The Boots at the Holgtree Inn.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 283, 3 July 1873, Page 7

The Boots at the Holgtree Inn.

[by chakles dickens.] Where had he been in his time ? he repeated when I asked him the question. Lord, he had everywhere ! And what had he been? Bless you, he had been anything you could mention a' most. Seen a great deal ? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could assure me, if I only knew about the twentieth part of what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn't seen, then wba£ he had. Ah ! A deal it would. What was the curiosest thing he had seen ? Well ! He didn't know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiosest thing he had seen — unless it was a unicorn — and he had seen him once, at a fair. But, supposing a young gentleman, not eight years old yet, was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start ? Certainly ! Then, that was a start as he himself bad had his blessed eyes on — and he had cleaned the shoes they run in — and they were so little that he could not get his hands into 'em. Master Harry Walmer's father, you see he lived at the Elmses, down by Shooter's Hill, six or seven miles from Lunnun. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you might call fire about him. He wrote poetry, as he rode, and he ran, and he danced, and he acted ; and he done all equally beautiful. He was uncommonly proud of Master Harry, as he was his only child ; but he didn't spoil him, neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of bis own, and that would be minded Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say My Name is Norval ; or hearing him sing his song about Bound May Moons in Beaming Love; and When he as Adores Thee has Left but the Name, and that ; still kept the command over the child, the child was a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em was ! How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being undergardener. Of course he couldn't be under-gardener and always about in the summer time, near the window on the lawn, a mowing, and sweepini!, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family. Even supposing Master Harry hadn't come to him one morning early, and said, " Cobbe, how would you spell Norah, if you .were asked ? " and then began cutting it in print all over the fence. He couldn't say he had taken any particular notice of the children before that ; but really it was pretty to see them two mites going about the place together deep in love. And the courage of the boy ! Bless your soul, he'd have thrown off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a lion, he would if they had happened to meet one, and she had been frightened of him. One day, he stops along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says — speaking up : "Cobb," says he, "I like you." " Do you, sir ? I am proud to hear it." " Yes, I do, Cobba. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs ?" " Don't know, Master Harry, I am sure." "Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." " Indeed, sir ? That is very gratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions of the brightest diamonds to be like Norah." " Certainly, sir." "You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes. sir." "Would you like another situation, Cobbs ?" " Well, I wouldn't object, if it was a good'un." " Then Cobbs," says he, " you shall be our head gardener when we are married." And he tucks her in, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. Boots could assure me that it was better than a picture and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about tbe garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion, that the birds believed that they were birds, and kept up with 'em. Sometimes they crept under the tulip tree, and sat there with their arms around one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the prince and the dragon, and the good and the bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes you would hear them planning about having a house in the forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once he came upon them by a pond, and heard Master Harry say, " Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I'll jump in head foremost." And Boots made no question he would have done it if she hadn't complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself — only he didn't exactly know who with. • ." Cobbs," said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the flowers, " I am going on a visit, this present midsummer, to my grandmamma's at York." "Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a nice time. lam going to Yorkshire myself, when I leave here,"

"Are you going to your grandmother, Cobbs ?" '' No. I havn't got such a thing." " Not as grandmother, Cobbs ? " •' No, sir." The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers a little while, and then said, " I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs — Norah is going." " You'll be all right then, sir," said Cobbs, " with your beautiful sweetheart by your side." "Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing, "I never let any one joke about it, when I can prevent them." " It wasn't a joke, sir," said Cobbs, with humility, " it wasn't so meant." " I am glad of that, Cobbs. because I like you, you know, and you are going to live with vs — Cobbs." " Sir." "What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there? " "I couldn't as much as make a guess, sir." "A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." "Whew!" said Cobbs, "that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry." "A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that. Couldn't a person, Cobbs ? " " I believe you, sir ! " " Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house they had been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs ! " "Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human nature." The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few moments with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with " Good night, Cobbs, I'm going in." If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was going to leave the place just at the present time, well he couldn't rightly answer me. He did suppose that he might have stayed there till now, if he had been any way inclined. But, you see, he was younger and wanted — change. Mr. Walmers said to him, when he gave him notice of his intention to lenvo, " Cobbs," he says, " have you anything to complain of? I make this enquiry, because if I find that any of my people have really anything to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can. " No, sir," said Cobbs, " thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sittiwated here as I could hope to bo anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I am going to seek my fortin." 0 indeed, Cobbs ! " lie says, "I hope you may find it." And Boots could assure me — which he did, touching his hair with his bootjack, as a salule in the way of his present calling — that he hadn't fouud it yet. Well, sir, Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry he went down to the old lady's j at York, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had any.), she was so wrapped up in him. What does that infant do — for infant you may call him and be within the mark — but cut away from the old lady's with bis Norah, on an. expedition to go to Gretna G-reen and be married ! Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several times to better himself, but always came back through one thing or another), when one summer's afternoon the coach drives up, and out gets these two little children. The guard said to the governor, " I don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words were, that they were to be brought here." The young gentleman gets out, hands his lady out, gives the guard something for himself and says to our governor : " We're to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bed-rooms will be required. Chops and cherry pudding for two V and tucks her, in her little sky blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than brass. Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was when those two tiny creatures marched into Angel ; much more so when he who had seen them, without their seeing him, gave the governor his views of the expedition they were upon. "Cobbs," says the governor, " if this is so I must set off myself to York and quiet th^ir friends' minds. In which case you must keep your eyes upon 'em till I come back. But, before I take these measures, Cobbs, 1 should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinions are correct.' " Sir, try you," says Cobbs, " that shall be done directly." Boots goes up stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on an enormous sofa — immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him — a dr - ing of the eyes of Miss Norah with h s pocket-handchers Their little legs were entirely off the ground, of course, and it is really not possible for Boots to express to me how small those children looked. " It's Cobbs ! it's Cobbs !" cries Master Harry, and comes running to him, and catches hold of him by the hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t'other side, and catching hold of his t'other hand they both jump for joy. "I see you are a getting out, sir," says Cobbs. " I thought it was you. I thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure, What's the

object in your journey, sir ? Matrimonial?" " Wo are going to be married, Cobbs at Gretna Green," responded the boy. "We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs ; but she'll be happy now, we have found you to be our friend." "Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss." says Cobbs, " for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir ? " If I believe Boots when he gave me his word of honor upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight pepperrnent drops, and a hair-brusb, — seemingly a doll's. The gentleman had got about balf-a-dozen yards of string, 'a knife, three or four sheets of writing paper, folded up surprisingly small, an orange, and a chancy mug with his name upon it. " What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir? " bays Cobbs. "To go on," replied the boy — which the courage of the boy was something wonderful — " in the morning, and be married to-morrow." " Just so, sir," said Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you ? " When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out " Yes ! " " Well, sir, said Cobbs, " if you wili excuse me having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this : I'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a phaeton that T could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr. (myself driving, if you approved) to the end of your journey in a short space of time. lam not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty tomorrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify, because I'm part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over." Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands and jumped for joy again, and called him " Good Cobbs " and " Dear Cobbs," and bent across him, to kiss one another in their confiding hearts, he felt the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that was ever born. " Is there anything you want just at present, sir ? " says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. " We should like some cakes after dinner," answered Master Plarry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking strait at him, " and two apples — and jam. With dinner we should like to have some toast and water. But Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I." "It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs : and away he went. Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking, as he had then, that he would rather have it out in a half a dozen rounds with the governor than have combined with him ; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, asitcouldn't be, he went into the governor's plans, and governor set off for York in half an hour. The way in which the women in that house, without exception, every one of 'cm — married and single — took to the boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as I could do to keep 'em from clashing into the loom and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They were seven deep at the ke-yhole. They were out of their mind about him and his bold spirit. In the evening, Boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was at the window-seat supporting the lady on his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. " Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, fatigued, sir ?" says Cobbs. " Yes, she is tired, Cobbs ; but she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again, Cobbs. Do you think you could bring a biffin, please ?" " I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. " What was it you ?" " I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them." Boots withdrew in search of the needed restorative, and when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep and rather cross, " What should you think, sir," says Cobbs, "of a chamber candlestick. The gentleman approvod ; the chambermaid went first up the great staircase ; the lady in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots safely locked him up. Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteuess what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, aud toast and currant jelly, over night), about the pony. It really was as much as he could do (he don't mind confessing to

me) to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on lying like a Trojan about the pony. He told them that it did so unfort'nately happen that the pony was half-clipped you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in such a state for fear it should strike to his inside. But that he'd be finished and clipped in the course of the day. and that to-morrow at eight o'clock the phaeton would be ready. Boots' view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is that Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it's getting in her eyes put her out. But nothing put out Master Plarry. He sat behind his breakfast cup, a tearing away at the jelly as if he had been his own father. After breakfast, Boots is inclined to I consider that they drawed soldiers — at least, he knows that many such were found in the fireplace, all on horseback. In the course of the morning Master Harry rang the bell — it was surprising how that there boj did carry on — and said in a sprightly way, " Cobbs, are there any good walks in this neighborhood ? " "Yes, sir," said Cobbs. "There's Love Lane." " G-et out with you, Cobbs ! "—that was the boy's expression— " you're surely joking." " Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, " there really is Love Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior." " Norah, dear," said Master Harry, " this is curious. We really ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bounet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with Cobbs." Boots leaves me to judge what a beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, as they all three joggedalong together, they had made up their minds to give him two* thousand guineas a year as head gardener, on account of his being so true a friend to them. Boots could have wished at that moment the earth could have opened and swallowed him up ; he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as best he could, and took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, getting out a water-lily for her — but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they were tired out. All being new and strange to them they was tired as ti ted to lid be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. Boots don't know — perhaps I do — but never mind, it don't signify either way — why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself, to see them two pretty babies a-lying there in the clear sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep as they do when they are awake. But, Lord ! when you come to think of yourself, you know, what a game you have been up to for ever since you was in your own cradle, and what poor sort of chap you are, and how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and never today, and that's where it is ! "Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to Boots, viz., that Mrs. Harry Walmer's temper was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said, "he teased her so;" and when he says, " Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry teases' you ? " she tells him, "Yes; and I want to go home." A boiled fowl, and a baked breadand butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up a little ; but Boots, could have wished, he must privately own to be, to have seen her more sensible of the voice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currents. However, Master Harry, he kept up, and his noble, heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walruers went off to bed as per yesterday, and Master Harry ditto repeated. About eleven or twelve at night, comes back the governor in a chaise along with Mr. Walmers and an elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our misses, " We are much indebted to you, ma'am for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray, ma'am, were is my boy ? " Our misses says, " Cobbs has your dear boy in charge, sir. Cobba, show forty ! " Then, he says to Cobbs, " Ah, Cobbs, lam glad to see you. I understood you was here." And Cobbs says, "Yes, sir, your most obidend, sir" I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps ; but Boots assures me that his heart boat like a banamer. going up stairs. " I beg your pardou, sir," says ho, while unlocking the door; " I hope you are not angry with Master Harry, for he is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honor." And Boots signifies to me that if the fine boy's father had contradicted him, in the daring state mind in which he then was, he thinks he should h.ive " fetched him a crack," and take the consequence. But Mr. Walmer only says, " No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you." And the door being oponed, .goes in.

Bunts g'ts in, too, holding the light, J and lie sees Mr. Walmera go up to the i bfdside, and bend gently down and kiss the little sleeping face. Then 1-e s amis looking at it a minute — looking womli-rfully like it (they do say ho ran away with Mrs. Walmera) : and ho gently shakes the little shoulder. " Harry, my dear boy ! Harry !" Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs, too. Such is the honor of that mite, then he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble. "I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dresa yourself and come home." " Yes, pa." Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast began to swell when he had nearly finished, and it swelled more and more as he stands at last looking at his father a looking at him, the quiet image of him. " Please, may I" — the spirit of that little creature, and the way ho keeps his rising tears down !—"! — " Please, dear pa — may I — kiss Norah before I go ?" " You may, my child." So he takes Master Harry by the hand, and Boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to the other bedroom ; where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor Mrs. Harry Walmers is fast asleep. There, the father lifts the child upon the pillow, and he lays his face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, and gently draws it to him — a sight so touching to the chamber-maids who were peering through the door, that one of them called out, " It' 3 a shame to part 'em !" But this chamber-maid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it. Finally Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, that nevor was to be (she married a (aptain long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In conclusion, Boots put it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions : firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent of guilt as those two children ; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to get married, if they could only be stopped in time and brought back separately.