The Parent's Assistant Part 33

'Oh, I'll answer for it, he'll think it necessary,' said Hal, laughing, 'because it is necessary.' 'Allow him, at least, to judge for himself,'

said Mr. Gresham. 'My dear uncle, but I a.s.sure you,' said Hal, earnestly, 'there's no judging about the matter, because really, upon my word, Lady Diana said distinctly that her sons were to have uniforms, white faced with green, and a green and white c.o.c.kade in their hats.'

'May be so,' said Mr. Gresham, still with the same look of calm simplicity; 'put on your hats, boys, and come with me. I know a gentleman whose sons are to be at this archery meeting, and we will inquire into all the particulars from him. Then, after we have seen him (it is not eleven o'clock yet), we shall have time enough to walk on to Bristol, and choose the cloth for Ben's uniform, if it is necessary.'

'I cannot tell what to make of all he says,' whispered Hal, as he reached down his hat; 'do you think, Ben, he means to give you this uniform, or not?' 'I think,' said Ben, 'that he means to give me one, if it is necessary; or, as he said, if I think it is necessary.'

'And that to be sure you will; won't you? or else you'll be a great fool, I know, after all I've told you. How can any one in the world know so much about the matter as I, who have dined with Lady Diana Sweepstakes but yesterday, and heard all about it from beginning to end?

And as for this gentleman that we are going to, I'm sure, if he knows anything about the matter, he'll say exactly the same as I do.' 'We shall hear,' said Ben, with a degree of composure which Hal could by no means comprehend when a uniform was in question.

The gentleman upon whom Mr. Gresham called had three sons, who were all to be at this archery meeting; and they unanimously a.s.sured him, in the presence of Hal and Ben, that they had never thought of buying uniforms for this grand occasion, and that, amongst the number of their acquaintance, they knew of but three boys whose friends intended to be at such an _unnecessary_ expense. Hal stood amazed.

'Such are the varieties of opinion upon all the grand affairs of life,'

said Mr. Gresham, looking at his nephews. 'What amongst one set of people you hear a.s.serted to be absolutely necessary, you will hear from another set of people is quite unnecessary. All that can be done, my dear boys, in these difficult cases, is to judge for yourselves which opinions and which people are the most reasonable.'

Hal, who had been more accustomed to think of what was fas.h.i.+onable than of what was reasonable, without at all considering the good sense of what his uncle said to him, replied, with childish petulance, 'Indeed, sir, I don't know what other people think; but I only know what Lady Diana Sweepstakes said.' The name of Lady Diana Sweepstakes, Hal thought, must impress all present with respect; he was highly astonished when, as he looked round, he saw a smile of contempt upon every one's countenance; and he was yet further bewildered when he heard her spoken of as a very silly, extravagant, ridiculous woman, whose opinion no prudent person would ask upon any subject, and whose example was to be shunned instead of being imitated.

'Ay, my dear Hal,' said his uncle, smiling at his look of amazement, 'these are some of the things that young people must learn from experience. All the world do not agree in opinion about characters: you will hear the same person admired in one company and blamed in another; so that we must still come round to the same point, _Judge for yourself_.'

Hal's thoughts were, however, at present too full of the uniform to allow his judgment to act with perfect impartiality. As soon as their visit was over, and all the time they walked down the hill from Prince's Buildings towards Bristol, he continued to repeat nearly the same arguments which he had formerly used respecting necessity, the uniform, and Lady Diana Sweepstakes. To all this Mr. Gresham made no reply, and longer had the young gentleman expatiated upon the subject, which had so strongly seized upon his imagination, had not his senses been forcibly a.s.sailed at this instant by the delicious odours and tempting sight of certain cakes and jellies in a pastrycook's shop. 'Oh, uncle,' said he, as his uncle was going to turn the corner to pursue the road to Bristol, 'look at those jellies!' pointing to a confectioner's shop. 'I must buy some of those good things, for I have got some halfpence in my pocket.'

'Your having halfpence in your pocket is an excellent reason for eating,' said Mr. Gresham, smiling. 'But I really am hungry,' said Hal; 'you know, uncle, it is a good while since breakfast.'

His uncle, who was desirous to see his nephews act without restraint, that he might judge their characters, bid them do as they pleased.

'Come, then, Ben, if you've any halfpence in your pocket.' 'I'm not hungry,' said Ben. 'I suppose _that_ means that you've no halfpence,'

said Hal, laughing, with the look of superiority which he had been taught to think _the rich_ might a.s.sume towards those who were convicted either of poverty or economy. 'Waste not, want not,' said Ben to himself. Contrary to his cousin's surmise, he happened to have two pennyworth of halfpence actually in his pocket.

At the very moment Hal stepped into the pastrycook's shop, a poor, industrious man, with a wooden leg, who usually sweeps the dirty corner of the walk which turns at this spot to the Wells, held his hat to Ben, who, after glancing his eye at the pet.i.tioner's well-worn broom, instantly produced his twopence. 'I wish I had more halfpence for you, my good man,' said he; 'but I've only twopence.'

Hal came out of Mr. Millar's, the confectioner's shop, with a hatful of cakes in his hand. Mr. Millar's dog was sitting on the flags before the door, and he looked up with a wistful, begging eye at Hal, who was eating a queen-cake. Hal, who was wasteful even in his good-nature, threw a whole queen-cake to the dog, who swallowed it for a single mouthful.

'There goes twopence in the form of a queen-cake,' said Mr. Gresham.

Hal next offered some of his cakes to his uncle and cousin; but they thanked him, and refused to eat any, because, they said, they were not hungry; so he ate and ate as he walked along, till at last he stopped and said, 'This bun tastes so bad after the queen-cakes, I can't bear it!' and he was going to fling it from him into the river. 'Oh, it is a pity to waste that good bun; we may be glad of it yet,' said Ben; 'give it me rather than throw it away.' 'Why, I thought you said you were not hungry,' said Hal. 'True, I am not hungry now; but that is no reason why I should never be hungry again.' 'Well, there is the cake for you. Take it; for it has made me sick, and I don't care what becomes of it.'

Ben folded the refuse bit of his cousin's bun in a piece of paper, and put it into his pocket.

'I'm beginning to be exceeding tired or sick or something,' said Hal; 'and as there is a stand of coaches somewhere hereabouts, had we not better take a coach, instead of walking all the way to Bristol?'

'For a stout archer,' said Mr. Gresham, 'you are more easily tired than one might have expected. However, with all my heart, let us take a coach, for Ben asked me to show him the cathedral yesterday; and I believe I should find it rather too much for me to walk so far, though I am not sick with eating good things.'

'_The cathedral!_' said Hal, after he had been seated in the coach about a quarter of an hour, and had somewhat recovered from his sickness--'the cathedral! Why, are we only going to Bristol to see the cathedral? I thought we came out to see about a uniform.'

There was a dulness and melancholy kind of stupidity in Hal's countenance as he p.r.o.nounced these words, like one wakening from a dream, which made both his uncle and his cousin burst out a-laughing.

'Why,' said Hal, who was now piqued, 'I'm sure you _did_ say, uncle, you would go to Mr. Hall's to choose the cloth for the uniform.' 'Very true, and so I will,' said Mr. Gresham; 'but we need not make a whole morning's work, need we, of looking at a piece of cloth? Cannot we see a uniform and a cathedral both in one morning?'

They went first to the cathedral. Hal's head was too full of the uniform to take any notice of the painted window, which immediately caught Ben's embarra.s.sed attention. He looked at the large stained figures on the Gothic window, and he observed their coloured shadows on the floor and walls.

Mr. Gresham, who perceived that he was eager on all subjects to gain information, took this opportunity of telling him several things about the lost art of painting on gla.s.s, Gothic arches, etc., which Hal thought extremely tiresome.

'Come! come! we shall be late indeed,' said Hal; 'surely you've looked long enough, Ben, at this blue and red window.' 'I'm only thinking about these coloured shadows,' said Ben. 'I can show you when we go home, Ben,' said his uncle, 'an entertaining paper upon such shadows.'[13]

'Hark!' cried Ben, 'did you hear that noise?' They all listened; and they heard a bird singing in the cathedral. 'It's our old robin, sir,'

said the lad who had opened the cathedral door for them.

[13] Vide Priestley's _History of Vision_, chapter on coloured shadows.

'Yes,' said Mr. Gresham, 'there he is, boys--look--perched upon the organ; he often sits there, and sings, whilst the organ is playing.'

'And,' continued the lad who showed the cathedral, 'he has lived here these many, many winters. They say he is fifteen years old; and he is so tame, poor fellow! that if I had a bit of bread he'd come down and feed in my hand.' 'I've a bit of bun here,' cried Ben joyfully, producing the remains of the bun which Hal but an hour before would have thrown away.

'Pray, let us see the poor robin eat out of your hand.'

The lad crumbled the bun, and called to the robin, who fluttered and chirped, and seemed rejoiced at the sight of the bread; but yet he did not come down from his pinnacle on the organ.

'He is afraid of _us_,' said Ben; 'he is not used to eat before strangers, I suppose.'

'Ah, no, sir,' said the young man, with a deep sigh, 'that is not the thing. He is used enough to eat afore company. Time was he'd have come down for me before ever so many fine folks, and have eat his crumbs out of my hand, at my first call; but, poor fellow! it's not his fault now.

He does not know me now, sir, since my accident, because of this great black patch.' The young man put his hand to his right eye, which was covered with a huge black patch. Ben asked what _accident_ he meant; and the lad told him that, but a few weeks ago, he had lost the sight of his eye by the stroke of a stone, which reached him as he was pa.s.sing under the rocks at Clifton, unluckily when the workmen were blasting. 'I don't mind so much for myself, sir,' said the lad; 'but I can't work so well now, as I used to do before my accident, for my old mother, who has had a _stroke_ of the palsy; and I've a many little brothers and sisters not well able yet to get their own livelihood, though they be as willing as willing can be.'

'Where does your mother live?' said Mr. Gresham. 'Hard by, sir, just close to the church here: it was _her_ that always had the showing of it to strangers, till she lost the use of her poor limbs.'

'Shall we, may we, uncle, go that way? This is the house; is not it?'

said Ben, when they went out of the cathedral.

They went into the house; it was rather a hovel than a house; but, poor as it was, it was as neat as misery could make it. The old woman was sitting up in her wretched bed, winding worsted; four meagre, ill-clothed, pale children, were all busy, some of them sticking pins in paper for the pin-maker, and others sorting rags for the paper-maker.

'What a horrid place it is!' said Hal, sighing; 'I did not know there were such shocking places in the world. I've often seen terrible-looking, tumble-down places, as we drove through the town in mamma's carriage; but then I did not know who lived in them; and I never saw the inside of any of them. It is very dreadful, indeed, to think that people are forced to live in this way. I wish mamma would send me some more pocket-money, that I might do something for them. I had half a crown; but,' continued he, feeling in his pockets, 'I'm afraid I spent the last s.h.i.+lling of it this morning upon those cakes that made me sick.

I wish I had my s.h.i.+lling now, I'd give it to _these poor people_.'

Ben, though he was all this time silent, was as sorry as his talkative cousin for all these poor people. But there was some difference between the sorrow of these two boys.

Hal, after he was again seated in the hackney-coach, and had rattled through the busy streets of Bristol for a few minutes, quite forgot the spectacle of misery which he had seen; and the gay shops in Wine Street and the idea of his green and white uniform wholly occupied his imagination.

'Now for our uniforms!' cried he, as he jumped eagerly out of the coach, when his uncle stopped at the woollen-draper's door.

'Uncle,' said Ben, stopping Mr. Gresham before he got out of the carriage, 'I don't think a uniform is at all necessary for me. I'm very much obliged to you; but I would rather not have one. I have a very good coat, and I think it would be waste.'

'Well, let me get out of the carriage, and we will see about it,' said Mr. Gresham; 'perhaps the sight of the beautiful green and white cloth, and the epaulette (have you ever considered the epaulettes?) may tempt you to change your mind.' 'Oh no,' said Ben, laughing; 'I shall not change my mind.'

The green cloth, and the white cloth, and the epaulettes were produced, to Hal's infinite satisfaction. His uncle took up a pen, and calculated for a few minutes; then, showing the back of the letter, upon which he was writing, to his nephews, 'Cast up these sums, boys,' said he, 'and tell me whether I am right.' 'Ben, do you do it,' said Hal, a little embarra.s.sed; 'I am not quick at figures.' Ben _was_, and he went over his uncle's calculation very expeditiously.

'It is right, is it?' said Mr. Gresham. 'Yes, sir, quite right.' 'Then, by this calculation, I find I could, for less than half the money your uniforms would cost, purchase for each of you boys a warm greatcoat, which you will want, I have a notion, this winter upon the Downs.'

'Oh, sir,' said Hal, with an alarmed look; 'but it is not winter _yet_; it is not cold weather _yet_. We shan't want greatcoats _yet_.'

'Don't you remember how cold we were, Hal, the day before yesterday, in that sharp wind, when we were flying our kite upon the Downs? and winter will come, though it is not come yet--I am sure, I should like to have a good warm greatcoat very much.'

Mr. Gresham took six guineas out of his purse; and he placed three of them before Hal, and three before Ben. 'Young gentlemen,' said he, 'I believe your uniforms would come to about three guineas apiece. Now I will lay out this money for you just as you please. Hal, what say you?'

'Why, sir,' said Hal, 'a greatcoat is a good thing, to be sure; and then, after the greatcoat, as you said it would only cost half as much as the uniform, there would be some money to spare, would not there?'

'Yes, my dear, about five-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings.' 'Five-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings?--I could buy and do a great many things, to be sure, with five-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings; but then, _the thing is_, I must go without the uniform, if I have the greatcoat.' 'Certainly,' said his uncle.

'Ah!' said Hal, sighing, as he looked at the epaulette, 'uncle, if you would not be displeased, if I choose the uniform----' 'I shall not be displeased at your choosing whatever you like best,' said Mr. Gresham.