John Halifax, Gentleman | Page 6

to pick up for me the large brown
fan of a horse-chestnut leaf.
"It's pretty, isn't it?--only it shows that autumn is come."
"And how shall you live in the winter, when there is no out-of-door
work to be had?"
"I don't know."
The lad's countenance fell, and that hungry, weary look, which had
vanished while we talked, returned more painfully than ever. I
reproached myself for having, under the influence of his merry talk,
temporarily forgotten it.
"Ah!" I cried eagerly, when we left the shade of the Abbey trees, and
crossed the street; "here we are, at home!"
"Are you?" The homeless lad just glanced at it--the flight of spotless
stone-steps, guarded by ponderous railings, which led to my father's
respectable and handsome door. "Good day, then--which means
good-bye."
I started. The word pained me. On my sad, lonely life--brief indeed,

though ill health seemed to have doubled and trebled my sixteen years
into a mournful maturity--this lad's face had come like a flash of
sunshine; a reflection of the merry boyhood, the youth and strength that
never were, never could be, mine. To let it go from me was like going
back into the dark.
"Not good-bye just yet!" said I, trying painfully to disengage myself
from my little carriage and mount the steps. John Halifax came to my
aid.
"Suppose you let me carry you. I could--and--and it would be great fun,
you know."
He tried to turn it into a jest, so as not to hurt me; but the tremble in his
voice was as tender as any woman's--tenderer than any woman's I ever
was used to hear. I put my arms round his neck; he lifted me safely and
carefully, and set me at my own door. Then with another good-bye he
again turned to go.
My heart cried after him with an irrepressible cry. What I said I do not
remember, but it caused him to return.
"Is there anything more I can do for you, sir?"
"Don't call me 'sir'; I am only a boy like yourself. I want you; don't go
yet. Ah! here comes my father!"
John Halifax stood aside, and touched his cap with a respectful
deference, as the old man passed.
"So here thee be--hast thou taken care of my son? Did he give thee thy
groat, my lad?"
We had neither of us once thought of the money.
When I acknowledged this my father laughed, called John an honest
lad, and began searching in his pocket for some larger coin. I ventured
to draw his ear down and whispered something--but I got no answer;

meanwhile, John Halifax for the third time was going away.
"Stop, lad--I forget thy name--here is thy groat, and a shilling added,
for being kind to my son."
"Thank you, but I don't want payment for kindness."
He kept the groat, and put back the shilling into my father's hand.
"Eh!" said the old man, much astonished, "thee'rt an odd lad; but I
can't stay talking with thee. Come in to dinner, Phineas. I say," turning
back to John Halifax with a sudden thought, "art thee hungry?"
"Very hungry." Nature gave way at last, and great tears came into the
poor lad's eyes. "Nearly starving."
"Bless me! then get in, and have thy dinner. But first--" and my
inexorable father held him by the shoulder; "thee art a decent lad,
come of decent parents?"
"Yes," almost indignantly.
"Thee works for thy living?"
"I do, whenever I can get it."
"Thee hast never been in gaol?"
"No!" thundered out the lad, with a furious look. "I don't want your
dinner, sir; I would have stayed, because your son asked me, and he
was civil to me, and I liked him. Now I think I had better go. Good day,
sir."
There is a verse in a very old Book--even in its human histories the
most pathetic of all books--which runs thus:
"And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul,
that the soul of Jonathan was knit unto the soul of David; and Jonathan
loved him as his own soul."

And this day, I, a poorer and more helpless Jonathan, had found my
David.
I caught him by the hand, and would not let him go.
"There, get in, lads--make no more ado," said Abel Fletcher, sharply,
as he disappeared.
So, still holding my David fast, I brought him into my father's house.
CHAPTER II
Dinner was over; my father and I took ours in the large parlour, where
the stiff, high-backed chairs eyed one another in opposite rows across
the wide oaken floor, shiny and hard as marble, and slippery as glass.
Except the table, the sideboard and the cuckoo clock, there was no
other furniture.
I dared not bring