Boys and girls from Thackeray - Kate Dickinson Sweetser
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"I think _that_ will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent dropped as
neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball plump into the pocket
at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff
was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again.
And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made you
think he had been their darling champion through the whole battle; and as
absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know the
cause of the uproar. He threatened to flog Figs violently, of course; but
Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds,
stood up and said, "It's my fault, sir--not Figs's--not Dobbin's. I was
bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By which magnanimous
speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his
ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly cost him.
Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the transaction:
* * * * *
SUGARCANE HOUSE, RICHMOND, March 18--
_Dear Mamma_: I hope you are quite well. I should be much obliged
to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a fight here
between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the School.
They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So Cuff is now Only
Second Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking
a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it. We call him Figs
because his father is a Grocer--Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City. I
think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his
father's. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't this, because he has
2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom
and livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony,
and I am
Your dutiful Son,
GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE.
P.S.--Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in
card-board. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.
* * * * *
In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose prodigiously in
the estimation of all his school fellows, and the name of Figs, which had
been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and popular a nickname
as any other in use in the school. "After all, it's not his fault that
his father's a grocer," George Osborne said, who, though a little chap,
had a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth; and his opinion was
received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about
this accident of birth. "Old Figs" grew to be a name of kindness and
endearment, and the sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer.
And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made
wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb Cuff himself, at
whose condenscension Dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped him on
with his Latin verses, "coached" him in play-hours, carried him
triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-sized form, and
even there got a fair place for him. It was discovered that, although
dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. To
the contentment of all he passed third in Algebra, and got a French
prize-book at the public Midsummer examination. You should have seen his
mother's face when Telemaque (that delicious romance) was presented to
him by the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents and
company, with an inscription to Guielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped
hands in token of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his
awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to
his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his father, who
now respected him for the first time, gave him two guineas publicly; most
of which he spent in a general tuck-out for the school: and he came back
in a tail-coat after the holidays.
Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy
change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly
disposition; he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good
fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George Osborne, to
whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by
children, an affection as we read of in the charming fairy-book, which
uncouth Orson had for splendid young Valentine, his conqueror. He flung
himself down at little Osborne's feet, and loved him. Even before they
were acquainted, he had admired Osborne in secret. Now he was his valet,
his dog, his man Friday. He believed Osborne to be the possessor of
every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active,
the cleverest, the most generous of boys. He shared his money with him,
bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil cases, gold seals,
toffee, little warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured
pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read
inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esquire, from his attached friend
William Dobbin--which tokens of homage George received very graciously,
as became his superior merit, as often and as long as they were
proffered him.
In after years Dobbin's father, the despised grocer, became Alderman, and
Colonel of the City Light Horse, in which corps George Osborne's father
was but an indifferent Corporal. Colonel Dobbin was knighted by his
sovereign, which honour placed his son William in a social position above
that of the old school friends who had once been so scornful of him at
Swishtail Academy; even above the object of his deepest admiration,
George Osborne.
But this did not in the least alter honest, simple-minded William
Dobbin's feelings, and his adoration for young Osborne remained
unchanged. The two entered the army in the same regiment, and served
together, and Dobbin's attachment for George was as warm and loyal then
as when they were school-boys together.
Honest William Dobbin,--I would that there were more such staunch
comrades as you to answer to the name of friend!
GEORGE OSBORNE--RAWDON CRAWLEY
[Illustration: GEORGE OSBORNE AND RAWDON CRAWLEY.]
Rebecca sharp, the teacher of French at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for
young ladies, and intimate friend of Miss Amelia Sedley, the most popular
scholar in Miss Pinkerton's select establishment, left the institution at
the same time to become a governess in the family of Sir Pitt Crawley.
Amelia was the only daughter of John Sedley, a wealthy London stock
broker, and upon leaving school was to take her place in fashionable
society. Being the sweetest, most kind-hearted girl in the world, Amelia
invited Becky to visit her in London before taking up her new duties as
governess; which invitation Becky was only too glad to accept.
Now, Miss Sharp was in no way like the gentle Amelia, but as keen,
brilliant, and selfish a young person of eighteen as ever schemed to have
events turn to her advantage. These characteristics she showed so plainly
while visiting at the Sedleys' that she left anything but a good
impression behind her. In fact, her visit was cut short because of some
unpleasant circumstances connected with her behaviour.
From that time she and Amelia did not meet for many months, during which
Amelia had become the wife of George Osborne, and Rebecca Sharp had
married Rawdon Crawley, son of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet.
The circumstances of Amelia's life during these months altered greatly,
for shortly after she left school honest John Sedley met with such severe
losses that his family were obliged to live in a much more modest way
than formerly. Because of this misfortune, the course of Amelia's love
affair with young Lieutenant Osborne did not run smoothly; for his father
was far too ambitious to consent to his only son's marriage with the
daughter of a ruined man, although John Sedley was his son's godfather,
and George had been devoted to Amelia since early boyhood.
Lieutenant Osborne therefore went away with his regiment, and poor little
Amelia was left behind, to pine and mourn until it seemed there was no
hope of saving her life unless happiness should speedily come to her.
Then it was that Major Dobbin, George Osborne's staunch friend of
schooldays, and also an ardent admirer of Amelia's, saw how she was
grieving and took upon himself to inform George Osborne of the state of
affairs. The young lieutenant came hurrying home just in time to save a
gentle little heart from wearing itself away with sorrowing, and married
Amelia without his father's consent. This so enraged the old gentleman
that he refused to have his name mentioned in the home where the boy had
grown up; the veriest tyrant and idol of his sisters and father.
To Brighton George and Amelia went on their honeymoon, and there they met
Becky Sharp and her husband. Though the circumstances of the two young
women's career had altered, Amelia and Becky were unchanged in character,
but that is of small concern to us, except as it affects their children,
to whose lives we now turn with keen interest, noting how they reflect
the dispositions, and are affected by the characters of their mothers.
As for little Rawdon Crawley, Becky's only child, he had few early happy
recollections of his mother. She had not, to say the truth, seen much of
the young gentleman since his birth. After the amiable fashion of French
mothers, she had placed him out at nurse in a village in the
neighbourhood of Paris, where little Rawdon lived, not unhappily, with a
numerous family of foster brothers in wooden shoes. His father, who was
devotedly attached to the little fellow, would ride over many a time to
see him here, and the elder Rawdon's paternal heart glowed to see him
rosy and dirty, shouting lustily, and happy in the making of mud-pies
under the superintendence of the gardener's wife, his nurse.
Rebecca, however, did not care much to go and see her son and heir, who
as a result preferred his nurse's caresses to his mamma's, and when
finally he quitted that jolly nurse, he cried loudly for hours. He was
only consoled by his mother's promise that he should return to his nurse
the next day; which promise, it is needless to say, was not kept; instead
the boy was consigned to the care of a French maid, Genevieve, while his
mother was seldom with him, and the French woman was so neglectful of her
young charge that at one time he very narrowly escaped drowning on Calais
sands, where Genevieve had left and lost him.
So with little care and less love his childhood passed until presently
he went with his father and mother, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley, to London,
to their new home in Curzon Street, Mayfair. There little Rawdon's time
was mostly spent hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or crawling
below into the kitchen for companionship. His mother scarcely ever took
notice of him. He passed the days with his French nurse as long as she
remained in the family, and when she went away, a housemaid took
compassion on the little fellow, who was howling in the loneliness of
the night, and got him out of his solitary nursery into her bed in the
garret and comforted him.
Rebecca, her friend, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the
drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard
overhead. "It's my cherub crying for his nurse," said his mother, who did
not offer to move and go and see the child. "Don't agitate your feelings
by going to look after him," said Lord Steyne sardonically. "Bah!"
exclaimed Becky, with a sort of blush. "He'll cry himself to sleep"; and
they fell to talking about the opera.
Mr. Rawdon Crawley had stolen off, however, to look after his son and
heir; and came back to the company when he found that honest Dolly was
consoling the child. The Colonel's dressing-room was in those upper
regions. He used to see the boy there in private. They had interviews
together every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a box by
his father's side, and watching the operation with never-ceasing
pleasure. He and the sire were great friends. The father would bring him
sweet-meats from the dessert, and hide them in a certain old epaulet box
where the child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on discovering
the treasure; laughed, but not too loud; for mamma was asleep and must
not be disturbed. She did not go to rest until very late, and seldom rose
until afternoon.
His father bought the boy plenty of picture books, and crammed his
nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up by the
father's own hand. He passed hours with the boy, who rode on his chest,
pulled his great moustaches as if they were driving reins, and spent days
with him in indefatigable gambols. The room was a low one, and once, when
the child was not five years old, his father, who was tossing him wildly
up in his arms, hit the poor little chap's scull so violently against the
ceiling that he almost dropped him, so terrified was he at the disaster.
Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl, but just as he
was going to begin, the father interposed.
"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake mamma," he cried. And the child,
looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,
clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at the
clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he explained to
the public in general, "what a good plucky one that boy of mine is. What
a trump he is! I half sent his head through the ceiling, and he wouldn't
cry for fear of disturbing mother!"
Sometimes, once or twice in a week, that lady visited the upper regions
in which the child lived. She came like a vivified picture, blandly
smiling in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves and boots.
Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered about her. She had always a
new bonnet on; and flowers bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent
curling ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded twice
or thrice patronisingly to the little boy, who looked up from his dinner
or from the pictures of soldiers he was painting. When she left the room,
an odour of rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered about the
nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his father,
to all the world, to be worshipped and admired at a distance. To drive
with that lady in a carriage was an awful rite. He sat in the back seat,
and did not dare to speak; he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully
dressed princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on splendid prancing horses
came up, and smiled and talked with her. How her eyes beamed upon all of
them! Her hand used to quiver and wave gracefully as they passed. When he
went out with her he had his new red dress on. His old brown holland was
good enough when he stayed at home. Sometimes, when she was away, and
Dolly the maid was making his bed, he came into his mother's room. It was
as the abode of a fairy to him--a mystic chamber of splendour and
delight. There in the wardrobe hung those wonderful robes--pink and blue
and many-tinted. There was the jewel case, silver clasped; and a hundred
rings on the dressing table. There was a cheval glass, that miracle of
art, in which he could just see his own wondering head, and the
reflection of Dolly, plumping and patting the pillows of the bed. Poor
lonely little benighted boy! Mother is the name for God in the lips and
hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshipping a stone!
His father used to take him out of mornings, when they would go to the
stables together and to the park. Little Lord Southdown, the best natured
of men, who would make you a present of a hat from his head, and whose
main occupation in life was to buy nicknacks that he might give them away
afterwards, bought the little chap a pony, not much bigger than a large
rat, and on this little black Shetland pony young Rawdon's great father
would mount the boy, and walk by his side in the Park.
One Sunday morning as Rawdon Crawley, his little son, and the pony were
taking their accustomed walk, they passed an old acquaintance of the
Colonel's, Corporal Clink, who was in conversation with an old gentleman,
who held a boy in his arms about the age of little Rawdon. The other
youngster had seized hold of the Waterloo medal which the Corporal wore,
and was examining it with delight.
"Good-morning, your honour," said Clink, in reply to the "How do,
Clink?" of the Colonel. "This 'ere young gentleman is about the little
Colonel's age, sir," continued the Corporal.
"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old gentleman who carried
the boy. "Wasn't he, Georgie?"
"Yes, sir," said Georgie. He and the little chap on the pony were looking
at each other with all their might, solemnly scanning each other as
children do.
"His father was a captain in the--the regiment," said the old gentleman
rather pompously. "Captain George Osborne, sir--perhaps you knew him. He
died the death of a hero, sir, fighting against the Corsican tyrant"
"I knew him very well, sir," said Colonel Crawley, "and his wife, his
dear little wife, sir--how is she?"
"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman proudly, putting down
the boy, and taking out his card, which he handed to the Colonel, while
little Georgie went up and looked at the Shetland pony.
"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor from the saddle.
"Yes," said Georgie. The Colonel, who had been looking at him with some
interest, took up the child and put him on the pony behind Rawdon minor.
"Take hold of him, Georgie," he said; "take my little boy around the
waist; his name is Rawdon." And both the children began to laugh.
"You won't see a prettier pair, I think, this summer's day, sir," said
the good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr.
Sedley, with his umbrella, walked by the side of the children, who
enjoyed each other and the pony enormously. In later years they often
talked of that first meeting.
But this is anticipating our story, for between the time of their first
ride together, and the time when circumstances brought them together
again, the little chaps saw nothing of one another for a number of years,
during which the incidents of their lives differed as widely as did the
lives of their parents.
About the time when the little boys first met, Sir Pitt Crawley,
Baronet, father of Pitt and Rawdon Crawley, died, and Rebecca and her
husband hastened to Queen's Crawley, the old family home, where Rebecca
had once been governess, to shed a last tear over the departed Baronet.
Rebecca was not bowed down with grief, we must confess, but keenly alive
to the benefits which might come to herself and Rawdon if she could
please Sir Pitt Crawley, the new Baronet, and Lady Jane his wife, a
simple-minded woman mostly absorbed in the affairs of her nursery. This
interest aroused Becky's private scorn, but the first thing that clever
little lady did was to attack Lady Jane at her vulnerable point. After
being conducted to the apartments prepared for her, and having taken off
her bonnet and cloak, Becky asked her sister-in-law in what more she
could be useful.
"What I should like best," she added, "would be to see your dear little
nursery," at which the two ladies looked very kindly at each other, and
went to the nursery hand in hand.
Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years old, as the
most charming little love in the world; and the boy, Pitt Blinkie
Southdown, a little fellow of two years, pale, heavy-eyed, and
large-headed, she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in size,
intelligence and beauty.
The funeral over, Rebecca and her husband remained for a visit at Queen's
Crawley, which assumed its wonted aspect. Rawdon senior received constant
bulletins respecting little Rawdon, who was left behind in London, and
sent messages of his own. "I am very well," he wrote. "I hope you are
very well. I hope mamma is very well. The pony is very well. Grey takes
me to ride in the Park. I can canter. I met the little boy who rode
before. He cried when he cantered. I do not cry."
Rawdon read these letters to his brother, and Lady Jane, who was
delighted with them, gave Rebecca a banknote, begging her to buy a
present with it for her little nephew.
Like all other good things, the visit came to an end, and one night the
London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into Piccadilly, and
Briggs had made a beautiful fire on the hearth in Curzon Street, and
little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.
At this time he was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving
flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly
attaching himself to all who were good to him: to the pony, to Lord
Southdown, who gave him the horse; to the groom who had charge of the
pony; to Molly the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night and
with good things from the dinner; to Briggs, his meek, devoted attendant,
whom he plagued and laughed at; and to his father especially. Here, as he
grew to be about eight years old, his attachment may be said to have
ended. The beautiful mother vision had faded away after a while. During
nearly two years his mother had scarcely spoken to the child. She
disliked him. He had the measles and the whooping cough. He bored her.
One day when he was standing at the landing-place, having crept down from
the upper regions, attracted by the sound of his mother's voice, who was
singing to Lord Steyne, the drawing-room door opening suddenly discovered
the little spy, who but a moment before had been rapt in delight and
listening to the music.
His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes on the
ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the inner room, and fled down
below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of grief.
"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped out,
"only--only--" sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a storm. It was
the little boy's heart that was bleeding. "Why mayn't I hear her
singing? Why don't she ever sing to me, as she does to that bald-headed
man with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various intervals these
exclamations of grief and rage. The cook looked at the housemaid; the
housemaid looked knowingly at the footman, who all sat in judgment on
Rebecca from that moment.
After this incident the mother's dislike increased to hatred; the
consciousness that the child was in the house was a reproach and a pain
to her. His very sight annoyed her. Fear, doubt, and resistance sprang up
too, in the boy's own bosom.
He and his mother were separated from that day of the boxes on the ear.
Lord Steyne also disliked the boy. When they met he made sarcastic bows
or remarks to the child, or glared at him with savage-looking eyes.
Rawdon used to stare him in the face and double his little fists in
return. Had it not been for his father, the child would have been
desolate indeed, in his own home.
But an unexpected good time came to him a day or two before Christmas,
when he was taken by his father and mother to pass the holidays at
Queen's Crawley. Becky would have liked to leave him at home, but for
Lady Jane's urgent invitation to the youngster; and the symptoms of
revolt and discontent manifested by Rawdon at her neglect of her son. "He
is the finest boy in England," the father said reproachfully, "and you
don't seem to care for him as much as you do for your spaniel. He shan't
bother you much; at home he will be away from you in the nursery, and he
shall go outside on the coach with me."
So little Rawdon was wrapped up in shawls and comforters for the winter's
journey, and hoisted respectfully onto the roof of the coach in the dark
morning; with no small delight watched the dawn arise, and made his first
journey to the place which his father still called home. It was a journey
of infinite pleasure to the boy, to whom the incidents of the road
afforded endless interest; his father answering all questions connected
with it, and telling him who lived in the great white house to the right,
and whom the park belonged to.
Presently the boy fell asleep, and it was dark when he was wakened up to
enter his uncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and looked out of it
wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at the white trunks of
the limes as they swept by, until they stopped at length before the
lighted windows of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable with
Christmas welcome. The hall-door was flung open; a big fire was burning
in the great old fireplace, a carpet was down over the chequered black
flags, and the next instant Becky was kissing Lady Jane.
She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great gravity, while Sir
Pitt's two children came up to their cousin. Matilda held out her hand
and kissed him. Pitt Blinkie Southdown, the son and heir, stood aloof,
and examined him as a little dog does a big one.
Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to snug apartments blazing
with cheerful fires, and after some conversation with the fine young
ladies of the house, the great dinner bell having rung, the family
assembled at dinner, at which meal Rawdon junior was placed by his aunt,
and exhibited not only a fine appetite, but a gentlemanlike behaviour.