Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 113

AT WHITNEY HALL.

It has often been in my mind to tell of John Whitney's death. You will say it is too sad and serious for a paper. But it is well to have serious thoughts brought before us at certain seasons. This is one of them: seeing that it's the beginning of a new year, and that every year takes us nearer to another life whether we are old or whether we are young.[3]

[3] Written for the January number of _The Argosy_, 1872.

Some of them thought his illness might never have come on but for an accident that happened. It is quite a mistake. The accident had nothing to do with the later illness. Sir John and Lady Whitney could tell you so as well as I. John was always one of those sensitive, thoughtful, religious boys that somehow don't seem so fit for earth as heaven.

"Now mind, you boys," cried Sir John to us at breakfast. "There's just a thin coating of ice on the lake and ponds, but it won't bear. Don't any of you venture on it."

"We will not, sir," replied John, who was the most obedient son living.

There's not much to be done in the way of out-door sports when snow lies on the ground. Crowding round the children's play-room window later, all the lot of us, we looked out on a white landscape. Snow lodged on the trees, hid the gra.s.s in the fields, covered the hills in the distance.

"It's an awful sell," cried Bill Whitney and Tod nearly in a breath.

"No hunting, no shooting, and no nothing. The ponds won't bear; s...o...b..lling's common. One might as well lie in bed."

"And what sort of a 'sell' do you suppose it is for the poor men who are thrown out of work?" asked Sir John, who had come in, reading a newspaper, and was airing his back at the fire. "Their work and wages are stopped, and they can't earn bread for their children. You boys are dreadfully to be pitied, you are!"

He tilted his steel spectacles up on his good old red nose, and nodded to us. Harry, the pert one of the family, answered.

"Well, papa, and it is a settler for us boys to have our fun spoiled. As to the working-men--oh, they are used to it."

Sir John stared at him for a full minute. "If I thought you said that from your heart, Mr. Harry, I'd order you from my presence. No son of mine shall get into the habit of making unfeeling speeches, even in jest."

Sir John meant it. We saw that Harry's words had really vexed him. John broke the silence.

"Papa, if I should live to be ever in your place," he said, in his quiet voice, that somehow _always_ had a tone of thoughtfulness in it, even when at play with the rest of us at old Frost's, "I shall make a point of paying my labourers' wages in full this wintry time, just the same as though they worked. It is not their fault that they are idle."

Sir John started at _him_ now. "What d'ye mean by 'if you live,' lad?"

John considered. The words had slipped from him without any special thought at all. People use such figures of speech. It was odd though, when we came to remember it a long while afterwards, that he should have said it just that one day.

"I recollect a frost that lasted fourteen weeks, boys," said Sir John.

"That was in 1814. They held a fair on the Thames, we heard, and roasted an ox whole on it. Get a frost to last all that time, and you'd soon tire of paying wages for nothing, John."

"But, father, what else could I do--or ought I to do? I could not let them starve--or break up their poor homes by going into the workhouse. I should fear that some time, in return, G.o.d might break up mine."

Sir John smiled. John was so very earnest always when he took up a serious matter. Letting the question drop, Sir John lowered his spectacles, and went out with his newspaper. Presently we saw him going round to the farm-yard in his great-coat and beaver gaiters. John sat down near the fire and took up a book he was fond of--"Sintram."

This was Old Christmas Day. Tod and I had come over to Whitney Hall for a week, and two days of it were already gone. We liked being there, and the time seemed to fly. Tod and Bill still stood staring and grumbling at the snow, wishing the frost would get worse, or go. Harry went out whistling; Helen sat down with a yawn.

"Anna, there's a skein of blue silk in that workbag behind you. Get it out and hold it for me to wind."

Anna, who was more like John in disposition than any of them, always good and gentle, got the silk; and they began to wind it. In the midst of it, Harry burst in with a terrific shout, dressed up as a bear, and trying to upset every one. In the confusion Anna dropped the silk on the carpet, and Helen boxed her ears.

John looked up from his book. "You should not do that, Helen."

"What does she drop the silk for, then--careless thing!" retorted Helen, who was quick in temper. "Once soil that light shade of blue, and it can't be used. You mind yourself John."

John looked at them both. At Helen, taking up the silk from the floor; at Anna, who was struggling to keep down her tears under the infliction, because Tod was present. She wouldn't have minded me. John said no more.

He had a very nice face without much colour in it; dark hair, and large grey-blue eyes that seemed to be always looking out for something they did not see. He was sixteen then, upright and slender. All the world liked John Whitney.

Later on in the day we were running races in the broad walk, that was so shady in summer. The whole of us. The high laurel hedges on either side had kept the snow from drifting, and it hardly lay there at all. We gave the girls a third of the run, and they generally beat us. After an hour of this, tired and hot, we gave in, and dispersed different ways. John and I went towards the lake to see whether the ice was getting thicker, talking of school and school interests as we went along. Old Frost's grounds were in view, which naturally put us in mind of the past: and especially of the great event of the half year--the sad fate of Archie Hearn.

"Poor little Hearn!" he exclaimed. "I did feel his death, and no mistake. That is, I felt for his mother. I think, Johnny, if I could have had the chance offered me, I would have died myself to let him live."

"That's easier said than done--if it came to the offer, Whitney."

"Well, yes it is. She had no one but him, you see. And to think of her coming into the school that time and saying she forgave the fellow--whoever it was. I've often wondered whether Barrington had cause to feel it."

"She is just like her face, Whitney--good. I've hardly ever seen a face I like as much as Mrs. Hearn's."

John Whitney laughed a little. They all did at my likes and dislikes of faces. "I was reading a book the other day, Johnny---- See that poor little robin!" he broke off. "It looks starved, and it must have its nest somewhere. I have some biscuit in my pocket."

It came into my head, as he dived into his pocket and scattered the crumbs, that he had brought the supply out for these stray birds. But if I write for ever I could not make you understand the thoughtfulness of John Whitney.

"Hark, Johnny! What's that?"

Cries, screams, sobs. We were near the end of the walk then and rushed out. Anna met us in a dreadful state of agitation. Charley was in the lake! Whitney caught the truth before I did, and was off like a shot.

The nurse, Willis, was dancing frantically about at the water's edge; the children roared. Willis said Master Charles had slipped on to the ice "surrepst.i.tiously" when her back was turned, and had gone souse in.

John Whitney had already plunged in after his little brother; his coat, jacket, and waistcoat were lying on the bank. William Whitney and Tod, hearing the noise, came rushing up.

"Mamma sent me to tell nurse they had been out long enough, and were to come in," sobbed Anna, shaking like a leaf. "While I was giving her the message, Charley fell in. Oh, what will be done?"

That was just like Anna. Helen would have been cool as a cuc.u.mber. Done?

Why, John had already saved him. The ice, not much thicker than a shilling, and breaking whenever touched, hardly impeded him at all. Bill and Tod knelt down and lent hands, and they were landed like a couple of drowned rats, Charley howling with all his might. John, always thoughtful, wrapped his great-coat round the lad, and the other two went off with him to the house.

John caught a cold. Not very much of one. He was hot, you see, when he plunged in; and he had only his jacket to put on over his wet clothes to walk home in. Not much of a cold, I say; but he never seemed to be quite the same after that day: and when all was over they would date his illness back from it. Old Featherstone physicked him; and the days pa.s.sed on.

"I can't think why John should be so feverish," Lady Whitney would remark. His hands would be hot, and his cheeks scarlet, and he did not eat. Featherstone failed to alter the state of things; so one day Sir John took him into Worcester to Mr. Carden.

Mr. Carden did not seem to think much of it--as we heard over at d.y.k.e Manor. There was nothing wrong with the lungs or any other vital part.

He changed the medicine that Featherstone had been giving, and said he saw no present reason why John should not go back to school. Sir John, standing by in his old spectacles, listening and looking, caught up the words "at present" and asked Mr. Carden whether he had any particular meaning in saying it. But Mr. Carden would not say. Sending his pleasant blue eyes straight into Sir John's, he a.s.sured him that he did not antic.i.p.ate mischief, or see reason to fear it. He thought, he hoped, that, once John was back with his studies and his companions, he would recover tone and be as well as ever.

And Mr. Carden's physic did good; for when Whitney came back after the holidays, he seemed himself again. Lady Whitney gave five hundred directions to Mrs. Frost about the extras he was to eat and drink, Hall being had in to a.s.sist at the conference. The rest of us rather wished for fevers ourselves, if they entailed beaten-up eggs and wine and jelly between meals. He did his lessons; and he came out in the playground, though he did not often join in play, especially rough play: and he went for walks with us or stayed in as inclination led him, for he was allowed liberty in all things. By Easter he had grown thinner and weaker: and yet there was no specific disease. Mr. Carden came over to Whitney Hall and brought Dr. Hastings, and they could not discover any: but they said he was not strong and wanted care. It was left to John to decide whether he would go back to school after Easter, or not: and he said he should like to go. And so the weeks went on again.

We could not see any change at all in him. It was too gradual, I suppose. He seemed very quiet, strangely thoughtful always, as though he were inwardly puzzling over some knotty question hard to solve. Any quarrel or fight would put him out beyond belief: he'd come up with his gentle voice, and stretch out his hands to part the disputants, and did not rest until he had made peace. Wolfe Barrington, with one of his sneers, said Whitney's nerves were out of joint. Once or twice we saw him reading a pocket-Bible. It's quite true. And there was something in his calm face and in his blue-grey eyes that hushed those who would have ridiculed.

"I say, Whitney, have you heard?" I asked. "The Doctor means to have the playground enlarged for next half. Part of the field is to be taken in."

"Does he?" returned Whitney. It was the twenty-ninth of May, and a half-holiday. The rest had gone in for Hare-and-Hounds. I stayed with Whitney, because he'd be dull alone. We were leaning over the playground gate.

"Blair let it out this morning at mathematics. By the way, Whitney, you did not come in to them."

"I did not feel quite up to mathematics to-day, Johnny."