CHAPTER IX.
RALPH'S CONFIDENCE.
"Sad case it is, as you may think For very cold to go to bed; And then for cold not sleep a wink."
WORDSWORTH'S _Goody Blaks_
"Grandmother," said Ralph, when they were all sitting at breakfast thenext morning, "didn't you say that your grandmother once had an adventurethat we might like to hear? It was at the beginning of the story you toldus--I think it was something about the corkscrew staircase. I liked thestory awfully, you know, but I'm fearfully fond of adventures."
Grandmother smiled.
"I remember saying something about it," she said, "but it is hardly worthcalling an adventure, my boy. It showed her courage and presence of mind,however. She was a very brave little woman."
"Presence of mind," repeated Ralph. "Ah yes! that's a good thing to have.There's a fellow at our school who saved a child from being burnt todeath not long ago. It was his little cousin where he lives. It wasn'the that told me about it, he's too modest, it was some of the otherfellows."
"Who is he? what's his name?" asked Molly.
"Prosper de Lastre," replied Ralph. "He's an awful good fellow everyway."
"Prosper de Lastre!" repeated Molly, who possessed among otherpeculiarities that of a sometimes most inconveniently good memory."Prosper de Lastre! I do believe, Ralph, that's the very boy youcalled a cad when you first went to school."
Ralph's face got very red, and he seemed on the verge of a hasty reply.But he controlled himself.
"Well, and if I did," he said somewhat gruffly, "a fellow may bemistaken, mayn't he? I don't think him a cad _now_, and that's all aboutit."
Molly was preparing some rejoinder when grandmother interrupted her.
"You are quite right, Ralph, _quite_ right not to be above owningyourself mistaken. Who _can_ be above it really? not the wisest man thatever lived. And Molly, my dear little girl, why can you not learn to bemore considerate? Do you know what 'tact' is, Molly? Did you ever hear ofit?"
"Oh yes, grandmother dear," said Molly serenely. "It means--it means--ohI don't quite know, but I'm sure I do know."
"Think of it as meaning the not saying or doing to another personwhatever in that other's place you would not like said or done toyou--that is _one_ meaning of tact anyway, and a very good one. Willyou try to remember it, Molly?"
Molly opened her eyes.
"Yes, grandmother dear, I will try. But I _think_ all that will be ratherhard to remember, because you see people don't feel the same. My headisn't twisty-turny enough to understand things like that, quickly. I likebetter to go bump at them, quite straight."
"Without, in nine cases out of ten, the faintest idea what you are goingto go bump straight at," said aunty, laughing. "Oh, Molly, you areirresistible!"
The laughing at her had laughed back Ralph's good humour anyway, and nowhe returned to the charge.
"Twisty-turny is like a corkscrew, grandmother," he said slyly, "and oncethere was an old house with a corkscrew stair----"
"Yes," said grandmother, "and in that old house there once lived an oldlady, who, strange to say, was not always old. She was not very old atthe time of the 'adventure.' You remember, children, my telling you thatduring her husband's life, my grandmother and he used to spend part ofthe winter in the old house where she afterwards ended her days. Mygrandfather used to drive backwards and forwards to his farms, of whichhe had several in the neighbourhood, and the town was a sort of centralplace for the season of bad weather and short days. Sometimes he used tobe kept rather late, for besides his own affairs, he had, like his son,my father, a good deal of magistrate's business to attend to. But howeverlate he was detained my grandmother always sat up for him, generally in alittle sitting-room she had on the storey above the long drawing-room Ihave described to you, almost, that is to say, at the top of the house,from attic to basement of which ran the lung 'twisty-turny, corkscrewstaircase.' One evening, about Christmas time it was, I think, mygrandfather was very late of coming home. My grandmother was not uneasy,for he had told her he would be late, and she had mentioned it to theservants, and told them they need not sit up. So there she was, lateat night, alone, sewing most likely--ah girls, I wish I could show yousome of her sewing--in her little parlour. She was not the least nervous,yet it was a little 'eerie' perhaps, sitting up there alone so late,listening for her husband's whistle--he always whistled when he was late,so that she might be _sure_ it was he, when she went down to open thedoor at his knock--and more than once she looked at the clock and wishedhe would come. Suddenly a step outside the room, coming up the stair,made her start. She had hardly time to wonder confusedly if it could bemy grandfather, knowing all the time it could _not_ be he--the doors wereall supposed to be locked and barred, and could only be opened from theinside--when the door was flung open and some one looked in. Not mygrandfather certainly; the man who stood in the doorway was dressed insome sort of rough workman's clothes, and his face was black and grimy.That was all she had time to catch sight of, for, not expecting to seeher there, the intruder, startled, turned sharply round and made for thestair. Up jumped my little grandmother; she took it all in in an instant,and saw that her only chance was to take advantage of his momentarysurprise and start at seeing her. Up she jumped and rushed bravely afterhim, making all the clatter she could. Downstairs he flew, imagining veryprobably in his fright that two or three people instead of one littlewoman were at his heels, and downstairs, round and round the corkscrewstaircase, she flew after him. Never afterwards, she has often since toldme, did she quite lose the association of that wild flight, never couldshe go downstairs in that house without the feeling of the man beforeher, and seeming to hear the rattle-rattle of a leathern apron he waswearing, which clattered against the banisters as he ran. But she kepther head to the end of the chase; she followed him--all in the dark,remember--down to the bottom of the staircase, and, guided by the clatterof his apron, through a back kitchen in the basement which opened into ayard--there she stopped--she heard him clatter through this cellar,banging the door--which had been left open, and through which he hadevidently made his way into the house--after him, as if to prevent herfollowing him farther. Poor thing, she certainly had no wish to do so;she felt her way to the door and felt for the key to lock it securely.But alas, when she pushed the door closely to, preparatory to locking it,it resisted her. Some one or something seemed to push against her fromthe outside. Then for the first time her courage gave way, and thinkingthat the man had returned, with others perhaps, she grew sick and faintwith fright. She sank down helplessly on the floor for a moment or two.But all seemed quiet; her courage and common sense returned; she got upand felt all about the door carefully, to try to discover the obstacle.To her delight she found that some loose sand or earth driven into alittle heap on the floor was what prevented the door shutting. Shesmoothed it away with her hand, closed the door and locked it firmly, andthen, faint and trembling, but safe, made her way back to the little roomwhere her light was burning. You can fancy how glad she was, a very fewmoments afterwards, to hear my grandfather's cheerful whistle outside."
"But," interrupted Molly, her eyes looking bigger and rounder than usual,"but suppose the man had been waiting outside to catch him--yourgrandfather--grandmother, when he came in?"
"But the man wasn't doing anything of the sort, my dear Molly. He hadgone off in a fright, and when my grandmother thought it over coolly, shefelt convinced that he was not a regular burglar, and so it turned out.He was a man who worked at a smithy near by, and this was his firstattempt at burglary. He had heard that my grandfather was to be out late,through one of the servants, whom he had persuaded not to lock the door,on the pretense that he might be passing and would look in to saygood-night. It all came out afterwards."
"And was he put in prison?" said Molly.
"No," said grandmother. "The punishments for housebreaking and suchthings in those days were so frightfully severe, that kind-hearted peopleoften refrained from accusing th
e wrong-doers. This man had been in sorewant of money for some reason or other; he was not a dishonest character.I believe the end of it was that my grandfather forgave him, and put himin the way of doing better."
"That was very nice," said Molly, with a sigh of relief.
"Good-bye," said Ralph, who was just then strapping his books togetherfor school. "Thank you for the story, grandmother. If it is fine thisafternoon," he added, "may I stay out later? I want to go a walk into thecountry."
"Certainly, my boy," said grandmother. "But you'll be home by dinner."
"All right," said Ralph, as he marched off.
"And grandmother, please," said Sylvia, "may Molly and I go out withMarcelline this afternoon to do some shopping? The pretty Christmasthings are coming in now, and we have lots to do."
"Certainly, my dears," said grandmother again, and about two o'clock thelittle girls set off, one on each side of good-natured Marcelline, inhigh spirits, to do their Christmas shopping.
Grandmother watched them from the window, and thought how pretty theylooked, and the thought earned her back to the time--not so very long agodid it seem to her now--when their mother had been just as bright andhappy as they--the mother who had never lived to see them more thanbabies. Grandmother's eyes filled with tears, but she smiled through thetears.
"God is good and sends new blessings When the old He takes away,"
she whispered to herself. It was a blessing, a very great blessing andpleasure to have what she had so often longed for, the care of her dearlittle grand-daughters herself.
"And Ralph," she added, "I cannot help feeling the responsibility withhim even greater. An old woman like me, can I have much influence with aboy? But he is a dear boy in many ways, and I was pleased with the way hespoke yesterday. It was honest and manly. Ah! if we could teach our boyswhat _true_ manliness is, the world would be a better place than it is."
The days were beginning to close in now. By four o'clock or half-past itwas almost dark, and, once the sun had gone down, cold, with a peculiarbiting coldness not felt farther north, where the temperature is moreequable and the contrasts less sudden.
Grandmother put on her fur-lined cloak and set off to meet the littlemarket-women. Once, twice thrice she walked to the corner of theroad--they were not to be seen, and she was beginning to fear thetemptations of the shops had delayed them unduly, when they suddenly camein view; and the moment they caught sight of her familiar figure off theyset, as if touched at the same instant by an electric thrill, runningtowards her like two lapwings.
"Dear grandmother, how good of you to come to meet us," said Sylvia. "Wehave got such nice things. They are in Marcelline's basket," noddingback towards Marcelline, jogging along after them in her usual deliberatefashion.
"_Such_ nice things," echoed Molly. "But oh, grandmother dear, you don'tknow what we saw. We met Ralph in the town, and I'm sure he didn't wantus to see him, for what _do_ you think he was doing?"
A chill went through poor grandmother's heart. In an instant she picturedto herself all manner of scrapes Ralph might have got into. Had herthoughts of him this very afternoon been a sort of presentiment of evil?She grew white, so white that even in the already dusky light, Sylvia'ssharp eyes detected it, and she turned fiercely to Molly, the heedless.
"You naughty girl," she said, "to go and frighten dear little grandmotherlike that. And only this very morning or yesterday grandmother wasexplaining to you about tact. Don't be frightened, dear grandmother.Ralph wasn't doing anything naughty, only I daresay he didn't want us tosee."
"But what _was_ he doing?" said grandmother, and Molly, irrepressiblestill, though on the verge of sobs, made answer before Sylvia couldspeak.
"He was carrying wood, grandmother dear," she said--"big bundles, andanother boy with him too. I think they had been out to the little foreststo fetch it. It was fagots. But I _didn't_ mean to frighten you,grandmother; I _didn't_ know it was untact to tell you--I have beenthinking all day about what you told me."
"Carrying wood?" repeated grandmother, relieved, though mystified. "Whatcan he have been doing that for?"
"I think it is a plan of his. I am sure it is nothing naughty," saidSylvia, nodding her head sagely. "And if Molly will just leave it aloneand say _nothing_ about it, it will be all right, you will see. Ralphwill tell you himself, I'm sure, if Molly will not tease."
"I won't, I promise you I won't," said Molly; "I won't say anything aboutit, and if Ralph asks me if we saw him I'll screw up my lips as tight astight, and not say a single word."
"As if that would do any good," said Sylvia contemptuously; "it wouldonly make him think we had seen him, and make a fuss. However, there's nofear of Ralph asking you anything about it. You just see him alone whenhe comes in, grandmother.
"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Molly, as they returned to the house, "Ishall never understand about tact, never. We've got our lessons to do forto-morrow, Sylvia, and the verbs are very hard."
"Never mind, I'll help you," said Sylvia good-naturedly, and grandmotherwas pleased to see them go upstairs to their little study with their armsround each other's waists as usual--the best of friends.
Half an hour later, Ralph made his appearance. He looked rather less tidythan his wont--for as a rule Ralph was a particularly tidy boy--his hairwas tumbled, and his hands certainly could not have been described as_clean_.
"Well, Ralph, and what have you been doing with yourself?" saidgrandmother, as he came in.
Ralph threw himself down on the rug.
"My poor rug," thought grandmother, but she judged it wiser not, at thatmoment, to express her misgivings aloud.
Ralph did not at once reply. Then--
"Grandmother," he said, after a little pause.
"Well, my boy?"
"You remember my calling one of the boys in my class a cad--what Mollybegan about last night?"
"Well, my boy?" said grandmother again.
"Do you remember what made me call him a cad? It was that I met himcarrying a great bundle of wood--little wood they call it--along thestreet one day. Well, just fancy, grandmother, _I've_ been doing it too.That's what I wanted to stay later for this afternoon."
Grandmother's heart gave a bound of pleasure at her boy's frankness."Sensible child Sylvia is," she said to herself. But aloud she repliedwith a smile,
"Carrying wood! what did you do that for, and where did you get it?"
"I'll tell you, I'll tell you all about it," said Ralph. "We went outafter school to a sort of little coppice where there is a lot of thatnice dry brushwood that anybody may take. Prosper knew the place, andtook me. It was to please him I went. He does it every Thursday; that isthe day we are let out of school early."
"And what does he do it for?" asked grandmother. "Is he--are his peopleso very poor that he has to do it? I thought all the boys were of abetter class," she added, with some inward misgiving as to what Mr.Heriott might say as to his son's present companions.
"Oh, so they are--at least they are not what you would call poor," saidRalph. "Prosper belongs to quite rich people. But he's an orphan; helives with his uncle, and I suppose he's not rich--Prosper himself,I mean--for he says his uncle's always telling him to work hard atschool, as he will have to fight his way in the world. He has got alittle room up at the top of the house, and that's what put it intohis head about the wood. There's an old woman, who was once a sort of alady, who lives in the next room to his. You get up by a different stair;it's really a different house, but once, somehow, the top rooms werejoined, and there's still a door between Prosper's room and this oldwoman's, and one morning early he heard her crying--she was really_crying_, grandmother, she's so old and shaky, he says--because shecouldn't get her fire to light. He didn't know what she was crying for atfirst, but he peeped through the keyhole and saw her fumbling away withdamp paper and stuff that wouldn't light the big logs. So he thought andthought what he could do--he hasn't any money hardly--and at last hethought he'd go and see what he could find. And he fou
nd a _beautiful_place for brushwood, and he carried back all he could, and since thenevery Thursday he goes out to that place. But, of course, one fellowalone can't carry much, and you should have seen how pleased he was whenI said I'd go with him. But I thought I'd better tell you. You don'tmind, grandmother?"
IN THE COPPICE.]
Grandmother's eyes looked very bright as she replied. "_Mind_, my Ralph?No, indeed. I am only glad you should have so manly and self-denying anexample as Prosper's, and still more glad that you should have the rightfeeling and moral courage to follow it. Poor old woman! is she quitealone in the world? She must be very grateful to her little next-doorneighbour."
"I don't know that she is--at least not so very," said Ralph. "The fun ofit was, that for ever so long she didn't know where the little wood camefrom. Prosper found a key that opened the door, and when she was out hecarried in the fagots, and laid the fire all ready for her with some ofthem; and when she came in he peeped through the keyhole. She was sosurprised, she couldn't make it out. And the wood he had fetched lasted aweek, and then he got some more. But the next time she found him out."
"And what did she say?"
"At first she was rather offended, till he explained how he had got it;and then she thanked him, of course, but not so very much, I fancy. Healways says old people are grumpy--doesn't 'grogneur' mean grumpy,grandmother?--that they can't help it, and when his old woman is grumpyhe only laughs a little. But _you're_ not grumpy, grandmother, and you'reold; at least getting rather old."
"Decidedly old, my boy. But why should I be grumpy? And how do you knowI shouldn't be so if I were living up alone in an attic, with no childrento love and cheer me, my poor old hands swollen and twisted withrheumatism, perhaps, and very little money. Ah, what a sad picture! Poorold woman, I must try to find out some way of helping her."
"She washes lace for ladies, Prosper says," said Ralph, eagerly. "Perhapsif you had some lace to wash, grandmother."
"I'll see what I can do," said grandmother. "You get me her name andaddress from Prosper. And, Ralph, we might think of something for alittle Christmas present for her, might we not? You must talk to yourfriend about it. I suppose his relations are not likely to interestthemselves in his protegee?"
"No," said Ralph. "His aunt is young, and dresses very grandly, and Idon't think she takes much notice of Prosper himself. Oh no, _you_ coulddo it much better than any one else, grandmother; find out all about herand what she would like--in a nice sort of way, you know."
Grandmother drew Ralph to her and kissed him. "My own dear boy," shesaid.
Ralph got rather red, but his eyes shone with pleasure nevertheless."Grandmother," he said, half shyly, "I've had a lesson about not callingfellows cads in a hurry, but all the same you won't forget about tellingus the story of Uncle Jack's cad, will you?"
"What a memory you have, Ralph," said grandmother. "You're nearly as badfor stories as Molly. No, I haven't forgotten. As well as I couldremember, I have written out the little story--I only wish I had had itin your uncle's own words. But such as it is, I will read it to you allthis evening."
Grandmother went to her Davenport, and took out from one of the drawerssome sheets of ruled paper, which she held up for Ralph to see. On theoutside one he read, in grandmother's neat, clear handwriting, thewords----