John Halifax, Gentleman Read online

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

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

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

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

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

  It was a hard tug: I shuddered to see him wade knee-deep in the stream—but he succeeded. Both gentlemen leaped safe on shore. The younger tried desperately to save his boat, but it was too late. Already the “water-boar” had clutched it—the 51rope broke like a gossamer-thread—the trim, white sail was dragged down—rose up once, broken and torn, like a butterfly caught in a mill-stream—then disappeared.

  “So it’s all over with her, poor thing!”

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

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

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

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

  “Indeed, we owe you much.”

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

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

  “My name is John Halifax.”

  “Yes; but WHAT are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen, nearly.”

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

  “Thank you, sir. Good-day.”

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

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

  A thought struck me. “John, hand me the stick and I’ll give you your first writing lesson.”

  53So there, on the smooth gravel, and with the rose-stem for a pen, I taught him how to form the letters of the alphabet and join them together. He learned them very quickly—so quickly, that in a little while the simple copy-book that Mother Earth obliged us with was covered in all directions with “J O H N—John.”

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

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

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

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

  “I was thinking of that; but come, it’s getting cold.”

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

  54“When will you come again, David?”

  “When your father sends me.”

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

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

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

  “What dost thee know about the tan-yard!”

  “Only John Halifax was saying—”

  “John Halifax had better hold his tongue.”

  I held mine.

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

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

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

  “Wasn’t it a brave thing to do, father?”

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

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

  In the middle of the night—or else to me, lying awake, it seemed so—there was a knocking at our hall door. I slept on the gro
und flat, in a little room opposite the parlour. Ere I could well collect my thoughts, I saw my father pass, fully dressed, with a light in his hand. And, man of peace though 55he was, I was very sure I saw in the other—something which always lay near his strong box, at his bed’s head at night. Because ten years ago a large sum had been stolen from him, and the burglar had gone free of punishment. The law refused to receive Abel Fletcher’s testimony—he was “only a Quaker.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  56“Father, tell me what has befallen thee?”

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

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

  “Father, never mind; it might have been worse.”

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

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

  “Ay! do, lad,” said my father, kindly.

  John came.

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

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

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

  “Another plate,” said my father, sharply.

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

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

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

  And so, to Jael’s great wrath, and to my great joy, John 57Halifax was bidden, and sat down to the same board as his master. The fact made an ineffaceable impression on our household.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Thy business there?”

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

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

  John hesitated, and again his painful, falsely-accusing blushes tried him sore. “Sir, I’ll tell you; it’s no disgrace. Though I’m such a big fellow I can’t write; and your son was good enough to try and teach me. I was afraid of forgetting the letters; so I tried to make them all over again, with a bit 58of chalk, on the bark-shed wall. It did nobody any harm that I know of.”

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

  “Is that all, lad?”

  “Yes.”

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

  “John Halifax.”

  “I’m here.”

  “It’s time thee went away to thy work.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Nonsense!—thee know’st nought of Norton Bury lads. He would not care. He had rather lounge about all First-day at street corners with his acquaintance.”

  “John has none, father. He knows nobody—cares for nobody—but me. Do let him come.”

  “We’ll see about it.”

  My father never broke or
retracted his word. So after that John Halifax came to us every Sunday; and for one day of the week, at least, was received in his master’s household as our equal and my friend.

  60CHAPTER V

  Summers and winters slipped by lazily enough, as the years seemed always to crawl round at Norton Bury. How things went in the outside world I little knew or cared. My father lived his life, mechanical and steady as clock-work, and we two, John Halifax and Phineas Fletcher, lived our lives—the one so active and busy, the other so useless and dull. Neither of us counted the days, nor looked backwards or forwards.

  One June morning I woke to the consciousness that I was twenty years old, and that John Halifax was—a man: the difference between us being precisely as I have expressed it.

  Our birthdays fell within a week of each other, and it was in remembering his—the one which advanced him to the dignity of eighteen—that I called to mind my own. I say, “advanced him to the dignity”—but in truth that is an idle speech; for any dignity which the maturity of eighteen may be supposed to confer he had already in possession. Manhood had come to him, both in character and demeanour, not as it comes to most young lads, an eagerly-desired and presumptuously-asserted claim, but as a rightful inheritance, to be received humbly, and worn simply and naturally. So naturally, that I never seemed to think of him as anything but a boy, until this one June Sunday, when, as before stated, I myself became twenty years old.

  61I was talking over that last fact, in a rather dreamy mood, as he and I sat in our long-familiar summer seat, the clematis arbour by the garden wall.

  “It seems very strange, John, but so it is—I am actually twenty.”

  “Well, and what of that?”

  I sat looking down into the river, which flowed on, as my years were flowing, monotonous, dark, and slow,—as they must flow on for ever. John asked me what I was thinking of.

  “Of myself: what a fine specimen of the noble genus homo I am.”

  I spoke bitterly, but John knew how to meet that mood. Very patient he was with it and with every ill mood of mine. And I was grateful, with that deep gratitude we feel to those who bear with us, and forgive us, and laugh at us, and correct us,—all alike for love.