The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales Part 11

After a time he approached the boy again.

"The woman will say you are her child, and make you go back and beg for her if she gets better, will she not?"

"She doesn't want me now."

"How so?"

"She says, I'm too hungry, and eat all the bread away from her, and don't get enough for us both."

A curious expression pa.s.sed across Theodore's face as he turned away and sat down in his chair once more. It looked like a gleam of satisfaction. The boy, meanwhile, sat quite still, looking round the room. He had a grave and somewhat interesting face, but that the dark eyes looked a little too keen and restless to be quite pleasant.

Still, when he smiled, and he had smiled brightly when he first saw the bread, his countenance improved; and there was, besides, something about his open forehead which redeemed the covert expression of his eye. He was about seven years old, and precocious in quickness of a particular kind, as is very often the case with vagrant children.

Theodore's reverie was broken at last by the arrival of his good old housekeeper, who came in, flurried and indignant, to inform him that the woman she had been in search of was no where to be found. She had been, "she was sure," up and down all the carriage roads, and made enquiries at all the lodges, and finally discovered that a beggar woman had pa.s.sed out at one of them upwards of an hour before, very hurriedly, and indeed almost at a running pace.

Theodore glanced at the child, but his countenance never changed. Only he sat eying the housekeeper as she spoke, apparently indifferent to the result. The housekeeper now began to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e in broken sentences, "The base creature! To think that you should have taken all this trouble, Sir! and had the child actually into the house!

and--gracious me," added she in a half whisper, "hadn't I better call the butler, Sir; hadn't he" (nodding significantly towards the child) "better be taken to the workhouse at once, Sir?"

"I think not," answered Theodore slowly--"not yet, I think. The truth is, I find he's not her own child, but has been stolen; and--and--in fact, we can send him to the workhouse to-morrow. Perhaps, after all, the woman may come here for him. But, at any rate, there is time enough. You see this is an odd affair; and, as the boy is not _hers_, we don't know who he may not turn out to be some day." And, as Theodore thus concluded his sentence, he got up and looked at the old housekeeper with a smile--a melancholy one it is true, but still it was a smile--the first that had been seen on his face since his terrible bereavement.

And the faithful servant was so much pleased that she forgot every thing else in a desire to keep up the interest that had lured her young master so unaccountably from his misery.

"Well, to be sure, Sir, what you say's quite right, and we can make the poor thing comfortable for to-night, and then you can do as you please to-morrow. Shall I take him with me, Sir, and make him clean, while you dine? I can borrow some tidy clothes from the bailiff's wife, I dare say; and after he's made respectable, you can see him again, Sir, if you think proper."

This proposition was more grateful to Theodore's mind than he cared to acknowledge to himself. Indeed he had no clear ideas of his feelings about the little accident that had interrupted the dismal course of his life; and he studiously avoided questioning himself too closely.

Only there came across him, every now and then, a sensation that there was some special providence about it all, and that there was some mysterious connection between this adventure and the words of the apparitions who had spoken to him in the morning.

But "let be, let us see what will happen," was the ruling feeling, and as he felt less miserable than usual, he did not wish to disturb the pleasing dream by enquiries, why?

After his solitary dinner, as he was seated alone in his arm chair, he was relapsing fast into his usual unhappy state of mind, for this was at all times the most trying part of the day to him, when a knock at the door aroused him.

Ah, it was the good old housekeeper again! She who, with the acute instinct of sorrow-soothing which women so eminently possess, had purposely come at this the young master's "dark hour," to try if it could be kept back by the charm she had seen working a short time before. "The little fellow is quite fit to come in now, Sir, if you'd wish to see him before he's put to bed." And her efforts were rewarded by seeing a look of interest light up poor Theodore's eye. The boy was now ushered in, and his improved appearance and cleanliness were very striking. Theodore took hold of his hand--"There, you need not be afraid; you may sit down upon that chair. Are you comfortable?" "Yes."

"Have you had plenty to eat?" "Yes, plenty." And the child laughed a little.

"I hope you are a good boy."

He looked stupid. "Can you say your prayers?"

"What's that?"

"Ah! I was afraid not. You never heard about G.o.d?" "Yes; but the woman used to keep that to herself." "Keep what?"

"Why," _for G.o.d's sake_, when she begged. She didn't let me say it, but she always said it herself; and then, when people wouldn't give us any thing, she used to say--"

"No, no! I will not hear about that;" interrupted Theodore, "but I hope some day you will learn about G.o.d."

"In the begging? must I say it in the begging next time?"

"No, I don't mean that; not in begging bread of people in the road, but in praying."

"What's that?" "Begging." "Then I am to beg?" "No, not on the road, but of a great good Being, who will never refuse what you ask."

"Is that _you_?"

"No, my poor boy; not me, but the great Being, called G.o.d, who lives in the sky. You must beg all you want of Him."

"I don't know Him."

"No; but you will learn to know Him when you have listened to me and prayed to Him."

"I don't know praying; I know begging."

"Well, then, when you have begged Him--"

"What am I to say?"

"First, you must say, 'Our Father--'"

"Father's dead," interrupted the boy;

"Ah, but I do not mean _that_ father," answered Theodore; "and how do you know even that _that_ father is dead?"

"The woman said so. One day she told me Father and Mother were both dead, and there was n.o.body left to love me, so I must mind her."

"The woman was wrong," cried Theodore compa.s.sionately. "You have another Father, who never dies, and who loves you always!--"

A knock at the door interrupted Theodore's _lesson on the Love of G.o.d_.

"It's about time the poor thing was put to bed," suggested the housekeeper, looking in. "I dare say he's tired."

"I dare say he is," said Theodore mechanically. "Good night, little boy. What used they to call you?"

"Reuben."

"Good night, little Reuben." And he was taken away.

_You have another Father who never dies and who loves you always_!

founded like an echo through the room. Theodore arose and looked around, but there was no one there. He resumed his feat, and wondered how he had got involved in teaching the beggar boy religion. He lamented his awkwardness and unfitness for the talk; but still he thought he had done right. As to his last a.s.sertion, how else could he make the child comprehend G.o.d at all? Besides, how cruel it would be to infect him with his own miserable convictions. They would come time enough, perhaps!

Such was the current of his thoughts. The next morning he told the old housekeeper of the boy's ignorance and his difficulty with him, and engaged her to help him in his talk, which she readily undertook.

It is not my intention to describe the many endeavours Theodore made to impress the first great truths of Christianity upon Reuben's mind; but I can a.s.sure you he felt all the better for them himself. How it was that he never sent the little boy to the workhouse you can guess.

For the first few days he kept him to see (as he said), if the woman would come back for him. Then he wished him to stay till he and the housekeeper had sufficiently impressed him by their lessons. And then--why then--by degrees, all mention of the workhouse ceased, and better clothes were bought for him; and the housekeeper, who was one of the by-gone generation of warm-hearted old family servants, became, for her master's sake, a perfect mother to him; and to Theodore he involuntarily proved an object of daily increasing interest, and finally, of strong personal affection.

And thus nearly a year pa.s.sed over, during which time Theodore's health and activity in a measure returned; but the cheerfulness of a happy mind was still wanting. Reuben often lured him temporarily into it, but he would again relapse, and had never given up his unhappy theory, though now he dwelt upon it much less frequently than of old.

At the end of the year, however, Theodore was much distressed by fancying that he detected Reuben in lying; and he was, besides, by no means sure that little trifles were not taken from him by the child for his own use and amus.e.m.e.nt. He communicated his suspicions to the housekeeper, and alas! found his worst fears confirmed. The pain and sorrow he felt at this discovery were of a kind totally new to him.

But the strongest feeling of all was, that he would not give up the boy to vicious habits without a struggle (cost what it might) to save him! The housekeeper told him, with tears, that she had observed Reuben's habit of petty lying and taking any thing he fancied, very soon after his admission to the house; but she confessed that she had not had the heart to inform her young Master, lest he should send the boy away who had seemed to take him so out of his trouble! This was what she most thought about. So she had tried to correct the child herself, but not with the success she had desired. "How little she knows the heart," thought Theodore, "his evil propensities would have been an additional claim upon my kindness!"

I will pa.s.s over all that Theodore said to the boy himself. No father could have been more earnest, more solemn in his warnings, or more kind in his expostulations. Reuben, by this time, could understand all he said, and shame and repentance burnt in his face during a painful interview. It is right to remind you, dear children, of the many excuses that were to be made for him. He had been brought up, till seven years old, in total ignorance of G.o.d, and without ever having heard one duty commanded or one sin forbidden. The woman lied daily and hourly in his sight, and made him do the same; and she took all she could lay hold of in any way, and beat him if he did not follow her example; and although Theodore's instructions had opened a new world on the child's mind, the _evil_ HABITS were not so soon got rid of. So there the mischief was; and now the great difficulty Theodore felt, was to know what to do for the best. And, after much consideration, he decided to send him to school, as the likeliest means of eradicating the bad habits the boy had acquired. I say _habits_, rather than dispositions, for there was indeed nothing mean or sneaking about his character. On the contrary, he was both courageous and generous in the turn of his mind, and, after his health improved, his manners partook of the same freedom and candour.