Roundabout Papers | Page 9

children, and going to
part from them. Perhaps I have tried parting with my own, and not
found the business very pleasant. Perhaps I recollect driving down
(with a certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to
the end of the avenue, where we waited--only a few minutes--until the
whirring wheels of that "Defiance" coach were heard rolling towards us
as certain as death. Twang goes the horn; up goes the trunk; down
come the steps. Bah! I see the autumn evening: I hear the wheels now: I
smart the cruel smart again: and, boy or man, have never been able to
bear the sight of people parting from their children.
I thought these little men might be going to school for the first time in
their lives; and mamma might be taking them to the doctor, and would
leave them with many fond charges, and little wistful secrets of love,
bidding the elder to protect his younger brother, and the younger to be
gentle, and to remember to pray to God always for his mother, who
would pray for her boy too. Our party made friends with these young
ones during the little journey; but the poor lady was too sad to talk
except to the boys now and again, and sat in her corner, pale, and
silently looking at them.
The next day, we saw the lady and her maid driving in the direction of
the railway-station, WITHOUT THE BOYS. The parting had taken
place, then. That night they would sleep among strangers. The little
beds at home were vacant, and poor mother might go and look at them.
Well, tears flow, and friends part, and mothers pray every night all over
the world. I dare say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the
vast shattered walls and quaint gables; and the Neckar running its
bright course through that charming scene of peace and beauty; and ate
our dinner, and drank our wine with relish. The poor mother would eat
but little Abendessen that night; and, as for the children--that first night
at school--hard bed, hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing,
and jarring you with their hateful merriment--as for the first night at a
strange school, we most of us remember what THAT is. And the first is

not the WORST, my boys, there's the rub. But each man has his share
of troubles, and, I suppose, you must have yours.
From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden: and, I dare say, saw
Madame de Schlangenbad and Madame de la Cruchecassee, and Count
Punter, and honest Captain Blackball. And whom should we see in the
evening, but our two little boys, walking on each side of a fierce,
yellow- faced, bearded man! We wanted to renew our acquaintance
with them, and they were coming forward quite pleased to greet us. But
the father pulled back one of the little men by his paletot, gave a grim
scowl, and walked away. I can see the children now looking rather
frightened away from us and up into the father's face, or the cruel
uncle's--which was he? I think he was the father. So this was the end of
them. Not school, as I at first had imagined. The mother was gone, who
had given them the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the
shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender--tender cares; and
they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante.
Ah! this is worse than school. Poor little men! poor mother sitting by
the vacant little beds! We saw the children once or twice after, always
in Scowler's company; but we did not dare to give each other any
marks of recognition.
From Baden we went to Basle, and thence to Lucerne, and so over the
St. Gothard into Italy. From Milan we went to Venice; and now comes
the singular part of my story. In Venice there is a little court of which I
forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to buy
some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice.
Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all
three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a
strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the
bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a
great deal of good), whom should I light upon but one of my little
Heidelberg-Baden boys!
I have said how handsomely they were dressed as long as they were
with their mother. When I saw the boy at Venice, who perfectly
recognized me, his only garb was a wretched yellow cotton gown. His
little