No More Learning

' You went to the castle and saw the earl? ' said
Miss Pepperdine.
' Yes,' answered Lucian, unaware of the sensation
he was causing. ' I saw him and the picture, and other things too. He was very kind—he made his foot- man give me a glass of wine, but it was home-made and much too sweet. '
Mr. Pepperdine winked at his sisters and cut Lucian another slice of roast-beef.
' And how might you have come to be so hand-in- glove with his lordship, the mighty Earl of Simons- tower? ' he inquired. ' He's a very nice, affable old
isn't he, Keziah? Ah—very—specially when he's got the gout. '
gentleman,
* Oh, I went to the castle and rang the bell, and asked if the Earl of Simonstower was at home,' Lucian
' And I told the footman my name, and he went away, and then came back and told me to follow him, and he took me into a big study where there was an old, very cross-looking old gentleman in an old- fashioned coat writing letters. He had very keen
replied.
eyes
. . . '
' Ah, indeed! ' interrupted Mr. Pepperdine. ' Like
a hawk's! '
* . . . and he stared at me,* continued Lucian,
' and I stared at him. And then he said, " Well, my boy, what do you want? " and I said, " Please, if you are the Earl of Simonstower, I want to see the picture you bought from my father some years ago. " Then he stared harder than ever, and he said, " Are you Cyprian Damerel's son? " and I said "Yes. '* He
40
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
pointed to a chair and told me to sit down, and he talked about my father and his work, and then he took me out to look at the pictures. He wanted to know if I, too, was going to paint, and I had to tell him that I couldn't draw at all, and that I meant to be a poet. Then he showed me his library, or a part of it—I stopped with him a long time, and he shook hands with me when I left, and said I might go again whenever I wished to. '
' Hear, hear! ' said Mr. Pepperdine. ' It's very evident there's a soft spot somewhere in the old gentle- man's heart. '
' And what did his lordship talk to you about? ' asked Miss Pepperdine, who had sufficiently recovered from her surprise to resume her dinner. ' I hope you said '' my lord '' and '' your lordship *' when you spoke to him? '
' No, I didn't, because I didn't know,' said Lucian. ' I said '* sir," because he was an old man. Oh, we talked about Italy—fancy, he hasn't been in Italy for
twenty years! —and he asked me a lot of questions about several things, and he got me to translate a letter for him which he had just received from a professor at Florence—his own Italian, he said, is getting rusty. '
' And could you do it? * asked Miss Pepperdine. Lucian stared at her with wide-open eyes.
' Why, yes,' he answered. * It is my native tongue.
I know much, much more Italian than
Sometimes I cannot find the right word in English —it is a difficult language to learn. '
Lucian's adventures of his first morning pleased Mr. Pepperdine greatly. He chuckled to himself as he smoked his after-dinner pipe—the notion of his nephew bearding the grim old earl in his tumble-down castle was vastly gratifying and amusing : it was also pleasing to find Lucian treated with such politeness. As the Earl of Simonstower's tenant Mr. Pepperdine had much respect but httle affection for his titled neighbour: the old gentleman was arbitrary and autocratic and totally
English.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 41
deaf to whatever might be said to him about bad times.
Mr. Pepperdine was glad to get some small change out
of the earl through his nephew. ' * Did his lordship mention me or your aunties at all?
he said, puffing at his pipe as they all sat round the
parlour fire.
' Yes,' answered Lucian, * he spoke of you. *
' And what did he say Uke? Something sweet, no doubt,' said Mr. Pepperdine.
Lucian looked at Miss Judith and made no answer.
* Out with it, lad ! ' said Mr. Pepperdine.
' It was only about Aunt Judith,' answered Lucian.
' He said she was a very pretty woman. '
in bursts of hearty laughter; Miss Judith blushed Uke any girl; Miss Pepperdine snorted with indignation. She was about
to make some remark on the old nobleman's taste when a diversion was caused by the announcement that Lucian 's beloved chest of books had arrived from Wellsby station. Nothing would satisfy the boy but that he must unpack them there and then; he seized Miss Judith by the hand and dragged her away to help him. For the rest of the afternoon the two were
arranging the books in an old bookcase which they unearthed from a lumber-room and set up in Lucian 's sleeping chamber. Mr. Pepperdine, looking in upon them once or twice and notmg their fervour, retired to the parlour or the kitchen with a remark to his elder sister that they were as throng as Throp's wife. Judith, indeed, had some taste in the way of literature —in her own room she treasured a collection of volumes which she had read over and over again. Her taste was
Mr. Pepperdine exploded
Moore, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon, and the sentimentalists; she treasured a steel-
chiefly for Lord Byron,
of Byron as if it had been a sacred picture, and gazed with awe upon her nephew when he
told her that he had seen the palazzo in which Byron lived during his residence in Pisa, and the house which he had occupied in Venice. Her own romance had
plate engraving
42
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
given Judith a love of poetry: she told Lucian as she
him to unpack his books and arrange them that she should expect him to read to her. Modern literature was an unexplored field in her case; her know- ledge of letters was essentially early Victorian, and her ideas those of the age in which a poet was most popular when most miserable, and young ladies wore white stockings and low shoes with ankle-straps. She associated fiction with high waists, and essays with full-bottomed wigs, and it seemed the most natural thing to her to shed the tear of sympathy over the Corsair and to sigh with pity for Childe Harold.
helped
CHAPTER V
LuciAN settled down in his new surroundings with a readiness and docility that surprised his relatives. He rarely made any allusion to the loss of his father—he appeared to possess a philosophic spirit that enabled him, even at so early an age, to accept the facts of life
backward, however, in talking of the past. He had been his father's constant
as they are. He was never
companion for six years, and had travelled with him wherever he went, especially in Italy, and he brought out of his memory stores of reminiscences with which to interest and amuse his newly found relatives. He would talk to Mr. Pepperdine of Italian agriculture; to Keziah of ItaHan domestic life; to Judith of the treasures of Rome and Naples, Pisa and Florence, of the blue skies and sun-kissed groves of his native land. He always insisted on his nationahty—the accident of his connection with England on the maternal side seemed to have no meaning for him.
' I am Italian,' he would say when Mr. Pepperdine slyly teased him. ' It does not matter that I was bom in England. My real name is Luciano Damerelli, and my father's, if he had used was Cypriano. '
Little by little they began to find out the boy's quaH- ties and characteristics. He was strangely old- fashioned, precocious, and unnaturally grave, and cared little for the society of other children, at whom he had trick of staring as they had been insects impaled beneath microscope and he scientist examin- ing them. He appeared to have two great passions—
one for out-door life and nature; the other for reading. He would sit for hours on the bridge watching the river run by, or lie on his back on the lawn in front of the house staring at the drifting clouds. He knew every nook of the ruinous part of the castle and every comer
43
a
a
a
it, if
44
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
of the old church before he had been at Simonstower many weeks. He made friends with everybody in the village, and if he found out that an old man had some strange legend to tell, he pestered the life out of him until it was told. And every day he did so much read- ing, always with the stem concentration of the student who means to possess a full mind.
When Lucian had been nearly two months at the farm it was borne in upon Miss Pepperdine's mind that he ought to be sent to school. She was by no means anxious to get rid of him—on the contary she was glad to have him in the house: she loved to hear him talk, to see him going about, and to watch his various pro- ceedings. But Keziah Pepperdine had been endowed at birth with the desire to manage—she was one of those people who are never happy unless they are con- trolling, devising, or superintending. — Moreover, she possessed a very strict sense of justice she believed in doing one's duty, especially to those people to whom duty was owing, and who could not extract it for them- selves. It seemed to her that it was the plain duty of Lucian 's relatives to send Lucian to school. She was full of anxieties for his future. Every attempt which she had made to get her brother to tell her anj^hing about the boy's affairs had resulted in sheer failure— Simpson Pepperdine, celebrated from the North Sea to the Westmoreland border as the easiest-going and best- natured man that ever lived, was a past master in the art of evading direct questions. Keziah could get no information from him, and she was anxious for Lucian 's
sake. The boy, she said, ought to be fitted out for some walk in life.
She took the vicar into her confidence, seizing the opportunity when he called one day and found no one but herself at home.
' Of course,' she said, ' the boy is a great bookworm. Reading is all that he seems to care about. He brought a quantity of books with him—he has bought others since. He reads in an old-fashioned sort of way—not
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 45
as you would think a child would. I offered him a child's book one night—it was one that a little boy who
once stayed here had left in the house. politely enough, and pretended to look at plain to see that he was amused. He child, Mr. Chilverstone. '
He took it but was precocious
The vicar agreed. He suggested that he might be better able to judge the situation, and to advise Miss Pepper-
thereon, he were allowed to inspect Lucian's library, and Keziah accordingly escorted him to the boy's room. Mr. Chilverstone was somewhat taken aback on being confronted by an assemblage of some three or four hundred volumes, arranged with great precision and bearing evidences of constant use. He remarked that the sight was most interesting, and pro- ceeded to make general inspection. rapid survey of Lucian's books showed him that the boy had three favourite subjects —history, mediaeval romance, and
dine
There were histories of almost every country in Europe, and at least three of the United States of
poetry.
chronicles; th great ItaHan poets were all there in the original; the English poets, ancient and modem, were there too,
America; there were editions of the ancient
in editions that bespoke the care of book-lover. There was nothing of juvenile, or even frivolous nature from the top of the old bookcase to the bottom—the nearest approach to anything in the shape of light litera- ture was found in the presence of certain famous histori- cal romances of undoubted verisimilitude, and in much- thumbed copies of Robinson Crusoe and The Pilgrim's Progress.
Air. Chilverstone was puzzled. As at least one-half of the books before him were in Italian, he concluded that Lucicin was as well acquainted with that language as with EngHsh, and said so. Miss Pepperdine
him on the point, and gave him rapid sketch of Lucian's history.
enlightened
so, just so,' said he. 'No doubt the boy's father formed his taste. It really most interesting.
Just
is
'
a
it
a
a
if
a a
A is
a it,
46
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
It is very evident that the child has an uncommon mind —you say that he reads with great attention and con- centration? '
* You might let off a cannon at his elbow and he wouldn't take any notice,' said Miss Pepperdine.
' It is evident that he is a born student. This is a capital collection of modem histories,' said Mr. Chilver- stone. * If your nephew has read and digested them all he must be well informed as to the rise and progress of nations. I should like, I think, to have an oppor- tunity of conversing with him. '
Although he did not say so to Miss Pepperdine, the vicar was secretly anxious to find out what had diverted the boy's attention from the usual pursuits of child- hood into these paths. He contrived to waylay Lucian and to draw him into conversation, and being a man of some talent and of considerable sympathy, he soon knew all that the boy had to tell. He found that Lucian had never received any education of the ordi- nary type; had never been to school or known tutor or governess. He could not remember who taught him to read, but cherished a notion that reading and writ- ing had come to him with his speech. As to his choice of books, that had largely had its initiative in his father's recommendation; but there had been a further incentive in the fact that the boy had travelled a great deal, was familiar with many historic scenes and places, and had a natural desire to re-create the past in his own imagination. For six years, in short, he had been receiving an education such as few children are privi- leged to acquire. He talked of mediaeval Italy as if he
had Uved in its sunny-tinted hours, and of modem Rome as though it lay in the next parish. But Mr. Chilverstone saw that the boy was in no danger of becoming either prig or pedant, and that his mind was as normal as his body was healthy. He was the mere outcome of an exceptional environment. He had Hved amongst men who talked and worked and thought but with one object—Art—and their enthusiasm had filled
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 47
him too. * I am to be a poet—a great poet,' he said, with serious face and a straight stare from the violet eyes whose beauty brought everybody captive to his feet. ' It is my destiny. ' locked
Mr. Chilverstone had a sheaf of yellow papers
away in a secret drawer which he had never exhibited to living man or woman—verses written in long dead college days. He was sentimental about them still, and the sentiment inclined him to tenderness with youthful genius. He assured Lucian that he sincerely trusted that he might achieve his heart's desire, and
added a word of good advice as to the inadvisability of writing too soon. But he discovered that some one had been beforehand with the boy on that point—the
future poet, with a touch of worldly
sounded as odd as it was quaint, assured the parson that he had a horror of immaturity and had been com- manded by his father never to print anything until it had stood the test of cool-headed reflection and twelve months' keeping.
But in presenting report to Miss Pepperdine the vicar said that it would do the boy good to go to school. He would mix with
him with its complexities.
other boys — he was healthy and normal enough, to be sure, and full of boyish fun in his way, but the society of lads of his own age would be good for him. He recommended Miss Pepperdine to send him to the
Saxonstowe, the headmaster of which was a friend of his and would gladly give special
grammar-school
at
wisdom which
The vicar recognised that here was material which required careful nursing and watchful attention. He soon found that Lucian knew nothing of mathematics, and that his only desire in the way of Greek and Latin was that he might be able to read the poets of those
languages in the originals. Of the grammar of the English language he knew absolutely nothing, but as he spoke with an almost too extreme correctness, and in a voice of great refinement, Mr. Chilverstone gave it as his opinion that there was no necessity to trouble
his
48
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
attention to any boy whom he recommended. He volunteered, carrying his kindness further, to go over to Saxonstowe and talk to Dr. Babbacombe; for Lucian, he remarked, was no ordinary boy, and needed special attention.
Miss Pepperdine, like most generals who conceive their plans of campaign in secret, found that her troubles commenced as soon as she began to expose her scheme to criticism. Mr. Pepperdine, as a lifelong exponent of the art of letting things alone, wanted to know what she meant by disturbing everything when all was going on as comfortably as it could be. He was sure the boy had as much book-learning as the arch- bishop himself—besides, if he was sent away to school, he, Simpson Pepperdine, would have nobody to talk to about how they farmed in foreign countries. Judith, half recognising the force of her sister's arguments, was still angry with Keziah for allowing them to occur to her—she knew that the boy had crept so closely into her heart and had so warmed it with new fire that she hated the thought of his leaving her, even though Saxonstowe was only thirty miles away.
Miss Pepperdine fought many pitched battles with her brother and sister, and Simpson and Judith, who knew that she had more brains in her little finger than they possessed in their two heads, took to holding confer-
ences in secret in the vain hope of circumventing her designs.
It came as a vast surprise to these two conspirators that Lucian himself, on whose behalf they basely pro- fessed to be fighting, deserted to, or rather openly joined, the enemy as soon as the active campaign began. Miss Pepperdine, like the astute woman she was, gained the boy's ear and had talked him over before either Simpson or Judith could pervert his mind. He listened to all she had to say, showed that he was impressed, and straightway repaired to the vicarage to seek Mr. Chilverstone's advice. That evening, in the course of a family council, shared in by Mr. Pepperdine with a
Consequently
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
49
gloomy face and feelings of silent resentment against Keziah, and by Judith with something of the emotion displayed by a hen who is about to be robbed of her one chicken, Lucian announced that he would go to school, adding, however, that if he found there was nothing to be learnt there he would return to his uncle's roof. Mr. Pepperdine plucked up amazingly after this announcement, for he cherished a secret conviction that his nephew already knew more than any schoolmaster could teach him; but Judith shed tears when she went to bed, and ffelt ill-disposed towards Keziah for the rest of the week.
Lucian went to Saxonstowe presently with cheerful- ness and a businesslike air, and the three middle-aged Pepperdines were miserable. Mr. Pepperdine took to going over to the Grange at Wellsby nearly every night, and Judith was openly rebellious. Miss Pepperdine herself felt that the house was all the duller for the boy's absence, and wondered how they had endured its dumb monotony before he came. There was much of the Spartan in her, however, and she bore up without sign; but the experience taught her that Duty, when actually
done, is not so pleasing to the human feelings as it seems to be when viewed from a distance.
No word came from Lucian for two weeks after his
then the postman brought a letter addressed to Mr. Pepperdine, which was opened amidst great excitement at the breakfast table. Mr. Pepperdine, however, read it in silence.
departure;
* My dear Uncle Simpson Pepperdine,' wrote Lucian, * I did not wish to write to you until I had been at school quite two weeks, so that I could tell you what
I thought of and whether would suit me. It very nice school, and all the boys are very nice too,
Babbacombe, and his wife, and the masters. We have very good meals, and should be quite content in that respect one could sometimes have cup of decent coffee, but believe that im-
D
and like Dr.
a
I
it,
it I
is
if
I
is a
50
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
possible in England. They have a pudding here, sometimes, which the boys call Spotted Dog—it is very satisfying and I do not remember hearing of it before — it has what English people call plums in it, but they are in reality small dried raisins.
* I am perfectly content with my surroundings and my new friends, but I greatly fear that this system of education will not suit me. In some subjects, such as history and general knowledge, I find that I already know much more than Dr. Babbacombe
teaches to boys. As regards other subjects I find that it is not en regie to permit discussion or argument between master and pupil. I can quite see the reason- ableness of that, but it is the only way in which I have
ever learnt everything. I am not quick at learning anything — I have to read a thing over and over again before I arrive at the true significance.
It may be that I would spend a whole day in accounting to myself why a certain cause produces a certain effect—the system of education in use here, however, requires one to learn many things in quite a short time. It reminds me of the man who taught twelve parrots aU at once. In more ways than one it reminds me of this, because I feel that many boys here learn the sound of a word and yet do not know what the word means. That is what I have been counselled to avoid.
usually
* I am anxious to be amenable to your wishes, but I think I shall waste time here. If I could have my own way I should like to have Mr. Chilverstone for a tutor, because he is a man of understanding and patience, and would fully explain everything to me. I am not easy in my mind here, though quite so in my body. Everybody is very kind and the life is com- fortable, but I do not think Dr. Babbacombe or his
masters are great savants, though they are gracious and estimable gentlemen.
* I send my love to you and my aunts, and to Mr. Chilverstone and Mr. and Mrs. Trippett. I have bought a cricket-bat for John Trippett and a doll for
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 51 Mary, which I shall send in a box very soon. —And I
am your affectionate kinsman,
* LuciAN Damerel.
As the greater part of this remarkable epistle was pure Greek to Mr. Pepperdine, he repaired to the
Chilverstone, who, having duly considered it, returned with Lucian's
vicarage
with it and laid it before Mr.
kinsman to the farm and there entered into solenm con- clave with him and his sisters. The result of their deliberations was that the boy was soon afterwards
taken from the care of the gracious and estimable gentlemen who were not savants, and placed, so far as his education was concerned, under the sole charge of the vicar.
CHAPTER VI
Mr. Chilverstone was one of those men upon whom many sorrows and disappointments are laid. He had set out in life with a choice selection of great ambi- tions, and at forty-five not one of them had fructified. Ill-health had always weighed him down in one direc- tion; ill-luck in another: the only piece of good fortune which had ever come to him came when the Earl of Simonstower, who had heard of him as an inoffensive man content to serve a parish without going to extremes in either of the objectionable directions, presented him to a living which even in bad times was worth five hundred pounds a year. But just before this prefer- ment came in his way Mr. Chilverstone had the mis- fortune to lose his wife, and the enjoyment of the fit things of a country living was necessarily limited to him for some time. He was not greatly taxed by his pastoral duties, for his flock, from the earl downwards, loved that tj^e of parson who knows how to keep his place, and only insists on his professional prestige on Sundays and the appointed days, and he had no great inclination to occupy himself in other directions. As the bitterness of his great sorrow slipped away from him he found his life resolving itself into a level—his time was passed in reading, in pottering about his garden, and, as she grew up, in educating his only child, a girl who at the time of her mother's death was little more than an infant. At the time of Lucian's arrival in the village Mr. Chilverstone's daughter was at school in Belgium—the boy's first visits to the vicarage were therefore made to a silent and lonely house, and they proved very welcome to its master.
Lucian's experience at the grammar-school was never repeated under the new regime. The vicar had been somewhat starved in the matter of conversation for
52
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 53
more years than he cared to remember, and it was a Godsend to him to have a keen and inquiring mind opposed to his own. His pupil's education began and was continued in an unorthodox fashion; there was no system and very Httle order in but was good for man and boy. They began to spend much time together, in the field as much as in the study. Mr. Chilverstone, encouraged thereto by Lucian, revived an ancient taste for archaeology, and the two made long excursions to the ruined abbeys, priories, castles, and
in their neighbourhood. Miss Pepperdine, to whom Lucian invariably applied for large supplies of
hermitages
occasions, had an uncomfortable suspicion that the boy would have been better employed
with copy-book or slate, but she had great faith in the vicar, and acknowledged that her nephew never got into mischief, though he had certainly set his room on fire one night by bad habit of reading in bed. She had become convinced that Lucian was an odd chicken, who had got into the brood by some freak of fortune, and she fell into the prevalent fashion of the family in regarding him as something uncommon that was not to be judged by ordinary rules of life or interfered with. To Mr. Pepperdine and to Judith he remained con- stant source of wonder, interest, and amusement, for his tongue never ceased to wag, and he communicated to them everything that he saw, heard, and thought,
with freedom and generosity that kept them in perpetual state of mental activity.
Towards the end of June, when Lucian had been three months at Simonstower, he walked into the vicar's study one morning to find him in state of mild excite- ment. Mr. Chilverstone nodded his head at letter which lay open on his desk.
The day after to-morrow,' he said, you will see
sandwiches on these
She coming home from school. ' Lucian made no answer. It seemed to him that this bare announcement wrought some subtle change. He
my daughter.
knew nothing whatever of girls—they had never come
is
a
a
'
a '
it, it
a
a a
a
a
54
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
into his life, and he was doubtful about them. He stared hard at the vicar.
' Will you be glad to see her? ' he asked.
* Why, surely ! ' exclaimed Mr. Chilverstone.
I have not seen her for nearly a year, and it is two
years since she left home. Yes — Millie is all I have. ' Lucian felt a pang of jealousy. It was part of his nature to fall in love with every new friend he made; in return, he expected each new friend to devote him- self to him. He had become very fond of the vicar;
they got on together excellently; it was not pleasant to think that a girl was coming between them. Besides, what Mr. Chilverstone said was not true. This Millie was not all he had—he had some of him, Lucian.
* You will like my little girl,' the vicar went on, utterly oblivious of the fact that he was making the boy furiously jealous. ' She is full of Hfe and fun—a real ray of sunshine in a house. ' He sighed heavily
and looked at a portrait of his wife.
tinued, ' she is quite a lively girl, my little Millie. A sort of tomboy, you know. I call her Sprats; it seems to fit her, somehow. '
Lucian almost choked with rage and grief. All the
all the long talks and walks; all the disputations and scholarly wrangles were to be at an end, and all because of a girl whose father
called her Sprats! It was unbelievable. He gazed at the unobservant clergyman with eyes of wonder; he
had come to have a great respect for him as a scholar, and could not understand how a man who could make the Greek grammar so interesting could feel any interest in a girl, even though that girl happened to be his own daughter. For women like his aunts, and Mrs. Trip- pett, and the housekeeper at the castle, Lucian had a great liking; they were all useful in one way or another,
either to get good things to eat out of, or to talk to when one wanted to talk; but girls — whatever place had they in the economy of nature ! He had never spoken to a
who was
old, pleasant companionship;
girl in his life, except to little Mary Trippett,
' Yes,' he con-
' Yes
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
55
nine, and to whom he sometimes gave sweets and dolls. Would he be expected to talk to this girl whose father called her Sprats? He turned hot and cold at the thought.
His visit to the vicarage that morning was a dead failure. Mr. Chilverstone's behaviour was foolish and ridiculous: he would talk of Sprats. He even went as far as to tell Lucian of some of Sprats 's escapades. They were mostly of the practical-joke order, and seemed to afford Mr. Chilverstone huge amusement — Lucian wondered how he could be so silly. He endeavoured to be as polite as possible, but he declined an invitation to stay to lunch. He would cheerfully listen to Mr. Chilverstone on the very dryest points of an irregular verb, but Mr. Chilverstone on Sprats was annoying —he almost descended to futility.
Lucian refused two invitations that afternoon. Mr. Pepperdine offered to take him with him to York, whither he was proceeding on business; Miss Judith asked him if he would like to go with her to the house of a friend in whose grounds was a haunted hermitage. He declined both invitations with great politeness and went out in solitude. Part of the afternoon he spent with an old man who mended the roads. The old man was stone-deaf and needed no conversational effort on the part of a friend, and when he spoke himself he talked of intelligent subjects, such as rheumatism, backache, and the best cure for stone in the bladder. Lucian thought him a highly intelligent man, and presented him with a screw of tobacco purchased at the village shop—it was a tacit thankoffering to the gods that the old man had avoided the subject of girls. His spirits improved after a visit to the shoemaker, who told him a brand-new ghost story for the truth of which he vouched with many solemn asseverations, and he was chatty with his Aunt Keziah when they took tea together. But that night he did not talk so much as usual, and he went to bed early and made no attempt to coax Miss Pepperdine into letting him have the extra
56
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
light which she had confiscated after he had set his bed
on fire.
Next day Lucian hoped to find the vicar in a saner
frame of mind, but to his astonishment and disgust Mr. Chilverstone immediately began to talk of Sprats again, and continued to do so imtil he became unbearable. Lucian was obliged to listen to stories which to him seemed inept, fatuous, and even imbecile. He was told of Sprats's first distinct words; of her first tooth; of her first attempts to walk; of the memorable occasion upon which she placed her pet kitten on the fire in order to warm it. The infatuated father, who had not had an
opportunity of retailing these stories for some time, and who believed that he was interesting his listener, continued to pour forth story after story, each more feeble and ridiculous than the last, until Lucian could have shrieked with the agony which was tearing his soul to pieces. He pleaded a bad headache at last and tried to slip away—Mr. Chilverstone detained him in order to give him an anti-headache powder, and accom- panied his researches into the medicine cupboard with a highly graphic description of a stomach-ache which Sprats had once contracted from too lavish indulgence in unripe apples, and was cured by himself with some simple drug. The vicar, in short, being a disingenuous
and a simple-minded man, had got Sprats on the brain, and he imagined that every word he said was meeting with a responsive thrill in the boy's heart.
Lucian escaped the fatuous father at last. He rushed out into the sunlight, almost choking with rage, grief, and disappomtment. He flung the powder into the
sat down on a stone-heap at the side of the road, and began to swear in Italian. He swore freely and fluently until he had exhausted that eloquent vocabulary which one may pick up in Naples and Venice and in the purlieus of Hatton Garden, and when he had finished he began it all over again and repeated
it with as much fervour as one should display, if one is honest, in reciting the Rosary. This saved him from
hedge-bottom,
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
57
apoplexy, but the blood grew black within him and his soul was scratched. It had been no part of Lucian's plans for the future that Sprats should come between him and his friend.
He slept badly that night, and while he lay awake he said to himself that it was all over. It was a mere repetition of history—a woman always came between men. He had read a hundred instances — this was one more. Of course, the Sprats creature would oust him from his place—nothing would ever be as it had been. All was desolate, and he was alone. He read several pages of the fourth canto of Childe Harold as soon as it was light, and dropped asleep with the firm convic- tion that life is a grey thing.
All that day and the next Lucian kept away from the vicarage. The domestic deities wondered why he did not go as usual; he invented plausible excuses with facile ingenuity. He neglected his books and betrayed a suspicious interest in Mr. Pepperdine's recent pur- chases of cattle; he was restless and at times excited, and Miss Keziah looked at his tongue and felt his fore- head and made him swallow a dose of a certain home- made medicine by which she set great store. On the third day the suppressed excitement within him reached boiling-point. He went out into the fields mad to work it off, and by good or ill luck lighted upon an honest rustic who was hoeing turnips under a blazing mid- summer sun. Lucian looked at the rustic with the eye of a mocking and mischievous devil.
* Boggles,' he said, with a Mephistophelian coaxing, * would you like to hear some Italian? ' Boggles ruminated.
* Why, Master Lucian,' he said, ' I don't know as I ever did hear that language —can't say as I ever did, anyhow. '
' Listen, then,' said Lucian. He treated Boggles to a string of expletives, delivered with native force and energy, making use of his eyes and teeth until the man began to feel frightened.
LUCIAN THE DREMIER
58
think you was going to murder somebody —you look
'Lord sakes, Master Lucian! ' he said, 'one 'ud
that fierce. It's a queer sort o' language never heard nowt like it. It flays a body. '
that, sir— I
' It is the most delightful language in the world when
you want to swear,' said Lucian. ' It
. . . '
'Nonsense! It isn't a patch on German. You wait till I get over the hedge and I'll show you,' cried a ringing and very authoritative voice. ' I can reel off
twice as much as that. '
Lucian turned round with an instinctive feeling
that a critical moment was at hand. He caught sight of something feminine behind the hedgerow; the next instant a remarkably nimble girl came over a half-made man uttered an exclamation
The turnip-hoeing which had much joy in it.
gap.
' Lord sakes if it isn't Miss Milhe! ' he said, touching his cap. ' Glad to see 'ee once again, missie. _ They did tell me you was coming from them furrineerin'
countries, and there you be, growed quite up, as one
might say. ' answered Miss ' Not quite, ' but nearly, Boggles,'
Chilverstone. How's your rheumatics, as one might call 'em? They were pretty bad when I went away,
I remember. '
winter, miss,' said Boggles, leaning on his hoe and evincing a decided desire to talk, ' and a deal better in summer, alius pro-
viding the Lord don't send no rain. Fine, dry weather, miss, is what I want—the rain ain't no good to me. '
' A Httle drop wouldn't hurt the turnips, an^'way,' said Miss Chilverstone, looking about her with a know-
air. 'Seem pretty well dried up, don't they? ' She looked at Lucian. Their eyes met: the boy stared and blushed; the girl stared and laughed.
' Did it lose its tongue, then? ' she said teasingly.
' It seemed to have a very long and very ready one when it was swearing at poor old Boggles. What made him use such bad language to you, Boggles? '
ing
' They're always
bad i' th'
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 59
' Lord bless 'ee, missie,' said Boggles hurriedly, ' he didn't mean no harm, didn't Master Lucian—he was telling me how they swear in Eye-taUan. Not but what it didn't sound very terrible—but he wouldn't hurt a
Lucian, miss, he wouldn't
' I am Lucian, yes,' he answered.
* Do you know who I am? ' she asked, with a flashing
look.
Lucian stared back at her, and the shadow of a smile
stole into his face.
* I think,' he said musingly, ' I think you must be
Sprats. '
Then the two faced each other and stared as only
stranger children can stare. observant, Mr. Boggles, his watery old eyes keenly
leaned his chin upon his hoe and stared also, chuckling to himself. Neither saw him; their eyes were all for each other. The girl, without acknowledging per- haps without knowing it, recognised the boy's beauty and hated him for in healthy fashion. He was too much of picture; his clothes were too neat; his collar too clean; his hands too white; he was altogether too much of fine and finicking little gentleman; he ought, she said to herself, to be stuck in velvet suit, and point-lace collar, and labelled. The spirit of mischief
entered into her at the sight of him.
Lucian examined this strange creature with care.
He was relieved to find that she was by no means beautiful. He saw strong-Hmbed, active-looking young damsel, rather older and rather taller than him- self, whose face was odd, rather than pretty, and chiefly remarkable for prodigality of freckles and healthy tan. Her nose was pugnacious and inclined to be of the snub order; her hair sandy and anything but tidy;
fly, wouldn't Master indeed. '
' Dear little lamb ! ' she said mockingly, * I shouldn't think he would. ' She turned on the boy with a sudden twist of her shoulders. * So you are Lucian, are you? ' she asked.
a
a
it a
a
a
a
a
a
it,
6o LUCIAN THE DREAMER
there was nothing beautiful in her face but a pair of brown eyes of a singularly clear and honest sort. As for her attire, it was not in that order which an exact- ing governess might have required: she wore a blue
a battered
frock in which she had evidently been climbing
serge
trees or scrambling through hedgerows,
straw hat wherein she or somebody had stuck the long feathers from a cock's tail; there was a rent in one of her stockings, and her stout shoes looked as if she had tramped through several ploughed fields in them. All over and round her glowed a sort of aureole of rude and vigorous health, of animal spirits, and of a love of mischief —the youthful philosopher confronting her recognised a new influence and a new nature.
' Yes,' she said demurely, ' I'm Sprats, and you've a cheek to call me so—who gave you leave, I'd like to know? What would you think if I told you that you'd look nice if you had a barrel-organ and a monkey on it? Ha! ha! had him there, hadn't I, Boggles? Well, do you know where I am going, monkey-boy? '
Lucian sighed resignedly.
'No,' he answered. ' ' Going to fetch you,' she said.
You haven't been to your lessons for two days, and you're to go this
instant minute. '
' I don't think I want any lessons to-day,' repHed
Lucian. said, * Hear him! ' she
making
do they do with little boys who won't go to school,
Boggles —eh? '
If Lucian had known more of a world with which he
had never, poor child, had much opportunity of making
he would have seen that Sprats was meditating mischief. Her eyes began to ghtter: she
smiled demurely.
' Are you coming peaceably?