Timothy’s mother was very conscientious. When she was quite a young woman, just after the birth of her first baby, and long before Timothy saw the light, she was very much troubled about the responsibilities of having a family.
“Suppose,” she murmured, “they catch measles, whooping cough, chicken-pox, scarlatina, croup, or inflammation of the lungs, when I might have prevented it; and either die, or have weak eyes, weak lungs or a chronic sore throat to the end of their days. Suppose they have bandy legs from walking too soon, or crooked spines from being carried too long. Suppose, too, that they grow up bad—that they go wrong, do what one will to keep them right. Suppose I cannot afford to educate them properly, or that they won’t learn if I can afford to have them taught. Suppose that they die young, when I might have kept them alive; or live only to make me think they had better have died young. Oh dear, it’s a terrible responsibility having a family!”
“It’s too late to talk about that now, my dear,” said her godmother (a fairy godmother, too!); “the baby is a very fine boy, and if you will let me know when the christening-day is fixed, I will come and give him a present. I can’t be godmother, though; I’m too old, and you’ve talked about responsibilities till I’m quite alarmed.” With which the old lady kissed her goddaughter, and nearly put out the baby’s eye with the point of her peaked hat, after which she mounted her broomstick and rode away.
“A very fine boy,” continued the young mother. “Ah! that’s just where it is; if it had only been a girl I shouldn’t have felt so much afraid. Girls are easily managed. They have got consciences, and they mend their own clothes. You can make them work, and they can amuse themselves when they’re not working. Now with boys it is quite different. And yet I shouldn’t wonder if I have a large family of boys, just because I feel it to be such a responsibility.”
She was quite right. Years went by; one baby after another was added to the family, and they were all boys. “Twenty feet that want socks,” sighed the good woman, “and not a hand that can knit or darn!”
But we must go back to the first christening. The godmother arrived, dressed in plum-colored satin, with a small brown-paper parcel in her hand.
“Fortunatus’s purse!” whispered one of the guests, nudging his neighbor with his elbow. “The dear child will always be welcome in my poor establishment,” he added aloud to the mother.
“A mere trifle, my love,” said the fairy godmother, laying the brown-paper parcel beside her on the table and nodding kindly to her goddaughter.
“That means a mug,” said one of the godfathers, decidedly. “Rather shabby! I’ve gone as far as a knife, fork, and spoon myself.”
“Doubtless ’tis of the more precious metal,” said Dr. Dixon Airey, the schoolmaster (and this was his way of saying that it was a gold mug), “and not improbably studded with the glittering diamond. Let us not be precipitate in our conclusions.”
At this moment the fairy spoke again. “My dear goddaughter,” she began, laying her hand upon the parcel, “I have too often had reason to observe that the gift of beauty is far from invariably proving a benefit to its possessor.” (“I told you it was a purse,” muttered the guest.) “Riches,” continued the fairy, “are hardly a less doubtful boon; and the youth who is born to almost unlimited wealth is not always slow to become a bankrupt. Indeed, I fear that the experience of many centuries has almost convinced us poor fairies that extraordinary gifts are not necessarily blessings. This trifle,” she continued, beginning to untie the string of the parcel, “is a very common gift to come from my hands, but I trust it will prove useful.”
“There!” cried the godfather, “didn’t I say it was a mug? Common? Why there’s nothing so universal except, indeed, the knife, fork, and spoon.”
But before he had finished his sentence the parcel was opened, and the fairy presented the young mother with—a small pair of strong leather shoes, copper tipped and heeled. “They’ll never wear out, my dear,” she said; “rely upon it, you’ll find them a ‘mother’s blessing,’ and however large a family you may have, your children will step into one another’s shoes just at the age when little feet are the most destructive.” With which the old lady carefully wound the string on her finger into a neat twist, and folding the bit of brown paper put both in her pocket, for she was a very economical dame.
I will not attempt to describe the scandalized buzz in which the visitors expressed their astonishment at the meanness of the fairy’s gift. As for the young mother, she was a sensible, sweet-tempered woman, and very fond of her old godmother, so she set it down to a freak of eccentricity; and, dismissing a few ambitious day-dreams from her mind, she took the shoes, and thanked the old lady pleasantly enough.
When the company had departed, the godmother still lingered, and kissed her goddaughter affectionately. “If your children inherit your good sense and good temper, my love, they will need nothing an old woman like me can give them,” said she; “but, all the same, my little gift is not quite so shabby as it looks. These shoes have another quality besides that of not wearing out. The little feet that are in them cannot very easily go wrong. If, when your boy is old enough, you send him to school in these shoes, should he be disposed to play truant, they will pinch and discomfit him so that it is probable he will let his shoes take him the right way; they will in like manner bring him home at the proper time. And——”
“Mrs. Godmother’s broomstick at the door!” shouted the farming man who was acting as footman on this occasion.
“Well, my dear,” said the old lady, “you will find out their virtues all in good time, and they will do for the whole family in turn; for I really can come to no more christenings. I am getting old—besides, our day is over. Farewell, my love.” And mounting her broomstick, the fairy finally departed.
As years went by, and her family increased, the mother learned the full value of the little shoes. Her nine boys wore them in turn, but they never wore them out. So long as the fairy shoes were on their feet they were pretty sure to go where they were sent and to come back when they were wanted, which, as all parents know, is no light matter. Moreover, during the time that each boy wore them, he got into such good habits that he was thenceforward comparatively tractable. At last they descended to the ninth and youngest boy, and became—Timothy’s shoes.
Now the eighth boy had very small feet, so he had worn the shoes rather longer, and Timothy got them somewhat later than usual. Then, despite her conscientiousness, Timothy’s mother was not above the weakness of spoiling the youngest of the family; and so, for one reason or another, Master Timothy was wilful, and his little feet pretty well used to taking their own way before he stepped into the fairy shoes. But he played truant from the dame’s school and was late for dinner so often, that at length his mother resolved to bear it no longer; and one morning the leather shoes were brightly blacked and the copper tips polished, and Master Tim was duly shod, and dismissed to school with many a wise warning from his fond parent.
“Now, Tim, dear, I know you will be a good boy,” said his mother, a strong conviction that he would be no such thing pricking her conscience. “And mind you don’t loiter or play truant, for if you do, these shoes will pinch you horribly, and you’ll be sure to be found out.”
Tim’s mother held him by his right arm, and Tim’s left arm and both his legs were already as far away as he could stretch them, and Tim’s face looked just as incredulous as yours would look if you were told that there was a bogy in the store-closet who would avenge any attack upon the jam-pots with untold terrors. At last the good woman let go her hold, and Tim went off like an arrow from a bow, and he gave not one more thought to what his mother had said.
The past winter had been very cold, the spring had been fitful and stormy, and May had suddenly burst upon the country with one broad bright smile of sunshine and flowers. If Tim had loitered on the school path when the frost nipped his nose and numbed his toes, or when the trees were bare and the ground muddy, and the March winds crept up his jacket-sleeves, one can imagine the temptations to delay when every nook had a flower and every bush a bird. It is very wrong to play truant, but still it was very tempting. Twirr-r-r-r-r—up into the blue sky went the larks; hedge-birds chirped and twittered in and out of the bushes, the pale milkmaids opened their petals, and down in the dark marsh below the kingcups shone like gold.
Once or twice Tim loitered to pick milkmaids and white starflowers and speedwell; but the shoes pinched him, and he ran on all the more willingly that a newly fledged butterfly went before him. But when the path ran on above the marsh, and he looked down and saw the kingcups, he dismissed all thoughts of school. True, the bank was long and steep, but that only added to the fun. Kingcups he must have. The other flowers he flung away. Milkmaids are wan-looking at the best; starflowers and speedwell are ragged; but those shining things that he had not seen for twelve long months, with cups of gold and leaves like water-lilies—Tim flung his satchel on to the grass, and began to scramble down the bank. But though he turned his feet towards the kingcups, the shoes seemed resolved to go to school; and as he persisted in going towards the marsh, he suffered such twitches and twinges that he thought his feet must have been wrenched off. But Tim was a very resolute little fellow, and though his ankles bid fair to be dislocated at every step, he dragged himself, shoes and all, down to the marsh. And now, provokingly enough, he could not find a kingcup within reach; in very perversity, as it seemed, not one would grow on the safe edge, but, like so many Will-o’-the-wisps, they shone out of the depths of the treacherous bog. And as Tim wandered round the marsh, jerk, wrench—oh, dear! every step was like a galvanic shock. At last, desperate with pain and disappointment, he fairly jumped into a brilliant clump that looked tolerable near, and was at once ankle-deep in water. Then, to his delight, the wet mud sucked the shoes off his feet, and he waded about among the rushes, reeds, and kingcups, sublimely happy.
And he was none the worse, though he ought to have been. He moved about very cautiously, feeling his way with a stick from tussock to tussock of reedy grass, and wondering how his eight brothers had been so feeble-minded as never to think of throwing the obnoxious shoes into a bog and so getting rid of them once for all. True, in fairy stories, the youngest brother always does accomplish what his elders had failed to do: but fairy tales are not always true. At last Tim began to feel tired; he hurt his foot with a sharp stump. A fat yellow frog jumped up in his face and so startled him that he nearly fell backwards into the water. He was frightened, and had culled more kingcups than he could carry. So he scrambled out, and climbed the bank, and cleaned himself up as well as he could with a small cotton pocket handkerchief, and thought he would go on to school.
Now, with all his faults, Tim was no coward and no liar, so with a quaking heart and a stubborn face he made up his mind to tell the dame that he had played truant; but even when one has resolved to confess, the words lag behind, and Tim was still composing a speech in his mind, and had still got no farther than, “Please, ma’am,” when he found himself in the school and under the dame’s very eye.
But Tim heeded not her frown, nor the subdued titters of the children; his eyes were fixed on the schoolroom floor, where—in Tim’s proper place in the class—stood the little leather shoes, very muddy, and with a kingcup in each.
“You’ve been in the marsh, Timothy,” said the dame. “Put on your shoes.”
It will be believed that when his punishment and his lessons were over, Tim allowed his shoes to take him quietly home.
When Timothy’s mother heard how he had been in the marsh, she decided to send him at once to a real boys’ school, as he was quite beyond dame’s management. So he went to live with Dr. Dixon Airey, who kept a school on the moors, assisted by one Usher, a gentleman who had very long legs and used very long words, and who wore common spectacles of very high power on work days, and green ones on Sundays and holidays.
And Timothy’s shoes went with him.
On the whole he liked being at school. He liked the boys, he did not hate Dr. Airey much, and he would have felt kindly towards the Usher but for certain exasperating circumstances. The Usher was accustomed to illustrate his lessons by examples from familiar objects, and as he naturally had not much imagination left after years of grinding at the rudiments of everything with a succession of lazy little boys, he took the first familiar objects that came to hand, and his examples were apt to be tame. Now though Timothy’s shoes were well-known in his native village, they created quite a sensation in Dr. Dixon Airey’s establishment, and the Usher brought them into his familiar examples till Timothy was nearly frantic. Thus: “If Timothy’s shoes cost 8s. 7d. without the copper tips, &c.” or, illustrating the genitive case, “Timothy’s shoes, or the shoes of Timothy,” or again: “The shoes. Of the shoes. To or for the shoes. The shoes. O shoes! By, with, or from the shoes.”
“I’ll run away by, with, or from the shoes shortly,” groaned Timothy, “see if I don’t. I can’t stand it any longer.”
“I wouldn’t mind it, if I were you,” returned Bramble minor. “They all do it. Look at the fellow who wrote the Latin Grammar! He looks around the schoolroom, and the first thing that catches his eyes goes down for the first declension, forma, a form. They’re all alike.”
But when the fruit season came round, and boys now and then smuggled cherries into school, which were forfeited by the Usher, he sometimes used these for illustrations instead of the shoes, thus (in the arithmetic class): “Two hundred and fifty-four cherries added to one thousand six hundred and seventy-five will make——?”
“A very big pie!” cried Tim on one of these occasions. He had been sitting half asleep in the sunshine, his mind running on the coming enjoyments of the fruit season, cooked and uncooked; the Usher had appealed to him unexpectedly, and the answer was out of his lips before he could recollect himself. Of course he was sent to the bottom of the class; and the worst of going down in class for Timothy was that his shoes were never content to rest there. They pinched his poor feet till he shuffled them off in despair, and then they pattered back to his proper place where they stayed till, for very shame, Tim was obliged to work back to them: and if he kept down in his class for two or three days, for so long he had to sit in his socks, for the shoes always took the place that Tim ought to have filled.
But, after all, it was pleasant enough at that school upon the moors, from the time when the cat heather came out upon the hills to the last of the blackberries; and even in winter, when the northern snow lay deep, and the big dam was “safe” for skaters, and there was a slide from the Doctor’s gate to the village post-office—one steep descent of a quarter of a mile on the causeway, and as smooth as the glass mountain climbed by the princes in the fairy tale. Then Saturday was a half-holiday, and the boys were allowed to ramble off on long country walks, and if they had been particularly good they were allowed to take out Nardy.
This was the Doctor’s big dog, a noble fellow of St. Bernard breed. The Doctor called him Bernardus, but the boys called him Nardy.
Sometimes, too, the Usher would take one or two boys for a treat to the neighboring town, and when the Usher went out holidaying, he always wore the green spectacles, through which he never saw anything amiss, and indeed (it was whispered) saw very little at all.
Altogether Timothy would have been happy but for the shoes. They did him good service in many ways, it is true. When Timothy first came the little boys groaned under the tyranny of a certain big bully of whom all were afraid. One day when he was maltreating Bramble minor in a shameful and most unjust fashion, Timothy rushed at him and with the copper tips of his unerring shoes he kicked him so severely that the big bully did not get over it for a week, and no one feared him any more. Then in races, and all games of swift and skilful chase, Timothy’s shoes won him high renown. But they made him uncomfortable whenever he went wrong, and left him no peace till he went right, and he grumbled loudly against them.
“There is a right way and a wrong way in all sublunary affairs,” said the Usher. “Hereafter, young gentleman, you will appreciate your singular felicity in being incapable of taking the wrong course without feeling uncomfortable.”
“What’s the use of his talking like that?” said Timothy, kicking the bench before him with his “copper tips.” “I don’t want to go the wrong way, I only want to go my own way, that’s all.” And night and day he beat his brains for a good plan to rid himself of the fairy shoes.
On Sunday, Dr. Dixon Airey’s school went to the old church in the valley. It was a venerable building with a stone floor, and when Dr. Dixon Airey’s young gentlemen came in they made such a clattering with their feet that everybody looked round. So the Usher very properly made a point of being punctual that they might not disturb the congregation.
The Usher always went to church with the boys, and he always wore his green spectacles. It has been hinted that on Sundays and holidays he was slow to see anything amiss. Indeed if he were directly told of misconduct he would only shake his head and say:
“Humanum est errare, my dear boy, as Dr. Kerchever Arnold truly remarks in one of the exercises.”
And the boys liked him all the better, and did not on the whole behave any the worse for this occasional lenity.
Four times in the year, on certain Sunday afternoons, the young people of the neighborhood were publicly catechised in the old church after the second lesson at Evening Prayer, and Dr. Dixon Airey’s young gentlemen with the rest. They all filed down on the nave in a certain order, and every boy knew beforehand which question and answer would fall to his share. Now Timothy’s mother had taught him the Catechism very thoroughly, and so on a certain Sunday he found that the lengthy answer to the question, “What is thy duty towards thy neighbor?” had been given to him. He knew it quite well; but a stupid, half-shy, and wholly aggravating fit came upon him, and he resolved that he would not stand up with the others to say his Catechism in church. So when they were about half-way there, Timothy slipped off unnoticed, and the Usher—all confidence and green spectacles—took the rest of the party on without him.
Oh, how the shoes pinched Tim’s feet as he ran away over the heather, and how Tim vowed in his heart never to rest till he got rid of them! At last the wrenching became so intolerable that Tim tore them off his feet, and kicked them for very spite. Fortunately for Tim’s shins the shoes did not kick back again, but they were just setting off after the Usher, when Tim snatched them up and put them in his pocket. At last he found among the gray rocks that peeped out of the heather and bracken, one that he could just move, and when he had pushed it back, he popped the shoes under it, and then rolled the heavy boulder back on them to keep them fast. After which he ate bilberries till his teeth were blue, and tried to forget the shoes and to enjoy himself. But he could hot do either.
As to the Usher, when he found that Timothy was missing, he was very much vexed; and when the Psalms were ended and still he had not come, the Usher took off his green spectacles and put them into his pocket. And Bramble minor, who came next to Timothy, kept his Prayer-Book open at the Church Catechism and read his Duty to his Neighbor instead of attending to the service. At last the time came, and all the boys filed down the nave. First the Parish schools and then Doctor Dixon Airey’s young gentlemen; and just as they took their places between Bramble minor and the next boy—in the spot where Timothy should have been—stood Timothy’s shoes.
After service the shoes walked home with the boys, and followed the Usher into Dr. Dixon Airey’s study.
“I regret, sir,” said the Usher, “I deeply regret to have to report to you that Timothy was absent from Divine worship this evening.”
“And who did his Duty to his Neighbor?” asked the Doctor, anxiously.
“Bramble minor, sir.”
“And how did he do it?” asked the Doctor.
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Mrs. Airey and I,” said the Doctor, “shall have much pleasure in seeing Bramble minor at tea this evening. I believe there are greengage turnovers. We hope also for the honor of your company, sir,” added the Doctor. “And when Timothy retraces his erring steps, tell him to come and fetch his shoes.”
I regret to say that the events just related only confirmed Timothy in his desire to get rid of his shoes. He took Bramble minor into his confidence, and they discussed the matter seriously after they went to bed.
What a gift it is to be able to dispose in one trenchant sentence of a question that has given infinite trouble to those principally concerned! Most journalists have this talent, and Bramble minor must have had some of it, for when Timothy had been stating his grievance in doleful and hopeless tones, his friend said:
“What’s the use of putting them under stones and leaving them in bogs? Give your shoes to some one who wants ’em, my boy, and they’ll be kept fast enough, you may be sure!”
“But where am I to find any one who wants them?” asked Timothy.
“Why, bless your life!” said Bramble minor, “go to the first poor person’s cottage you come to, and offer them to the first person you see. Strong shoes with copper tips and heels will not be refused in a hurry, and will be taken very good care of, you’ll find.”
With which Bramble minor rolled over in his little bed and went to sleep, and Timothy turned over in his, and thought what a thing it was to have a practical genius—like Bramble minor! And the first half-holiday he borrowed a pair of shoes, and put his own in his pocket, and set forth for the nearest poor person’s cottage.
He did not go towards the village (it was too public he thought); he went over the moors, and when he had walked about half a mile, down by a sandy lane just below him, he saw a poor person’s cottage. The cottage was so tumble-down and so old and inconvenient, there could be no doubt but that it belonged to a poor person, and to a very poor person indeed!
When Timothy first rapped at the door he could hear no answer, but after knocking two or three times he accepted a faint sound from within as a welcome, and walked into the cottage. Though more comfortable within than without, it was unmistakably the abode of a “poor person,” and the poor person himself was sitting crouched over a small fire, coughing after a manner that shook the frail walls of the cottage and his own frailer body. He was an old man and rather deaf.
“Good afternoon,” said Timothy, for he did not know what else to say.
“Good day to ye,” coughed the old man.
“And how are you this afternoon?” asked Tim.
“No but badly, thank ye,” said the old man; “but I’m a long age, and it’s what I mun expect.”
“You don’t feel as if a small pair of strong leather shoes would be of any use to you?” asked Tim in his ear.
“Eh? Shoes? It’s not many shoes I’m bound to wear out now. These’ll last my time, I expect. I’m a long age, sir. But thank ye kindly all the same.”
Tim was silent, partly because the object of his visit had failed, partly with awe of the old man, whose time was measured by the tattered slippers on his feet.
“You be one of Dr. Airey’s young gentlemen, I reckon,” said the old man at last. Tim nodded.
“And how’s the old gentleman? He wears well, do the Doctor. And I expect he’s a long age, too?”
“He’s about sixty, I believe,” said Timothy.
“I thowt he’d been better nor seventy,” said the old man, in almost an injured tone, for he did not take much interest in any one younger than threescore years and ten.
“Have you any children?” asked Tim, still thinking of the shoes.
“Four buried and four living,” said the old man.
“Perhaps they might like a pair——” began Timothy; but the old man had gone on without heeding him.
“And all four on ’em married and settled, and me alone; for my old woman went Home twenty years back, come next fift’ o’ March.”
“I daresay you have grandchildren, then?” said Tim.
“Ay, ay. Tom’s wife’s brought him eleven, so fur; and six on ’em boys.”
“They’re not very rich, I daresay,” said Tim.
“Rich!” cried the old man; “Why, bless ye, last year Tom were out o’ work six month, and they were a’most clemmed.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Tim; “and will you please give them these shoes? They’re sure to fit one of the boys, and they are very very strong leather, and copper-tipped and heeled, and——.”
But as Tim enumerated the merits of his shoes the old man tried to speak, and could not for a fit of coughing, and as he choked and struggled he put back the shoes with his hand. At last he found voice to gasp,—“Lor’, bless you, Tom’s in Osstraylee.”
“Whatever did he go there for?” cried Tim, impatiently, for he saw no prospect of getting rid of his tormentors.
“He’d nowt to do at home, and he’s doing well out yonder. He says he’ll send me some money soon, but I doubt it won’t be in time for my burying. I’m a long age,” muttered the old man.
Tim put the shoes in his pocket again, and pulled out a few coppers, the remains of his pocket-money. These the old man gratefully accepted, and Tim departed. And as he was late, he took off the borrowed shoes and put on his own once more, for they carried him quicker over the ground.
And so they were still Timothy’s shoes.
One day the Usher invited Timothy to walk to the town with him. It was a holiday. The Usher wore his green spectacles; Tim had a few shillings of pocket-money, and plums were in season. Altogether the fun promised to be good.
Timothy and the Usher had so much moor breeze and heather scents every day, that they quite enjoyed the heavier air of the valley and the smell and smoke of town life. Just as they entered the first street a dirty little boy, in rags and with bare feet, ran beside them, and as he ran he talked. And it was all about his own trouble and poverty, and hunger and bare feet, and he spoke very fast, with a kind of whine.
“I feel quite ashamed, Timothy,” said the Usher (who worked hard for twelve hours a day, and supported a blind mother and two sisters),—“I feel quite ashamed to be out holidaying when a fellow-creature is barefooted and in want.” And as he spoke the Usher gave a sixpence to the dirty little boy (who never worked at all, and was supported by kind people out walking). And when the dirty little boy had got the sixpence, he bit it with his teeth and rang it on the stones, and then danced catherine-wheels on the pavement till somebody else came by. But the Usher did not see this through his green spectacles.
And Timothy thought, “My shoes would fit that barefooted boy.”
After they had enjoyed themselves very much for some time, the Usher had to pay a business visit in the town, and he left Timothy to amuse himself alone for a while. And Timothy walked about, and at last he stopped in front of a bootmaker’s shop, and in the window he saw a charming little pair of boots just his own size. And when he turned away from the window, he saw something coming very fast along the pavement like the three legs on an Isle of Man halfpenny, and when it stood still it was the barefooted boy.
Then Timothy went into the shop, and bought the boots, and this took all his money to the last farthing.
And when he came out of the shop the dirty little boy was still there.
“Come here, my poor boy,” said Tim, speaking like a young gentleman out of ‘Sanford and Merton.’ “You look very poor, and your feet must be very cold.”
The dirty boy whined afresh, and said his feet were so bad he could hardly walk. They were frost-bitten, sun-blistered, sore, and rheumatic; and he expected shortly to become a cripple like his parents and five brothers, all from going barefoot. And Timothy stooped down and took off the little old leather shoes.
“I will give you these shoes, boy,” said he, “on one condition. You must promise not to lose them, nor to give them away.”
“Catch me!” cried the dirty boy, as he took the shoes. And his voice seemed quite changed, and he put one of his dirty fingers by the side of his nose.
“I could easily catch you if I wished,” said Tim. (For slang was not allowed in Dr. Dixon Airey’s establishment, and he did not understand the remark.)
“Well, you are green!” said the dirty boy, putting on the shoes.
“It’s no business of yours what color I am,” said Tim, angrily. “You’re black, and that’s your own fault for not washing yourself. And if you’re saucy or ungrateful, I’ll kick you—at least, I’ll try,” he added, for he remembered that he no longer wore the fairy shoes, and could not be sure of kicking or catching anybody now.
“Walker!” cried the dirty boy. But he did not walk, he ran, down the street as fast as he could go, and Timothy was parted from his shoes.
He gave a sigh, just one sigh, and then he put on the new boots, and went to meet the Usher.
The Usher was at the door of a pastrycook’s shop, and he took Tim in, and they had veal-pies and ginger-wine; and the Usher paid the bill. And all this time he beamed affably through his green spectacles, and never looked at Timothy’s feet.
Then they went out into the street, where there was an interesting smell of smoke, and humanity, and meat, and groceries, and drapery, and drugs, quite different to the moor air, and the rattling and bustling were most stimulating. And Tim and the Usher looked in at all the shop-windows gratis, and choose the things they would have bought if they had had the money. At last the Usher went into a shop and bought for Tim a kite which he had admired; and Tim would have given everything he possessed to have been able to buy some small keep-sake for the Usher, but he could not, for he had spent all his pocket-money on the new boots.
When they reached the bottom of the street, the Usher said, “Suppose we go up the other side and look at the shops there.” And when they were half way up the other side, they found a small crowd round the window of a print-seller, for a new picture was being exhibited in the window. And outside the crowd was the dirty boy, but Tim and the Usher did not see him. And they squeezed in through the crowd and saw the picture. It was a historical subject with a lot of figures, and they were all dressed so like people on the stage of a theatre that Tim thought it was a scene out of Shakespeare. But the Usher explained that it was the signing of the Magna Charta, or the Foundation Stone of our National Liberties, and he gave quite a nice little lecture about it, and the crowd said, “Hear, hear!” But as everybody wanted to look at King John at the same moment when the Usher called him “treacherous brother and base tyrant,” there was a good deal of pushing, and Tim and he had to stand arm-in-arm to keep together at all. And thus it was that when the dirty boy from behind put his hand in the Usher’s waistcoat pocket, and took out the silver watch that had belonged to his late father, the Usher thought it was Tim’s arm that seemed to press his side, and Tim thought it was the Usher’s arm that he felt. But just as the dirty boy had secured the watch the shoes gave him such a terrible twinge, that he started in spite of himself. And in his start he jerked the Usher’s waistcoat, and in one moment the Usher forgot what he was saying about our national liberties, and recalled (as with a lightning flash) the connection between crowds and our national pickpockets. And when he clapped his hand to his waistcoat—his watch was gone!
“My watch has been stolen!” cried the Usher, and, as he turned round, the dirty boy fled, and Tim, the Usher, and the crowd ran after him crying, “Stop thief!” and every one they met turned round and ran with them, and at the top of the street they caught a policeman, and were nearly as glad as if they had caught the thief.
Now if the dirty boy had still been barefoot no one could ever have stopped him. But the wrenching and jerking of the shoes made running most difficult, and just as he was turning a corner they gave one violent twist that turned him right round, and he ran straight into the policeman’s arms.
Then the policeman whipped out the watch as neatly as if he had been a pickpocket himself, and gave it back to the Usher. And the dirty boy yelled, and bit the policeman’s hand, and butted him in the chest with his head, and kicked his shins; but the policeman never lost his temper, and only held the dirty boy fast by the collar of his jacket, and shook him slightly. When the policeman shook him, the dirty boy shook himself violently, and went on shaking in the most ludicrous way, pretending that it was the policeman’s doing, and he did it so cleverly that Tim could not help laughing. And then the dirty boy danced, and shook himself faster and faster, as a conjuror shakes his chains of iron rings. And as he shook, he shook the shoes off his feet, and drew his arms in, and ducked his head, and, as the policeman was telling the Usher about a pickpocket he had caught the day before yesterday, the dirty boy gave one wriggle, dived, and leaving his jacket in the policeman’s hand, fled a way like the wind on his bare feet.
The policeman looked seriously annoyed; but the Usher said he was very glad, as he shouldn’t like to prosecute anybody, and had never been in a police-court in his life. And he gave the policeman a shilling for his trouble, and the policeman said the court “wouldn’t be no novelty to him,”—meaning to the dirty boy.
And when the crowd had dispersed, Timothy told the Usher about the boots, and said he was very sorry; and the Usher accepted his apologies, and said, “Humanum est errare, my dear boy, as Dr. Kerchever Arnold truly remarks in one of the exercises.” Then Timothy went to the bootmaker, who agreed to take back the boots “for a consideration.” And with what was left of his money, Tim bought some things for himself and for Bramble minor and for the Usher.
And the shoes took him very comfortably home.
When Timothy went home for the Christmas holidays, his mother thought him greatly improved. His friends thought so too, and when Tim had been at home about a week, a lady living in the same town invited him to a children’s party and dance. It was not convenient for any one to go with him; but his mother said, “I think you are to be trusted now, Timothy, especially in the shoes. So you shall go, but on one condition. The moment ten o’clock strikes, you must start home at once. Now remember!”
“I can come home in proper time without those clod-hopping shoes,” said Timothy to himself. “It is really too bad to expect one to go to a party in leather shoes with copper tips and heels!”
And he privately borrowed a pair of pumps belonging to his next brother, made of patent leather and adorned with neat little bows, and he put a bit of cotton wool into each toe to make them fit. And he went by a little by-lane at the back of the house, to avoid passing under his mother’s window, for he was afraid she might see the pumps.
Now the little by-lane was very badly lighted, and there were some queer-looking people loitering about, and one of them shouted something at him, and Timothy felt frightened, and walked on pretty fast. And then he heard footsteps behind him, and walked faster, and still the footsteps followed him, and at last he ran. Then they ran too, and he did not dare to look behind. And the footsteps followed him all down the by-lane and into the main street and up to the door of the lady’s house, where Tim pulled the bell and turned to face his pursuer.
But nothing was to be seen save Timothy’s little old leather shoes, which stood beside him on the steps.
“Your shoes, sir?” said the very polite footman who opened the door. And he carried the shoes inside, and Tim was obliged to put them on and leave the pumps with the footman, for (as he said) “they’ll be coming up stairs, and making a fool of me in the ball-room.”
Tim had no reason to regret the exchange. Other people are not nearly so much interested in one’s appearance as one is oneself; and then they danced so beautifully that every little girl in the room wanted Tim for her partner, and he was perfectly at home, even in the Lancers. He went down twice to supper, and had lots of gooseberry-fool; and they were just about to dance Sir Roger de Coverley, when the clock struck ten.
Tim knew he ought to go, but a very nice little girl wanted to dance with him, and Sir Roger is the best of fun, and he thought he would just stay till it was over. But though he secured his partner and began, the shoes made dancing more a pain than a pleasure to him. They pinched him, they twitched him, they baulked his glissades, and once when he should have gone down the room they fairly turned him around and carried him off towards the door. The other dancers complained, and Tim kicked off the shoes in a pet, and resolved to dance it out in his socks.
But when the shoes were gone, Tim found how much the credit of his dancing was due to them. He could not remember the figure. He swung the little lady round when he should have bowed, and bowed when he should have taken her hand, and led the long line of boys the wrong way, and never made a triumphal arch at all. The boys scolded and squabbled, the little ladies said he had had too much gooseberry-fool, and at last Timothy left them and went down stairs. Here he got the little pumps from the footman and started home. He ran to make up for lost time, and as he turned out of the first street he saw the leather shoes running before him, the copper tips shining in the lamplight.
And when he reached his own door the little shoes were waiting on the threshold.
When Timothy went back to school in the beginning of the year, the snow lay deep upon the moors. The boys made colossal snow men and buried things deep under drifts, for the dog Bernardus to fetch out. On the ice Timothy’s shoes were invaluable. He was the best skater and slider in the school, and when he was going triumphantly down a long slide with his arms folded and his friends cheering, Tim was very glad he had not given away his shoes.
One Saturday the Usher took him and Bramble minor for a long walk over the hills. They had tea with a friendly farmer, whose hospitality would hardly let them go. So they were later than they had intended, and about the time that they set out to return a little snow began to fall. It was small snow, and fell very quietly. But though it fell so quietly, it was wonderful how soon the walls and gates got covered; and though the flakes were small they were so dense that in a short time no one could see more than a few yards in front of him. The Usher thought it was desirable to get home as quickly as possible, and he proposed to take a short cut across the moors, instead of following the high road all the way. So they climbed a wall, and ploughed their way through the untrodden snow, and their hands and feet grew bitterly painful and then numb, and the soft snow lodged in their necks and drifted on to their eyelashes and into their ears, and at last Timothy fairly cried. For he said, that besides the biting of the frost his shoes pinched and pulled his feet.
“It’s because we are not on the high road,” said the Usher; “but this will take half an hour off our journey, and in five minutes we shall strike the road again, and then the shoes will be all right. Bear it for a few minutes longer if you can, Tim.”
But Tim found it so hard to bear, that the Usher took him on to his back and took his feet into his hands, and Bramble minor carried the shoes. And five minutes passed but they did not strike the road, and five more minutes passed, and though Tim lay heavy upon the Usher’s shoulder (for he was asleep) the Usher’s heart was heavier still. And five minutes more passed, and Bramble minor was crying, and the Usher said, “Boys, we’ve lost our way. I see nothing for it but to put Timothy’s shoes down and follow them.”
So Bramble minor put down the shoes, and they started off to the left, and the Usher and the boys followed them.
But the shoes tripped lightly over the top of the snow, and went very fast, and the Usher and Bramble minor waded slowly through it, and in a few seconds the shoes disappeared into the snowstorm, and they lost sight of them altogether, and Bramble minor said—“I can’t go any further. I don’t mind being left, but I must lie down, I am so very, very tired.”
Then the Usher woke Timothy, and made him put on Bramble minor’s boots and walk, and he took Bramble minor on to his back, and made Timothy take hold of his coat, and they struggled on through the storm, going as nearly as they could in the way that the shoes had gone.
“How are you getting on, Timothy?” asked the Usher after a long silence. “Don’t be afraid of holding on to me, my boy.”
But Timothy gave no answer.
“Keep a brave heart, laddie!” cried the Usher, as cheerfully as his numb and languid lips could speak.
Still there was silence, and when he looked round, Timothy was not there.
When and where he had lost his hold the distracted Usher had no idea. He shouted in vain.
“How could I let him take off the shoes?” groaned the poor man. “Oh! what shall I do? Shall I struggle on to save this boy’s life, or risk all our lives by turning back after the other?”
He turned round as he spoke, and the wild blast and driving snow struck him in the face. The darkness fell rapidly, the drifts grew deeper, and yet the Usher went after Timothy.
And he found him, but too late—for his own strength was exhausted, and the snow was three feet deep all round him.
When the snow first began to fall, Dr. Dixon Airey observed,—“Our friends will get a sprinkling of sugar this evening;” and the boys laughed, for this was one of Dr. Dixon Airey’s winter jokes.
When it got dusk, and the storm thickened, Dr. Dixon Airey said—“I hope they will come home soon.”
But when the darkness fell, and they did not come, Dr. Dixon Airey said, “I think they must have remained at the farm.” And when an hour passed and nothing was to be seen or heard without but the driving wind and snow, the Doctor said, “Of course they are at the farm. Very wise and proper.” And he drew the study curtains, and took up a newspaper, and rang for tea. But the Doctor could not eat his tea, and he did not read his paper, and every five minutes he opened the front door and looked out, and all was dark and silent, only a few snow-flakes close to him looked white as they fell through the light from the open door. And the Doctor said, “There can’t be the slightest doubt they are at the farm.”
But when Dr. Dixon Airey opened the door for the seventh time, Timothy’s shoes ran in, and they were filled with snow. And when the Doctor saw them he covered his face with his hands.
But in a moment more he had sent his man-servant to the village for help, and Mrs. Airey was filling his flask with brandy, and he was tying on his comforter and cap, and fastening his leggings and great-coat. Then he took his lantern and went out in the yard.
And there lay Bernardus with his big nose at the door of his kennel smelling the storm. And when he saw the light and heard footsteps, his great, melancholy, human eyes brightened, and he moaned with joy. And when the men came up from the village and moved about with shovels and lanterns, he was nearly frantic, for he thought, “This looks like business;” and he dragged at his kennel, as much as to say, “If you don’t let me off the chain now, of all moments, I’ll come on my own responsibility and bring the kennel with me.”
Then the Doctor unfastened the chain, and he tied Timothy’s shoes round the dog’s neck, saying, “Perhaps they will help to lead their wearer aright.” And either the shoes did pull in the right direction, or the sagacity of Bernardus sufficed him, for he started off without a moment’s hesitation. The men followed him as fast as they were able, and from time to time Bernardus would look round to see if they were coming, and would wait for them. But if he saw the lanterns he was satisfied and went on.
“It’s a rare good thing there’s some dumb animals cleverer than we are ourselves,” observed one of the laborers as they struggled blindly through the snow, the lanterns casting feeble and erratic patches of light for a yard or two before their feet. To Bernardus his own wonderful gift was light, and sight, and guide, its own sufficient stimulus, and its own reward.
“There’s some’at amiss,” said another man presently; “t’dog’s whining; he’s stuck fast.”
“Or perhaps he has found something,” said the Doctor trembling.
The Doctor was right. He had found Timothy and Bramble minor, and the Usher: and they were still alive.
* * * * * *
“Mrs. Airey,” said the Doctor, as an hour later, they sat round the study fire wrapped in blankets, and drinking tumblers of hot compounds—“Mrs. Airey, that is a creature above kennels. From this eventful evening I wish him to sleep under our roof.”
And Mrs. Airey began, “Bless him!” and then burst into tears.
And Bernardus, who lay with his large eyes upon the fire, rejoiced in the depths of his doggish heart.
It is hardly needful to say that Timothy was reconciled to his shoes. As to being ashamed of them—he would as soon have been ashamed of that other true friend of his, the Usher. He would no more have parted with them now than Dr. Dixon Airey would have parted with the dog Bernardus.
But, alas! how often it happens that we do not fully value our best friends till they are about to be taken from us! It was a painful fact, but Timothy was outgrowing his shoes.
He was at home when the day came on which the old leather shoes into which he could no longer squeeze his feet were polished for the last time, and put away in a cupboard in his mother’s room: Timothy blacked them with his own hands, and the tears were in his eyes as he put them on the shelf.
“Good-bye, good little friends;” said he; “I will try and walk as you have taught me.”
Timothy’s mother was much affected by this event. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the shoes in the cupboard. She seemed to live over again all the long years of her married life. Her first anxieties, the good conduct of all her boys, the faithful help of those good friends to her nine sons in turn—all passed through her mind as she knitted her brows under the frill of her nightcap and gazed at the cupboard door with sleepless eyes. “Ah!” she thought, “how wise the good godmother was! No money, no good luck, would have done for my boys what the early training of these shoes has done. That early discipline which makes the prompt performance of duty a habit in childhood, is indeed the quickest relief to parental anxieties, and the firmest foundation for the fortunes of one’s children.”
Such, and many more, were the excellent reflections of this conscientious woman; but excellent as they were, they shall not be recorded here. One’s own experience preaches with irresistible eloquence; but the second-hand sermons of other people’s lives are apt to seem tedious and impertinent.
Her meditations kept her awake till dawn. The sun was just rising, and the good woman was just beginning to feel sleepy, and had once or twice lost sight of the bed-room furniture in a half-dream, when she was startled by the familiar sound as of a child jumping down from some height to the floor. The habit of years was strong on her, and she cried, “Bless the boy! He’ll break his neck!” as she had had reason to exclaim about one or other of her nine sons any day for the last twenty years.
But as she spoke the cupboard door swung slowly open, and Timothy’s shoes came out and ran across the floor. They paused for an instant by his mother’s bed, as if to say farewell, and then the bed-room door opened also and let them pass. Down the stairs they went, and they ran with that music of a childish patter that no foot in the house could make now; and the mother sobbed to hear it for the last time. Then she thought, “The house door’s locked, they can’t go right away yet.”
But in that moment she heard the house door turn slowly on its hinges. Then she jumped out of bed, and ran to the window, pushed it open, and leaned out.
In front of the house was a little garden, and the little garden was kept by a gate, and beyond the gate was a road, and beyond the road was a hill, and on the grass of the hill the dew lay thick and white, and morning mists rested on the top. The little shoes pattered through the garden, and the gate opened for them and snecked after them. And they crossed the road, and went over the hill, leaving little footprints in the dew. And they passed into the morning mists, and were lost to sight.
And when the sun looked over the hill and dried the dew, and sent away the mists, Timothy’s Shoes were gone.
* * * * * *
“If they never come back,” said Timothy’s mother, “I shall know that I am to have no more children!” and though she had certainly had her share, she sighed.
But they never did come back; and Timothy remained the youngest of the family.