That Little Beggar Part 2

In consequence of this state of affairs, nursery rows were by no means infrequent; nor was it very long before I witnessed one. It was but a few days after I had arrived, and I was sitting one afternoon in the library reading the _Morning Post_ to Granny, who was busy with some work she was doing for the poor.

It was a quiet and peaceful state of affairs which we were both enjoying. Suddenly, however, we were interrupted by a tap at the door, and the entrance of Briggs, flushed, heated, and slightly panting.

"If you please, mum," she began, a little breathlessly, and placing her hand on her side as if to still the beating of her heart, "I wish to know if Master Chris is to be allowed to speak to me as he likes?"

"Certainly not, certainly not," Granny replied, raising herself straight in her arm-chair, and trying to a.s.sume the severity of manner she felt was suitable to the occasion. "What has he been saying?"

"It was just this, mum," Briggs started, with the air of resolving to give a full, true, and particular account; "it was just this. We were down in the village, and I stepped into the post-office to buy a few reels of black cotton, which it so happens I have run out of. Likewise, I wanted to buy some blue sewing-silk, which you may remember, mum, you asked me to keep in mind next time I happened to be that way."

"Yes, I remember, Briggs. And Master Chris was naughty?" Granny said, gently trying to bring her to the point.

"Well, mum, I was going to tell you," she continued, without hurrying, "when I had bought the cotton and the silk, it came to my mind to buy a packet of post-cards and two s.h.i.+llings' worth of stamps. But the rector's young ladies had come in, and being pressed for time, Mrs.

Thompson, she says to me, 'I make no doubt but that you will let me serve the young ladies first'; to which I made answer, 'I wait your pleasure'. But Master Chris he gets cross, because he wants to go on home at once and roll his new hoop. 'Come along, old Briggs!' he says; 'come along, you old slow-coach!' Such behaviour, such language! Before the young ladies from the rectory, too! Where he learnt it I'm sure I can't tell. Not from me, I do a.s.sure you, mum," she concluded with indignation.

"It was very naughty of him," Granny remarked mildly.

"But that was not all, mum," the irate Briggs continued; "for all the way home he walks in front of me, tossing his head and singing as loud as possible, '_For I'm a jolly good fellow_'; and Jack there barking and making such a row alongside of him; it was for all the world like a wild-beast show. Nothing I could say could stop the pair of them."

She paused to allow Granny to take in the full extent of Chris's enormity. As she did so, a scampering of little feet was heard outside, the handle of the door was impatiently turned--first the wrong way, and then rattled angrily. Finally the door itself was burst open, and that little beggar ran in, with excited countenance; the big holland pinafore, in which Briggs insisted upon enveloping him, and his especial detestation, half dropping off him, and trailing behind on the ground.

"Granny," he began immediately, "is '_For he's a jolly good fellow_', that Uncle G.o.dfrey sings, a wicked song?"

"It's very naughty of you to behave rudely to Briggs," she replied gravely.

Looking round, Chris's eyes fell upon Briggs, whom at first he had not noticed; then, realizing that she had been first in the field, he burst into a loud, tearless wail.

"Briggs, you're a nasty, nasty thing, and I hate you!" he cried vehemently, stamping his foot as he spoke.

"There, mum! Is that the way for a young gentleman to speak?" she asked, not without a certain triumph.

"I don't like you!" Chris cried, stamping his foot again. "You are always cross! Nasty, cross, old Briggs!"

"Chris, I am shocked, very, very shocked," Granny said gravely. "You must stand in the corner for a quarter of an hour."

The little beggar wailed again; real, unfeigned tears this time.

"I don't--want to--go into--the corner," he said sobbing. "It's all--your fault, Briggs."

Briggs shook her head slowly and solemnly from side to side.

"Oh, Master Chris!" she exclaimed, "is that a way for a nice young gentleman to speak?" Then she left the room with dignity.

Chris, looking after her with impotent anger, moved towards the corner with laggard steps, crying bitterly as he did so.

"Must I go into the corner, my Granny?" he wailed. "Uncle G.o.dfrey is never sent into the corner."

"Yes, yes, you must, Chris," she said, obliging herself to be firm.

The little beggar looked entreatingly with large tearful eyes at her, as he crept towards the hated corner. But she would not allow herself to relent. Justice, in the form of the deeply offended Briggs, had to be propitiated, and Chris had to bear the punishment for his misdeeds.

At the same time, I believe Granny would joyfully have gone into the corner herself, if by so doing she could have spared her darling this wound to his pride, and yet have satisfied her own conscience. I think, indeed, in her sympathy for Chris in his disgrace, she really suffered more than he. It was therefore with relief, and as a welcome diversion that, when the footman came to announce the arrival of visitors, she rose to go to the drawing-room.

"I must go, Miss Baggerley," she said. "Will you be so kind as to see that Chris stays in the corner for a quarter of an hour? Only for a quarter of an hour, if he is good; but I know that he will be good, for he does not want to make his Granny unhappy any more. I am sure of that." With which gentle persuasion she went.

For a time Chris wept loudly and sorely, after which he was silent, save for an occasional sniff. This silence continued uninterrupted for so long that it at last aroused my suspicions. Turning my head the better to see him, I found that he was engaged in drawing strange and mystic signs upon the wall, by the simple process of wetting his finger in his mouth.

Hence the explanation of this sudden calm; for so absorbing, apparently, was this occupation, that it had had the effect of drying up all those bitter tears which, but a few minutes earlier, had flowed so freely.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "You must not dirty the wall like that."

"I am writing my name," the little beggar said with much pathos.

"Chris-to-pher G.o.d-frey Wyndham. Then when I'm dead and gone far away over the sea, Granny will see it, and she'll be sorry she was so cross."

"Jane will wash out those dirty marks," I replied, ruthlessly destroying his mournful hopes. "They will not remain there."

At this the little beggar desisted from disfiguring the wall, but reiterated, though more weakly, "Granny will be very sorry by and by; she was cross, and she'll wish she hadn't put me in the corner."

"No, she won't," I answered decisively; "she'll be sorry that you were naughty, but she won't wish that she had not punished you. You deserved to be punished."

Feeling that I did not regard him as the ill-used little being that he considered himself, and that there was a want of sympathy about my remarks that was not altogether to his taste, Chris once more was silent.

Ten minutes elapsed, broken only by an occasional sigh from the occupant of the corner. Then I was asked wearily:

"Is it nearly time for me to come away?"

"Yes," I said, as I looked at my watch, "you may come out now."

A forlorn little figure came towards me, and crept on my knee.

"Was I very naughty?" he asked, deprecatingly.

"Yes, dear, I am afraid you were," I answered. I should have liked to speak more severely, but that was a difficult matter with Chris.

"Briggs is a nasty thing," he said, nestling his head contentedly on my shoulder.

"Granny will send you back to the corner if she hears you speak like that," I said, with more confidence than I felt upon the subject.

"She was so unkind to me; she isn't a kind Briggs," he said. "Do you like her?"

Then without waiting for an answer he went on: "I love my Granny best, and Uncle G.o.dfrey next, and you next, and Briggs last,--the most last."

"If you were good to Briggs you would love her more," I said.

"Would I?" he asked doubtfully.

"Yes," I answered; "and though you are a happy little boy now, you would be still happier then. There is nothing that makes us happier than to love people very much and try to be kind to them."

"Even Briggs?" he inquired, thoughtfully.