Misunderstood

"The insides of houses are so hot, mother; please say I may go out!" …

Had the boy ever walked? Had he ever done anything but run?

Sir Everard could not recall one instance of meeting him out of doors, except running and rushing headlong, jumping over everything which obstructed his path.

Once again, there rose the thought of the motionless little figure sitting pale and silent in a cripple's chair. God help the poor father! In the bitterness of his spirit he had almost said, "Sooner than clip his wings, let him soar away."

He retraced his steps, and on entering the hall, was informed by the trembling Virginie that Humphrey had recovered consciousness, and had spoken.

He hurried to the drawing-room, but the doctor met him at the door, and motioned him back.

"Do not go in just yet," he said, closing the door behind him; "he seems to fear your displeasure about something, and shows great excitement at the thought of seeing you. I dare say," he added, quickly, for he was touched by the expression of pain which passed over the poor father's face, "I dare say he will get over it, when he is a little less confused."

"Does he understand what has happened?"

"I think so, now. At first he was sadly confused at finding himself in the drawing-room; but by degrees he remembered the events of the day. The moment he grasped the idea of the accident, he became excited, and asked repeatedly for his little brother. I should fancy this anxiety was associated with his shrinking from seeing you. Perhaps you understand better than I do?"

"I have been obliged several times lately to find fault with him for leading his little brother into mischief, and this last unfortunate escapade I had most especially forbidden. Miles is, as you know, so very delicate that I am obliged to be very careful of him."

This was said almost in an exculpatory tone.

"He is certainly very delicate," answered the doctor, "and ought not to be exposed to such dangers. I am very thankful he has escaped so easily. Now my little patient's constitution is altogether different; seldom have I seen a finer or stronger. However," he added, breaking off with a sigh, "the most iron frame is not proof against such an accident as this. I think, Sir Everard," he concluded, "that what you tell me would quite account for the excitement. May I tell him from you that he has no cause to fear your anger?"

"Need you ask?" said the baronet, impatiently, and the doctor returned to the sick room.

Sir Everard paced up and down till the door re-opened, and the doctor made him a sign to come in.

He entered, and advanced to the side of the sofa. The room was so dark that he could only see the outline of the curly head, lying back among the pillows, but a little hand came out, and pulled him down.

"Father," in a voice which was hardly above a whisper, "it's all right. He isn't hurt a bit—not even a cold. I am so glad it is me that is hurt instead of him."

"Oh, hush! hush! my darling."

"You're not angry with me, father? I'm so sorry I climbed. I'll never do it again. Say you're not angry, father."

"No, no my poor child—I'm not angry only so sorry to see you ill."

"Am I very ill? What is the matter with my head? Shall I soon be well again?"

"I hope so, darling. There are some gentlemen coming to-morrow, to help you to get well very quick."

"I shall be well by the Harvest Home shan't I?"

"The Harvest Home? When is that?"

"You promised to fix a day early next week, you know, father. Which day shall it be?"

"I—I don't—quite know what day to fix, my boy."

"The corn fell so fast, all day, father—it must be ready soon. Shall we say Tuesday?"

No answer: only an inarticulate murmur.

"Then that's settled. Shall I be well enough on Tuesday to dance 'Up the middle and down again,' with Dolly?"

Rises again, all unbidden, before the father's eyes, a motionless little figure, sitting in a cripple's chair. Dance! Ought he to tell him? ought he to prepare him? who was to do it, if not he? who else was to tell him of the blight that had fallen on his young life?

"You don't tell me, father. Shall I be well soon?"

He could not tell him. He only kissed the little hand, and murmured, "God grant you may, my child!"

"I shan't be able to lie still very long. If it wasn't that I feel so tired, I should like to jump up now."

"Are you very tired, Humphrey?"

"Yes," with a sigh, "and my back aches, and so does my head, and feels so funny. It makes my eyes swim, and that makes me so sleepy."

"Will you try to go to sleep?"

"Yes," murmured the child, and his heavy eyes closed; "I shall wake up quite well to-morrow."

"A good sign," whispered Sir Everard to the doctor. The doctor did not answer; and Sir Everard went up to the nursery, to see Miles. The little fellow was gazing out of the window, humming a forlorn little tune to himself. Jane, with red eyes, was sitting at work.

Sir Everard took the child up in his arms "What are you doing, my little man?"

"I'm so dull without Humphie. When will he come and play?"

"Soon, I hope, darling."

"Is Humphie going to sleep all night in the drawing-room?"

"Yes—isn't that funny?"

"May I go and say good-night to him?"

"No; you can't go to him to-night."

Miles's eyes filled with tears. "I can't go to sleep without saying good-night to Humphie."

"Ah! don't cry, my child," said the poor father, beseechingly. His feelings had been on the strain so many hours; he felt he could not stand any more, and he dared not let his thoughts dwell on the subject. He tried to turn the conversation. "Tell me," he said, with a forced smile, "what was that little song you were singing to yourself when I came in?"

"It was about Humpty-Dumpty," said Miles, mournfully.

"Let me see: Humpty-Dumpty, was an egg, wasn't he?"

"That gentleman said it was Humphie who was Humpty-Dumpty. Is that true, Fardie?"

"No, darling; how could Humphrey be an egg?"

"One part's true, though," said Miles, "'Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall.'"

"Ah! that's true!" sighed Sir Everard.

"What's the end, Fardie? I want to remember it, and I can't—do you?"

Why did Sir Everard put the child down so suddenly, and why should his voice falter a little, as he repeated the baby couplet? They were only nursery rhymes, and this is how they ended:

"All the king's horses, and all the king's men,Will never set Humpty-Dumpty up again."

"It's 'diculous nonsense, Fardie, of course?"

"A ridiculous nonsensical rhyme, darling!"

But ah! how nearly the sublime and the ridiculous touch sometimes in this world!

CHAPTER XV

Humphrey passed the night partly in heavy sleep and partly in feverish restlessness.

His first inquiry in the morning was for Miles, and the next for the gentlemen who were to help him to get well so quick.

The latter he was told could not arrive till eleven o'clock, but Sir Everard went to fetch little Miles, and whispering to him not to talk much or to stay long, he put the child down and stayed by the door to watch the meeting between the two little brothers.

Miles advanced rather timidly, the room was so dark and everything looked so strange. But as soon as he distinguished his brother he ran forward.

"Humphie! get up, get up. Why do you 'ie there, and look so white?"

"I'm ill, Miles!"—in a tone half plaintive, half triumphant.

"Musn't be ill, Humphie—oh, don't be ill!"

"You're often ill, Miles; why shouldn't I be ill sometimes?"

"Don't like it," said the child, his eyes filling with tears. "Oh, Humphie, I wish we hadn't tummelled into the pond!"

At this moment Sir Everard was called away, and informed that the physicians had arrived from London.

He found them in the dining-room, talking over the case with the village doctor and, after ordering them some breakfast, he returned to prepare the little invalid for their arrival.

As he approached the room he was alarmed to hear Humphrey's voice raised, and still more, when little Miles, with a face of terror came running out.

"Oh, Fardie, Fardie! will you come to Humphie? He's crying so, and he wants you to come directly!"

"Crying so! What is the matter with him?"

"Oh, I don't know? He began to cry and scream so when I said it!"

"Said what—said what?"

"Oh, Fardie, I was telling him that I heard Virginie tell some one he would be 'boiteux' all his life, and I only asked him what it meant!"

*         *         *         *         *

Vainly all night long had Sir Everard tried to frame a sentence in which to convey the fatal news.

Phrase after phrase had he rejected, because nothing seemed to him to express half the love and tenderness in which so terrible an announcement should be clothed. Words were so hard, so cold! They were so weak to express what he wanted—so utterly inadequate to contain all the pity, all the yearning sympathy with which his heart was overflowing!

And now without any preparation, without any softening, the cruel blow had fallen!

For one moment the father's heart failed him, and he felt he could not face the boy, could not meet his questioning gaze, could not with his own lips confirm the fatal truth. But there was no time for reflection. Humphrey's feeble voice calling him to come quickly, caught his ear, and as in a dream he advanced, and stood by the bedside.

"Father!" exclaimed the child (and how shall we express the tones of his voice, or convey an idea of the pitiful entreaty and nameless horror with which they rang?) "it isn't true—is it? Oh, say it isn't true!"

All the words of consolation and soothing died upon the father's lips, and his tongue seemed tied.

"She's always saying unkind things," sobbed the child, clinging to him; "she oughtn't to—ought she? You don't answer me, father! Father, why don't you tell me? Why don't you say quick, it's not true?" And as his fear grew, his voice faltered, and his grasp on his father tightened. "Answer me—father—why—don't you—speak?"

"My poor child, my poor little fellow!" One more struggle for the truth, in spite of the failing voice, and the sense of deadly sickness.

"Lift up your face, father. Let—me—see—your—face!"

What was there in the face that struck terror to his heart, and brought conviction thumping up in great throbs, even before the faltering words came.

"Supposing it should be true—what then!"

Ah! what then? His dizzy brain refused to attach any meaning to the words, or to help him to understand how much was contained in them.

The loud beating of his heart echoed them, his parched lips strove to repeat them, and wildly he fought with his failing senses, straining every nerve to find an answer to the question. In vain! Every pulse in his throbbing head seemed to take up the words and beat them into his brain; the air was live with voices around him, and voices and pulses alike cried, "What then?—what then?" But the question went unanswered, for Humphrey fainted away.

*         *         *         *         *

Sir Everard hastily summoned the doctors, and they did all they could to restore him.

In a little while he showed signs of coming to himself, and to prevent his thoughts returning to the subject which had agitated him, they requested Sir Everard to remain out of sight, and stationed themselves close to the bedside, so that theirs should be the first figures that should attract his attention.

As Humphrey slowly recovered consciousness, he did not indeed clearly remember on what his thoughts had been dwelling, but that there was something in his mind from which he shrank, he was quite aware.

Waking in the morning to a sense of some sorrow which possessed us ere we slept, we intuitively feel there is something amiss, though we are too confused to remember what it is; and even while we wish to recall it, we dread to turn our thoughts that way, lest we should lose the temporary peace into which forgetfulness has plunged us.

In such a passive state would Humphrey have remained, had not the doctors, to distract his thoughts, touched his brow, and caused him to open his eyes.

Alas! they little knew the all-powerful association of the place where he lay.

He closed his eyes again directly, and took no notice of the doctors' attempts to lead him into conversation; but in that one moment, his glance had rested on his mother's picture, and at once his mind wandered back—not indeed to the memory they dreaded, but to one which was scarcely less painful.

We will follow his thoughts for a moment.

He is alone; all alone in the desolate apartment, in the closed uninhabited room! The twilight is creeping slowly on, and the silence and emptiness within and without him, can almost be felt. Up-stairs in the nursery, Miles is dying—perhaps already dead. No one will help him, or be sorry for him. And as the sense of neglect and isolation steals over him once more, his breast heaves, and his lips move:

"Mother, I want you back so much, every one is angry with me and I am so very miserable!"

No answer, no sound.

"Mother! put your arms round me! put my head on your shoulder!"

Not a word.

It is only a picture after all.

*         *         *         *         *

Never to play with Miles any more! No more games on the stairs, or in the passages! No, never more! For Miles is dying, perhaps already dead. How happy the baby in the picture looks! Can it really be him? Oh, happy baby, always close to mother! always with her arms round him, and her shoulder against his head. Oh, if he could climb up into the baby's place, and stay there for ever and ever! How could he get up to her? She is in Heaven. She got there by being ill and dying. Why should he not get ill, and die too. Miles is dying, mother is dead—he would so like to die too. But it's no use. He never is ill—not even a cold. Miles caught cold going to the pond—the pond where the water-lilies are. How quiet it was! how cool! How gently they dance upon the water, those lovely water-lilies. How the bird sang, and the rat splashed.... Come up, Miles—it's as safe as safe can be!… Stop!… Miles is dying—how could he come up? Miles came into the room, and talked about the—jackdaw … wasn't it?—the poor lame jackdaw.... Miles is dying.... How did he come in?… Hop! hop! comes the jackdaw, poor old fellow! But what did Miles say about the jackdaw? Boiteux! But that's not his name; we always call him Jack. Boiteux means.... The jackdaw again! Hop, hop, he comes.... He will never fly again—never! Poor old jackdaw!… Is it ready true that he will never fly again? It is not true. But supposing it should be true, what then?… Boiteux!… Who is it keeps on asking me what 'boiteux' means?… Boiteux! "What then?" Boiteux means jackdaw—no, it means lame—no it means crip–

The temporary oblivion is over, the unknown dread is taking a tangible shape, and recollection rushes over him, bringing conviction with it.

But Hope, ever the last gift in the casket, faintly holds out against certainty.

"No! no!—not that! it can't be that!"

But something beating in his heart, beats Hope down. Mighty throbs, like the strokes of a hammer, beat it down, down, crush it to nothing; and a terrible sinking comes in its place. It is true—and in an instant he realizes what It being true will entail.

As lightning, flashing upon the path of the benighted traveller, reveals to him for a moment the country lying before him, illumining all its minutest details; so thought, flashing upon the future of the child, showed him for a moment all too vividly the life of crippled helplessness stretching out before him—the daily, hourly cross, which must be his for ever!

Let each one try to conceive for himself the intensity of such a moment, to such a nature!

Let each one try to realise the thoughts which followed each other in hot haste through his brain, the confused phantasmagoria which swam before him, fading away at last, and leaving only two distinct pictures—the jackdaw hopping about in his cage, and little lame Tom in the village, sitting in his cripple's chair.

He shrinks back in horror, his soul rises in loathing: he pants, and wildly throws himself about, with a half-smothered cry.

"Oh, gently, my darling! you will hurt yourself."

It is his father's voice, and he turns to him and clings tightly.

"I don't care—I don't care. I want to hurt myself. I want to die. I don't want to live like that!" At the sight of the physicians, his excitement redoubled, and he clung more tightly to his father. "No! No! Send them away! They shan't look at me, they shan't touch me. They are going to try and make me well, and I don't want to get well. I won't get well!"

The doctors retired, as their presence excited him so much, and Sir Everard tried to loosen the boy's convulsive grasp round his neck.

Humphrey was too exhausted to retain the position long: his hands relaxed their hold, and Sir Everard laid him back on the pillow.

Once more the soft face in the picture exercises its old influence over him, and charms away, as of old, the fit of passionate rebellion.

"Father," he entreated, in a whisper, "let me die! Promise not to let them try and make me well again."

Between surprise and emotion Sir Everard could not answer. He thought the idea of death would be both strange and repugnant to so thoughtless a creature; and he marvelled to hear him speak of it.

"You'll promise, won't you, father? You know I couldn't live like that! Let me go and live with mother in Heaven. See," pointing to the picture, "how happy I was in her arms when I was a baby, and I want to lie there again so much! Just now, when I thought it was still the night Miles was ill, before I knew I should never walk or run any more, even then I wanted so to get ill and die, that I might go to her, and I want it more than ever now. I thought then I never could get ill, because I am so strong; but now I am ill, and so you'll let me die! Promise not to try and make me well?"

Three times Sir Everard strove to answer, and three times his voice failed him. He managed, however, to murmur something which sounded like an affirmative, which satisfied and quieted the child.

But much of the boy's speech had been wholly unintelligible to him, and his allusions to his mother's picture especially puzzled him. Looking upon the drawing-room as a closed room, he had no idea that the children ever penetrated into it, or that they knew of the existence of the picture. And laying his hand on the child's head, he said: "How did you know that was your mother, Humphrey?"

The boy shot at him a glance of such astonishment that Sir Everard felt rebuked, and did not like to continue the conversation; and the doctors, returning at that moment, it was not resumed.

This time, Humphrey made no resistance, and the physicians were able to make their examination.

Leaving the village doctor by the bedside, Sir Everard led the way to the library, to hear their opinion.

He hardly knew what he wished. Humphrey's horror at his impending fate had made such an impression on Sir Everard that he almost shrank from hearing the child would recover to such a life as that. And yet when the doctors told him his boy must die, a revulsion of feeling swept over him, and his rebellious heart cried, "Anything but that!"

"Would it be soon?" he tried to ask.

"It could not be far off," they said.

"Would the child suffer?"

"They hoped not—they believed not;" and they wrung his hand and departed.

He followed them to the hall door, and waited with them till their carriage came up.

It was a still summer's morning when they came out upon the steps, as if all nature were silently and breathlessly awaiting the verdict. But as the doctors got into their carriage, a light breeze sprang up, causing the trees to sway and rustle with a mournful sound, as if they knew the sentence, and were conveying it to the fields around. Sir Everard stood watching them as they drove away—those great court physicians, who, with all their fame and all their learning could do nothing for his boy—nothing!

He listened to the sighing of the wind, and watched the trees bowing mournfully before it; and he wondered vaguely what was the language of the winds and breezes, and in what words nature was learning his boy's fate. It seemed to him that the breezes pursued the retreating doctors, and flung clouds of dust around them, as if taunting them with their inability to help; and then, returning once more to the oaks and beeches, resumed their melancholy wail. Dreamily there recurred to his mind that ancient fable the children loved to hear: that story of the olden time which tells how the wind wafted through the trees to the passers-by, the secret which had been whispered into the bosom of the earth:

"List! Mother Earth; while no man hears,King Midas has got asses' ears."

And, as he cast one more look at the carriage in the distance, before re-entering the house, the messages of the breezes seemed to come into his head in the form of the baby rhymes he had so often heard the children sing.

CHAPTER XVI

Before returning to the sick-room, Sir Everard sat down to write some letters.

He tried to think of some one he could send for, to help him in his trouble. His mother was too infirm to leave home, his sister perfectly useless, and they were the only relations he had.

His brother-in-law was the person who would have been the greatest comfort to him, but he had just been appointed to a ship, and Sir Everard knew him to be up to his neck in preparations, perpetually veering between London and Portsmouth. As, however, he must pass Wareham Station on his journeys to and fro, Sir Everard wrote to beg him if possible, to stop for one night on his way.

Then he went up to the nursery. Miles was having his mid-day sleep; and Jane, the housemaid, was sitting by his crib. Sir Everard bent down to kiss the little fellow, who was lying with his face hidden, hugging to his breast some ears of dead corn; but as his father's lips touched his forehead, he stirred in his sleep, and said, "Humphie."

"What has he got there?" asked Sir Everard of Jane.

"Some ears of corn, I think, Sir Everard," answered Jane; "it's some that belonged to Master Humphrey, and he says no one shan't touch it but himself. I heard him say he had found it in a corner of the nursery, and that Master Humphrey must have put it there, and forgotten it, for that he had meant to plant it in his garden."

Sir Everard did not answer: he stooped over the little sleeper, and kissed him again tenderly. "Whatever you do, don't wake him," he whispered; "let him sleep as long as ever he can."

He left the room; and as he went down-stairs the children's conversation in the cornfield that Sunday afternoon recurred to him, and he could not help making a mental comparison between the young corn and the young life, both so suddenly uprooted from the earth.

Meeting the doctor in the hall, he briefly communicated the physicians' opinion, and begged him to make it known to the household. To announce it himself, he felt to be impossible.

He found the worn-out child in a heavy sleep when he reached the drawing-room; there was nothing to draw his thoughts from the subject upon which they had been dwelling, and he found himself going over and over the scene in the corn-field. He seemed to see and hear it all with startling distinctness. Wherever he looked, he saw Humphrey sitting on the top of the gate with the ears of corn in his destroying hand and Miles looking sorrowfully up at him.

He could not bear it at last, and walked up and down the room, to get it out of his head. But even then their voices rang in his ears, and filled him with pain.

"Never mind, Miles," sounded in clear bell-like tones the voice which would never rise above a whisper again. "I will plant them in the sunny bit of our own garden, where the soil is much better than here, and where they will grow much finer than if they had been left to ripen with the rest. Perhaps they will thank me some day for having pulled them out of the rough field, and planted them in such a much more beautiful place."

But he might have found comfort instead of pain in the words, had he followed out the metaphor which had been floating in his head. For would not the child one day thank Death, the destroyer; who in uprooting him fresh and green from the earth, would transplant him to the rich soil of God's own garden; where, in the sunshine of His Maker's presence, he should ripen into that perfection, which is unknown among the children of men?