Dickie

“ And he popped through his doorway, hurried through the hall—which was a hundred times as long as Fatty Coon's tail—and burst into the cozy chamber.
Dickie had hardly entered the room when he stumbled over something soft. And a voice that sounded exactly like Cousin Dan'l's called out in rather a peevish tone that he'd better look out where he stepped.
"Who's here?" Dickie asked in a faint whisper.
"We are!" the voice replied. "There are eighteen of us in all. And you'd better be careful not to trample on anybody." ”

“ That night Dickie could not sleep. And as he lay awake a great resolve grew strong within him. He would try once more the magic of the moon-seeds and the rattle and the white seal, and try to get back into that other world. So he crept down into the parlor where a little layer of clear, red fire still burned. ”

“ So Dickie changed, every hour of every day and every moment of every hour, from the little boy who lived at New Cross among the yellow houses and the ugliness, who tramped the white roads, and slept at the Inn of the Silver Moon, to Richard of the other name who lived well and slept softly, and knew himself called to a destiny of power and helpful kindness. For his nurse had told him that his father was a rich man; and that father's riches would be his one day, to deal with for the good of the men under him, for their happiness and the glory of God. ”

“ However, in spite of his mischief and wild pranks, Dickie had a soft spot in his heart, and could be tamed by a gentle word or appeal when lashing had been tried in vain. When he had been about eighteen months in the Poorhouse, a poor knife-grinder was admitted for a day or two, who told Dickie such grand romances of his free life on the road that the boy took an insatiable longing for freedom. Squinting Jerry was the man’s name, but though he had an evil look, he was really an honest fellow. ”

“ Dickie said twice as he read. He brushed away the smoke to see the last lines,—"And wept—I heard her tears." The ecstatic pain of beauty gripped him to the forgetfulness of all other pain or ecstasy. "O God!"
He came to with a start, shut the book, stuck it into his pocket, and, crooking his arm over his smarting eyes, he plunged out of the room. Millings had become aware of its disaster. Dickie, fleeing by the back way, leaping dangers and beating through fire, knew by the distant commotion that the Fire Brigade, of which he was a member, was gathering its men for the glory of their name. ”

“ He saw his father standing near his mother, and between the two a great black head whose long jaws were open in a kind of merry grin of good-fellowship, and from between whose white teeth protruded a red tongue that evinced an impulse to meet the wondering Dickie's face half way. The boy gazed for a moment, then threw out his hands towards the beaming face of the newcomer, and screamed with gleeful laughter. ”

“ Dickie forgot all about the door below the window, forgot all about his cousins, forgot that he had found the treasure and that it was now his business to get himself and the others safely back to their own times. He only saw the house he loved broken into by men he hated; he saw the men he loved spending their blood like water to defend that house. ”

“ Bold Dickie broke lock, Bold Dickie broke key,
Bold Dickie broke everything that he could see;
He took poor Archer under one arm,
And carried him out so manfullie.
They mounted their horses, and so rode they,
Who but they so merrilie!
They rode till they came to that broad river's side,
And there they alighted so manfullie.
'Bold Dickie, Bold Dickie,' poor Archer says he,
'Take my love home to my wife and children three;
For my horse grows lame, he cannot swim,
And here I see that I must die.'
They shifted their horses, and so swam they,
Who but they so merrilie! ”

“ He had not read "Don Quixote," as you, no doubt, have.
"I should like," said Dickie, sitting square on the grey, "to call him Crutch. May I?"
"Crutch?" the father repeated.
"Because his paces are so easy," Dickie explained. He got off the horse very quickly and came to his father. "I mean even a lame boy could ride him. Oh! father, I am so happy!" he said, and burrowed his nose in a velvet doublet, and perhaps snivelled a little. "I am so glad I am not lame."
"Fancy-full as ever," said his father; "come, come! Thou'rt weak yet from the fever. Be a man. ”

“ He had bought it at a rummage sale; it was unsigned, and the canvas, overcrowded with figures, had grown sombre and blurred; yet queerly Dickie liked the suggestion of powerful, half-naked men; the foreign quay-side street, with a slatternly woman silent against a doorway, and the clumsy ship straining to swing out to a menacing sea beyond.
All these things that he would never do: strip and carry bales on his back; linger in strange doorways and love hotly an animal woman who was unaccomplished and without grace and breeding ”

“ Its pavements were of red brick and its houses of white stone, and its bow-windows and balconies were green, and Dickie thought it was the prettiest town in the world. They did not stay there, but walked out across the downs, where the skylarks were singing, and on a dip of the downs came upon great stone walls and towers very strong and gray.
"What's that there?" said Dickie.
"It's a carstle—like wot the King's got at Windsor."
"Is it a king as lives 'ere, then?" Dickie asked.
"No! Nobody don't live 'ere, mate," said Mr. Beale. "It's a ruin, this is. Only howls and rats lives in ruins." ”

“ On a certain sluggish noon hour in August, Dickie, as far as the kitchen door with a tray balanced on his palm, realized that he had forgotten this man's order. He hesitated to go back. "Like as not," reasoned Dickie, "he didn't rightly know what the order was. He never does look at his food. I'll fetch him a Spanish omelette and a salad and a glass of iced tea. It's a whole lot better order than he'd have thought of himself." ”

“ A woman on a dying bed, whispering with an earnestness which impressed every word on her child's memory, "Cherry, if you're in any trouble, tell Jesus—ask Him to help you. Oh, Cherry, if I did not know you love Him, my heart would break. Jesus, will help you. Tell Dickie that I always said that." ”

“ Imagine what you would feel if you had lived wingless all your life among people who could fly. That is how lame people feel among us who can walk and run. And now Dickie was lame no more.
His feet seemed not only to be strong and active, but clever on their own account. They carried him quite without mistake to the blacksmith's at the village on the hill—to the centre of the maze of clipped hedges that was the centre of the garden, and best of all they carried him to the dockyard. ”

“ When the queer partnership had first been formed, Dickie did little but go round the houses at which they paused and ask for knives or scissors to grind, but gradually, as he grew stronger and mastered the intricacies of the grinding as taught by old Jerry, the position of the partners became inverted, Dickie taking the heavy part of the work and Jerry the light. A strong affection had sprung up between them, and Dickie never thought he could do too much for the feeble old man, whose bad leg at times held them in a poor locality till they were literally starved out of it. ”

“ Ye’ve been a true son to me, and my own heart’s blood couldn’t have been affectionater. Pay the gintleman for his trouble, Dickie, aroon, and then run for a praist, for I feel the blackness creeping up on me, and when it covers my heart I’ll be in heaven. The Lord is always good; He’s kept me alive till you got back, Dickie, to take my hand an’ help me over the dark stile.”
The doctor would accept of no fee, and Dickie ran off and got a priest, who came and went, leaving Jerry happy and peaceful, with one arm round Dickie’s neck and the other clasping his hand. ”

“ The moon had reminded him of his one remaining dime. He might have bought a night's lodging with it, but after one experience of such lodgings he preferred his present quarters. In Dickie's mind there was no association of shame or ignominy with a night spent under the sky. But fear and ignominy tainted and clung to his memory of that other night. He had saved his dime deliberately, going hungry rather than admit to himself that he was absolutely at the end of his resources. To-morrow he would not especially need that dime. He had a job. He would begin to draw pay. ”

“ And, like Lord Arden's very own son, Dickie lived at the house in Arden Castle, and grew to love it more and more. He no longer wanted to get away from these present times to those old days when James the First was King. The times you are born in are always more home-like than any other times can be. When Dickie lived miserably at Deptford he always longed to go to those old times, as a man who is unhappy at home may wish to travel to other countries. But a man who is happy in his home does not want to leave it. And at Arden Dickie was happy. ”

“ Now for it!
"Did you ever have a tutor called Mr. Parados?" he asked. And again the others looked at him and at each other. "Parrot-nose for short," Dickie hastened to add; "and did you ever shovel snow on to his head and then ride away in a carriage drawn by swans?"
"It is you!" cried Elfrida, and hugged him. "Edred, it is Dickie! We were saying, could it be you? Oh! Dickie darling, how did you hurt your foot?"
Dickie flushed. "My foot's always been like that," he said, "in Nowadays time. When we met in the magic times I was like everybody else, wasn't I?" ”

“ You're only a little boy. Be happy and jolly, and don't worry about grown-up things. Leave grown-up things to the grown-ups."
"You see," Dickie told her, "somehow I've always had to worry about grown-up things. What with Beale, and one thing and another." [280]
"That was the man you ran away from me to go to?"
"Yes," said Dickie gravely; "you see, I was responsible for Beale."
"And now? Don't you feel responsible any more?"
"No," said Dickie, in businesslike tones; "you see, I've settled Beale in life. You can't be responsible for married people. They're responsible for each other. ”

“ He'll not be unhappy, my dear, even if he is blind. People will be kind to him, and he'll not miss it as much as you fear. But, whether or not, the best thing we can do is to come to the bottom at once. The Lord knows, and the Lord loves. Cherry, He loves Dickie more than you and Meg do, and that's saying a great deal. ”

“ But I went to the beginning of the corridor which leads to the kitchen. She went in, though, boldly enough, and she got it. Now, we do want to see who Dickie is. Is he a dog, or a monkey, or what?”
“He’s a spider—goose!” said Sylvia. “And now, please, get out of the way. He won’t eat if you watch him. I’ve got a good bit of meat, Betty,” she continued. “It’ll keep Dickie going for several days, and he likes it all the better when it begins to turn. Don’t you Dickie?”
[Pg 46]
“If you don’t all leave the room, girls,” said Fanny, “I shall have to report to Miss Symes.” ”

“ Balancing herself on a gatepost and eating cherries was Rosie. It must be admitted that she did both of these things with a certain grace, also that the picture she made had its charm. For she was probably sixteen, with all that the age implies.
Of course, one could not expect Dickie to be at all impressed. Certainly I did not.
“Girls!” Here followed an ominous inbreathing, ending in an explosive “Huh!” This was Dickie’s expressed attitude toward the sex. For Dickie was nineteen, which is the scornful age, you know. What are girls when a fellow is going to be a soph. ”

“ Then the three were sent out to play, and Dickie was shown the Castle ruins, while Lord Arden and Lady Talbot walked up and down on the daisied grass, and talked for a long time. Dickie knew they were talking about him, but he did not mind. He had that feeling you some times have about grown-up people, that they really do understand, and are to be trusted.
"You'll be too fine presently to speak to the likes of us, you nipper," said Beale, when a smart little pony cart had brought Dickie back to the cottage. "You an' your grand friends. ”

“ So it was settled that I should stay, minding and teaching Dickie, and I thanked God for a valid reason to remain in Mashonaland.
The household of Kentucky Hills consisted, I found, of ourselves; Mr Stibbert a clever young German who understood farming on scientific principles and had been engaged to manage Dick’s cattle and land for him; an elderly woman of the same type as Adriana who had brought Dickie up by the East Coast ”

“ I’ve teached ye better nor that, more by token they can never expect to prosper that wrongs the helpless or the suffering.”
“May I drop dead the minute such a thought enters my head!” said Dickie with energy. “Rest where you are, Jerry dear—and get well and take all the comfort ye can, for sure ye’ve been a blessed friend to me, and made a man of me when I’d have turned out nothing but a jail bird and a vagabone.” ”

“ The vicar looked gravely at her and spoke slowly and impressively:
“If Dickie is a good little girl, and will go upstairs to the nursery directly, and stay there, father will ask if she may go and see the gee-gees.”
Dickie got down and trotted away obediently, for she thought she had gained her point; but alas later on, when mother was appealed to, she was still quite firm on the subject—Dickie must not go to the circus. The four other children were enough for Miss Grey to take care of, and Nurse could not be spared—Dickie must stay at home and be a good little girl. ”