Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/261

. 22, 1863.] months before, that I was weary and almost sick of the subject, and almost wished myself back in my original unnoticed stumpiness. But time ran on, and I ran on with time. I saw the world from a different point of view, at a new level. I could look over my mother’s head, and on to shelves which before required me to mount a chair to see. I could take down books without using a ladder, and could conveniently pick cherries from standards by craning up on tip toes.

It happened by an unfortunate coincidence, that whilst I continued to rise, consols drooped, and persisted in looking down. My father was at that time a Bull, and became disturbed accordingly. A good-natured man in the main, but irritable under vexations; and when anxious he was also petulant; and in that state of mind, he always expected my mother (that gentle-hearted mender of stockings and hemmer of dusters) to do every disagreeable act, see all disagreeable people, and perform impossibilities.

There had been some bad news about Tahiti or Owhyhee. The Minister from Venezuela to the former island, had absented himself from a semi-official entertainment given by the Minister of Foreign Relations; and people on the Stock Exchange looked grave, and it was said in Hercules Passage that the conspicuous absence of the Venezuelan Minister had “a certain political significance,” and would possibly lead “to grave dynastic complications.” The instant Consols heard this rumour, they got timid; and sank, sank, sank, about the same as if London had been on fire, or the Dutch were reported to be marching on Paris.

On the morning in question, I being by last measurement six feet one inch and a half in height, we had had a gloomy breakfast. Then the newspaper came and was read in silence. My father made the tea, and both my mother and myself waited in vain for a second cup, and did not dare to ask for it. Whilst my father was still staring at “City Intelligence,” and Reuters Telegrams, a look passed between my mother and myself, which said plainly:

“News comes worse from Owhyhee. Perhaps the Venezuelan Minister at Tahiti has demanded his passports.”

Ah! those domestic pauses are often very sad; often forebode bad weather in a house. My mother fell gently into a review of her past life, and tried to recall some circumstance in which she had failed to do her duty, or in which she might have acted better. But her conscience, even when invited to accusations, could find no greater dereliction than in her having once mislaid and lost a duster which she had half hemmed. For myself, I was thinking how jolly everything seemed when I was short. And as I mused, I worked up a bit of bread crumb into a ball, tighter and tighter; and screwed it round in the palm of my hand harder and harder, till my unconscious animation woke the paternal observation. Consols were indeed again down,—an eighth lower. That fall had made the world dark for my father. Throwing down the paper with a stern look at my mother, as if it had been her duty to prop up the public funds, and she had neglected to do so; he said “Mary!”—it was always a bad sign when he called her by that name,—“Mary, that boy of yours continues to grow. You’ll have to put a atop to that I can tell you!” My poor mother cast a beseeching look towards me. I felt it, and made myself as short as I could. My father then strode out of the room, and I regret to add that we who were left, spent a few minutes in sobbing.

But not even paternal severity, or political fracas in Tahiti, had any effect in stopping my growth. Grow I must, and grow I did. When the New Year came round, came with it the measuring process. Again, with dejection, I approached the fatal door of my father’s den, whilst he, with severe determination (Consols were still sensitive, though the Venezuelan Minister had returned to his post), stood on a chair, which my mother steadied with both hands, and recorded my height at six feet four inches. A few friends came in the evening, but nothing could get up our spirits. I knew that my black trousers were fearfully short, and I could not move my arms,—because it was only by one attitude that I could keep my coat cuffs from riding up to my elbows. My father’s glance at me that night was at an angle of forty-five degrees, and was one of contempt mingled with indignation. My mother had to go upstairs twice whilst we were dancing, and have a good cry.

That was last Christmas. What is to be the end of it all, I really don’t know. I am writing from my attics in an Oxford College, where I have matriculated—happy that I had not to patriculate. I write home regularly every fortnight; and if I innocently convey the impression in my letter, that I am, if anything, a trifle shorter than I used to be, it is an excusable deception of mine, hardly to be named a fault: but I cannot conceal the fact that I have grown half an inch in the six weeks I have been up, which time will reveal to my parents, to whom I must shortly return, for the Long is approaching. I am hardened now to all the tenth-rate jokes repeated for the tenth time about the “extreme high church,” and the like. What I suffer more from is perpetual headache, for my garret is low, and I strike my head at least once a day against a beam which crosses it. Mr. Editor, I appeal to you! Do you, from your own experience or otherwise, know of any infallible remedy for growth? Has Holloway advertised any case of an extraordinary cure of tallness by the use of his ointment or his pills? Would it do me any good to go to Malvern and be rubbed, or are there any baths in Germany which have a shrinking effect on the human body? I am as thin as a lath. If you can give any help, you will shed a ray of light at 73, Prospect Place, and confer a lasting obligation upon a constant reader. If from my great elevation I cannot avoid at times overlooking my friends, I, at least, never fail to look over your pages.

attention appears to be at last directed towards the consideration of the best means for extending the supply of fish to our markets, and as everybody, whether well-informed on the