 Chapter Fifty-Five of the Wyvern Mystery How fair is the child? Dr. Willett called regularly at the Grange, and kind Lady Wendell was daily there, taking the doctor's directions about jellies, wines, and such other good things, as the depressed state of the patient called for, notwithstanding her fever. In a few days more he changed this treatment. The patient, in fact, could not be got to swallow these things. Dr. Willett became more perplexed. It was not exactly gastric fever, but he thought it more resembled that flickering treacherous fire than any other fever with which he was acquainted. There are sicknesses that will not be cured through the body. The mind diseased, which is the parent of these impracticable maladies, of which when people die they are said to have died of a broken heart, disdains the apothecary's boxes and bottles, knows nothing of them. A heartache of which it is no more than an unusually protracted fit has its seat in that which no apothecary can hear, see, feel, or understand. When the immortal, and in this life inscrutable spirit, which is the unseen lodger, the master of the body sickenes, all sickens, in his pain all below it writhe and wither, and the body, its ultimate expression, reflects what cannot mitigate its torment. Dr. Willett, too, complained that the child was ill, and that it must have been ill before it left the Grange. On this point, he and Mildred Tarnley had a sharp battle. When both parties had cooled a little, he admitted that possibly the symptoms might not have been sufficiently developed to have excited the attention of an uninstructed observer. The Grange was growing all this time more awful. Death seemed to have made his abode there, and the shadow of the hearse plumes seemed to rest upon the windows. Courage flagged, despair supervened, and Mrs. Tarnley's temper grew all but insupportable. A day in such situations seems very long, and many had passed since the baby had made his journey to Twyford. The doctor seemed desponding, and stood longer silent by his patient's bed this day than usual. His questions were briefer, and he was less communicative than usual when he was going. Mildred Tarnley was making up her mind that the blow was inevitable, and was secretly wishing it might come soon, since come it must. The father buried but two months since, the mother sinking into an untimely grave, and the poor little baby also dying. Was this family accursed? What a blight was this! The doctor had said that he would return by Grige's mill. It had been dark some time, and was now about seven o'clock. Tom was down at the forge, Delci Bella and Lily Dogger, both upstairs, and she quite alone in the kitchen. She was more uncomfortable than she had ever been before about Alice that night. She had seen in the doctor's countenance that day, as he told her he would look in again on his return up the glen, that which had profoundly alarmed her. And now sitting alone in this dark kitchen, she was infested by gloomy forebodings and terrible fancies. She went upstairs to the sick lady's door, and that hour no amendment was probable. And there certainly was none. Down again she went. The idea had got into her head that the patient would die that night, and she grew nervous and tired of listening for death watches, and picking incipient winding sheets off the candle. I wonder, Master Harry doesn't come here, if it was only to ask whether his sister was dead or alive, and why old Willet don't come. Smelt out a good supper somewhere and he's stuffing his gut, I'll warrant, while the poor ladies take in the rattles. Mildred Tarnley could take this no longer. And she went out and down the dark road that leads to the glen of Carwell. Close by, down which, with the uselessness of impatience, she went to look for a sight of the absent doctor and listen for the tread of his horse. Nothing cheered by that darksome walk, and the solemn and solitary view down the Carwell road. She stood gazing down toward distant Christ's mill, until she tired of that too, and in dismay and bitterness, retraced her steps toward the Grange. On entering the yard she saw a man's figure approaching her from the kitchen door. She thought it was the doctors for a moment, but it was not. And with a lord, who's that? Gasped in fear that sounded like fury. She stood fixed as the old pump. Ah, don't you know me, woman? said Harry Fairfield. Surly. I've only a few minutes. You'll have to come with me in the morning over to Twyford. To Twyford? Ah, to Twyford, and why the devil do you leave the yard door open? I walked into the kitchen and right up the stairs, looking for you, and knocked at Allie's door. I think you're cracked. And what's the fear here down in the Grange? Boot! If Twernt performs sake, we need never draw bolt from one Christmas to another. There was a woman found with her throat cut by the three polards between this and Hatherton on Tuesday. If you like sit down here, just little to me. I'll come here at eight o'clock in the morning to fetch you. Is the child sick? Not it, it was. But it's getting all right. That is, if it be the child. What the deal do you mean, Master Harry? I was looking at the child this morning, and damn me, if I think it's the same child, we left here, said Harry. Why, sir, Mr. Harry, what's this? I say I mis-doubt it's not the same child, and you must come over and look at it. Don't you say a word of the matter to no one? No more did I. No more did I. If you do, we'll never come to the bottom of it. My dear Lord, exclaimed Old Mildred, turning paler and frowning very hard. I won't stop. I won't eat anything. I can't delay tonight. I nags by the bridle there, beside the scales. And any message to Wickford? I'll be passing Willet's house. Well, well, repeated Mildred, gaping at him still, with scarcely a breath left her. Sin is sin. Be it seen or no. Judgment follows. God has feet of wool and hands of iron. Sweep before your own door, lass. You're a bit daft, ain't you? Said Harry with a sudden glare in his face. God forgive us all. Amen, said Harry. And there came a pause. Women and fools will be meddling, he resumed. Lord Love ye, from mad cows, deaf ears they say, On my soul should make a cow laugh. And if ye don't mind, ye may run your head against the wall. I will go tomorrow and look at the child, said Mildred, with sudden emphasis, clapping one lean hand down on the other. That's all I want ye. Come, what mischief can ye make of that? Clear your head. There's two things shouldn't anger ye. What ye can help and what ye can't, said Mildred. I'll go, wee ye, in the morning, Master Harry. That's the least we can do. And the most. How's Ally? Diane, I think. She'll be gone before daybreak, I'm thinking. That's bad, said Harry. Good-hap or ill-hap, as God awards. I know nought against her. Poor little things, said Harry. I blame myself, but what could I do? If ought's gone wrong wee the child, poor lady, tis well she were gone too. There's many a fellow knock you on the head for less, replied Harry, with a very black look. You women has a hintin' funkin' way, wee ye. Ye like to ladle the drippin' over a fellow's legs, and say ye meant the mutton. Can't ye speak out, and say what ye mean, and get it off your stomach, and let me know. And I'll answer it straight like a man and a fairfield. Damn me. I'll go wee tomorrow, and I take it, that's what ye want. Well, this I'll say. If ye suppose I'd hurt that poor baby to the value of a pin's point, you're a stupider and wicketer witch than I took ye for, and I wish poor Ally could hear me, and I'd swear to her on my knees at her dying bed, by the creator that made me, that I'll work for that boy, as if he was my own, till I make him safe in Wyvern. And can't ye see, woman, damn ye, that I can have but the boy's good in my mind, when ask ye to come over on such an errand to Twyford? Well, I do suppose, I do suppose, eight o'clock, and there's two feet will be cold air then. I'm afeard. Don't be a fool no more, and I forgive ye, Mildred, said he, extending his hand, and don't ye mind a lick wee the rough side of my tongue, just the way wee us fairfields, and there wasn't many of them who just stood to let ye rile them as ye did me, and bolt ye your door's mind, and poor Ally, I hope she may do yet, and mind she, eight o'clock sharp. So Harry departed. Mildred stood and looked after him for a time. There's nothing ever goes right at the grange, she said, with a short, hard sigh. Nor never did, nor never will. And after a pause, with another sigh, she said, No, no, I won't tink it. I couldn't tink it. Tain't in one of them, they might be tickle wee a lass, or hot-tempered wee a man, and if it too hard we tongue or hand. But the like of that, I can't believe it, never, and I wish I hadn't heard that. I most sure I heard the child cry in the loft there, I'm sorry I didn't say so then. I don't know why, and I don't know now, what it should be no more than another. But I didn't like it. It looked like somewhat hid, I can't say, but my heart misgave me. Old Mildred walked into the house, she had other thoughts now than the poor lady upstairs. They were remorseful, though. She could hardly say for what she could blame herself. Perhaps she overrated her authority, and fancy she could have prevented the babies being taken away. But it might be all quite right, men were so stupid about babies. A pretty hand, a fair-field man, would make of a nursery, and all events tomorrow would clear a great deal up. The morning came, the doctor had looked in and, as often happened, had surprised the lookers on by pronouncing positively that the patient was not worse. With a qualm at her heart Mildred asked him, when he had seen the child, and watched his face hard, while he answered quite frankly that he had seen it the day before, that it was decidedly better, and it might possibly do well. When should he see it again? There was nothing alarming, probably tomorrow. Certainly not later than the next day. There was nothing urgent. The chances were rather in favor of its recovery, but of course there were the risks and we weren't a holla, till we were out of the wood. With this cheer Mildred was much comforted. So much reassured that when eight o'clock came next morning and brought no Harry Fairfield, she felt rather relieved of the bore than disappointed. Two days later Dr. Willet reported more favorably than he had yet done on Alice. His account of the boy, however, was by no means so cheery. Harry looked in, still later, and talked the matter over with Mildred. I thought, you see, I might just be making a fool of myself, and another a you. So I went over there quietly next day and I'm sure it was a mistake. The child's thinner a deal and its color gone. And it was dark almost when I saw it, and she held the candle too low and cast a shadow from its nose by Jove across its face. You never see so queer a monkey as it looked, and so I held my tongue but made over here to put our heads together and make sure the matter. But when I went next day and saw it in the daylight by Jove it was all right. The child and no mistake. But it is grown awful thin and rye-faced. Only you couldn't take it for any other, and the doctor sees it every second day and I'm glad to hear that poor little Alice is getting on so well. She'll be on her legs again in no time, I'm thinking. After Harry had gone Dr. Willet arrived, with a very ill account of the baby, dying, or little thing, its heart wrong, and all the organs. But you mustn't tell Mrs. Fairfield. It may cost her her life if she begins to fret about it, and just tell her it's quite well, for it's true, you know, it's nearer heaven and, best of all, when it gets there. So tell her when she asks that it was sent in charge of careful people to get it out of the reach of the infection that is in the neighborhood, and keep her mind quiet. A few days later the news of its death arrived in the kitchen, and Lily Dogger, who was afraid to give way to her emotions before Mrs. Tarnley, abruptly rose and ran out, and throwing her apron over her head, broken to absolute screams of crying under the great old trees that stood by the scales. Here there was a sad secret to disclose when the time came, and poor Alice was strong enough to bear the story. In the meantime, Harry Fairfield came and had a stormy interview with old Mildred. The doctor he swore didn't know his business. The women at Twyford had neglected the child. He'd see to it. He'd be a devil among the tailors. He'd open their eyes for them. He had often got fifty pounds for a less neglect of a filly. They should smoke all round for it, and there now was Wyvern without an heir. For, damn him, if he'd ever marry, he wouldn't for St. Peter. It wouldn't do, it wouldn't be, at no price. And there was old Wyvern and never a Fairfield to see tankered field or faggot fired in the old house. Harry was not married, although he had insinuated some matrimonial ambiguities in his talk with old Mildred. But I believe he swore truly when he vowed that he never would marry. He had quite made up his mind on that point for some time. For the rest his threaten exited in the noise they began in. In truth there was no ground for complaint, and both nurse and doctor had done their duty. Alice recovered. I do not attempt to describe the long morning that followed, the sweet, the bitter, and the terrible recollections that ever after tinted the image of Carwell Grange in her memory. As soon as she could bear removal to her kind kinswoman, Lady Wendale insisted on taking her to Alton. After a time they traveled and finally returned to Alton, where they lived on together in the happiness of great and tried affection. A difference of five and thirty years did not separate them any more than the interval of a generation did Naomi and Ruth. Lady Wendale being one of those gifted women in whom the girlish spirit burns high and bright, so long as life itself continues, full of sympathy and gaiety, with a strong vein of romance, and a pleasant sense of the ridiculous and also fine immovable affections, was to one who had suffered calamities so dire as had befallen Alice Fairfield, a more delightful companion than any of her own age could have been. For when it was needed there was the graver charm of a long and sad experience, and there were also the grander teachings of religion, and these were not obtruded or vaunted in any wise, but rather toned her thoughts and feelings, with their peculiar sublime and melancholy thoughts, in which all things are subdued and also glorified. Chapter 56 The Old Squire Leaves Wyvern The old folk can't go on living always. The king's messenger had called it Wyvern, and the old squire must needs get up and go. Sickness was a cross he had never been used to bear, and now that it was laid on his old shoulders, he knew that he could not keep his feet very long. He had the Wyvern lawyer who did the business of the estate up to his room and the parson, and his own son Harry Fairfield. He made the attorney read the will, which he had told him to bring up with him, and the squire listened as it was read slowly. After the clergyman had gone, "'Have ye ought to say to that son, Harry?' said the old squire. "'Tis an old will, father,' said Harry. "'It ain't,' said the squire. "'Eight years less two months,' said the lawyer. "'About the age rums fit to drink,' said the old squire. "'What say ye to it? Now's your time, son. Priests, women, and poultry, they say, has never enough. There's been changes since, and I don't see why Wyvern should be charged so heavy.' "'There's three hundred a year to Alice. That's what ye mean,' said the old squire. His son was silent. "'Well, I don't owe her nothing. That's true. But I'll let it stand, mind. And, Harry lad, the day ye do a good thing, there will be seven new moons.' "'What was Parson a whisperin' about in the window, we ye?' he asked of the attorney after a time. "'Some claim upon the vicarage, which he thought you said you meant to remit by will. I, uh, thought upon it, and I won't. Paternoster built our churches, and our father pulled them down. There's o'er many Parsons for the churches, and o'er many churches for the people. Tell him I won't.' "'What the devil made you talk about that to him,' said Harry, with a dark look, when he and the attorney had got out of the room. "'My dear sir,' said the lawyer. "'We must be true to our clients. And, beside, don't you remember the clergyman said he'd be here tomorrow at one to administer the Lord's supper, and he'll be certain to speak of it then to our client.' At nightfall the squire grew worse, and his head wandered. "'Tell that white-faced vicar, Maybell. There's never a one but the thankless in hell. I'll not sit under none of his sermons. I,' he frowns at that. "'Hey, dear,' whispered the housekeeper, gazing at him from the hearth where they were sitting. "'And who does he mean, ma'am?' asked the nurse. "'God knows, old times, I suppose,' she answered. "'There's a glass-broke, Tom, who's kicking up the row,' mumbled the squire. "'Please, women, and wine on those men laughing.' "'I light it. I'm very dark.' "'Who's he, ye fool? Joan and my ladies, all one in the dark.' "'That's Tom Ward he's thinking on,' said the nurse. "'I, he liked Tom ever. He wouldn't think Twas Wyvern without Tom,' answered the housekeeper. "'In a little time,' he said more distinctly and sternly, "'the dead should do nothing. "'So that's the bishop. I, I, the devil, mind ye, isn't always at one door. If there was a good man here, he'd put a clout over that face. Ye'll never do it.' Then it would sink into mumbling, and then again grow more distinct. At last the morning came, and the squire, so many hours nearer death, was nevertheless now like himself. In due course the clergyman arrived, and the housekeeper and serious Jim Hopper of the mill close by attended to make up a little congregation, with whom the dying squire was to receive the most comfortable sacrament before setting out on his long journey. "'You're distinctly a church of England, man,' inquired the clergyman gently. "'I, what do you take me for? I make it a rule, dear sir, to inquire. I have once or twice found Presbyterians and other dissenters among the attendants at my church at Nottingham before I came here, and I'm happy to hear so clear an answer to my inquiry,' said the clergyman with a gracious solemnity. "'The crow thinks her own bird fairest, go on,' said squire Harry. After these rites were over the squire needed rest. Then after an hour or so he called for Tom Ward. "'Well, Tom, we have lived a long while together here in Wyvern, you and me, and be the day never so long at last cometh even song,' as they say. And now the doctor thinks my time become, and I sent for ye to shake hands, Tom, and bid ye good-bye.' Tom was drying his eyes hastily, and his old face was more awkward than ever. Your honor was always kind to me. "'Come, Tom, you mustn't be crying, man.' Henny in pockets a merry companion, and I wrote ye down for something in my will. And ye abrode me many a-tankered, Tom. He'll never brew me another, and I wouldn't go without a word and a shake by the hand.' When this was over the nurse signed to Tom to go. I wonder how the grim old man with near a week's white stubble on his chin felt as he saw Tom Ward glide away softly with tears on his rugged cheeks. For Tom it was the breaking up and foundering of old Wyvern in the deep. He was too old to live in the new Wyvern that was coming, may have. I'll never get the old days out of my head, nor ever like the new. And won't be long, I'm thinking, before I follow him down the ash-tree road to Wyvern churchyard. And so for the old squire it came, the last day of light, and the first of death. It was a stately funeral in the old-fashioned way. All the good old houses of the county were represented there. The neighbors, great and small, mustered. Their shops in the town were all shut, and the tenants attended in masses. This solemn feast and pageant over, the fuss subsided and Harry entered upon his reign, with a gravity becoming his new prerogative and responsibilities. Sergeant Major Archdale was an influential and prosperous and reserved minister under the new regime. He had a snug birth at Warhampton as Harry Fairfield had promised. And from that distant legation he was summoned every now and then to Wyvern. And there conferred with the squire. I have called him Sergeant Major, but he was so no longer. He had retired some time before from the militia, and was now playing Mr. Archdale. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Brandon The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan Lafano Chapter 57 Marjorie Travellian In order to throwing a light upon the nature of some of the duties of Mr. Archdale, we must convey the reader in spirit to some little distance. In the sequestered country about twelve miles south of Twyford, in a pretty nook formed by a wooded hollow close by the old by-road to Warhampton, stands an antique cottage with a loft and two little windows peeping through the very steep thatched roof and high narrow gable. Gable and wall alike streaked and crossed with those black oak beams which form the cage into whose interstices our ancestors built their brick and plaster. The steep roof runs out over a little porch which has a bench on one side of it. Another stone bench stands under the lattice window, the woodwork of which casement, as well as the black spars crossed and mortised in the walls, and even the curved black chimney looks shrunk, and warped by time by which to the hatch at the door is rounded and furrowed, and the stone seat and window stones worn into curves and hollows. And such and so venerable is the air of the structure with its ivy-bound porch that one might fancy at the very farmhouse in which Anne Hathaway passed her girlhood. Here dwelt good Mrs. Marjorie Trevelyan, some fifty years old and upward, with, I think, the kindest-faced and pleasantest laugh in that part of the country, a widow of many years, not very happy in her marriage and quite content with her experience of the wedded state, quiet, cheerful, very industrious, with a little farm of three acres and a cow, spinning sometimes, knitting at others, and when she could taking in washing, and in all things approving herself diligent, cheerful, and honest. With this kind, cheery, honest dame lived a little boy, the son of a Mr. Henry, that was all she knew distinctly about his people. She called him her fairy and her prince, and when curious people questioned her closely, she said that his father was a merchant, unfortunate in business, as the phrase is, that he was living perhaps in concealment and in distressed circumstances or possibly was dead. All she could say for certain was that she received a small allowance for maintaining him, which was paid punctually every three months in advance, and that as to the name of the boy, his Christian name was William, and his surname Henry, and that she called him her prince or her fairy, and he called her Granny. She idolized this pretty boy, and he loved her with the tenderness which her child bestows upon a loving nurse, something more than filial. The boy remembers no other home but this, and no other friend but Granny. He was now a little past eleven. His life had been solitary but cheerful. Was there not the pond only thirty yards away from their doorstep, in which he sailed his fleet of ships made of corks which old Peter Durden gave him. He was a cousin of Marjorie Travellians and lived in the village two miles away. He used to call every Sunday and to bring these corks in his pocket, and a bit of such lead as tea is wrapped in to make the keels of their navy. He was dressed in a blue swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons. His drab trousers were very short, his stockings faded sky blue, and his shoes clumsy and clouded and highly polished. He wore a chestnut wig of a long and length cut, and his forehead slanted back very much, and his nose came forward, and a perpetual smile expanded his cheeks, which were as red and smooth as a ripe apple. His countenance was not very wise, though very good-natured, rather silly, I'm afraid, and I think he took more interest in this sort of shipping than was quite compatible with strength of mind. As these ships glided with thin paper sails across the pond, while Master Henry watched them in grave absorption, heater's raptures expressed themselves in continuous peals of laughter. These were great occasions in the solitary life of fairy. There were a set of big boxwood nine-pins, skittles, I suppose, with balls battered and discolored. I never knew how they got into the cottage, but they looked a hundred years old, if a day. Many a game with these on the smooth patch of swart, on the other side of the pond, had pleasant ol' Marjorie with her darling. In its occlusion, its life was monastic, but not in its liberty. The boy was on the whole very happy. Looking on Honest Marjorie as Mistress of all she surveyed, it never struck him that, in the points in which her dietary differed from his, she was practicing a compulsory economy. The article of meat was not often found in her bill of fare. But conscientiously, she placed the little fellow's bit of broiled meat before him every day, and told him when he inquired why she had none for herself, that she did not like it, and that it did not agree with her, which he accepted as undoubted truths, and wondered and regretted secretly. On winter evenings their tea was very cozy, a wheaten cake, baked on the griddle, a new laid egg each, and a cup of tea from the many-colored Delft teapot, a good deal burnt on the side next to the fire. With the door barred and the window carefully closed, the fire burning cheerfully and their candle lighting the party, who so happy? And was there not the old Robinson Crusoe, with blinding black with age, and a frontispiece showing the hero with his grave countenance and beard, his tall cap and goat-skin dress, his musket over one shoulder, and his umbrella over the other, and recounting his marvelous life in the quaint old type of Queen Anne? And was there not that other literary treasure, the old folio volume of Captain Cook's, Commodore Anson's, and other seafaring-worthy's voyages round and up and down the world, with no end of careful old copper plates showing Pacific islands, curious volcanoes, flotillas of armed canoes, thick-lipped miscreants with rings in their noses and birds' tails enlivening their foreheads, and long processions of official people, priests, etc., with a small white-pocket handkerchief each by way of dress, but better far than these, which together with her Bible and prayer book, constituted Marjorie's Library, was that good creature's inexhaustible collection of fairy tales, received traditionally and recounted viva voce, and prefaced with the rhyme, which even at this distance recalls me to the nursery fireside, with the far-off tones of a kindly voice, that I shall hear no more. Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as many have been, but few I have seen, except in pictures. And starting with this little trumpeting in summons to attention, the oise, oise, oise, an immutable prelude of an ever-varying sequel, Good Marjorie, the herald of ever-new wonders, would tell her tale of dwarfs and castles, of godmother fairies, and malignant enchantresses, brokenhearted princes, and persecuted princesses, and enchanted palaces, and awful forests. Till the hour came for the little fellow to get to his bed, and enter the no less wonderful land of dreams. Another person who contributed to the regular entertainment of the boy was Tom Orange. Tom Orange called Atticottage sometimes at intervals of three months, sometimes for perhaps half a year, on the first of each month, and was always made welcome by Marjorie Trevelyan, and feasted with rashes, and whatever else her humble larder afforded, and ongoing had established a mysterious right to a shilling tip, which he always made at a point, should be an honorable secret among them. What might be the nature of his business the little boy neither knew nor cared? But Tom Orange was in the boy's eyes the ideal and epitome of all that was enchanting, brilliant, and exhilarating. Tom was somewhat long and lean, with a face also long and always smiling, except when it was making a grimace, an art in which he excelled almost every other blackguard I have heard of. His clothes and hat were seedy. And for so merry a person, he was wonderfully poor. Tom Orange's accomplishments were infinite. He could dance a hornpipe with all the well-known heirs and graces of a sailor. He could protrude his mouth till it assumed a shape quite unknown to physiognomists, and with a delicate finger turning his eyelids inside out, make the pupils of those organs quiver strangely, while he uttered a sound like the call of a jack-daw. He could sing a variety of comic songs, with refrains delivered with a volubility which distanced admiration, and made his very audience breathless, and some of these were relieved with occasional dialogue of matchless character and humor. He could swallow any number of pennies you pleased, and take them all out at different angles of his body. He could put several potatoes under his hat, and withdraw them all without touching either the hat or the potatoes. He could keep three balls always in the air together, and he could balance two chairs upon his chin. In short, as I have said, his accomplishments were innumerable and extraordinary, and the only wonder was how so universal a genius could possibly possess so few shillings, and so many seedy articles of dress. Tom Orange, too, was great at skittles, and gave his pupil wonderful new lights. He taught him also how to guard, stop, and strike according to the principles of the noble art of self-defense. In fact, it would have been difficult to discover a more fascinating companion and instructor of youth. Possibly it was as well, however, that his visits were so far between, and as brief as fortune ordained them to be. It was no wonder, however, that these visits were looked for by the boy, as the return of the life and excitement of an annual fair might have been by the ingenuous youth of some other rural district. There was but one point on which Marjorie was obliged to impose a prohibition upon the child. It seemed a trifle, but in reality was a gigantic privation. No, darling, you mustn't talk to any other boys, nor play with them, nor go near them. If you do, you'll be took away by your friends, and I'll never see you again in what will poor Granny do then without her darling. And Granny's eyes filled with tears, and the boy cried and hugged her passionately, and this little agony gave place to wild affection and a glow of unspeakable delight and happiness, and was celebrated by a hot cake that evening and new laid eggs and a great tea and stories to no end. And she found her darling that night crying in his sleep, and was sure he was dreaming of leaving the old cottage. And she wakened him with kisses, herself crying. So these two persons, notwithstanding some disparity of years, were wonderfully happy in one another's society, and if they had each their will would have fixed things as they were, and neither grown older nor younger, but just gone on living so forever. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by John Brandon, The Wyvern Mystery, by Joseph Sheridan Lafano. Chapter 58 The Enchanted Garden Marjorie Trevelyan was what is accounted among her class a good scholar, and she had taught the little boy to read and write, to say his tables, and to cipher, as she termed the initiatory arithmetical exercises. It was plain, however, that the boy was not abandoned to chance, but that an eye was upon him, and some friendly, if not conscientious, direction controlling his destiny. In one of his visits, Tom Orange handed her a letter written in the same neat clerk's hand, in which the short memorandum that accompanied each remittance was penned. Having read the letter, she was thoughtful. When Tom had gone away, she said, You are to be taught like a gentleman as you are, my darling, and you're not to be sent to school for three or four years, and in the meantime, Mr. Wharton, he's a kind, good gentleman, is to teach you for two hours every evening after the school is over. You know his house. It is about a mile away from this, just halfway on the road to the grammar school. But I'm to live at home, Granny, all the same? inquired the boy in great trepidation. Lord love it, to be sure he is. Beaming on him with great affection, only two hours, and everyone likes Mr. Wharton, and I'm desired to go to his house to take his orders tomorrow. So she did, and the new order of things was established with very little disturbance of the old. The narrow road which the boy every afternoon passed to and from Dr. Wharton's house makes about halfway a sudden curve. It is a wooded road, not without little ups and downs and formidable ruts and blocks of worn old stone so large as to shock all the rules of modern road-making. Upon this curve, so as nearly to front the boy's line of March, is a very old fruit garden with a discolored ivy-grown wall on which are growing moss and house-leek and here in their tufts of grass and wallflower. Over the wall are seen ancient standard plum and cherry and pear trees and beyond them the upper windows and the steep gray roof and slender chimneys of a house as much out of date as the garden. In the garden wall is a tall door with worn fluted pilasters corresponding in antiquity with the rest of the building and its belongings. This stone framework has an iron door, all-fashioned and fancifully wrought into arabesque sub-spikes, leaves and stars facing the quiet road and within this a strong wooden door. Fruit trees are of course always interesting to boys but quite another interest mingled in the feeling with which little Willie viewed such glimpses of the old gray house and its background of dark and towering timber as his approach afforded and he often wished as he passed that a hole in the wall might afford him a peep into the old garden and a glimpse of its owners. He sometimes heard their voices. A clear childish laugh he had heard more than once from among the tall fruit trees and climbing roses that overtop the wall and a sweet female voice also faintly prattling with the child. One evening as he returned from Dr. Wharton's with his books buckled in his strap swinging from his hand having slackened his pace as usual when he found himself under the garden wall to his infinite delight the inner wooden door which had always obstructed his curiosity was open. The outer gate of iron walls and foliage was locked but through its bars he could see at last the garden. Its trees were old and overgrown it was wonderfully dark with roses and other flowers growing here and there and one straight walk leading up to the house and continuing the line of the narrow bridge which at the iron door crossed what seemed a sort of moat whose banks were overgrown with docks and nettles. He could see part of the steps leading up to the door of the house and a portion of one of its windows. The rest was concealed by the thick foliage and the effect of this little glimpse was increased by the deep shadow of the foreground. It was not very far from sunset and the small birds were already singing among the boughs and the deep shadow the antique and neglected air and the silence of the place gave it in his romantic eyes a character of monastic mystery and enchantment. As he gazed straight up the dark walk towards the house suddenly a man turned the corner of the you hedge that met the bridge's parapet close to him and walking straight up to the door with a gruff look at the little boy shot and locked the wooden door in his face so all was gone for the present. He knew there was no good in looking through the keyhole for envious fortune had hung a spray of sweetbriar so as effectively to intercept the view and nothing remained but the dingy chocolate colored planks before him and the foliage and roses trembling over the old wall. Many a time again he passed and repast the door without a light good hap and length however one evening he found the envious wooden door once more open and the view again disclosed through the iron bars. A very pretty little girl with golden hair was standing on tiptoe near and with all her soul was thriving to reach an apple with a stick which she held in her tiny fingers. Seeing him she fixed her large eyes on him and said with an air of command, come and climb up the tree and get me that apple. His heart beat quick there was nothing he liked better. But I can't get in, he said blushing. The door's locked. Oh, I'll call Mama. She'll let you in. Don't you know Mama? No, I never saw her, answered the boy. Wait there and I'll fetch her. And so she was gone. The first flutter of his excitement was hardly over when he heard steps and voices near and the little girl returned holding the hand of a slight pale lady with a very pretty face dressed all in black. She had the key in her hand and smiled gently on the little boy as she approached. Her face was kind and at once he trusted her. Oh, he has left the inner door open again, she said, and with a little nod and smile of welcome she opened the door and the boy entered the garden. Both doors were now shut. Look up, little boy, said the lady in black with a very sweet voice. She liked his face. He was a very handsome little fellow and with an expression earnest shy and bright and the indescribable character of refinement, too, in his face. She smiled more kindly still and placing just the tip of her finger under his chin, she said. You are a gentleman's son and you are nicely dressed. What is your name? My papa's name is Mr. Henry, he answered. And where do you go to school? I don't go to school. I say lessons to Mr. Wharton about half a mile from this. It is great fun, I suppose, playing with the little boys, cricket and all that. I'm not allowed to play with the little boys. Who forbids you? My friends won't allow me. Who are your friends? I never saw them. Really? And don't you live with your papa? No, I live with Marjorie. Do you mean with your mama? Oh no, she died a long time ago. And is your papa rich? Why aren't you with him? He was rich, Granny says. But he grew poor. And where is he now? I don't know. I'm to go to school, he said, acquiring confidence. The more he looked in that sweet face, my friends will send me in three years, Granny says. You're a very nice little boy, and I'm sure a good little fellow. We'll have tea in a few minutes. You must stay and drink tea with us. The little fellow held his straw hat in his hand, and was looking up in the face of the lady, whose slender fingers were laid almost caressingly on his rich brown hair, as she looked down smiling, with eyes in which the water stood. Perhaps these forlorn childhoods had to peculiar interest for her. And it is very polite of you taking off your hat to a lady. But put it on again, for I am not a bit better than you. And I'll go and tell them to get tea now. Delci Bella, she called. Delci Bella. This little friend is coming to drink tea with us, and Amy and he will play here till it comes. And don't mind getting up, sit quiet and rest yourself. And she signed with her hand, smiling, to repress her attempt to rise. Well, darling, play inside of me till your mama comes back, said the romantic old woman, addressing the little girl. And ye mustn't be pulling at that great rolling stone. He can't move it, and ye may break your pretty back trying. With these and similar injunctions, the children were abandoned to their play. He found this pretty young lady imperious. But it was pleasant to be commanded, and the little boy climbed trees, together her favorite apples, and climbed the garden wall to pluck a bit of wallflower, and at last she said, Now we'll play nine pins. There's the box. Set them up on the walk. Yes, that's right. You have played. Who taught you? Granny? Has Granny nine pins? Yes, ever so much bigger than these. Really? So Granny is rich then. I think so. As rich as Mama, her garden isn't so big. Begin, do you? Aha! You've hit one, and who plays best? Tom Orange does. Does your mama know Tom Orange? I daresay she does. Does she bella? Does Mama know Tom Orange? No, my dear. No, she doesn't, echoed the little girl. Who is he? What? Not know Tom Orange. How could that be? So he narrated on that brilliant theme. Tom Orange must come to tea with Mama. I'll tell her to ask him. Decided the young lady. So these little wise acres pursued their game, and then had their tea. And in about an hour, the little boy found himself trudging home with a sudden misgiving, for the first time, as to the propriety of his having made these acquaintances without Granny's leave. The kind voice, the beloved smile of Granny, received him before the cottage door. Welcome, darling. And where was my darling, and what kept him from his old Granny? So he hugged and kissed. And then he related all that had happened, and asked, was it any harm, Granny? Not a bit, darling. That's a good lady, and a grandlady, and a fit companion for ye. And see how she knew the gentle blood in your pretty face? And ye may go, as she has asked you, tomorrow evening again, and as often as she asks ye. For it was only the little fellows that's gone about without education or manners that your friends, and who can blame them, doesn't like ye to keep company with. And who'd blame them? Seeing their seldom out of mischief, and that's the beginning of wickedness. And ye're going but, oh, darling, not for three long years, thank God, to a grand school, where there's none but the best. So this chance acquaintance grew, and the lady seemed to take every week a deeper interest in the fine little boy, so sensitive, generous, and intelligent. And he very often drank tea with his new friends. Chapter 59 of the Wyvern Mystery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan Liffano. Chapter 59 An Old Friend I'm going now to describe the occurrences of a particular evening on which my young friend drank tea at Standlake Farm, which was the name of the house with the old garden, to which I have introduced the reader. A light shower had driven the party in from the garden. And so the boy and Amy were at their nine-pins in the great hall. When the door being open, a gentleman rode up and dismounted, placing the bridle in the hand of a groom who accompanied him. A tall man he was, with whiskers, and hair dashed with white and a slight stoop. He strode into the hall his hat on, and a whip still in his hand. Hello. So there you are. And how is your ladyship? said he. Skittles by the law. Brave-o. Two down by Jove. I'd rather that young man took you in hand than I. And tell me, where's Allie? Mama's in the drawing room, said the young lady, scarcely regarding his presence. Now, play. It's your turn. She said, addressing her companion. The new arrival looked at the boy and paused till he threw the ball. That's devilish good zoos, said the stranger. Very near the nine, eh? But a missus as good as a mile, and I don't think he's quite as good as you. And she's in the drawing room? Which is the drawing room? Don't you know the drawing room? Well, there it is. And the young lady indicated it with her finger. My turn now. And while the game was pursued in the hall, the visitor pushed open the drawing room door and entered. And how is Miss Allie? Oh, Harry, really! Myself as large as life! You don't look half pleased, Allie. But I have not but good news for you today. You're something richer this week than you were last. What is it, Harry? Tell me what you mean. So I will. You know that charge on Carwell? 140 pounds a year? Well, that's dropped in. That old witch is dead. You might have seen it in the newspaper, if you've taken one. Bertha Veldecaust. No love lost between you, eh? Oh, Harry, Harry, don't! Said poor Alice Pail and looking intensely pained. Well, I won't then. I didn't think to advex you. Only you know what a head devil that was, and she's dead in the old place, Hoxton. I read the inquest in the Times. She was always drinking. I think she was a bit mad. She and the people in the back room were always quarreling, and the father's up for that and forgery. But it wasn't clear how it came about. Some swore she was out of her mind with drink and pitched herself out of the window. And some thought it might have been that chap as went into robber thinking she was stupid. And so there was a tussle for it. She was main strong, you know, and he chucked her out. Anyhow she got it awful, for she fell across the spikes of the area rails, and she hung on them with three lodges in her side. The mad dog fox she was. Oh, Harry, how shocking! Oh, pray don't, exclaimed Dallas, who looked as if she was going to faint. Well, she lay there without breath enough to screech. Twisting like a worm for three hours, it's thought. Oh, Harry, pray don't describe it. Don't I implore? I feel so ill. Well, I won't. If you say so. Only she smashed and cold in her wooden shirt out, and her charge is reverted to you now, and I thought I'd tell you. Thank you, Harry, she said very faintly. And when did you come here? I only heard this morning, asked Harry. Five weeks ago. Do you like it? Ain't it plaguey lonesome? I liked the quiet, at least for a time, she answered. And I'm thinking of getting married. Upon my soul I am. What do you think of that? Really? Sure is your there, but it won't be none of your love matches. Bring something less, along with thee, if thou intend to live with me. That's my motto. Sweet heart and honey bird keeps no house, I've heard say. I like a body that can look after things, and that would rather fund fifty pounds than spend a hundred. A nice wife and a back door hath made many a rich man poor. As they say, and besides I'm not a young fellow no longer, I'm pushing sixty, and I should be wise, and who's the little chap who's playing skittles weanny in the hall? Oh, that's such a nice little boy. His father's name is Henry and his mother's been dead a long time. He lives with a good old woman named Marjorie Trevelyan. What's the matter, Harry? Nothing, I beg your pardon. I was thinking of something else and I didn't hear. Tell me now and I'll listen. So she repeated her information, and Harry yawned and stretched his arms. For what a company, welcome trumpery. And I must be going now. I wouldn't mind drinking a glass of sherry, as you're so pressing, for I've had a stiff ride in dust drowthy. So Harry, having completed his visit characteristically, took his leave and mounted his nag and rode away. End of Chapter 59. Recording by John Brandon Chapter 60 of The Wyvern Mystery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan Liffano Chapter 60. Tom Orange Little Miss Amy had a slight cold, and the next tea party was put off for a day. On the evening following Harry's visit at Stan Lake Farm, Marjorie Trevelyan, being at that time absent in the village to make some frugal purchases, who should suddenly appear before the little boy's eyes, as he lifted them from his fleet upon the pond, but his friend, Tom Orange, as usual in high and delightful spirits. Need I say how welcome Tom was? He asked in a minute or two for Marjorie, and took her temporary absence with great good humor. Tom affected chilliness, and indeed the evening was a little sharp, and proposed that they should retire to the cottage and sit down there. How soon do you suppose, youngster, the old hand will come home? Who? Marjorie Daw down the chimney. Oh, Granny? This nickname was the only pleasantry of Mr. Orange, which did not quite please the boy. Tom Orange had interpolated his performance of the jack-daw with his eyelids turned inside out and the pupils quivering, which although it may possibly have resembled the jack-daw of heraldry, was not an exact portraiture of the bird familiar to us in natural history. And when this was over, he asked again, how soon will she be home? She walked down to the town, and I think she can't be more than about halfway back again. That's a mile and three miles an hour is the best of her paces if she was running for a pound of sausages and a new cap. Hi-ho, and a last and a lack of day. No one at home but the maid, and the maid's gone to church. I wrote her a letter the day before yesterday, and I must read it again before she comes back. Where does she keep her letters? In her work box on the shelf. This will be it, the very identical fiddle, said Tom Orange playfully, setting it down upon the little deal table and opening it, he took out the little sheaf of letters from the end, and took them one by one to the window where he took the liberty of reading them. I think he was disappointed, for he pitched them back again into their nook in the little trunk shaped box, contemptuously. The boy regarded Tom Orange as a friend of the family so confidential, and as a man in all respects so admirable and virtuous, that nothing appeared more desirable and natural than that excellent person's giving his attention to the domestic correspondence. He popped the box back again in its birth, then he treated the young gentleman to Lingo's song, with the rag-tag, merry-dairy, periwagon, hatband, etc., and at the conclusion of the performance admitted that he was dry, and with a pleasant wink, and the tip of his finger pushing the end of his nose a good deal to the left, he asked him whether he could tell him where Mrs. Trevelyan, who would be deeply grieved if she thought that Tom was detained for a drink till her return, kept her liquor. Yes, I can show you, said the boy. Wait a minute, my guide, my comforter and friend, said Tom Orange, and he ascertained from the door-stone that no one was inconveniently near. The boy was getting a teacup off the shelf. Never mind sugar, my hero, I'll sweeten it with the thought of marjorie-daw. The boy explained and led him into the dark nook by the hall's door. Tom Orange, well pleased, moved almost on tiptoe and looked curiously and spoke under his breath, and he groped in this twilight. Here it is, said the boy frankly. Where? Here. This, said Tom, for his friend, had uncovered a crock of water. Tom Orange blared at him and at the water with grotesque surprise, and the bona fides of the boy and the simplicity of the situation struck Tom comically. An exploding good-humoredly he sat down in marjorie's chair and laughed hilariously. Having satisfied himself by a confidential dialogue that marjorie-daw had no private bottle of comfort anywhere, this agreeable fellow so far forgot his thirst that he did not mind drawing water from the crock and talked on a variety of subjects to the young gentleman. In the course of this conversation he asked him two topographical questions. One was, did you ever hear of a place called Carwell Grange? And the other resembled it. Did you ever hear of a place called Wyvern? No. Think, lad, did you ever hear Mrs. Trevelyan speak of Wyvern or of Carwell Grange? No. Because there is the tallest mushroom you ever saw in your life growing there, and it is grown to that degree that it blocks the door so that the squire can't get into his own house, and the mushroom is counted one of the wonders of the world upon my little word of honor as a gentleman. And, since there is neither drink nor vitals, suppose my lord we play at Skittles. And if she's not back by the end of the game, tell her I had to go onto the bridge to see Lame Bill Withershins, and I'll be back again this evening, I think, or in the morning at latest. The game was played but marjorie did not appear, and Tom Orange, entertaining his young friend with the ludicrous imitation of Bill Withershins' knock knees, took his departure leaving his delighted companion in the state which Mord describes as being usual. When the lamp that lighted the traveler at first goes out. So, having watched Tom till he was quite out of sight, he returned to his neglected navy on the pond and delivered his admirable Crichton's message to Marjorie Daw on her return. The hour and the man. Supper time came, and Tom Orange did not return. Darkness closed over the old cottage, the popular trees, and the town, and the little boy set his prayers under the superintendents of worthy marjorie and went to his bed. He was disturbed in his sleep by voices talking in the room. He could only keep his eyes open for a little time, and he saw Tom Orange talking with Mammy. He was at one side of the little table and she at another, and his head was leaning forward, so as to approach uncomfortably near to the mutton fat, with a long snuff in the middle. Mammy, as he indiscriminately called Granny, was sobbing bitterly into her apron, and sometimes with streaming eyes speaking so low that he could not hear to Tom Orange. Interesting as was the scene, Slumber stole him away, and when he next awakened, Tom was gone, and Mammy was sitting on the bed crying as if her heart would break. When he opened his eyes, she said, Oh darling, darling, my man, my own, own blessed man, my darling, and she hugged him to her heart. He remembered transports similar when two years ago he was very ill of a fever. I'm not sick Mammy indeed. I'm quite well, and with these assurances and many caresses he again fell asleep. In the morning his Sunday clothes to his wonder were prepared for him to put on. The little old faded crimson carpet bag, which she had always told him to the no small content of his self-importance was his own, stood plump, and locked on the little table under the clock. His chair was close beside Mammy's. She had all the delicacies he liked best for his breakfast. There was a thin little slice of fried bacon, and a new laid egg, and a hot cake and tea, quite a grand breakfast. Mammy sat beside him very close. Her arm was round him. She was very pale. She tried to smile at his prattle, and her eyes filled up as often as she looked at him, or heard him speak. Now and then he looked wonderingly in her face, and she tried to smile her old smile and nodded, and swallowed down some tea from her cup. She made belief of eating her breakfast, but she could not. When the wondering little man had ended his breakfast with her old kind hands, she drew him towards her. Sit down on my lap, my precious, my own man, my beautiful boy, my own angel bright. Oh, darling, darling, darling. And she hugged the boy to her heart and sobbed over his shoulder as if her heart was bursting. He remembered that she cried the same way when the doctor said he was safe and sure to recover. Mammy, he said, kissing her. Amy has birthdays, and I think this is my birthday. Is it? No, darling. No, no, she sobbed, kissing him. No, my darling, no. Oh, no, taint that. She got up hastily and brought him his little boots that she had cleaned. The boy put them on, wondering, and she laced them. With eyes streaming, she took up one of the little cork boats which he kept on the window stool, floating in a wooden bowl. You'll give me one of them, darling. To old Mammy for a keepsake? Oh, yes, choose a good one, the one with the gold paper on the pin. That one sails the best of all. And, and she cried bitterly before she could go on. And this is the little box I'll put them in. And she picked them out of the bowl and laid them in a cardboard box, which she quickly tied round. And this is the last day of poor Mammy, with her bright-only darling. For your friends are sending for you today, and Mr. Archdale will be here in ten minutes, and you're to go with him. Oh, my precious, the light of the house, and to leave me alone. The boy stood up, and with a cry ran and threw his arms round her, where she stood near the clock. Oh, no, no, no! Oh, Mammy, you wouldn't. You couldn't. You couldn't. Oh, darling, you're breaking my heart. What can I do? Don't let me go. Oh, Mammy, don't. Oh, you couldn't. You couldn't. But what can I do, darling? Oh, darling, what can I do? I'll run away, Mammy. I'll run away. And I'll come back when they're gone and stay with you. Oh, God, oh, mighty! She cried. Here he's coming. I see him coming down the Hazel Road. Hite me, Mammy. Hite me in the press. Oh, Mammy, Mammy, you wouldn't give me to him. The boy had got into this large old-painted press and coiled himself up between two shelves. There was hardly a moment to think, and yielding to the instinct of her desperate affection and to the child's wild appeal, she locked the door and put the key in her pocket. She sat down. She was half stunned by her own audacity. She scarcely knew what she had done. Before she could recover herself, the door darkened. A hand crossed the hatch and opened it. An ex-Sergeant Major Archdale entered the cottage. In curt military fashion, he announced himself and demanded the boy. She was looking straight in this formidable man's face, and yet it seemed as if he were vanishing from before her eyes. Where's the boy? Inquired the chill, stern voice of the sergeant. It seemed to her like lifting a mountain this effort to speak. She felt as if she were freezing as she uttered the denial he ain't here. Where is he? demanded the sergeant's imperturbably clear cold voice. He's run away, she said with an effort, and the sergeant seemed to vanish quite away, and she thought she was on the point of fainting. The sergeant glanced at the breakfast table and saw that the two had taken tea together. He saw the carpet bag packed. Intimated Archdale with closed lips, he looked round the cottage room, and the sergeant sat down wonderfully composed, considering the disconcerting nature of the announcement. The ex-Sergeant Major had in his time commanded parties in search of deserters, and he was not a bad slot hound of that sort. He breakfasted with you, said he with a cool knot toward the table. There was a momentary hesitation, and she cleared her voice and said, Yes, Archdale rose, and placed his fingers on the teapot. That's hot, said the sergeant, with the same inflexible dignity. Marjorie was awfully uneasy. He can't be far. Which way did he go? Out by the door, I can't tell. The ex-Sergeant Major might have believed her the goddess of truth itself, or might have fought her the most impudent liar in England. You could not have gathered in the least from his countenance toward which view his conclusions tended. The sergeant's light-cold gray eye glided round the room, and there was another silence, awfully trying to our good friend, Marjorie. End of Chapter sixty-one, Recording by John Brandon I think, ma'am, the boy's in the house. You best give him up, for I'll not go without him. How many rooms have you? Three in a loft, sir. The sergeant stood up. I'll search the house first, ma'am, and if he's not here, I'll inform the police and have him in the hue and cry. And if you have had anything to do with the boy's deserting, or had a hand in making away with him anyhow, I'll have you in jail and punished. I must secure the door, and you can leave the house first, if you like best. Very well, sir, answered she. But at this moment came a knocking and crying from within the press. Oh, no! It wasn't, ma'am, it was I that did it. Don't take, ma'am. You see, ma'am, you give useless trouble. Please open that door. I shall have to force it otherwise. He added as very pale and trembling she hesitated. Standing as he might before his commanding officer, stiff with his heels together, with his inflexibly serene face full before her, he extended his hand and said simply, the key, ma'am. In all human natures, the wildest and most stubborn, there is a point at which submission follows command. And there was that in the serenity of the ex-Sergeant Major, which went direct to the instinct of obedience. It was quite idle, any longer trying to conceal the boy. With a dreadful ache at her heart, she put her hand in her pocket and handed him the key. As the door opened, the little boy shrank to the very back of the recess, from whence he saw the stout form of the sergeant stooped low as his blue smooth fixed countenance peered narrowly into the dark. After a few seconds he seemed to discern the figure of the boy. Come, you sir, get out, said the commanding voice of the visitor, as the cane which he carried in his hand paid round with wax end for some three inches at the extremity, began switching his little leg smartly. Oh, sir, for the love of God, cried Marjorie, clinging to his hand. Oh, sir, he's the gentlest little creature, and he'll do whatever he's bid, and the lovingest child in the world. The boy had got out by this time, and looking wonderingly in the man's face, was unconsciously, with the wincing of pain, lifting his leg slightly, for the sting of the cane was quite new to him. If I catch you at that work again, I'll give you five dozen, said his new acquaintance. Is this his, said he, touching the carpet bag with his cane? Yes, sir, please. He took it in his hand and glanced at the boy. I think it was in his mind to make him carry it, but the child was slender, and the bag, conscientiously packed with everything that had ever belonged to him, was a trifle too heavy. Anything else, demanded the Sergeant Major. This, this, God bless him. It was the little box with his ships, and this she thrust the griddle cake broken across, and rolled up in brown paper into the boy's pocket, and these, and three apples, she had ready, she thrust after him, and whole, my blessed darling, my darling, darling, darling. He was lifted up against her heart, folded fast, and hugging her round the neck, they kissed, and cried, and cried, and kissed, and at last she let him down, and the Sergeant Major with a cane under his arm, the carpet bag in one hand, and the boy's wrist firmly held in the other, marched out of the door. That's enough, don't follow woman, said he, after they had gone about twenty yards on the path. And I'll report you. He added with a nod, which, with these pleasant words, she might take as a farewell, or not, as she pleased. She stood on the little rising ground by the Hawthorne tree, kissing her hands wildly after him, with streaming eyes. I'll be sure to see you soon. I'll walk round the world barefoot to see my pretty man again. She kept crying after him, and I'll bring the nine pins. I'll be sure, mammy's coming, my darling. And the receding figure of the little boy was turned toward her, all it could. He was gazing over his shoulder, with cheeks streaming with tears, and his little hand weaving yearningly back to her until he was out of sight. And after a while she turned back, and there was their nine-pins ground, and the tarn, and her sobs quickened almost to a scream. And she sat down on the stone bench under the window, for she could not bear to enter the dark cottage, and there in Irish phrase she cried her fill. In the meantime Archdale and his companion, or prisoner, which you will, pursued their march. He still held the boy's wrist, and the boy cried, and sobbed gently to himself all the way. When they came down to the little hamlet called Maple Wickets, he hired a boy to carry the carpet bag to Wonning, four miles further on, where the Warhampton bus passes as everybody knows at half past twelve o'clock daily. They resume their march. The sergeant was a serenely taciturn man. He no more thought of addressing the boy than he did of apostrophizing the cane or the carpet bag. He let him sob on, and neither snubbed nor consoled him, but carried his head serene and high, looking straight before him. At length the novelty of the scene began to act upon the volatility of childhood. As he walked by the sergeant, he began to prattle, at first timidly, and then more voluble. The first instinct of the child is trust. It was a kind of consolation to the boy to talk a great deal of his home, and Tom Orange was, of course, mentioned with the usual inquiry. Do you know Tom Orange? Why so? Then followed the list of that facetious and brilliant person's accomplishments. And are we to go near a place called Wyvern or Carwell Grange? asked the boy, whose memory where his fancy was interested was retentive. Why so? Again demanded the sergeant, looking straight ahead before him. Because Tom Orange told me there's the biggest mushroom in the world grown up there, and that the owner of the house can't get in, for it fills up the door. Tom Orange told you that? Demanded the sergeant in the same way? And the boy supposing it in credulity on his part assured him that Tom, who is truth itself, had told him so only yesterday. The sergeant said no more, and you could not have told in the least by his face that he had made a note of it and was going to report Tom Orange in the proper quarter. And in passing I may mention that about three weeks later Tom Orange was preemptorily dismissed from his desultory employments under Mr. Archdale, and was sued for stealing apples from Warhampton Orchard and some minor Piccadellos, and brought before the magistrates, among whom sat, as it so happened on that occasion, Squire Fairfield of Wyvern, who was precious hard on him, and got him in for more than a month with hard labor. The urchin hiraling with the carpet bag trudged on in front as the sergeant major had commanded. Our little friend, with many a sobbing sigh, and a great load at his heart, yet was looking about him. They were crossing a moor with beautiful purple heather, such as he had never seen before. The sergeant had let go his wrist. He felt more at his ease every way. There were little pools of water here and there which attracted the boy's attention and made him open his box of cork boats and peep at them. He wondered how they would sail in these dark little nooks, and at last one lying very conveniently. He paused at its margin and took out a ship and floated it, and another, and another. How quickly seconds fly and minutes. He was roused by the distant voice of the sergeant major shouting, Hello, you sir, come here. He looked up. The sergeant was consulting his big silver watch, as he stood upon a little eminence of Pete. By the time he reached him, the sergeant had replaced it, and the two or three seals and watch-key he sported were dangling at the end of his chain upon his punch. The sergeant was standing with his heels together, and the point of his cane close to the side of his boot. Come to the front, said the sergeant. Give up that box, said he. The boy placed it in his hand. He uncovered it, turned over the little navy with his fingers, and then jerked the box and its contents over the heath at his side. Don't pick one of them up, said he. Move half a pace to the right, was the next order. His next command was, Hold out your hand. The boy looked in his face surprised. The sergeant's face looked not a bit angrier or a bit kinder than usual, perfectly serene. Hold out your hand, sir. He held it out, and the cane descended with a whistling cut across his fingers. Another. The boy's face flushed with pain, and his deadened hand sunk downward. An upward blow of the cane across his knuckles accompanied the command, hold it up, sir, and a third cut came down. The sergeant was strong and could use his wrist dexterously. Hold out the other, and the same discipline was repeated. Mingled with and above the pain which called up the three great black wells across the slender fingers of each hand was the sense of outrage and cruelty. The tears sprang to his eyes, and for the first time in his life he cried passionately under that double anguish. Walk in front, said the sergeant serenely, and squeezing and wringing his trembling hands together, the still writhing little fellow marched along the path with a bitterer sense of desolation than ever. The bus was late at warning, and a lady in it struck by the beauty and sadness of the little boy's face, said some kind words and seemed to take to him, he thought, with a tenderness that made his heart fuller. And it was a labour almost too great for him to keep down the rising sobs and the tears that were every moment at the point of flowing over. This good Samaritan brought a bag of what were called gingerbread nuts, quite a little store, which Archdale declined, leaving at the boy's discretion. But I am bound to say that they were served out to him from day to day with conscientious punctuality by the sergeant major, who was strictly to be depended on in all matters of property, and would not have nibbled at one of those nuts though his thin lips had watered, and not a soul had been near. He must have possessed a good many valuable military virtues, or he could not, I presume, have been where he was. Nolten Farm is a melancholy but not an ugly place. There are a great many trees about it. They stand too near the windows. The house is small and old, and there is a small garden with a thick high hedge round it. The members of the family were few. Miss Mary Archdale was ill when they arrived. She was the only child of the ex-sargent who was a widower, and the new inmate of the house heard of her with a terror founded on his awe versus silent father. They entered a small parlor, and the boy sat down in the chair indicated by the sergeant. That person hung his hat on a peg in the hall and placed his cane along the chimney piece. Then he rang the bell. The elderly woman who was the female staff of the kitchen entered. She looked frightened, as all that household did in their master's presence, and watched him with an alarmed eye. Where is Miss Mary? A spitting blood, sir, please. Bring in supper, said the sergeant. The boy sat in fear at the very corner of the table. His grief would not let him eat, and he sipped a cup of tea that was too hot, and had neither milk nor sugar enough. The sergeant snuffed his candle and put on a pair of plated spectacles and looked through his weekly paper. While he was so employed, they glided into the room of a very slight girl with large eyes and a very pale face. Her hair was brown and rich. The hand with which she held her shawl across was very thin, and in her pale face and large eyes was a timid and imploring look that struck the little boy. She looked at him and he at her silently. Her sad eyes lingered on his face for a moment, and he felt that he liked her. She took a chair very softly and sat down without saying a word. In a little while the sergeant laid down his paper and looked at her. Her large eyes were raised toward him with timid expectation, but she did not speak. Not well just now? No, sir. You take the bottle regularly? Yes, sir. You'll be better in the morning, be like? I'm sure I shall, sir. He lighted a candle that stood on a side table, and his dog, Bayon, got up to attend him. It was a large pug-dog, gamboge-colored, with a black nose. The boy, often afterwards, wished to play with Bayon and make his acquaintance, but he did not know how the attempt would be taken either by the dog or his master. So he did not venture. No caresses passed between the dog and the sergeant. Each did his duty by the other, and they understood one another, I suppose, but no further signs of love appeared. The sergeant went out and shot the door, and the girl smiled very sweetly on the little guest, and put out her hand to welcome him. I'm very glad you are come here. I was very lonely. My father is gone to the workroom. He's making an organ there. And he won't come back till a quarter to nine. That's an hour and three quarters. Do you hear? Listen. She raised her finger and looked toward the partition as she spoke. And he heard a booming of an organ through the wall. Tony blows the organ for him. Tony was a little boy from the workhouse who cleaned knives, forks, shoes, and made himself generally useful, being the second servant, the only male one in their modest establishment. I wish I was better. I'm so out of breath talking. We'll be very happy now. That's tuning the pipes. That one's wolving. I used to blow the bellows for him, but the doctor says I must not, and indeed I couldn't now. You must eat something and drink more tea, and we'll be great friends, shouldn't we? So they talked a great deal, she being obliged to stop often for breath, and he could see that she was very weak and also that she stood in indescribable awe of her father. But she said he's a very good man and he works very hard to earn his money. But he does not talk, and that makes people afraid of him. He won't be back here until he comes here to read the Bible and prayers at a quarter to nine. So they talked on, but all the time in an undertone, and listening every now and then for the boom of the pipes, and the little boy opened his heart to her and wept bitterly, and she cried too silently as he went on, and they became very near friends. She looked as if she understood his griefs. Perhaps her own resembled his. The old woman came in and took away the tea things, and shortly after the sergeant entered and read the chapter and the prayers. End of chapter 62, recording by John Brandon. Chapter 63 of the Wyvern Mystery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by John Brandon. The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheraton-Lafano. Chapter 63 A Silent Farewell At Nolten Farm each day was like its brother, in flexible hours, in flexible duties, all proceeded with a regimental punctuality. At meals not a word was spoken, and while the master of the house was in it, all conversation was carried on, even in remote rooms in an undertone. Our little friend used to see the workhouse boy at prayers morning and evening, and occasionally to pass his pale, disquieted face on the stairs or lobbies when his duties brought him there. They eyed one another wistfully, but dared not speak. Mr. Archdale had so ordained it. That workhouse boy, perhaps he was inefficient. Perhaps too much was expected from him. But he had the misfortune perpetually to incur. I can hardly say his master's displeasure, for the word implies something emotional, whereas nothing could be at all times more tranquil and cold than that master, but his correction. These awful proceedings occurred almost daily and were conducted with the absolute uniformity which characterized the system of Milton Farm. At eleven o'clock the cold voice of the sergeant major called Tony, and Tony appeared, writhing and whimpering by anticipation. My cane, said the master, stepping into the room which he called the workshop, where the organ, half finished, stood, stopped diapasin, dulciana, and the rest in deal rose, with white chips, chisels, lead, saws, and glue pots, in industrious disorder round. Then Tony's pale, miserable face was seen in the parlor, and Miss Mary would look down on the floor in pale silence. And our little friend's heart would flutter over his lesson book, as he saw the lank boy steal over to the chimney-piece, and take down the cane, and lingeringly disappear. Then was heard the door of the workshop close, and then very faint, the cold clear voice of the master. Then faint and slow the measured cut of the cane, and the wine of the boy rising to a long hideous yell. And, oh dear sir, oh sir dear, oh Mr. Archdale, oh master dear, oh master dear, and this sometimes so protracted that Mary used to get up and walk round the room in a kind of agony whispering, oh poor boy, oh poor Tony, oh mercy, oh goodness, oh my God, when will it be over? And sitting apart the little boy's eyes, as they followed her, would fill with tears of horror. The little fellow said lessons to Mr. Archdale. There was nothing unreasonable in their length, and his friend Mary helped him. It was well for him, however, that he was a bright little fellow, with a good memory, for the sergeant was not a teacher to discriminate between idleness and dullness. No one ever heard Mr. Archdale use a violent expression or utter a curse. He was a silent, cold, orderly person, and I think the most cruel man I ever saw in my life. He had a small act of horse and a gig, in which he drove upon his outdoor business. He had fixed days and hours for everything, except where he meditated a surprise. One day the sergeant major entered the room where the boy was reading at his lessons, and tapping him on the shoulder, put the county newspaper into his hand, and, pointing to a paragraph, desired him to read it and left the room. It was a report of the proceedings against Tom Orange, and gave a rather disreputable character of that amusing person. There was a great pain at the boy's affection at heart, as he read the hard words dealt to his old friend, and were still a sentence. He was crying silently when the sergeant returned. That stern man took the paper and said in his cold, terrible tones, You've read that? Yes, sir. And understand it? Yes, sir. If I find you speaking to Tom Orange, I'll tie you up in the workshop and give you five dozen. And with his promise, he serenely left him. Children are unsuspicious of death, and our little friend who every night used to cry in his bed silently with a bursting heart, thinking of his mammy and old times, till he fell asleep in the dark, never dreamed that his poor friend Mary was dying. She perhaps herself did not think so any more than he, but everyone else said it. They too grew to be great friends, each had a secret, and she trusted hers to the little friend whom God had sent her. It was the old story, the troubled course of true love. Willie Fairlase was the hero. The sergeant major had found it all out, and locked up his daughter, and treated her, it was darkly rumored, with cruel severity. He was proud of his daughter's beauty, and had ambitious plans, I dare say, and he got up Willie's farm, and Willie was ruined, and had enlisted, and was gone. The sergeant major knew the post office people in the village, and the lovers dared not correspond directly. But Willie's cousin, Mrs. Page, heard from him regularly, and there were long messages to Mary. His letters were little else, and now at last had come a friend to bear her messages to trusty Mrs. Page, and to carry his back again to Knowlton Farm. After her father had gone out, or in the evening when he was at the organ in the workshop, and sometimes as wrapped in her cloak on a genial evening, she sat on the rustic seat under the great ash tree, and the solemn and plaintive tones of the distant organ floated in old church music from the open window, through the trees, and down the fragrant field toward the sunset sky. Filling the air with grand and melancholy harmony, she would listen to that whispered message of the boys, looking far away and weeping and holding the little fellow's hand, and asking him to say it over again, and telling him she felt better, and thanking him, and smiling and crying bitterly. One evening the sergeant was at his organ pipes, as usual. The boy, as he stood in the garden at his task watering the parched beds, heard a familiar laugh at the hedge, and the well-known refrain. Tag, tag! Mary, Derry, Perry, Wig, and hat-band Hick, Hock, Whore of Genitivo. It was Tom Orange himself. In spite of his danger the boy was delighted. He ran to the hedge, and he and Tom, in a moment more, were actually talking. It became soon a very serious conversation. The distant booming of the organ pipes assured him that the light gray eye and sharp ear of the sergeant were occupied still elsewhere. Tom Orange was broaching a dreadful conspiracy. It was no less than that the boy should meet him at the foot of a field where the two Osiers grow, at eleven o'clock, on the night following, and run away with him, and see Mammy again, and come to a nice place where he should be as happy as the day is long, and Mammy live with him always, and Tom look in as often as his own more important business would permit. I will, Tom, said the boy, wildly and very pale. And, oh, Tom, I was so sorry about the trial and what lies they told, said the boy, after they had talked a little longer, and saying that you had been with Gypsies and were a poacher, and, oh, Tom, is Mammy quite well? Yes, and all my ships were lost on the moor, and how was little Tuzi the cat? Very well. Blooming, blushing. And, Tom, you are quite well. Never better. As I lately told, Squire Harry Fairfield, and mind ye, I'll be even yet with the old boy in here, and he indicated the house with a jerk of his thumb. I don't hear the organ, Tom. Goodbye. And Tom was off in a moment, and the boy had resumed his watering pot, and that evening he sat down with, for the first time, a tremendous secret at his heart. There was one grief, even in the hope of his liberation, when he looked at poor Mary and thought how lonely she would be. Oh, if poor Mary could come with him. But some time or other he and Tom would come and take her away, and she would live with him and Mammy, and be one of that happy family. She did not know what thoughts were in the boy's mind, as his sad earnest eyes were fixed on her, and she smiled with a little, languid nod. But he need not have grieved his gentle heart on this account. There was not to be a seeming desertion of his friend, nor anything she could mistake for a treacherous slight. That morning, at two o'clock, Mary died. About ten minutes before, an alarm from the old servant who slept in the room called up her father. Her faithful little friend was on his knees, sobbing beside the bed, with her wasted hand in his. As the sergeant major, hastily dressed, walked in and stood by the curtain, looking down into those large, deep eyes. She was conscious, though she could not speak. She saw, as she looked up her last look, a few sullen drops gather in those proud eyes and roll down his cheeks. Perhaps the sad, wondering look with which she returned these signs of tenderness smote him, and haunted him afterwards. There was a little motion in her right hand, as if she would have liked him to take it, in sign of reconciliation. And with those faint tokens of the love that might have been, the change of death came, and the troubled little heart was still, and the image of Willie Fairleigh's was lost in the great darkness. Then the little boy cried aloud wildly, Oh, Mary, pretty Mary, oh Mary, are you dead? Oh, isn't it a pity? Isn't it a pity? Oh, is she dead? The sergeant dried his eyes hastily. He hoped, I dare say, that no one had seen his momentary weakness. He drew a long breath. With a stern face he closed the pretty eyes that Willie Fairleigh's, far away now, will never forget, and closed the little mouth that never will complain, or sigh, or confess its sad tale more. You had better get your room, boy. Get your bed, said the sergeant, not un-gently laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. You'll take cold. Give him a candle.