Wilfrid Cumbermede

Prev | Next | Contents

A TALK WITH MY UNCLE.

When I returned home for the Christmas holidays, I told my uncle, amongst other things, all that I have just recorded; for although the affair seemed far away from me now, I felt that he ought to know it. He was greatly pleased with my behaviour in regard to the apple. He did not identify the place, however, until he heard the name of the housekeeper: then I saw a cloud pass over his face. It grew deeper when I told him of my second visit, especially while I described the man I had met in the wood.

'I have a strange fancy about him, uncle,' I said. 'I think he must be the same man that came here one very stormy night--long ago--and wanted to take me away.'

'Who told you of that?' asked my uncle startled.

I explained that I had been a listener.

'You ought not to have listened.'

'I know that now; but I did not know then. I woke frightened, and heard the voices.'

'What makes you think he was the same man?'

'I can't be sure, you know. But as often as I think of the man I met in the wood, the recollection of that night comes back to me.'

'I dare say. What was he like?'

I described him as well as I could.

'Yes,' said my uncle, 'I dare say. He is a dangerous man.'

'What did he want with me?'

'He wanted to have something to do with your education. He is an old friend--acquaintance I ought to say--of your father's. I should be sorry you had any intercourse with him. He is a very worldly kind of man. He believes in money and rank and getting on. He believes in nothing else that, I know.'

'Then I am sure I shouldn't like him,' I said.

'I am pretty sure you wouldn't,' returned my uncle.

I had never before heard him speak so severely of any one. But from this time he began to talk to me more as if I had been a grown man. There was a simplicity in his way of looking at things, however, which made him quite intelligible to a boy as yet uncorrupted by false aims or judgments. He took me about with him constantly, and I began to see him as he was, and to honour and love him more than ever.

Christmas-day this year fell on a Sunday. It was a model Christmas-day. My uncle and I walked to church in the morning. When we started, the grass was shining with frost, and the air was cold; a fog hung about the horizon, and the sun shone through it with red rayless countenance. But before we reached the church, which was some three miles from home, the fog was gone, and the frost had taken shelter with the shadows; the sun was dazzling without being clear, and the golden cock on the spire was glittering keen in the moveless air.

'What do they put a cock on the spire for, uncle?' I asked.

'To end off with an ornament, perhaps,' he answered.

'I thought it had been to show how the wind blew.'

'Well, it wouldn't be the first time great things--I mean the spire, not the cock--had been put to little uses.'

'But why should it be a cock,' I asked, 'more than any other bird?'

'Some people--those to whom the church is chiefly historical--would tell you it is the cock that rebuked St Peter. Whether it be so or not, I think a better reason for putting it there would be that the cock is the first creature to welcome the light, and tell people that it is coming. Hence it is a symbol of the clergyman.'

'But our clergyman doesn't wake the people, uncle. I've seen him send you to sleep sometimes.'

My uncle laughed.

'I dare say there are some dull cocks too,' he answered.

'There's one at the farm,' I said, 'which goes on crowing every now and then all night--in his sleep--Janet says. But it never wakes till all the rest are out in the yard.'

My uncle laughed again. We had reached the churchyard, and by the time we had visited grannie's grave--that was the only one I thought of in the group of family mounds--the bells had ceased, and we entered.

I at least did not sleep this morning; not however because of the anti-somnolence of the clergyman--but that, in a pew not far off from me, sat Clara. I could see her as often as I pleased to turn my head half-way round. Church is a very favourable place for falling in love. It is all very well for the older people to shake their heads and say you ought to be minding the service--that does not affect the fact stated--especially when the clergyman is of the half-awake order who take to the church as a gentleman-like profession. Having to sit so still, with the pretty face so near, with no obligation to pay it attention, but with perfect liberty to look at it, a boy in the habit of inventing stories could hardly help fancying himself in love with it. Whether she saw me or not, I cannot tell. Although she passed me close as we came out, she did not look my way, and I had not the hardihood to address her.

As we were walking home, my uncle broke the silence.

'You would like to be an honourable man, wouldn't you, Willie?' he said.

'Yes, that I should, uncle.'

'Could you keep a secret now?'

'Yes, uncle.'

'But there are two ways of keeping a secret.'

'I don't know more than one.'

'What's that?'

'Not to tell it.'

'Never to show that you knew it, would be better still.'

'Yes, it would--'

'But, suppose a thing:--suppose you knew that there was a secret; suppose you wanted very much to find it out, and yet would not try to find it out: wouldn't that be another way of keeping it?'

'Yes, it would. If I knew there was a secret, I should like to find it out.'

'Well, I am going to try you. There is a secret. I know it; you do not. You have a right to know it some day, but not yet. I mean to tell it you, but I want you to learn a great deal first. I want to keep the secret from hurting you. Just as you would keep things from a baby which would hurt him, I have kept some things from you.'

'Is the sword one of them, uncle?' I asked.

'You could not do anything with the secret if you did know it,' my uncle went on, without heeding my question; 'but there may be designing people who would make a tool of you for their own ends. It is far better you should be ignorant. Now will you keep my secret?--or, in other words, will you trust me?' I felt a little frightened. My imagination was at work on the formless thing. But I was chiefly afraid of the promise--lest I should anyway break it.

'I will try to keep the secret--keep it from myself, that is--ain't it, uncle?'

'Yes. That is just what I mean.'

'But how long will it be for, uncle?'

'I am not quite sure. It will depend on how wise and sensible you grow. Some boys are men at eighteen--some not at forty. The more reasonable and well-behaved you are, the sooner shall I feel at liberty to tell it you.'

He ceased, and I remained silent. I was not astonished. The vague news fell in with all my fancies. The possibility of something pleasant, nay even wonderful and romantic, of course suggested itself, and the hope which thence gilded the delay tended to reconcile me to my ignorance.

'I think it better you should not go back to Mr Elder's, Willie,' said my uncle.

I was stunned at the words. Where could a place be found to compare for blessedness with Mr Elder's school? Not even the great Hall, with its acres of rooms and its age-long history, could rival it.

Some moments passed before I could utter a faltering 'Why?'

'That is part of my secret, Willie,' answered my uncle. 'I know it will be a disappointment to you, for you have been very happy with Mr Elder.'

'Yes, indeed,' I answered. It was all I could say, for the tears were rolling down my cheeks, and there was a great lump in my throat.

'I am very sorry indeed to give you pain, Willie,' he said kindly.

'It's not my blame, is it, uncle?' I sobbed.

'Not in the least, my boy.'

'Oh! then, I don't mind it so much.'

'There's a brave boy! Now the question is, what to do with you.'

'Can't I stop at home, then?'

'No, that won't do either, Willie. I must have you taught, and I haven't time to teach you myself. Neither am I scholar enough for it now; my learning has got rusty. I know your father would have wished to send you to college, and although I do not very well see how I can manage it, I must do the best I can. I'm not a rich man, you see, Willie, though I have a little laid by. I never could do much at making money, and I must not leave your aunt unprovided for.'

'No, uncle. Besides, I shall soon be able to work for myself and you too.'

'Not for a long time if you go to college, Willie. But we need not talk about that yet.'

In the evening I went to my uncle's room. He was sitting by his fire reading the New Testament.

'Please, uncle,' I said, 'will you tell me something about my father and mother?'

'With pleasure, my boy,' he answered, and after a moment's thought began to give me a sketch of my father's life, with as many touches of the man himself as he could at the moment recall. I will not detain my reader with the narrative. It is sufficient to say that my father was a simple honourable man, without much education, but a great lover of plain books. His health had always been delicate; and before he died he had been so long an invalid that my mother's health had given way in nursing him, so that she very soon followed him. As his narrative closed my uncle said: 'Now, Willie, you see, with a good man like that for your father, you are bound to be good and honourable! Never mind whether people praise you or not; you do what you ought to do. And don't be always thinking of your rights. There are people who consider themselves very grand because they can't bear to be interfered with. They think themselves lovers of justice, when it is only justice to themselves they care about. The true lover of justice is one who would rather die a slave than interfere with the rights of others. To wrong any one is the most terrible thing in the world. Injustice to you is not an awful thing like injustice in you. I should like to see you a great man, Willie. Do you know what I mean by a great man?'

'Something else than I know, I'm afraid, uncle,' I answered.

'A great man is one who will try to do right against the devil himself: one who will not do wrong to please anybody or to save his life.'

I listened, but I thought with myself a man might do all that, and be no great man. I would do something better--some fine deed or other--I did not know what now, but I should find out by-and-by. My uncle was too easily pleased: I should demand more of a great man. Not so did the knights of old gain their renown. I was silent.

'I don't want you to take my opinions as yours, you know, Willie,' my uncle resumed. 'But I want you to remember what my opinion is.'

As he spoke, he went to a drawer in the room, and brought out something which he put in my hands. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was the watch grannie had given me.

'There,' he said, 'is your father's watch. Let it keep you in mind that to be good is to be great.'

'Oh, thank you, uncle!' I said, heeding only my recovered treasure. 'But didn't it belong to somebody before my father? Grannie gave it me as if it had been hers.'

'Your grandfather gave it to your father; but when he died, your great-grandmother took it. Did she tell you anything about it?'

'Nothing particular. She said it was her husband's.'

'So it was, I believe.'

'She used to call him my father.'

'Ah, you remember that!'

'I've had so much time to think about things, uncle!'

'Yes. Well--I hope you will think more about things yet.'

'Yes, uncle. But there's something else I should like to ask you about.'

'What's that?'

'The old sword.'

My uncle smiled, and rose again, saying, 'Ah! I thought as much. Is that anything like it?' he added, bringing it from the bottom of a cupboard.

I took it from his hands with awe. It was the same. If I could have mistaken the hilt, I could not mistake the split sheath.

'Oh, uncle!' I exclaimed, breathless with delight.

'That's it--isn't it?' he said, enjoying my enjoyment.

'Yes, that it is! Now tell me all about it, please.'

'Indeed I can tell you very little. Some ancestor of ours fought with it somewhere. There was a story about it, but I have forgot it. You may have it if you like.'

'No, uncle! May I? To take away with me?'

'Yes. I think you are old enough now not to do any mischief with it.'

I do not believe there was a happier boy in England that night. I did not mind where I went now. I thought I could even bear to bid Mrs Elder farewell. Whether therefore possession had done me good, I leave my reader to judge. But happily for our blessedness, the joy of possession soon palls, and not many days had gone by before I found I had a heart yet. Strange to say, it was my aunt who touched it.

I do not yet know all the reasons which brought my uncle to the resolution of sending me abroad: it was certainly an unusual mode of preparing one for the university; but the next day he disclosed the plan to me. I was pleased with the notion. But my aunt's apron went up to her eyes. It was a very hard apron, and I pitied those eyes although they were fierce.

'Oh, auntie!' I said, 'what are you crying for? Don't you like me to go?'

'It's too far off, child. How am I to get to you if you should be taken ill?'

Moved both by my own pleasure and her grief, I got up and threw my arms round her neck. I had never done so before. She returned my embrace and wept freely.

As it was not a fit season for travelling, and as my uncle had not yet learned whither it would be well to send me, it was after all resolved that I should return to Mr Elder's for another half-year. This gave me unspeakable pleasure; and I set out for school again in such a blissful mood as must be rare in the experience of any life.

Prev | Next | Contents