Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/202

 6, 1864.] “Do I pain you, my little man?” said Mr. Carlton, as he touched the knee.

“No, sir. This soldier won’t stand,” he added, holding one out to Mr. Carlton, with the freedom of childhood.

“Won’t it? Let me see what’s the matter. The foot wants cutting level. There,” he continued, after shaving it with his penknife, “it will stand now.”

The boy was enraptured; it had been a defaulting soldier, given to tumble over from the commencement; and the extraordinary delight that suddenly beamed forth from his eyes, sent a thrill through the senses of the surgeon. But for the woman over-looking him, he could have bent his searching gaze into those eyes for the next half hour, and never have removed it.

“He seems a quiet little fellow.”

“Indeed, then, he was a regular little tartar till this illness came on,” was Mrs. Smith’s reply. “A great deal too fond of showing that he had a will of his own. This has tamed his spirit down. Could you form any idea, sir, what can have brought it on? I’m certain that he never had a fall, or any other hurt.”

“It is a disease that arises from weakness of constitution as well as from injury,” replied Mr. Carlton. “Do you purpose residing permanently at South Wennock?”

“That’s how far I may feel inclined, sir,” she answered civilly. “I am not tied to any spot.”

Mr. Carlton, after a few professional directions, took his departure. As he turned from the lane into the high road, so absorbed was he in thought, that he did not notice the swift passing of Mr. John Grey in his gig, until the latter called out to him. The groom pulled up, and Mr. Carlton advanced to the gig. There was not much private intimacy between the surgeons, but they often met professionally.

“Lycett is with Knagg’s wife,” began Mr. Grey, stooping from his gig to say what he had to say. “By what I hear, it appears not unlikely to be a difficult case; if so, he may want your assistance. Shall you be in the way?”

“Yes. Or if I go out, I’ll leave word where I may be found.”

“That’s all right, then,” returned Mr. Grey, signing to his groom to go on. “I am called in haste to a shocking accident, five miles away; some men burnt by an explosion of gunpowder. Good morning.”

The gig sped on; and Mr. Carlton went towards South Wennock, nearly oblivious to all things, save one; and that was the face of the little boy.

must have been a remarkable child, judging by its face, for the hold it seemed to take upon people and the consternation it caused was something amazing.

On the afternoon of the above day, it chanced that Lady Jane Chesney and her sister Laura were taking a quiet walk together, an unusual circumstance. Their course led down Blister Lane, for Jane wished to leave a book at the door of one of her pensioners; and in passing the gate of Topper’s cottage, they saw a little boy seated in the garden in a child’s chair, some toys lying in his pinafore. His head had fallen back and his hands had dropped; he had sunk into a doze.

His face was full in their view; Lady Laura’s glance fell upon it, and she halted.

“Good Heavens!” she uttered, “what an extraordinary likeness!”

“Likeness,” repeated Jane. “Likeness to whom? He looks very pale and sickly. I wonder who they are? Judith said the cottage was let.”

“I never saw such a likeness in my life,” resumed Lady Laura, quite devouring the face with her eyes. “Don’t you see it, Jane?”

“I do not perceive a likeness to anyone. To whom do you allude?”

“Then if you don’t see it, I will not tell you,” was the answer: “but it is certainly plain enough.”

They were about to walk on, when a voice was heard inside the cottage, “Lewis!”

“Listen,” whispered Laura, pulling her sister back.

“Lewis! why, you’ve never gone and dropped off again. Now I won’t have you do it, for you know that if you sleep so much in the day, you can’t sleep at night. Come! wake up.”

The speaker came forth from the door: a hard-featured woman in a widow’s cap. She noted the ladies standing there.

“The little boy appears ill,” remarked Lady Jane.

“He is very poorly, ma'am,” was the answer. “He will go to sleep in the afternoon, and then there’s good-bye to sleep for the night; and I want to break him of it.”

“Invalids are generally drowsy in an afternoon, especially if their night’s rest is broken. You are strangers, here, I think,” added Lady Jane.

“Yes. I’ve brought him, hoping the country air will do him good. Come, Lewis, wake up,” she said, tapping the boy on the arm. “Why, there’s all your soldiers running away!”