Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 35

Carters and ploughmen do not spare their boys; and on a large farm like this they are the immediate rulers, not the master himself. Had d.i.c.k been under Mr. Jacobson's personal eye, perhaps it might have been lightened a little, for he was a humane man. There were three things that made it seem particularly hard for d.i.c.k Mitchel, and those three were under no one's control; his natural weakliness, his living so far from the farm, and its being winter weather. In summer the work is nothing like as hard for the boys; and it was a great pity that d.i.c.k had not first entered on his duties in that season to get inured to them before the winter. Mr. Jacobson gave him the best wages--three shillings a week. Looking at the addition it must have seemed to Mitchel's ten, it was little wonder he had not ceased to pet.i.tion old Jacobson.

The Jacobsons were kind to the boy--as I can affirm. One cold day when I was over there with the nephews, shooting birds, we went into the best kitchen at twelve o'clock for some pea-soup. They were going to carry the basins into the parlour, but we said we'd rather eat it there by the big blazing fire. Mrs. Jacobson came in. I can see her now, with a soft white woollen kerchief thrown over her shoulders to keep out the cold, and her net cap above her silver curls. We were getting our second basinfuls.

"Do have some, aunt," said Fred. "It's the best you ever tasted."

"No, thank you, Fred. I don't care to spoil my dinner."

"It won't spoil ours."

She laughed a little, and stood looking from the window into the fold-yard, saying presently that she feared the frost was going to set in now in earnest, which would not be pleasant for their journey.--For this was the last day of the nephews' stay, and she was going home with them for a week. There had been no very severe cold all the winter; which was a shame because of the skating; if the ponds had a thin coating of ice on them one day, it would all melt the next.

"Bless me! there's that poor child sitting out in the cold! What is he eating?--his dinner?"

Her words made us look from the window. d.i.c.k Mitchel had put himself down by the distant pig-sty, and seemed to be eating something that he held in his hands. He was very white--as might be seen even from where we stood.

"Mary," said she to one of the servants, "go and call that boy in."

Little Mitchel came in; pinched and blue. His clothes were thin, not half warm enough for the weather; an old red woollen comforter was twisted round his neck. He took off his battered drab hat, and put his bread into it.

"Is that your dinner?" asked Mrs. Jacobson.

"Yes'm," said d.i.c.k, pulling the forelock of his light hair.

"But why did you not go home to-day?"

"Mother said there was nothing but bread for dinner to-day, and she give it me to bring away with my breakfast."

"Well, why did you sit out in the cold? You might have gone indoors somewhere to eat it."

"I were tired, 'm," was all d.i.c.k answered.

To look at him, one would say the "tired" state was chronic. He was shivering slightly with the cold; his teeth chattered. Mrs. Jacobson took his hand, and put him to sit on a low wooden stool close to the fire, and gave him a basin of pea-soup.

"Let him have more if he can eat it," she said to Mary when she went away. So the boy for once was well warmed and fed.

Now, it may be thought that Mrs. Jacobson, being a kind old lady, might have told him to come in for some soup every cold day. And perhaps her will was good to do it. But it would never have answered. There were boys on the farm besides d.i.c.k, and no favour could be shown to one more than to another. No, nor to the boys more than to the men. Nor to the men on this farm more than to the men on that. Old Jacobson would have had his brother farmers pulling his ears. Those of you who are acquainted with the subject will know all this.

And there's another thing I had better say. In telling of d.i.c.k Mitchel, it will naturally sound like an exceptional or isolated case, because those who read have their attention directed to this one and not to others. But, in actual fact, d.i.c.k's was only one of a great many; the Jacobsons had employed ploughboys and other boys always; lots of them; some strong and some weak, just as the boys might happen to be. For a young boy to be out with the plough in the cold winter weather, seems nothing to a farmer and a farmer's men: it lies in the common course of events. He has to get through as he best can; he must work to eat; and as a compensating balance there comes the warmth and the easy work of summer. d.i.c.k Mitchel was only one of the race; the carter and ploughman, his masters, had begun life exactly as he had, had gone through the same ordeal, the hardships of a long winter's day and the frost and snow.

d.i.c.k Mitchel was as capable of his duties as many another had been.

d.i.c.k's father had been little and weakly in his boyhood, but he got over that and grew as strong as the rest of them. d.i.c.k might have got over it, too, but for some extraordinary weather that set in.

Mrs. Jacobson had been in Oxfordshire a week when old Jacobson started to fetch her home, intending to stay there two or three days. The weather since she left had been going on in the same stupid way; a thin coating of snow to be seen one day, the green of the fields the next.

But on the morning after old Jacobson started, the frost set in with a vengeance, and we got our skates out. Another day came in, and the Squire declared he had never felt anything to equal the cold. We had not had it as sharp for years: and then, you see, he was too fat to skate.

The best skating was on a pond on old Jacobson's land, which they called the lake from its size.

It was on this second day that I came across d.i.c.k Mitchel. Hastening home from the lake after dark--for we had skated till we couldn't see and then kept on by moonlight--the skates in my hand and all aglow with heat, who should be sitting by the bank on this side the crooked stile instead of getting over it, but little Mitchel. But for the moon shining right on his face, I might have pa.s.sed without seeing him.

"You are taking it airily, young d.i.c.k. Got the gout?"

d.i.c.k just lifted his head and stared a little; but didn't speak.

"Come! Why don't you go home?"

"I'm tired," murmured d.i.c.k. "I'm cold."

"Get up. I'll help you over the stile."

He did as he was bid at once. We had got well on down the lane, and I had my hand on his shoulder to steady him, for his legs seemed to slip about like Punch's in the show, when he turned suddenly back again.

"The harness."

"The what?" I said.

Something seemed the matter with the boy: it was just as if he had partly lost the power of speech, or had been struck stupid. I made out at last that he had left some harness on the ground, which he was ordered to take to the blacksmith's.

"I'll get over for it, d.i.c.k. You stop where you are."

It was lying where he had been sitting; a short strap with a broken buckle. d.i.c.k took it and we went on again.

"Were you asleep, just now, d.i.c.k?"

"No, sir. It were the moon."

"What was the moon?"

"I were looking into it. Mother says G.o.d's all above there: I thought happen I might see Him."

A long explanation for d.i.c.k to-night. The recovery of the strap seemed to have brightened up his intellect.

"You'll never see Him in this world, d.i.c.k. He sees you always."

"And that's what mother says. He sees I can't do more nor my arms'll let me. I'd not like Him to think I can."

"All right, d.i.c.k. You only do your best always; He won't fail to see it."

I had hardly said the last words when down went d.i.c.k without warning, face foremost. Picking him up, I took a look into his eyes by the moonlight.

"What did you do that for, d.i.c.k?"

"I don't know."

"Is it your legs?"

"Yes, it's my legs. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it when I fell under the horses to-day, but Hall he beated of me and said I did."

After that I did not loose him; or I'm sure he would have gone down again. Arrived at his cottage, he was for pa.s.sing it.

"Don't you know your own door, d.i.c.k Mitchel?"