Wilfrid Cumbermede by George MacDonald (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

a lawn, but somewhat irregular in surface. From all sides it rose towards the centre. There a broad, low rock seemed to grow out of it, and upon the rock stood the lordliest house my childish eyes had ever beheld. Take situation and all, and I have scarcely yet beheld one to equal it. Half castle, half old English country seat, it covered the rock with a huge square of building, from various parts of which rose towers, mostly square also, of different heights. I stood for one brief moment entranced with awful delight. A building which has grown for ages, the outcome of the life of powerful generations, has about it a majesty which, in certain moods, is overpowering. For one brief moment I forgot my sin and its sorrow. But memory awoke with a fresh pang. To this lordly place I, poor miserable sinner, was a debtor by wrong and shame. Let no one laugh at me because my sin was small: it was enough for me, being that of one who had stolen for the first time, and that without previous declension, and searing of the conscience. I hurried towards the building, anxiously looking for some entrance.

I had approached so near that, seated on its rock, it seemed to shoot its towers into the zenith, when, rounding a corner, I came to a part where the height sank from the foundation of the house to the level by a grassy slope, and at the foot of the slope espied an elderly gentleman, in a white hat, who stood with his hands in his breeches-pockets, looking about him. He was tall and stout, and carried himself in what seemed to me a stately manner. As I drew near him I felt somewhat encouraged by a glimpse of his face, which was rubicund and, I thought, good-natured; but, approaching him rather from behind, I could not see it well. When I addressed him he started,

'Please, sir,' I said, 'is this your house?'

'Yes, my man; it is my house,' he answered, looking down on me with bent neck, his hands still in his pockets.

'Please, sir,' I said, but here my voice began to tremble, and he grew dim and large through the veil of my gathering tears. I hesitated.

'Well, what do you want?' he asked, in a tone half jocular, half kind.

I made a great effort and recovered my self-possession.

'Please, sir,' I repeated, 'I want you to box my ears.'

'Well, you are a funny fellow! What should I box your ears for, pray?'

'Because I've been very wicked,' I answered; and, putting my hand into my pocket, I extracted the bitten apple, and held it up to him.

'Ho! ho!' he said, beginning to guess what I must mean, but hardly the less bewildered for that; 'is that one of my apples?'

'Yes, sir. It fell down from a branch that hung over the wall. I took it up, and-and-I took a bite of it, and-and-I'm so sorry!'

Here I burst into a fit of crying which I choked as much as I could. I remember quite well how, as I stood holding out the apple, my arm would shake with the violence of my sobs.

'I'm not fond of bitten apples,' he said. 'You had better eat it up now.'

This brought me to myself. If he had shown me sympathy, I should have gone on crying.

'I would rather not. Please box my ears.'

'I don't want to box your ears. You're welcome to the apple. Only don't take what's not your own another time.' 'But, please, sir, I'm so miserable!'

'Home with you! and eat your apple as you go,' was his unconsoling response.

'I can't eat it; I'm so ashamed of myself.'

'When people do wrong, I suppose they must be ashamed of themselves. That's all right, isn't it?'

'Why won't you box my ears, then?' I persisted.

[Illustration: "HERE IS A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, MRS. WILSON, WHO SEEMS TO HAVE LOST HIS WAY."]

It was my sole but unavailing prayer. He turned away towards the house. My trouble rose to agony. I made some wild motion of despair, and threw myself on the grass. He turned, looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said in a changed tone-

'My boy, I am sorry for you. I beg you will not trouble yourself any more. The affair is not worth it. Such a trifle! What can I do for you?'

I got up. A new thought of possible relief had crossed my mind.

'Please, sir, if you won't box my ears, will you shake hands with me?'

'To be sure I will,' he answered, holding out his hand, and giving mine a very kindly shake. 'Where do you live?'

'I am at school at Aldwick, at Mr Elder's.'

'You're a long way from home!'

'Am I, sir? Will you tell me how to go? But it's of no consequence. I don't mind anything now you've forgiven me. I shall soon run home.'

'Come with me first. You must have something to eat.'

I wanted nothing to eat, but how could I oppose anything he said? I followed him at once, drying my eyes as I went. He led me to a great gate which I had passed before, and opening a wicket, took me across a court, and through another building where I saw many servants going about; then across a second court, which was paved with large flags, and so to a door which he opened, calling-

'Mrs Wilson! Mrs Wilson! I want you a moment.'

'Yes, Sir Giles,' answered a tall, stiff-looking elderly woman who presently appeared descending, with upright spine, a corkscrew staircase of stone.

'Here is a young gentleman, Mrs Wilson, who seems to have lost his way. He is one of Mr Elder's pupils at Aldwick. Will you get him something to eat and drink, and then send him home?'

'I will, Sir Giles.'

'Good-bye, my man,' said Sir Giles, again shaking hands with me. Then turning anew to the housekeeper, for such I found she was, he added:

'Couldn't you find a bag for him, and fill it with some of those brown pippins? They're good eating, ain't they?'

'With pleasure, Sir Giles.'

Thereupon Sir Giles withdrew, closing the door behind him, and leaving me with the sense of life from the dead.

'What's your name, young gentleman?' asked Mrs Wilson, with, I thought, some degree of sternness.

'Wilfrid Cumbermede,' I answered.

She stared at me a little, with a stare which would have been a start in most women. I was by this time calm enough to take a quiet look at her. She was dressed in black silk, with a white neckerchief crossing in front, and black mittens on her hands. After gazing at me fixedly for a moment or two, she turned away and ascended the stair, which went up straight from the door, saying-

'Come with me, Master Cumbermede. You must have some tea before you go.'

I obeyed, and followed her into a long, low-ceiled room, wainscotted all over in panels, with a square moulding at the top, which served for a cornice. The ceiling was ornamented with plaster reliefs. The windows looked out, on one side into the court, on the other upon the park. The floor was black and polished like a mirror, with bits of carpet here and there, and a rug before the curious, old-fashioned grate, where a little fire was burning and a small kettle boiling fiercely on the top of it. The tea-tray was already on the table. She got another cup and saucer, added a pot of jam to the preparations, and said:

'Sit down and have some bread and butter, while I make the tea.'

She cut me a great piece of bread, and then a great piece of butter, and I lost no time in discovering that the quality was worthy of the quantity. Mrs Wilson kept a grave silence for a good while. At last, as she was pouring out the second cup, she looked at me over the teapot, and said-

'You don't remember your mother, I suppose, Master Cumbermede?'

'No, ma'am. I never saw my mother.'

'Within your recollection, you mean. But you must have seen her, for you were two years old when she died.'

'Did you know my mother, then, ma'am?' I asked, but without any great surprise, for the events of the day had been so much out of the ordinary that I had for the time almost lost the faculty of wonder.

She compressed her thin lips, and a perpendicular wrinkle appeared in the middle of her forehead, as she answered-

'Yes; I knew your mother.'

'She was very good, wasn't she, ma'am?' I said, with my mouth full of bread and butter.

'Yes. Who told you that?'

'I was sure of it. Nobody ever told me.'

'Did they never talk to you about her?'

'No, ma'am.'

'So you are at Mr Elder's, are you?' she said, after another long pause, during which I was not idle, for my trouble being gone I could now be hungry.

'Yes, ma'am.'

'How did you come here, then?'

'I walked with the rest of the boys; but they are gone home without me.'

Thanks to the kindness of Sir Giles, my fault had already withdrawn so far into the past, that I wished to turn my back upon it altogether. I saw no need for confessing it to Mrs Wilson; and there was none.

'Did you lose your way?'

'No, ma'am.'

'What brought you here, then? I suppose you wanted to see the place.'

'The woman at the lodge told us the nearest way was through the park.'

I quite expected she would go on cross-questioning me, and then all the truth would have had to come out. But to my great relief, she went no further, only kept eyeing me in a manner so oppressive as to compel me to eat bread and butter and strawberry jam with self-defensive eagerness. I presume she trusted to find out the truth by-and-by. She contented herself in the mean time with asking questions about my uncle and aunt, the farm, the school, and Mr and Mrs Elder, all in a cold, stately, refraining manner, with two spots of red in her face-one on each cheek-bone, and a thin rather peevish nose dividing them. But her forehead was good, and when she smiled, which was not often, her eyes shone. Still, even I, with my small knowledge of womankind, was dimly aware that she was feeling her way with me, and I did not like her much.

'Have you nearly done?' she asked at length.

'Yes, quite, thank you,' I answered.

'Are you going back to school to-night?'

'Yes, ma'am; of course.'

'How are you going?'

'If you will tell me the way-'

'Do you know how far you are from Aldwick?'

'No, ma'am.'

'Eight miles,' she answered; 'and it's getting rather late.'

I was seated opposite the windows to the park, and, looking up, saw with some dismay that the air was getting dusky. I rose at once, saying-

'I must make haste. They will think I am lost.'

'But you can never walk so far, Master Cumbermede.'

'Oh, but I must! I can't help it. I must get back as fast as possible.'

'You never can walk such a distance. Take