CHAPTER IV
WHICH WAS THE DREAM?
THE two crossed triangles of white seeds, in the midst Tinkler and thewhite seal, lay on the floor of the little empty house, grew dim andfaint before Dickie's eyes, and his eyes suddenly smarted and felt tiredso that he was very glad to shut them. He had an absurd fancy that hecould see, through his closed eyelids, something moving in the middle ofthe star that the two triangles made. But he knew that this must benonsense, because, of course, you cannot see through your eyelids. Hiseyelids felt so heavy that he could not take the trouble to lift themeven when a voice spoke quite near him. He had no doubt but that it wasthe policeman come to "take him up" for being in a house that was nothis.
"Let him," said Dickie to himself. He was too sleepy to be afraid.
But for a policeman, who is usually of quite a large pattern, the voicewas unusually soft and small. It said briskly--
"Now, then, where do you want to go to?"
"I ain't particular," said Dickie, who supposed himself to be listeningto an offer of a choice of police-stations.
There were whispers--two small and soft voices. They made a sleepymusic.
"He's more yours than mine," said one.
"You're more his than I am," said the other.
"You're older than I am," said the first.
"You're stronger than I am," said the second.
"Let's spin for it," said the first voice, and there was a humming soundending in a little tinkling fall.
"That settles it," said the second voice--"here?"
"And when?"
"Three's a good number."
Then everything was very quiet, and sleep wrapped Dickie like a softcloak. When he awoke his eyelids no longer felt heavy, so he openedthem. "That was a rum dream," he told himself, as he blinked in broaddaylight.
He lay in bed--a big, strange bed--in a room that he had never seenbefore. The windows were low and long, with small panes, and the lightwas broken by upright stone divisions. The floor was of dark wood,strewn strangely with flowers and green herbs, and the bed was afour-post bed like the one he had slept in at Talbot House; and in thegreen curtains was woven a white pattern, very like the thing that wasengraved on Tinkler and on the white seal. On the coverlet lavender andother herbs were laid. And the wall was hung with pictures done inneedlework--tapestry, in fact, though Dickie did not know that this wasits name. All the furniture was heavily built of wood heavily carved. Anenormous dark cupboard or wardrobe loomed against one wall. High-backedchairs with tapestry seats were ranged in a row against another. Thethird wall was almost all window, and in the fourth wall the fireplacewas set with a high-hooded chimney and wide, open hearth.
Near the bed stood a stool, or table, with cups and bottles on it, andon the necks of the bottles parchment labels were tied that stuck outstiffly. A stout woman in very full skirts sat in a large armchair atthe foot of the bed. She wore a queer white cap, the like of whichDickie had never seen, and round her neck was a ruff which reminded himof the cut-paper frills in the ham and beef shops in the New Cross Road.
"What a curious dream!" said Dickie.
The woman looked at him.
"So thou'st found thy tongue," she said; "folk must look to have curiousdreams who fall sick of the fever. But thou'st found thy tongue atlast--thine own tongue, not the wandering tongue that has wagged so fastthese last days."
"But I thought I was in the front room at----" Dickie began.
"Thou'rt here," said she; "the other is the dream. Forget it. And do nottalk of it. To talk of such dreams brings misfortune. And 'tis time forthy posset."
She took a pipkin from the hearth, where a small fire burned, though itwas summer weather, as Dickie could see by the green tree-tops thatswayed and moved outside in the sun, poured some gruel out of it into asilver basin. It had wrought roses on it and "Drink me and drink again"in queer letters round the rim; but this Dickie only noticed later. Shepoured white wine into the gruel, and, having stirred it with a silverspoon, fed Dickie as one feeds a baby, blowing on each spoonful to coolit. The gruel was very sweet and pleasant. Dickie stretched in the downybed, felt extremely comfortable, and fell asleep again.
Next time he awoke it was with many questions. "How'd I come 'ere? 'AveI bin run over agen? Is it a hospital? Who are you?"
"Now don't you begin to wander again," said the woman in the cap."You're here at home in the best bed in your father's house at Deptford.And you've had the plague-fever. And you're better. Or ought to be. Butif you don't know your own old nurse----"
"I never 'ad no nurse," said Dickie, "old nor new. So there. You'rea-takin' me for some other chap, that's what it is. Where did you gethold of me? I never bin here before."
"Don't wander, I tell you," repeated the nurse briskly. "You lie stilland think, and you'll see you'll remember me very well. Forget your oldnurse--why, you will tell me next that you've forgotten your own name."
"No, I haven't," said Dickie.
"What is it, then?" the nurse asked, laughing a fat, comfortable laugh.
Dickie's reply was naturally "Dickie Harding."
"Why," said the nurse, opening wide eyes at him under gray brows, "you_have_ forgotten it. They do say that the fever hurts the memory, butthis beats all. Dost mean to tell me the fever has mazed thy poor brainstill thou don't know that thy name's Richard ----?" And Dickie heard hername a name that did not sound to him at all like Harding.
"Is that my name?" he asked.
"It is indeed," she answered.
Dickie felt an odd sensation of fixedness. He had expected when he wentto sleep that the dream would, in sleep, end, and that he would wake tofind himself alone in the empty house at New Cross. But he had wakenedto the same dream once more, and now he began to wonder whether hereally belonged here, and whether this were the real life, and theother--the old, sordid, dirty New Cross life--merely a horrid dream, theconsequence of his fever. He lay and thought, and looked at the rich,pleasant room, the kind, clear face of the nurse, the green, greenbranches of the trees, the tapestry and the rushes. At last he spoke.
"Nurse," said he.
"Ah! I thought you'd come to yourself," she said. "What is it, mydearie?"
"If I am really the name you said, I've forgotten it. Tell me all aboutmyself, will you, Nurse?"
"I thought as much," she muttered, and then began to tell him wonderfulthings.
She told him how his father was Sir Richard--the King had made him aknight only last year--and how this place where they now were was hisfather's country house. "It lies," said the nurse, "among the pleasantfields and orchards of Deptford." And how he, Dickie, had been very sickof the pestilential fever, but was now, thanks to the blessing and tothe ministrations of good Dr. Carey, on the highroad to health.
"And when you are strong enough," said she, "and the house purged of thecontagion, your cousins from Sussex shall come and stay a while herewith you, and afterwards you shall go with them to their town house, andsee the sights of London. And now," she added, looking out of thewindow, "I spy the good doctor a-coming. Make the best of thyself, dearheart, lest he bleed thee and drench thee yet again, which I know in myheart thou'rt too weak for it. But what do these doctors know of babes?Their medicines are for strong men."
The idea of bleeding was not pleasant to Dickie, though he did not atall know what it meant. He sat up in bed, and was surprised to find thathe was not nearly so tired as he thought. The excitement of all thesehappenings had brought a pink flush to his face, and when the doctor, ina full black robe and black stockings and a pointed hat, stood by hisbedside and felt his pulse, the doctor had to own that Dickie was almostwell.
"We have wrought a cure, Goody," he said; "thou and I, we have wrought acure. Now kitchen physic it is that he needs--good broth and gruel andpanada, and wine, the Rhenish and the French, and the juice of theorange and the lemon, or, failing those, fresh apple-juice squeezed fromthe fruit when you shall have brayed it in a mortar. Ha, my cure pleasesthee? Well, smel
l to it, then. 'Tis many a day since thou hadst theheart to."
He reached the gold knob of his cane to Dickie's nose, and Dickie wassurprised to find that it smelled sweet and strong, something likegrocers' shops and something like a chemist's. There were little holesin the gold knob, such as you see in the tops of pepper castors, and thescent seemed to come through them.
"What is it?" Dickie asked.
"He has forgotten everything," said the nurse quickly; "'tis the gooddoctor's pomander, with spices and perfumes in it to avert contagion."
"As it warms in the hand the perfumes give forth," said the doctor. "Nowthe fever is past there must be a fumigatory. Make a good brew, Goody,make a good brew--amber and nitre and wormwood--vinegar and quinces andmyrrh--with wormwood, camphor, and the fresh flowers of the camomile.And musk--forget not musk--a strong thing against contagion. Let thevapor of it pass to and fro through the chamber, burn the herbs from thefloor and all sweepings on this hearth; strew fresh herbs and flowers,and set all clean and in order, and give thanks that you are not settingall in order for a burying."
With which agreeable words the black-gowned doctor nodded and smiled atthe little patient, and went out.
And now Dickie literally did not know where he was. It was all sodifficult. Was he Dickie Harding who had lived at New Cross, and sownthe Artistic Parrot Seed, and taken the open road with Mr. Beale? Orwas he that boy with the other name whose father was a knight, and wholived in a house in Deptford with green trees outside the windows? Hecould not remember any house in Deptford that had green trees in itsgarden. And the nurse had said something about the pleasant fields andorchards. Those, at any rate, were not in the Deptford he knew. Perhapsthere were two Deptfords. He knew there were two Bromptons and twoRichmonds (one in Yorkshire). There was something about the way thingshappened at this place that reminded him of that nice Lady Talbot whohad wanted him to stay and be her little boy. Perhaps this new boy whoseplace he seemed to have taken had a real mother of his own, as nice asthat nice lady.
The nurse had dropped all sorts of things into an iron pot with threelegs, and had set it to boil in the hot ashes. Now it had boiled, andtwo maids were carrying it to and fro in the room, as the doctor hadsaid. Puffs of sweet, strong, spicy steam rose out of it as they jerkedit this way and that.
"Nurse," Dickie called; and she came quickly. "Nurse, have I got amother?"
She hugged him. "Indeed thou hast," she said, "but she lies sick at yourfather's other house. And you have a baby brother, Richard."
"Then," said Dickie, "I think I will stay here, and try to remember whoI am--I mean who you say I am--and not try to dream any more about NewCross and Mr. Beale. If this is a dream, it's a better dream than theother. I want to stay here, Nurse. Let me stay here and see my motherand my little brother."
"And shalt, my lamb--and shalt," the nurse said.
And after that there was more food, and more sleep, and nights, anddays, and talks, and silences, and very gradually, yet very quickly,Dickie learned about this new boy who was, and wasn't, himself. He toldthe nurse quite plainly that he remembered nothing about himself, andafter he had told her she would sit by his side by the hour and tell himof things that had happened in the short life of the boy whose place hefilled, the boy whose name was _not_ Dickie Harding. And as soon as shehad told him a thing he found he remembered it--not as one remembers atale that is told, but as one remembers a real thing that has happened.
And days went on, and he became surer and surer that he was really thisother Richard, and that he had only dreamed all that old life in NewCross with his aunt and in the pleasant country roads with Mr. Beale.And he wondered how he could ever have dreamed such things.
Quite soon came the day when the nurse dressed him in clothes strange,but strangely comfortable and fine, and carried him to the window, fromwhich, as he sat in a big oak chair, he could see the green fields thatsloped down to the river, and the rigging and the masts of the shipsthat went up and down. The rigging looked familiar, but the shape of theships was quite different. They were shorter and broader than the shipsthat Dickie Harding had been used to see, and they, most of them, roseup much higher out of the water.
"I should like to go and look at them closer," he told the nurse.
"Once thou'rt healed," she said, "thou'lt be forever running down to thedockyard. Thy old way--I know thee, hearing the master mariners' tales,and setting thy purpose for a galleon of thine own and the golden SouthAmericas."
"What's a galleon?" said Dickie. And was told. The nurse was verypatient with his forgettings.
He was very happy. There seemed somehow to be more room in this new lifethan in the old one, and more time. No one was in a hurry, and there wasnot another house within a quarter of a mile. All green fields. Also hewas a person of consequence. The servants called him "Master Richard,"and he felt, as he heard them, that being called Master Richard meantnot only that the servants respected him as their master's son, butthat he was somebody from whom great things were expected. That he hadduties of kindness and protection to the servants; that he was expectedto grow up brave and noble and generous and unselfish, to care for thosewho called him master. He felt now very fully, what he had felt vaguelyand dimly at Talbot Court, that he was not the sort of person who oughtto do anything mean and dishonorable, such as being a burglar, andclimbing in at pantry windows; that when he grew up he would be expectedto look after his servants and laborers, and all the men and women whomhe would have under him--that their happiness and well-being would behis charge. And the thought swelled his heart, and it seemed that he wasborn to a great destiny. He--little lame Dickie Harding of Deptford--hewould hold these people's lives in his hand. Well, he knew what poorpeople wanted; he had been poor--or he had dreamed that he was poor--itwas all the same. Dreams and real life were so very much alike.
So Dickie changed, every hour of every day and every moment of everyhour, from the little boy who lived at New Cross among the yellow housesand the ugliness, who tramped the white roads, and slept at the Inn ofthe Silver Moon, to Richard of the other name who lived well and sleptsoftly, and knew himself called to a destiny of power and helpfulkindness. For his nurse had told him that his father was a rich man; andthat father's riches would be his one day, to deal with for the good ofthe men under him, for their happiness and the glory of God. It was agreat and beautiful thought, and Dickie loved it.
He loved, indeed, everything in this new life--the shapes and colors offurniture and hangings, the kind old nurse, the friendly, laughingmaids, the old doctor with his long speeches and short smiles, his bed,his room, the ships, the river, the trees, the gardens--the very skyseemed cleaner and brighter than the sky that had been over the Deptfordthat Dickie Harding had known.
And then came the day when the nurse, having dressed him, bade him walkto the window, instead of being carried, as, so far, he had been.
"Where ..." he asked, hesitatingly, "where's my...? Where have you putthe crutch?"
Then the old nurse laughed.
"Crutch?" she said. "Come out of thy dreams. Thou silly boy! Thou wantsno crutch with two fine, straight, strong legs like thou's got. Come,use them and walk."
Dickie looked down at his feet. In the old New Cross days he had notliked to look at his feet. He had not looked at them in these new days.Now he looked. Hesitated.
"Come," said the nurse encouragingly.
He slid from the high bed. One might as well try. Nurse seemed tothink.... He touched the ground with both feet, felt the floor firm andeven under them--as firm and even under the one foot as under the other.He stood up straight, moved the foot that he had been used to move--thenthe other, the one that he had never moved. He took two steps, three,four--and then he turned suddenly and flung himself against the side ofthe bed and hid his face in his arms.
"What, weeping, my lamb?" the nurse said, and came to him.
"Oh, Nurse," he cried, clinging to her with all his might. "I dreamedthat I was lame! And I thought it was true.
And it isn't!--it isn't!--itisn't!"
* * * * *
Quite soon Dickie was able to walk down-stairs and out into the gardenalong the grassy walks and long alleys where fruit trees trained overtrellises made such pleasant green shade, and even to try to learn toplay at bowls on the long bowling-green behind the house. The house wasby far the finest house Dickie had ever been in, and the garden was morebeautiful even than the garden at Talbot Court. But it was not only thebeauty of the house and garden that made Dickie's life a new and fulldelight. To limp along the leafy ways, to crawl up and down the carvedstaircase would have been a pleasure greater than any Dickie had everknown; but he could leap up and down the stairs three at a time, hecould run in the arched alleys--run and jump as he had seen otherchildren do, and as he had never thought to do himself. Imagine what youwould feel if you had lived wingless all your life among people whocould fly. That is how lame people feel among us who can walk and run.And now Dickie was lame no more.
His feet seemed not only to be strong and active, but clever on theirown account. They carried him quite without mistake to the blacksmith'sat the village on the hill--to the centre of the maze of clipped hedgesthat was the centre of the garden, and best of all they carried him tothe dockyard.
Girls like dolls and tea-parties and picture-books, but boys like to seethings made and done; else how is it that any boy worth his salt willleave the newest and brightest toys to follow a carpenter or a plumberround the house, fiddle with his tools, ask him a thousand questions,and watch him ply his trade? Dickie at New Cross had spent many an hourwatching those interesting men who open square trap-doors in thepavement and drag out from them yards and yards of wire. I do not knowwhy the men do this, but every London boy who reads this will know.
And when he got to the dockyard his obliging feet carried him to a manin a great leather apron, busy with great beams of wood and tools thatDickie had never seen. And the man greeted him as an old friend, kissedhim on both cheeks--which he didn't expect, and felt much too oldfor--and spread a sack for him that he might sit in the sun on a bigbaulk of timber.
"Thou'rt a sight for sore eyes, Master Richard," he said; "it's many along day since thou was here to pester me with thy questions. And all'sstrong again--no bones broken? And now I'll teach thee to make agalleon, like as I promised."
"Will you, indeed?" said Dickie, trembling with joy and pride.
"That will I," said the man, and threw up his pointed beard in a jollylaugh. "And see what I've made thee while thou'st been lazying in bed--areal English ship of war."
He laid down the auger he held and went into a low, rough shed, and nextmoment came out with a little ship in his hand--a perfect model of thestrange high-built ships Dickie could see on the river.
"'TIS THE PICTURE,' SAID HE PROUDLY, 'OF MY OLD SHIP,"THE GOLDEN VENTURE"'"
[_Page 97_]
"'Tis the picture," said he, proudly, "of my old ship, _The GoldenVenture_, that I sailed in with Master Raleigh, and help to sink theaccursed Armada, and clip the King of Spain his wings, and singe hisbeard."
"The Armada!" said Dickie, with a new and quite strange feeling, ratherlike going down unexpectedly in a lift. "The _Spanish_ Armada?"
"What other?" asked the ship-builder. "Thou'st heard the story athousand times."
"I want to hear it again," Dickie said. And heard the story of England'sgreat danger and her great escapes. It was just the same story as theone you read in your history book--and yet how different, when it wastold by a man who had been there, who had felt the danger, known theescape. Dickie held his breath.
"And so," the story ended, "the breath of the Lord went forth and thestorm blew, and fell on the fleet of Spain, and scattered them; and theywent down in our very waters, they and their arms and their treasure,their guns and their gunners, their mariners and their men-of-war. Andthe remnant was scattered and driven northward, and some were wrecked onthe rocks, and some our ships met and dealt with, and some poor few madeshift to get back across the sea, trailing home like wounded mallards,to tell the King their master what the Lord had done for England."
"How long ago was it, all this?" Dickie asked. If his memory served itwas hundreds of years ago--three, five--he could not remember how many,but hundreds. Could this man, whose hair was only just touched withgray, be hundreds of years old?
"How long?--a matter of twenty years or thereabouts," said theship-builder. "See, the pretty little ship; and thy very own, for I madeit for thee."
It was indeed a pretty little ship, being a perfect model of anElizabethan ship, built up high at bow and stern, "for," as Sebastianexplained, "majesty and terror of the enemy", and with deck and orlop,waist and poop, hold and masts--all complete with forecastle and cabin,masts and spars, port-holes and guns, sails, anchor, and carvedfigure-head. The woodwork was painted in white and green and red, and atbow and stern was richly carved and gilded.
"For me," Dickie said--"really for me? And you made it yourself!"
"Truth to tell, I began it long since in the long winter evenings," saidhis friend, "and now 'tis done and 'tis thine. See, I shall put an apronon thee and thou shalt be my 'prentice and learn to build another quaintship like her--to be her consort; and we will sail them together in thepond in thy father's garden."
Dickie, still devouring the little _Golden Venture_ with his eyes,submitted to the leather apron, and felt in his hand the smooth handleof the tool Sebastian put there.
"But," he said, "I don't understand. You remember the Armada--twentyyears ago. I thought it was hundreds and hundreds."
"Twenty years ago--or nearer eighteen," said Sebastian; "thou'lt have tolearn to reckon better than that if thou'st to be my 'prentice. 'Twas inthe year of grace 1588, and we are now in the year 1606. This makes iteighteen years, to my reckoning."
"It was 1906 in my dream," said Dickie--"I mean in my fever."
"In fever," Sebastian said, "folk travel far. Now, hold the wood so, andthe knife thus."
Then every day Dickie went down to the dockyard when lessons were done.For there were lessons now, with a sour-faced tutor in a black gown,whom Dickie disliked extremely. The tutor did not seem to like Dickieeither. "The child hath forgot in his fever all that ever he learned ofme," he complained to the old nurse, who nodded wisely and said he wouldsoon learn all afresh. And he did, very quickly, learn a great deal, andalways it was more like remembering than learning. And a second tutor,very smart in red velvet and gold, with breeches like balloons and ashort cloak and a ruff, who was an extremely jolly fellow, came in themornings to teach him to fence, to dance, and to run and to leap and toplay bowls, and promised in due time to teach him wrestling, catching,archery, pall-mall, rackets, riding, tennis, and all sports and gamesproper for a youth of gentle blood.
And weeks went by, and still his father and mother had not come, and hehad learned a little Greek and more Latin, could carve a box with thearms of his house on the lid, and make that lid fit; could bow like acourtier and speak like a gentleman, and play a simple air on the violthat hung in the parlor for guests to amuse themselves with while theywaited to see the master or mistress.
And then came the day when old nurse dressed him in his best--a suit ofcut velvet, purple slashed with gold-color, and a belt with a littlesword to it, and a flat cap--and Master Henry, the games-master, tookhim in a little boat to a gilded galley full of gentlemen and ladies allfinely dressed, who kissed him and made much of him and said how he wasgrown since the fever. And one gentleman, very fine indeed, appeared tobe his uncle, and a most charming lady in blue and silver seemed to behis aunt, and a very jolly little boy and girl who sat by him and talkedmerrily all the while were his little cousins. Cups of wine and silverdishes of fruit and cakes were handed round: the galley was decked withfresh flowers, and from another boat quite near came the sound of music.The sun shone overhead and the clear river sparkled and more and moreboats, all gilded and flower-wreathed, appeared on the water. Then therewas a sound of
shouting, the river suddenly grew alive with the glitterof drawn swords, the butterfly glitter of ladies waved scarves andhandkerchiefs, and a great gilded barge came slowly down-stream,followed by a procession of smaller craft. Every one in the galley stoodup: the gentlemen saluted with their drawn swords, the ladies flutteredtheir scarves.
"THE GALLEY WAS DECKED WITH FRESH FLOWERS"
[_Page 102_]
"His Majesty and the Queen," the little cousins whispered as the StateBarge went by.
Then all the galleys fell into place behind the King's barge, and thelong, beautiful procession went slowly on down the river.
Dickie was very happy. The little cousins were so friendly and jolly,the grown-up people so kind--everything so beautiful and so clean. Itwas a perfect day.
The river was very beautiful; it ran between banks of willows and alderswhere loosestrife and meadowsweet and willow-herb and yarrow grew talland thick. There were water-lilies in shady back-waters, and beautifulgardens sloping down to the water.
At last the boats came to a pretty little town among trees.
"This is where we disembark," said the little girl cousin. "The Kinglies here to-night at Sir Thomas Bradbury's. And we lie at ourgrandfather's house. And to-morrow it is the Masque in Sir Thomas'sPark. And we are to see it. I am glad thou'st well of thy fever,Richard. I shouldn't have liked it half so well if thou hadn't beenhere," she said, smiling. And of course that was a very nice thing tohave said to one.
"And then we go home to Deptford with thee," said the boy cousin. "Weare to stay a month. And we'll see thy galleon, and get old Sebastian tomake me one too...."
"Yes," said Dickie, as the boat came against the quay. "What _is_ thisplace?"
"Gravesend, thou knowest that," said the little cousins, "or hadst thouforgotten that, too, in thy fever?"
"Gravesend?" Dickie repeated, in quite a changed voice.
"Come, children," said the aunt--oh, what a different aunt to the onewho had slapped Dickie in Deptford, sold the rabbit-hutch, and shot themoon!--"you boys remember how I showed you to carry my train. And mygirl will not forget how to fling the flowers from the gilt basket asthe King and Queen come down the steps."
The grandfather's house and garden--the stately, white-hairedgrandfather, whom they called My Lord, and who was, it seemed, theaunt's father--the banquet, the picture-gallery, the gardens lit up bylittle colored oil lamps hung in festoons from tree to tree, the blazingtorches, the music, the Masque--a sort of play without words in whichevery one wore the most wonderful and beautiful dresses, and the Queenherself took a part dressed all in gauze and jewels and white swan'sfeathers--all these things were like a dream to Dickie, and through itall the words kept on saying themselves to him very gently, veryquietly, and quite without stopping--
"Gravesend. That's where the lodging-house is where Beale is waiting foryou--the man you called father. You promised to go there as soon as youcould. Why haven't you gone? Gravesend. That's where the lodging-houseis where Beale----" And so on, over and over again.
And how can any one enjoy anything when this sort of thing keeps onsaying itself under and over and through and between everything he seesand hears and feels and thinks? And the worst of it was that now, forthe first time since he had found that he was not lame, he felt--morethan felt, he knew--that the old New Cross life had not been a feverdream, and that Beale, who had been kind to him and taken him throughthe pleasant country and slept with him in the bed with the greencurtains, was really waiting for him at Gravesend.
"And this is all a dream," said Dickie, "and I _must_ wake up."
But he couldn't wake up.
And the trees and grass and lights and beautiful things, the kindlygreat people with their splendid dresses, the King and Queen, the auntsand uncles and the little cousins--all these things refused to fade awayand jumble themselves up as things do in dreams. They remained solid andreal. He knew that this must be a dream, and that Beale and Gravesendand New Cross and the old lame life were the real thing, and yet hecould not wake up. All the same the light had gone out of everything,and it is small wonder that when he got home at last, very tired indeed,to his father's house at Deptford he burst into tears as nurse wasundressing him.
"What ails my lamb?" she asked.
"I can't explain; you wouldn't understand," said Dickie.
"Try," said she, very earnestly.
He looked round the room at the tapestries and the heavy furniture.
"I can't," he said.
"Try," she said again.
"It's ... don't laugh, Nurse. There's a dream that feels real--about adreadful place--oh, so different from this. But there's a man waitingthere for me that was good to me when I was--when I wasn't ... that wasgood to me; he's waiting in the dream and I want to get back to him. AndI can't."
"Thou'rt better here than in that dreadful place," said the nurse,stroking his hair.
"Yes--but Beale. I know he's waiting there. I wish I could bring himhere."
"Not yet," said the nurse surprisingly; "'tis not easy to bring those welove from one dream to another."
"One dream to another?"
"Didst never hear that all life is a dream?" she asked him. "But thoushalt go. Heaven forbid that one of thy race should fail a friend. Look!there are fresh sheets on thy bed. Lie still and think of him that wasgood to thee."
He lay there, very still. He had decided to wake up--to wake up to theold, hard, cruel life--to poverty, dulness, lameness. There was no otherthing to be done. He _must_ wake up and keep his promise to Beale. Butit was hard--hard--hard. The beautiful house, the beautiful garden, thegames, the boat-building, the soft clothes, the kind people, theuplifting sense that he was Somebody ... yet he must go. Yes, if hecould he would.
The nurse had taken burning wood from the hearth and set it on a silverplate. Now she strewed something on the glowing embers.
"Lie straight and still," she said, "and wish thyself where thou wastwhen thou leftest that dream."
He did so. A thick, sweet smoke rose from the little fire in the silverplate, and the nurse was chanting something in a very low voice.
"Men die, Man dies not. Times fly, Time flies not."
That was all he heard, though he heard confusedly that there was more.
He seemed to sink deep into a soft sea of sleep, to be rocked on itstide, and then to be flung by its waves, roughly, suddenly, on some hardshore of awakening. He opened his eyes. He was in the little bare frontroom in New Cross. Tinkler and the white seal lay on the floor amongwhite moonflower seeds confusedly scattered, and the gas lamp from thestreet shone through the dirty panes on the newspapers and sacking.
"What a dream!" said Dickie, shivering, and very sleepy. "Oh, what adream!" He put Tinkler and the seal in one pocket, gathered up themoon-seeds and put them in the other, drew the old newspapers over himand went to sleep.
* * * * *
The morning sun woke him.
"How odd," said he, "to dream all that--weeks and weeks, in just alittle bit of one little night! If it had only been true!"
He jumped up, eager to start for Gravesend. Since he had wakened out ofthat wonderful dream on purpose to go to Gravesend, he might as wellstart at once. But his jump ended in a sickening sideways fall, and hishead knocked against the wainscot.
"I had forgotten," he said slowly. "I shouldn't have thought any dreamcould have made me forget about my foot."
For he had indeed forgotten it, had leaped up, eagerly, confidently, asa sound child leaps, and the lame foot had betrayed him, thrown himdown.
He crawled across to where the crutch lay--the old broom, cut down, thatLady Talbot had covered with black velvet for him.
"And now," he said, "I must get to Gravesend." He looked out of thewindow at the dismal, sordid street. "I wonder," he said, "if Deptfordwas ever really like it was in my dream--the gardens and the clean riverand the fields?"
He got out of the ho
use when no one was looking, and went off down thestreet.
"Clickety-clack" went the crutch on the dusty pavement.
His back ached; his lame foot hurt; his "good" leg was tired and stiff,and his heart, too, was very tired. About this time, in the dream he hadchosen to awaken from, for the sake of Beale, a bowl of porridge wouldbe smoking at the end of a long oak table, and a great carved chair beset for a little boy who was not there.
Dickie strode on manfully, but the pain in his back made him feel sick.
"I don't know as I can do it," he said.
Then he saw the three gold balls above the door of the friendlypawnbroker.
He looked, hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, and went in.
"Hullo!" said the pawnbroker, "here we are again. Want to pawn therattle, eh?"
"No," said Dickie, "but what'll you give me on the seal you gave me?"
The pawnbroker stared, frowned, and burst out laughing.
"If you don't beat all!" he said. "I give you a present, and you come topledge it with me! You should have been one of our people! So you wantto pledge the seal. Well, well!"
"I'd much rather not," said Dickie seriously, "because I love it verymuch. But I must have my fare to Gravesend. My father's there, waitingfor me. And I don't want to leave Tinkler behind."
He showed the rattle.
"What's the fare to Gravesend?"
"Don't know. I thought you'd know. Will you give me the fare for theseal?"
The pawnbroker hesitated and looked hard at him. "No," he said, "no. Theseal's not worth it. Not but what it's a very good seal," he added,"very good indeed."
"See here," said Dickie suddenly, "I know what honor is now, and theword of a gentleman. You will not let me pledge the seal with you. Thenlet me pledge my word--my word of honor. Lend me the money to take me toGravesend, and by the honor of a gentleman I will repay you within amonth."
The voice was firm; the accent, though strange, was not the accent ofDeptford street boys. It was the accent of the boy who had had twotutors and a big garden, a place in the King's water-party, and aknowledge of what it means to belong to a noble house.
The pawnbroker looked at him. With the unerring instinct of his race, heknew that this was not play-acting, that there was something behindit--something real. The sense of romance, of great things all about themtranscending the ordinary things of life--this in the Jews has survivedcenturies of torment, shame, cruelty, and oppression. This inheritedsense of romance in the pawnbroker now leaped to answer Dickie's appeal.(And I do hope I am not confusing you; stick to it; read it again if youdon't understand. What I mean is that the Jews always see the bigbeautiful things; they don't just see that gray is made of black andwhite; they see how incredibly black black can be, and that there may bea whiteness transcending all the whitest dreams in the world.)
"You're a rum little chap," was what the pawnbroker said, "but I likeyour pluck. Every man's got to make a fool of himself one time or theother," he added, apologizing to the spirit of business.
"You mean you will?" said Dickie eagerly.
"More fool me," said the Jew, feeling in his pocket.
"You won't be sorry; not in the end you won't," said Dickie, as thepawnbroker laid certain monies before him on the mahogany counter."You'll lend me this? You'll trust me?"
"Looks like it," said the Jew.
"Then some day I shall do something for you. I don't know what, butsomething. We never forget, we----" He stopped. He remembered that hewas poor little lame Dickie Harding, with no right to that other namewhich had been his in the dream.
He picked up the coins, put them in his pocket--felt the moon-seeds.
"I cannot repay your kindness," he said, "though some day I will repayyour silver. But these seeds--the moon-seeds," he pulled out a handful."You liked the flowers?" He handed a generous score across the red-brownpolished wood.
"Thank you, my lad," said the pawnbroker. "I'll raise them in gentleheat."
"I think they grow best by moonlight," said Dickie.
* * * * *
So he came to Gravesend and the common lodging-house, and a weary, sad,and very anxious man rose up from his place by the fire when theclickety-clack of the crutch sounded on the threshold.
"It's the nipper!" he said; and came very quickly to the door and gothis arm round Dickie's shoulders. "The little nipper, so it ain't! Ithought you'd got pinched. No, I didn't, I knew your clever ways--I knewyou was bound to turn up."
"Yes," said Dickie, looking round the tramps' kitchen, and rememberingthe long, clean tapestry-hung dining-hall of his dream. "Yes, I wasbound to turn up. You wanted me to, didn't you?" he added.
"Wanted you to?" Beale answered, holding him close, and looking at himas men look at some rare treasure gained with much cost and after longseeking. "Wanted you? Not 'arf! I _don't_ think," and drew him in andshut the door.
"Then I'm glad I came," said Dickie. But in his heart he was not glad.In his heart he longed for that pleasant house where he was the youngmaster, and was not lame any more. But in his soul he was glad, becausethe soul is greater than the heart, and knows greater things. And nowDickie loved Beale more than ever, because for him he had sacrificed hisdream. So he had gained something. Because loving people is the bestthing in the world--better even than being loved. Just think this out,will you, and see if I am not right.
There were herrings for tea. And in the hard bed, with his clothes andhis boots under the pillows, Dickie slept soundly.
But he did not dream.
Yet when he woke in the morning, remembering many things, he said tohimself--
"Is this the dream? Or was the other the dream?"
And it seemed a foolish question--with the feel of the coarse sheetsand the smell of the close room, and Mr. Beale's voice saying, "Rouseup, nipper, there's sossingers for breakfast."