

One day they were sitting in the store doorway together, and Mr. Hobbs was filling his pipe, whilst Dick told him all about his life and his elder brother, who had been very good to him after their parents had died. The brother’s name was Ben, and he had managed to get quite a decent place in a store. “And then,” said Dick, “blest if he didn’t go an’ marry a gal, a regular tiger-cat. She’d tear things to pieces, when she got mad. Had a baby just like her; ’n’ at last Ben went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch.”

“He oughtn’t to ’ve married,” Mr. Hobbs said solemnly, as he rose to get a match.

As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the counter.

“Why!” he said, “if here isn’t a letter! I didn’t see it afore. The postman must have laid it down when I wasn’t noticin’, or the newspaper slipped over it.”

He picked it up and looked at it carefully.

“It’s from him!” he exclaimed. “That’s the very one it’s from!”

He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited, and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.

“I wonder what news there is this time,” he said.

And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:

Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, his penknife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope.

“Well!” he ejaculated, “I am jiggered!”

He was so dumfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had always been his habit to say, “I will be jiggered,” but this time he said, “I am jiggered.” Perhaps he really was jiggered. There is no knowing.

“Well,” said Mr. Hobbs. “It’s my opinion it’s all a put-up job o’ the British ’ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he’s an American. They’re trying to rob him! that’s what they’re doing, and folks that have money ought to look after him.”

And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, and when that young man left he went with him to the corner of the street; and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time, staring at the “To Let,” and smoking his pipe in much disturbance of mind.

CHAPTER XII.
THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS.

A very few days after the dinner-party at the Castle, almost everybody in England who read the newspaper at all knew the romantic story of what had happened at Dorincourt. It made a very interesting story when it was told with all the details. There was the little American boy who had been brought to England to be Lord Fauntleroy, and who was said to be so fine and handsome a little fellow, and to have already made people fond of him; there was the old Earl, his grandfather, who was so proud of his heir; there was the pretty young mother who had never been forgiven for marrying Captain Errol; and there was the strange marriage of Bevis the dead Lord Fauntleroy, and the strange wife, of whom no one knew anything, suddenly appearing with her son, and saying that he was the real Lord Fauntleroy and must have his rights. All these things were talked about and written about, and caused a tremendous sensation. And then there came the rumour that the Earl of Dorincourt was not satisfied with the turn affairs had taken, and would perhaps contest the claim by law, and the matter might end with a wonderful trial.

There never had been such excitement before in the county in which Erlesboro was situated. On market-days, people stood in groups and talked and wondered what would be done; the farmers’ wives invited one another to tea that they might tell one another all they had heard and all they thought and all they thought other people thought.

In fact there was excitement everywhere; at the Castle, in the library, where the Earl and Mr. Havisham sat and talked; in the servants’ hall, where Mr. Thomas and the butler and the other men and women servants gossiped and exclaimed at all times of the day; and in the stables, where Wilkins went about his work in a quite depressed state of mind.

But in the midst of all the disturbance there was one person who was quite calm and untroubled. That person was the little Lord Fauntleroy who was said not to be Lord Fauntleroy at all. When first the Earl told him what had happened, he had sat on a stool holding on to his knee, as he so often did when he was listening to anything interesting; and by the time the story was finished, he looked quite sober.

“It makes me feel very queer,” he said; “it makes me—queer!”

The Earl looked at the boy in silence. It made him feel queer too—queerer than he had ever felt in his whole life. And he felt more queer still when he saw that there was a troubled expression on the small face which was usually so happy.

“Will they take Dearest’s house away from her—and her carriage?” Cedric asked in a rather unsteady, anxious little voice.

“No!” said the Earl decidedly—in quite a loud voice in fact. “They can take nothing from her.”

“Ah!” said Cedric with evident relief. “Can’t they?”

Then he looked up at his grandfather, and there was a wistful shade in his eyes, and they looked very big and soft.

“That other boy,” he said rather tremulously—“he will have to—to be your boy now—as I was—won’t he?”

“No!” answered the Earl—and he said it so fiercely and loudly that Cedric quite jumped.

“No?” he exclaimed, in wonderment. “Won’t he? I thought——”

He stood up from his stool quite suddenly.

“Shall I be your boy, even if I’m not going to be an earl?” he said. “Shall I be your boy, just as I was before?” And his flushed little face was all alight with eagerness.

How the old Earl did look at him from head to foot, to be sure! How his great shaggy brows did draw themselves together, and how queerly his deep eyes shone under them—how very queerly!

“My boy!” he said “yes, you’ll be my boy as long as I live; and, by George, sometimes I feel as if you were the only boy I had ever had.”

Cedric’s face turned red to the roots of his hair; it turned red with relief and pleasure. He put both his hands deep into his pockets and looked squarely into his noble relative’s eyes.

“Do you?” he said. “Well, then, I don’t care about the earl part at all. I don’t care whether I’m an earl or not. I thought—you see, I thought the one that was going to be the Earl would have to be your boy too, and—and I couldn’t be. That was what made me feel so queer.”

The Earl put his hand on his shoulder and drew him nearer.

“They shall take nothing from you that I can hold for you,” he said, drawing his breath hard. “I won’t believe yet that they can take anything from you. You were made for the place, and—well, you may fill it still. But whatever comes, you shall have all that I can give you—all!”

It scarcely seemed as if he were speaking to a child, there was such determination in his face and voice; it was more as if he were making a promise to himself—and perhaps he was.

He had never before known how deep a hold upon him his fondness for the boy and his pride in him had taken. He had never seen his strength and good qualities and beauty as he seemed to see them now. To his obstinate nature it seemed impossible—to give up what he had so set his heart upon. And he had determined that he would not give it up without a fierce struggle.

Within a few days after she had seen Mr. Havisham, the woman who claimed to be Lady Fauntleroy presented herself at the Castle, and brought her child with her. She was sent away. The Earl would not see her, she was told by the footman at the door; his lawyer would attend to her cause.

Mr. Havisham had noticed, during his interviews with her, that she was neither so clever nor so bold as she meant to be. It was as if she had not expected to meet with such opposition.

“She is evidently,” the lawyer said to Mrs. Errol, “a person from the lower walks of life. She is uneducated and quite unused to meeting people like ourselves on any terms of equality. She does not know what to do. Her visit to the Castle quite cowed her. She was infuriated, but she was cowed. The Earl would not receive her, but I advised him to go with me to the Dorincourt Arms, where she is staying. When she saw him enter the room, she turned white, though she flew into a rage at once, and threatened and demanded in one breath.”

The fact was that the Earl had stalked into the room and stood, looking like a venerable aristocratic giant, staring at the woman and not condescending a word. He let her talk and demand until she was tired, without himself uttering a word, and then he said:

“You say you are my eldest son’s wife. If that is true, and if the proof you offer is too much for us, the law is on your side. In that case, your boy is Lord Fauntleroy. If your claims are proved, you will be provided for. I want to see nothing either of you or the child so long as I live.”

And then he turned his back upon her and stalked out of the room as he had stalked into it.

Not many days after that, a visitor was announced to Mrs. Errol, who was writing in her little morning room. The maid who brought the message looked rather excited.

“It’s the Earl hisself, ma’am!” she said in tremulous awe.

When Mrs. Errol entered the drawing-room, a very tall, majestic-looking old man was standing on the tiger-skin rug. He had a handsome, grim old face, with an aquiline profile, a long white moustache, and an obstinate look.

“Mrs. Errol, I believe?” he said.

“Mrs. Errol,” she answered.

“I am the Earl of Dorincourt,” he said.

He paused a moment, almost unconsciously, to look into her uplifted eyes. They were so like the big, affectionate, childish eyes he had seen uplifted to his own so often every day during the last few months, that they gave him a quite curious sensation.

“The boy is very like you,” he said abruptly.

“It has been often said so, my lord,” she replied, “but I have been glad to think him like his father also.”

As Lady Lorridaile had told him, her voice was very sweet, and her manner was very simple and dignified. She did not seem in the least troubled by his sudden coming.

“Yes,” said the Earl, “he is like—my son—too.” He put his hand up to his big white moustache and pulled it fiercely. “Do you know,” he said, “why I have come here?”

“I have seen Mr. Havisham,” Mrs. Errol began, “and he has told me of the claims which have been made——”

“I have come to tell you,” said the Earl, “that they will be investigated and contested, if a contest can be made. I have come to tell you that the boy shall be defended with all the power of the law. His rights——”

The soft voice interrupted him.

“He must have nothing that is not his by right, even if the law can give it to him,” she said.

“Unfortunately the law cannot,” said the Earl. “If it could, it should. This outrageous woman and her child——”

“Perhaps she cares for him as much as I care for Cedric, my lord,” said little Mrs. Errol. “And if she was your eldest son’s wife, her son is Lord Fauntleroy, and mine is not.”

“I suppose,” said the Earl, “that you would much prefer that he should not be the Earl of Dorincourt?”

Her fair young face flushed.

“It is a very magnificent thing to be the Earl of Dorincourt, my lord,” she said. “I know that, but I care most that he should be what his father was—brave and just and true always.”

“In striking contrast to what his grandfather was, eh?” said his lordship sardonically.

“I have not had the pleasure of knowing his grandfather,” replied Mrs. Errol, “but I know my little boy believes——” She stopped short a moment, looking quietly into his face, and then she added, “I know that Cedric loves you.”

“Would he have loved me,” said the Earl dryly, “if you had told him why I did not receive you at the Castle?”

“No,” answered Mrs. Errol; “I think not. That was why I did not wish him to know.”

“Well,” said my lord, brusquely, “there are few women who would not have told him.”

He suddenly began to walk up and down the room, pulling his great moustache more violently than ever.

“Yes, he is fond of me,” he said, “and I am fond of him. I can’t say I ever was fond of anything before. I am fond of him. He pleased me from the first. I am an old man, and was tired of my life. He has given me something to live for. I am proud of him. I was satisfied to think of his taking his place some day as the head of the family.”

He came back and stood before Mrs. Errol.

“I am miserable,” he said. “Miserable!”

He looked as if he was. Even his pride could not keep his voice steady or his hands from shaking. For a moment it almost seemed as if his deep, fierce eyes had tears in them. “Perhaps it is because I am miserable that I have come to you,” he said, quite glaring down at her. “I used to hate you; I have been jealous of you. This wretched, disgraceful business has changed that. I have been an obstinate old fool, and I suppose I have treated you badly. You are like the boy and the boy is the first object in my life. I am miserable, and I came to you merely because you are like the boy, and he cares for you, and I care for him. Treat me as well as you can, for the boy’s sake.”

He said it all in his harsh voice, and almost roughly, but somehow he seemed so broken down for the time that Mrs. Errol was touched to the heart. She got up and moved an arm-chair a little forward.

“I wish you would sit down,” she said in a soft, pretty, sympathetic way. “You have been so much troubled that you are very tired, and you need all your strength.”

It was just as new to him to be spoken to and cared for in that gentle, simple way as it was to be contradicted. He was reminded of “the boy” again, and he actually did as she asked him. Perhaps his disappointment and wretchedness were good discipline for him; if he had not been wretched he might have continued to hate her, but just at present he found her a little soothing. She had so sweet a face and voice, and a pretty dignity when she spoke or moved. Very soon, by the quiet magic of these influences, he began to feel less gloomy, and then he talked still more.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “the boy shall be provided for. He shall be taken care of, now and in the future.”

Before he went away, he glanced around the room.

“Do you like the house?” he demanded.

“Very much,” she answered.

“This is a cheerful room,” he said. “May I come here again and talk this matter over?”

“As often as you wish, my lord,” she replied.

And then he went out to his carriage and drove away, Thomas and Henry almost stricken dumb upon the box at the turn affairs had taken.

CHAPTER XIII.
DICK TO THE RESCUE.

Of course, as soon as the story of Lord Fauntleroy and the difficulties of the Earl of Dorincourt were discussed in the English newspapers, they were discussed in the American newspapers. The story was too interesting to be passed over lightly, and it was talked of a great deal. There were so many versions of it that it would have been an edifying thing to buy all the papers and compare them. Mr. Hobbs used to read the papers until his head was in a whirl, and in the evening he and Dick would talk it all over. They found out what an important personage an Earl of Dorincourt was, and what a magnificent income he possessed, and how many estates he owned, and how stately and beautiful was the Castle in which he lived; and the more they learned the more excited they became.

“Seem’s like somethin’ orter be done,” said Mr. Hobbs.

But there really was nothing they could do but each write a letter to Cedric, containing assurances of their friendship and sympathy. They wrote those letters as soon as they could after receiving the news.

The very next morning, one of Dick’s customers was rather surprised. He was a young lawyer just beginning practice; as poor as a very young lawyer can possibly be, but a bright, energetic young fellow, with sharp wit and a good temper. He had a shabby office near Dick’s stand, and every morning Dick blacked his boots for him.

That particular morning, when he put his foot on the rest, he had an illustrated paper in his hand—an enterprising paper, with pictures in it of conspicuous people and things. He had just finished looking it over, and when the last boot was polished, he handed it to the boy.

“Here’s a paper for you, Dick,” he said. “Picture of an English castle in it and an English earl’s daughter-in-law. You ought to become familiar with the nobility and gentry, Dick. Begin on the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorincourt and Lady Fauntleroy. Hello! I say, what’s the matter?”

The pictures he spoke of were on the front page, and Dick was staring at one of them with his eyes and mouth open, and his sharp face almost pale with excitement.

He pointed to the picture, under which was written:

“Mother of Claimant (Lord Fauntleroy).”

It was the picture of a handsome woman, with large eyes and heavy braids of black hair wound around her head.

“Her!” said Dick. “I know her better’n I know you! An’ I’ve struck work for this mornin’.”

And in less than five minutes from that time he was tearing through the streets on his way to Mr. Hobbs and the corner store. Mr. Hobbs could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses when he looked across the counter and saw Dick rush in with the paper in his hand. The boy was out of breath with running; so much out of breath, in fact, that he could scarcely speak as he threw the paper down on the counter.

“Look at it!” panted Dick. “Look at that woman in the picture! That’s what you look at! She aint no ’ristocrat, she aint!” with withering scorn. “She’s no lord’s wife. You may eat me, if it aint Minna—Minna! I’d know her anywheres, an’ so’d Ben. Jest ax him.”

Mr. Hobbs dropped into his seat.

“I knowed it was a put-up job,” he said. “I knowed it; and they done it on account o’ him bein’ a ’Merican!”

“Done it!” cried Dick, with disgust. “She done it, that’s who done it. I’ll tell yer wot come to me, the minnit I saw her pictur. There was one o’ them papers we saw had a letter in it that said somethin’ ’bout her boy, an’ it said he had a scar on his chin. Put them together—her ’n’ that scar! Why that boy o’ hers aint no more a lord than I am! It’s Ben’s boy.”

Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it mast be confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that moment.

Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.

“Say,” he said, “the feller that give me the paper, he’s a lawyer. Let’s ax him what we’d better do. Lawyers knows it all.”

Mr. Hobbs was immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick’s business capacity.

“That’s so!” he replied. “This here calls for lawyers.”

And leaving the store in care of a substitute, he struggled into his coat and marched down town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison’s office, much to that young man’s astonishment.

If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much.

“And,” said Mr. Hobbs, “say what your time’s worth an hour and look into this thing thorough, and I’ll pay the damage—Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank Street, Vegetables and Groceries.”

“Well,” said Mr. Harrison, “it will be a big thing if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick’s brother and the Earl of Dorincourt’s family lawyer.”

And actually before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions—one speeding out of New York harbour on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton.

And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in the back room and talked together until midnight.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE EXPOSURE.

It is astonishing how short a time it takes for very wonderful things to happen. It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change all the fortunes of the little boy dangling his red legs from the high stool in Mr. Hobbs’s store, and to transform him from a small boy, living the simplest life in a quiet street, into an English nobleman, the heir to an earldom and magnificent wealth. It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change him from an English nobleman into a penniless little impostor, with no right to any of the splendours he had been enjoying. And, surprising as it may appear, it did not take nearly so long a time as one might have expected to alter the face of everything again and to give back to him all that he had been in danger of losing.

It took the less time because, after all, the woman who had called herself Lady Fauntleroy was not nearly so clever as she was wicked; and when she had been closely pressed by Mr. Havisham’s questions about her marriage and her boy, she had made one or two blunders which had caused suspicion to be awakened; and then she had lost her presence of mind and her temper, and in her excitement and anger had betrayed herself still further. There seemed no doubt that she had been married to Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy, but Mr. Havisham found out that her story of the boy’s being born in a certain part of London was false; and just when they all were in the midst of the commotion caused by this discovery, there came the letter from the young lawyer in New York, and Mr. Hobbs’s letters also.

What an evening it was when those letters arrived, and when Mr. Havisham and the Earl sat and talked their plans over in the library!

“After my first three meetings with her,” said Mr. Havisham, “I began to suspect her strongly. Our best plan will be to cable at once for these two Tiptons, say nothing about them to her, and suddenly confront her with them when she is not expecting it. My opinion is that she will betray herself on the spot.”

And that was what actually happened. She was told nothing, but one fine morning, as she sat in her sitting-room at the inn called “The Dorincourt Arms,” making some very fine plans for herself, Mr. Havisham was announced; and when he entered, he was followed by no leas than three persons—one was a sharp-faced boy and one was a big young man, and the third was the Earl of Dorincourt.

She sprang to her feet and actually uttered a cry of terror. She had thought of these new-comers as being thousands of miles away, when she had ever thought of them at all, which she had scarcely done for years. She had never expected to see them again. It must be confessed that Dick grinned a little when he saw her.

“Hello, Minna!” he said,

The big young man—who was Ben—stood still a minute and looked at her.

“Do you know her?” Mr. Havisham asked, glancing from one to the other.

“Yes,” said Ben. “I know her and she knows me. I can swear to her in any court, and I can bring a dozen others who will. Her father is a respectable sort of man, and he’s honest enough to be ashamed of her. He’ll tell you who she is, and whether she married me or not.”

Then he clenched his hand suddenly and turned on her.

“Where’s the child?” he demanded. “He’s going with me! He is done with you, and so am I!”

And just as he finished saying the words, the door leading into the bedroom opened a little, and the boy, probably attracted by the sound of the loud voices, looked in. He was not a handsome boy, but he had rather a nice face, and he was quite like Ben, his father, as any one could see, and there was the three-cornered scar on his chin.

Ben walked up to him and took his hand, and his own was trembling.

“Tom,” he said to the little fellow. “I’m your father; I’ve come to take you away. Where’s your hat?”

The boy pointed to where it lay on a chair. It evidently rather pleased him to hear that he was going away. Ben took up the hat and marched to the door.

“If you want me again,” he said to Mr. Havisham, “you know where to find me.”

He walked out of the room, holding the child’s hand and not looking at the woman once. She was fairly raving with fury, and the Earl was calmly gazing at her through his eyeglasses, which he had quietly placed upon his aristocratic eagle nose.

“Come, come, my young woman,” said Mr. Havisham. “This won’t do at all. If you don’t want to be locked up, you really must behave yourself.”

And there was something so very business-like in his tones that, probably feeling that the safest thing she could do would be to get out of the way, she gave him one savage look and dashed past him into the next room and slammed the door.

“We shall have no more trouble with her,” said Mr. Havisham.

And he was right; for that very night she left the Dorincourt Arms and took the train to London, and was seen no more.

When the Earl left the room after the interview, he went at once to his carriage.

“To Court Lodge,” he said to Thomas.

“To Court Lodge,” said Thomas to the coachman as he mounted the box; “an’ you may depend on it, things is taking a uniggspected turn.”

When the carriage stopped at Court Lodge, Cedric was in the drawing-room with his mother.

The Earl came in without being announced. He looked an inch or so taller, and a great many years younger. His deep eyes flashed.

“Where,” he said, “is Lord Fauntleroy?”

Mrs. Errol came forward, a flush rising to her cheek.

“Is it Lord Fauntleroy?” she asked. “Is it, indeed?”

The Earl put out his hand and grasped hers.

“Yes,” he answered, “it is.”

Then he put his other hand on Cedric’s shoulder.

“Fauntleroy,” he said in his unceremonious, authoritative way, “ask your mother when she will come to us at the Castle.”

Fauntleroy flung his arms around his mother’s neck.

“To live with us!” he cried. “To live with us always!”

The Earl looked at Mrs. Errol, and Mrs. Errol looked at the Earl. His lordship was entirely in earnest. He had made up his mind to waste no time in arranging this matter. He had begun to think it would suit him to make friends with his heir’s mother.

“Are you quite sure you want me?” said Mrs. Errol, with her soft, pretty smile.

“Quite sure,” he said bluntly. “We have always wanted you, but we were not exactly aware of it. We hope you will come.”

CHAPTER XV.
HIS EIGHTH BIRTHDAY.

Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California, and he returned under very comfortable circumstances. Just before his going, Mr. Havisham had an interview with him in which the lawyer told him that the Earl of Dorincourt wished to do something for the boy who might have turned out to be Lord Fauntleroy. And so when Ben went away, he went as the prospective master of a ranch which would be almost as good as his own, and might easily become his own in time, as indeed it did in the course of a few years; and Tom, the boy, grew up on it into a fine young man and was devotedly fond of his father; and they were so successful and happy that Ben used to say that Tom made up to him for all the troubles he had ever had.

But Dick and Mr. Hobbs—who had actually come over with the others to see that things were properly looked after—did not return for some time. It had been decided at the outset that the Earl would provide for Dick, and would see that he received a solid education; and Mr. Hobbs had decided that as he himself had left a reliable substitute in charge of his store, he could afford to wait to see the festivities which were to celebrate Lord Fauntleroy’s eighth birthday. All the tenantry were invited, and there were to be feasting and dancing and games in the park, and bonfires and fireworks in the evening.

“Just like the Fourth of July!” said Lord Fauntleroy. “It seems a pity my birthday wasn’t on the Fourth, doesn’t it? For then we could keep them both together.”

What a grand day it was when little Lord Fauntleroy’s birthday arrived, and how his young lordship enjoyed it! How beautiful the park looked, filled with the thronging people dressed in their gayest and best, and with the flags flying from the tents and the top of the Castle! Nobody had stayed away who could possibly come, because everybody was really glad that little Lord Fauntleroy was to be little Lord Fauntleroy still, and some day was to be the master of everything. Every one wanted to have a look at him, and at his pretty, kind mother, who had made so many friends.

What scores and scores of people there were under the trees, and in the tents, and on the lawns! Farmers and farmers’ wives in their Sunday suits and bonnets and shawls; children frolicking and chasing about; and old dames in red cloaks gossiping together. At the Castle, there were ladies and gentlemen who had come to see the fun, and to congratulate the Earl, and to meet Mrs. Errol. Lady Lorridaile and Sir Harry were there, and Mr. Havisham, of course.

Everybody looked after little Lord Fauntleroy. And the sun shone and the flags fluttered and the games were played and the dances danced, and as the gaieties went on and the joyous afternoon passed, his little lordship was simply radiantly happy.

The whole world seemed beautiful to him.

There was some one else who was happy too,—an old man, who, though he had been rich and noble all his life, had not often been very honestly happy. Perhaps, indeed, I shall tell you that I think it was because he was rather better than he had been that he was rather happier. He had not, indeed, suddenly become as good as Fauntleroy thought him; but, at least, he had begun to love something, and he had several times found a sort of pleasure in doing the kind things which the innocent, kind little heart of a child had suggested,—and that was a beginning. And every day he had been more pleased with his son’s wife. He liked to hear her sweet voice and to see her sweet face; and as she sat in his arm-chair, he used to watch her and listen as he talked to her boy; and he heard loving, gentle words which were new to him, and he began to see why the little fellow who had lived in a New York side street and known grocery-men and made friends with boot-blacks, was still so well-bred and manly a little fellow that he made no one ashamed of him, even when fortune changed him into the heir to an English earldom, living in an English castle.

As the old Earl of Dorincourt looked at him that day, moving about the park among the people, talking to those he knew and making his ready little bow when any one greeted him, entertaining his friends Dick and Mr. Hobbs, or standing near his mother listening to their conversation, the old nobleman was very well satisfied with him. And he had never been better satisfied than he was when they went down to the biggest tent, where the more important tenants of the Dorincourt estate were sitting down to the grand collation of the day.

They were drinking toasts; and, after they had drunk the health of the Earl with much more enthusiasm than his name had ever been greeted with before, they proposed the health of “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” And if there had ever been any doubt at all as to whether his lordship was popular or not, it would have been settled that instant. Such a clamour of voices and such a rattle of glasses and applause!

Little Lord Fauntleroy was delighted. He stood and smiled, and made bows, and flushed rosy red with pleasure up to the roots of his bright hair.

“Is it because they like me, Dearest?” he said to his mother. “Is it Dearest? I’m so glad!”

And then the Earl put his hand on the child’s shoulder and said to him:

“Fauntleroy, say to them that you thank them for their kindness.”

Fauntleroy gave a glance up at him and then at his mother.

“Must I?” he asked just a trifle shyly, and she smiled, and nodded. And so he made a little step forward, and everybody looked at him—such a beautiful, innocent little fellow he was, too, with his brave, trustful face!—and he spoke as loudly as he could, his childish voice ringing out quite clear and strong.

“I’m ever so much obliged to you!” he said, “and—I hope you’ll enjoy my birthday—because I’ve enjoyed it so much—and—I’m very glad I’m going to be an earl—I didn’t think at first I should like it, but now I do—and I love this place so, and I think it is beautiful—and—and—and when I am an earl, I am going to try to be as good as my grandfather.”

And amid the shouts and clamour of applause, he stepped back with a little sigh of relief, and put his hand into the Earl’s and stood close to him, smiling and leaning against his side.

And that would be the very end of my story; but I must add one curious piece of information, which is that Mr. Hobbs became so fascinated with high life and was so reluctant to leave his young friend that he actually sold his corner store in New York, and settled in the English village of Erlesboro, where he opened a shop which was patronized by the Castle and consequently was a great success. And about ten years after, when Dick, who had finished his education and was going to visit his brother in California, asked the good grocer if he did not wish to return to America, he shook his head seriously.

“Not to live there,” he said. “Not to live there; I want to be near him. It’s a good enough country for them that’s young an stirrin’—but there’s faults in it. There’s not an auntsister among ’em—nor an earl!”