Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

"I vote for birdsnesting,' answered Johnny. For some time I stood watching the boys as they climbed about; but I don't think they found many nests, except, perhaps, a few old ones from which the young birds had long since flown. If we had been country children, or if Frank had been older, we should have known it was not much use to search for eggs in autumn, when nuts were ripe. When I grew tired of watching them, I wandered away hunting for wild flowers, and trying to sing, as I was very fond of doing, some of my mother's favourite old songs. There was one broad path through the wood, full of ruts, which the waggons used when they came to cart brushwood or timber, and there were narrow green paths winding in all directions, so narrow that I had to hold the boughs aside with my hands, and even then tore my clothes sadly in pushing through. But somehow the narrower and wilder the path, the more inviting it looked. The sound of my companions' voices shouting and laughing grew fainter and fainter, and at last I could not hear them at all; but I felt very happy, and not a bit lonely. There was velvety moss to sit down on, and the air was full of pleasant sounds; soft cooing of wood pigeons, the little tapping noise of the woodpecker's beak against the bark of a tree, and a buzzing and humming, and chirping of all sorts of merry little creatures, which seemed enjoying the summer's day and the shady wood as much as I did. And then, as nobody was by to listen, I sang my favourite tunes louder than ever, till the wood rang with them.

"One morning, Frank and Johnny were high busy in the fir grove, with carpentering tools and a block of

[blocks in formation]

wood, which they were trying to scoop out and shape into a ship. [Johnny] was head carpenter, and worked upon the hull, while Frank got ready straight and smooth pieces for the mast and spars. And when this was finished, there was to run to the shop for a ball of string to rig it with, and to beg of aunt some nice pieces of calico for the sails. Then they went hunting about for some one who could cut them out nicely; and at list Frank came upon me. I was busy in the yard, with a large handful of grain, feeding the pigeons; and I intended to give the rabbits a treat of some nice, fresh green food.

"Oh, cousin! I'm sɔ glad I've found you. Do come this very minute and help us to cut out our sails,' said Frank.

"I can't come directly,' answered I. You must just wait till I have finished feeding my dear pigeons.' Oh, do come, Annie.'

“‹ Well, I will, if you will only wait patiently a few minutes.'

"But we can't wait-we won't wait. You shall come now.'

"And my cousin took tight hold of me, and tried to drag me along, while I struggled violently to get free, and in doing so, stepped back-forgetful of what was behind. me-into the well; the top of which was level with the ground, not bricked round or protected in any way. I remember the splash, the plunge down under water-the feeling of suffocation-and then I remember no more till I opened my eyes and found myself on a bed, with many anxious faces round.

C

"But I was afterwards told that my little brother had saved my life: for hearing Frank give a scream of terror, he came running into the yard, and had the sense to lie down by the well, and when I came up the second time, lay hold of my hair, and then by means of that, of my head, and managed to keep hold, too, till their continued shouts and screams brought the gardener running to see what was the matter, and to pull me out, as he had pulled out poor Grim, only a week before."

The "little brother " Johnny was ten years old. In after years, this experience of so nearly drowning was referred to, as not unpleasant; with the consciousness of the memories of my life flashing past, as in an instant, and then the sensation of dreamily floating past green fields to unconsciousness.' As near to the sensation of death as it was possible to approach.

"Our visit to [Tolleshunt-Knights] was soon to end. Six happy weeks had glided away, and the morning came at last for saying 'Good-bye.' Once more we drove along the pleasant lanes to meet the coach. The days had shortened since the journey down; and it was night before we rumbled into the inn yard in Holborn, where the stage put up, and where they packed us, bag and baggage, into a great old lumbering hackney-coach.

"Was there not something pleasant in coming back once more to the grand old smoky familiar place? Something happy, too, when we stopped at the door of our own dear home, to be warmly welcomed by the faithful servants, whose pride and pleasure it had been to make everything clean, neat, and comfortable for our

return?"

A

CHAPTER III.

SCHOOL-DAYS.

1839-1851. AGE, 11-23.

CALAMITY was in store for the Gower-street

household. One day John Parker Burrows met with an accident-a fall from his horse-soon to be followed by an illness, to which the strong but overworked man of fifty-one succumbed in three days (April 18, 1839). Upon the heels of this dire calamity succeeded a hurried winding up of the large practice; the widow with her son and daughter moving into a smaller house at Highgate.

Annie Burrows, though only eleven, is already a school-girl of five years' standing at the Misses Cahusacs'; an evangelical school at Highgate, which gave some advantages in education; not that the scholars thereof would now, any of them, take honours at Girton. Nevertheless, the Cahusacs' curriculum was an advance. upon that in vogue some eighty years ago; for instance, where Mrs. Burrows was at school, at Baddow, the headmistress's share of instruction consisted in teaching deportment, of stepping in and out of a carriage, or of walking magnificently through the school-room once a

day, as a lady should walk. Mrs. Pugh's example is significant surely to us, living in a time when round shoulders and a shuffling gait are but too common.

Amongst Hayley's letters to the Rev. Thomas Carwardine, beginning "My dear Prior," we notice a postscript in which the school just referred to, is mentioned by the Hermit of Eartham :-" Pray give my love to Mrs. Pugh! and tell her I often recollect with pleasure, how satisfactorily I said my prayers with her and her evening congregations of lovely young damsels of Baddow." Mrs. Pugh was Carwardine's sister, and at whose school, no doubt, he first saw Nancy Holgate.

School life for Annie at eleven, fortunately was not to receive any check from the break-up of the home in Gower-street, Miss Cahusac being desirous to keep so promising a pupil.

Miss Julia Newton tells us that her school friend "Annie was a favourite with the masters, because of her ability and painstaking application. The English Master' would turn to my companion when none of the other pupils could follow him in the problems of Euclid. Together with an understanding of the elements of mathematics, Annie showed a retentive memory. Upon one occasion a page of Boileau's Satires had to be learnt within the space of ten minutes. When my friend's turn came to repeat the lesson, she was able to

take up her part in the book at the right time: and twenty years afterwards Anne Gilchrist remembered the lesson, though she had never looked at the book in the interim!"

At the Cahusacs' "deportment" was in safe hands,

« ZurückWeiter »