Quicksilver Part 54

The doctor looked at the tutor, and the tutor looked at the doctor, as if he considered that this was impertinence.

"I am very sorry--very sorry indeed, Dexter," said the doctor. "There, sir, you can go now. I will have a talk to Mr Limpney. We must see if we cannot bring you to a better frame of mind."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

DEXTER'S DUMB FRIENDS.

Dexter went out into the hall feeling exceedingly miserable, for he had left the occupants of the study talking about him, and, as the saying goes, it made his ears burn. "I couldn't help it," he said dolefully: "I did try. I'll go and tell Miss Grayson all about it, and ask her to take my part."

He went into the drawing-room, but Helen was not there, so he ran upstairs, and was in the act of tapping at her bedroom door, when Maria came out of another room.

It was a curious fact, but there it was: Dexter always had the effect upon Maria that a dog has upon a cat. The dog may be of the most amiable disposition, and without the slightest desire to fight or worry, but as soon as he is seen, up goes the cat's back in an arch, the tail becomes plumose and the fur horrent, while, with dilated eyes and displayed teeth glistening, puss indulges in the bad language peculiar to cats.

Maria being of a different physique did not display these signs of aggression exactly, but she invariably became vicious and metaphysically showed her teeth.

"It's of no use your knocking there, Master Dexter. Miss Helen isn't at home, and I'm quite sure if she was that she wouldn't approve of your trapesing up out of the garden in your muddy and dirty shoes. I've got enough to do here without cleaning up after you."

"But I haven't been in the garden, Maria," said Dexter, apologetically.

"I have just come out of the study."

"Don't I tell you she ain't at home," said Maria spitefully.

"Do you know when she will be back!"

"No, I don't," said Maria, and then sarcastically: "I beg your pardon, _sir_--no I don't, _sir_."

Maria went along the pa.s.sage like a roaring wind, she made so much noise with her skirts, and then hurried downstairs, as if in great haste to get hold of a door that she could bang; and as soon as she did reach one, she made so much use of her opportunity that a picture in the hall was blown sidewise, and began swinging to and fro like a great square pendulum.

Dexter sighed, and felt very miserable as he stole downstairs again, and past the study door, where the murmur of voices talking, as he knew, about him made him shiver.

He was obliged to pa.s.s that door to get his cap, and then he had to pa.s.s it again to get to the garden door.

Mr Limpney was talking, and Mr Limpney, being accustomed to lecture and teach, spoke very loudly, so that Dexter heard him say--

"I must have more authority, sir, and--"

Dexter heard no more, for he fled into the garden, but he knew that having authority meant the same as it meant with Mr Sibery, and it sounded like going backwards.

He felt more miserable as he went out into the garden.

"n.o.body hardly seems to like me, or care for me here," he said dolefully; and, led by his inclination, he began to make his way down the long green path toward the river, half fancying that Bob Dimsted might be fishing.

But before he had gone far he saw Dan'l, who was busy doing up a bed, and his appearance seemed to be the signal for the old man to put down his tools and take out his great pruning-knife, as if he meant mischief, but only to stoop from time to time to cut off a dead flower as an excuse, so it seemed, for following Dexter wherever he went.

It was impossible to go about the garden under these circ.u.mstances, so Dexter went down a little way, pa.s.sed round a large _Wellingtonia_, and walked slowly back toward the house, but, instead of entering, went by the open window of the study, where the voice of Mr Limpney could still be heard talking loudly, and, as it seemed to the listening boy, breathing out threatenings against his peace of mind. The voice sounded so loud as he went by that he half-expected to hear himself called in, and in great dread he hurried on by the conservatory, and round the house to the old stable-yard.

As he reached this he could hear a peculiar hissing noise--that which Peter always made when he was washing the carriage, or the horses'

legs--to blow away the dust, so he said.

For a moment Dexter felt disposed to go into the new stable and talk to Peter, but the opportunity was not tempting, and, hurrying on, the boy reached the old buildings, looked round for a moment, and, thus satisfied that he was not observed, he made a spring up to a little old window, caught the sill, scrambled up directly, and, pa.s.sing through, disappeared inside.

He uttered a sigh as of relief, and crossing the damp stones of the gloomy old place he reached a crazy flight of steps, which led up to a loft, on either side of which were openings, through which, when the stable had been in use, it had been customary to thrust down the stored-up hay.

Dexter stopped here in the darkness for a few minutes listening, but no one was following him, and he walked along to a second ladder which led to a trap-door through which he pa.s.sed, closed the trap, and then, in the long roof a place greatly resembling in shape the triangle over whose problem of squares he had that day stumbled, he seemed once more himself.

His first act was to run quietly along some boards laid over the loft ceiling, and, making a jump that would not have disgraced an acrobat, he caught at a rope, pendent from the highest portion of the rafters, twisted his legs about it, and swung easily to and fro.

The motion seemed to give him the greatest satisfaction, and as the impetus given died out, he dropped one foot, and with a few vigorous thrusts set himself going again till he was tired.

But that was not very soon, and he did not leave off till there were sundry scratchings and squeakings, which drew his attention to his pets, all of which were eager for food.

They were a heterogeneous collection, but, for the most part, exceedingly tame, and ready to allow themselves to be handled, constant familiarity with the gentle hand so often thrust into their boxes or cages having robbed it of its terrors.

Dexter's happiest moments were pa.s.sed here, saving those which Helen continued to make pleasant to the boy; and as soon as his pets had drawn his attention, he took off his jacket and vest, rolled up his sleeves, and began to attend to their wants.

His rabbits--two which he had bought through Bob Dimsted, who made a profit of a hundred per cent, by the transaction--were lifted out of the packing-case they occupied, and in which they were kept by the lid being closed within half an inch, by their pink ears, and immediately stood up on their hind-legs, with drooping fore-paws, their pink noses twitching as they smelt their owner's legs, till he gave them a couple of red carrots, a portion of Dan'l's last year's store.

The next to be taken out was a hedgehog, a prize of his own discovering, and captured one day asleep and tightly rolled up beneath one of the Portugal laurels.

The minute before its box was open, the hedgehog was actively perambulating its dark prison, but the moment it was touched it became a ball, in which form it was rolled out on to the rough floor close to a flower-pot saucer of bread and milk, smuggled up directly after breakfast each morning.

Next came the large grey rat, captured originally in the steel trap, and whose first act might have been antic.i.p.ated. It did not resent its owner's handling; but the moment it was set down it darted under the loose boards, and remained there until tempted forth by the smell of the bread and milk, and a tempting piece of candle-end, the former of which it helped the hedgehog to eat.

The mice, which lived in the old cigar-box--not white mice, nor those furry little sleepers given to hiding away in nooks and corners for elongated naps, but the regular grey cheese-nibblers--next, after a good deal of scratching, took Dexter's attention. As soon as the lid was open, and the boy's hand thrust in, they ran up his fingers, and then along his arm to his shoulder, wonderfully active and enterprising with their sharp little noses, one even venturing right up the boy's head after a pause by one ear, as if it looked like the cavernous entrance to some extremely snug hiding-place.

"Quiet! Don't tickle," cried Dexter, as he gently put up one hand for the mouse to run upon; and every movement was made so gently that the little creatures were not alarmed, but rested gently upon the boy's hand, as he lifted them down to where he had placed some sc.r.a.ps of cheese and a biscuit, all articles of provender being derived from the stores situated in his trousers-pockets, and that of his jacket.

The list was not yet complete, for an old wire trap had been turned into a cage, and here dwelt Dexter's greatest favourite--about the shabbiest-looking squirrel that ever exhibited bare patches upon its skin, and a tail from which the plume-like hair had departed.

It cost five shillings, all the same, at a little broker's shop down in the most poverty-stricken part of Coleby. It had been bought by the broker at a sale in company with a parrot, a c.o.c.katoo, and a canary, all being the property of a lady lately deceased. The canary died before he reached home, and the parrot and c.o.c.katoo, on the strength of being able to screech and say a few words, soon found owners, but the squirrel, being shabby-looking, hung on hand, or rather outside the little shop, in a canary's cage, to which it had been promoted after its own revolving wire home had been sold, the purchaser declining to buy the squirrel because he was so shabby.

The poor little brute did not improve afterwards, for he rubbed the hair off his face by constantly trying to get through either the seed or water hole, and every time he--for the sake of exercise--whisked round the cage, it was to the disadvantage of his tail, which daily grew more and more like that of Dexter's rat.

This little unfortunate might have been bought for a shilling by such a boy as Bob Dimsted, but the superfine broadcloth of Dexter's jacket and trousers sent it up to five, and pocket-money had to be saved for weeks before it finally came into the boy's possession, to be watched with the greatest attention to see if its hair would grow.

The squirrel's nose was thrust between the bars of the old wire rat-trap, and when this was not the case, the active little animal performed a kind of evolution suggestive of its trying to make the letters SS in its prison, as skaters contrive them upon the ice, till the wire door was open, and with one bound it was upon its owner's shoulder, then up in the rafters, along one beam and down another, till the first wild excitement of freedom was over, when it dropped upon the floor, and began to forage for food.

Dexter was so truly happy among his little subjects that he sat down upon the edge of an old box, forgetful of other claimants while he attended to the wants of these, calling them by endearing names, giving the rabbits oats from his pockets, a handful of which grain came now and then from Peter.

The boy had intuitively discovered the way to tame his various pets.

Fear will accomplish a great deal with dumb animals, but the real secret of winning their confidence is quietness, the art of never alarming them, but by perfectly pa.s.sive behaviour, and the most gentle of movements, accustom the timid creatures to our presence. The rest was merely habituating them to the fact that their owner was the sole source from which food was to be obtained.

No one told Dexter all this; he learned it in his solitary communings with the animal world. For somehow it seems to be the law of nature that every moving thing goes about in dread of losing its life from something else which either preys upon or persecutes it. The house-sparrow, the most domestic of wild birds, gives a look-out for squalls between every peck, but it will soon learn to distinguish the person who does not molest and who feeds it, even to coming at his call, while fish, those most cold-blooded of creatures, which in an ordinary way go off like a silver flash at the sight of a shadow, will grow so familiar that they will rise to the surface and touch the white finger-tips placed level with the water.

So Dexter sat smiling and almost without movement among his subjects, with the rabbits begging, the mice coming and going, now feeding and now taking a friendly walk up his legs and about his chest, and the squirrel bounding to him from time to time after nuts, which were carried up to the beam overhead, and there rasped through with its keen teeth, the rat the while watching it from the floor till furnished with another nut, as it had pounced upon one the squirrel dropped.