FROM HALL TO COTTAGE.

FOUR years at a great public school had taught me to think and plan for myself in many of the lesser matters of daily life, and encouraged in me a spirit of independence. I had been sent there almost immediately after my mother's death, my father having decided that Jack would be miserable at Lint Hall all by himself—that is, with no one but him.

"I shall have no heart to entertain company, even were it fitting for gaiety to shoulder out sorrow; and if the lad had young companions here, the sound of their voices would make me miserable. If there had been more children, they might have cheered each other, and roused me in time; as it is, I shall be better alone, and Jack far happier at school," was my father's decision.

It was the best for me, no doubt; and though I did not forget my mother, there was nothing around me, as there would have been at home, to keep the knowledge of my loss constantly before me. When the holidays came, I was more frequently with the Burfords than at Lint Hall, and my father had become so absorbed in the speculations which led to his ruin, that he did not miss or want me. I was too young to be made a confidant of, and, except for occasional hints of greater wealth in prospect, I was told nothing.

All these things combined to foster a self-reliant spirit, and before Mr. Burford asked what I should do in the meanwhile, I was prepared with an answer which surprised him not a little. It was a written calculation, and though not put down in a very methodical way, was eminently satisfactory to myself:—

"Available capital to last twenty-six weeks, £12, 10s. Owing at Rugby, 10s. Half-year's interest, cousin Dorothy, £1, 2s. 6d. Deduct these, and I have £10, 17s. 6d. left to call my own."

This sum I allotted as follows:—Lodgings, £3, 5s.; food and all other expenses, £7, 12s. 6d.

As Mr. Burford ran his eye over the paper, I said—

"I shall be able to live, even if I get nothing to do, but I hope to earn something beside. I am resolved not to be idle, but will try to go on improving myself, or at least keep up what I have learned."

"My dear lad, what decent lodgings could you get for half-a-crown a week?" asked the lawyer.

"A clean little bedroom all to myself at Jabez Harwood's. Old Jabez made my first kite, and taught me how to fly it. I have gone in and out of his little place ever since I can remember. His wife Betsy told me, when I was at home last holidays, that she wanted another lodger to pay half-a-crown a week for her parlour. She had one for a year, a youth rather older than myself, who was booking-clerk at the station. She was glad he was going to a better post, because he was steady and a good son who did with less himself that he might help his widowed mother, but she was very sorry to lose him and the regular weekly half-crown, which was of great use to her. Jabez is only a labourer, and has never been equal to full work since his accident."

"I remember; the old man was driving Farmer Whitehead's trap home for him, and the horse bolted. He was thrown out and badly shaken and bruised. But Betsy could get working-men lodgers who would pay her half-a-crown a week. Her cottage is no fit place for you, Jack."

"Betsy says that, seeing she would have to do for whoever lives under her roof, she would prefer being servant to a gentleman, because she finds such-like the easiest to please. She will be very good to me, I am sure, and the terms and place are in accordance with my means. I shall be able to pay my way and live. Betsy told me how she used to contrive for her former lodger. He had vegetables from the cottage garden, and she marketed for him, and washed and mended his clothes. She kept account of all she spent; and a very funny way she had of doing it, but it was easy to understand. And I found that, beside the half-crown for lodgings, the clerk's other expenses averaged five-and-threepence per week. I shall have rather over sevenpence left for pocket-money."

Mr. Burford gave a groan as he listened, and was far more moved at the prospect before me than I was—outwardly at any rate. I purposely spoke in a business-like, matter-of-fact way, the better to conceal the heart-sinking of which I was profoundly conscious, in spite of my brave front.

"It will never do, Jack. I could not bear to think of your father's son reduced to such shifts and living under a thatched roof."

"The roof is sound and weather-proof," I replied. "Besides, I shall be on the ground-floor. The old folks sleep in the large chamber that runs over the house-place and the parlour. Jabez is a first-rate thatcher, and takes care to have a dry shelter."

"You will need clothes and more pocket-money. You must not be so proud, my boy, but let me be your banker until you have begun to climb the ladder of prosperity," said Mr. Burford.

"I have plenty of clothes to serve me for years," I answered, quite determined to make them do.

"You will grow out of them, Jack."

"Not for some time, Mr. Burford."

I gave a gulp before I could add, "If I do, there are some of my father's. You told me you had arranged for me to have them. And there are my mother's watch and a few ornaments that are really mine, you know, though I never mean to part with them if I can help it."

"What will you let me do for you, Jack?"

"If you could speak for me to some one who wants a—" Here I hesitated. What could I say? What was I fit for? The thought crossed my mind that there were scores of lads, brought up in cottage homes, whose qualifications for immediate employment were far superior to mine. My writing, for instance, though legible enough, was far from good, and had always an untidy look with it. I am by no means sure that I did not consider it almost vulgar to write a good hand.

It was all very well for clerks, and tradesmen, but not for the heir of Lint Hall.

"A what? Tell me, Jack. There is nothing I will not do for you, if I can," replied Mr. Burford.

"I mean, that I want work of some kind. Oh, Mr. Burford! Am I fit for any place, do you think?"

"I would offer to take you into my office, but there are reasons why I am just now unable to do this."

"Mrs. Burford again," thought I. "The office is too near the house; and this time the lady has been consulted before the husband ventured to do what was in his heart."

"Thank you all the same," I said, "but I would rather be somewhere else if possible. I wonder if I could get such a place on the railway as the Harwoods' lodger had. It does not seem to want a very clever person to give out tickets."

"If you would take a post of the kind, I think I could get one for you; perhaps the very same which that youth filled. His successor has not turned out well, and is about to leave. It is singular that I heard this to-day. I will use my interest for you, Jack, and have little doubt of success."

Mr. Burford's face brightened, and my heart felt all the lighter as I retired to prepare for my change of residence.

That night saw me installed as Jabez Harwood's lodger and the occupant of the little parlour which was to serve as sitting-room and bedroom, though I was to take my meals in the house-place. This was a good-sized, cheerful apartment, opening into the garden, and kept in a state of spotless cleanliness by the neat hands of Betsy.

Clothes-washing and dish-washing were done in winter-time beneath a lean-to shed at the end of the cottage, in summer, on a wide wooden bench by the hedge-side, as being cooler and more airy than the tiny shed.

There was an outer door to the parlour, but it was always fastened and nearly hidden by the end of the bed which was placed against it. The rude staircase was between the two apartments, but all corners entered by the house-place, and passed through it to the parlour or the room above, as the case might be.

My room had a good-sized window looking into the garden, and a smaller, containing only four panes, at the end, overlooking a pretty lane. One pane swung on hinges and would open, so good ventilation was secured by its means.

The cottage was one of the oldest on the Lint Hall estate, and a favourite plan of mine had been to persuade my father to pull it down and build Jabez a new house on the site of it. I had ventured to name the subject, and been told to wait a while, but in such a kindly way that I felt sure the new dwelling would be built some time, when those dreams of increased wealth became realities.

I told Jabez this, and was a little pained to find that he did not share my enthusiasm, but said, "The old place will serve my time, Master John. I've lived here so many years that I seem to know every straw in the thatch and every twig in the hedge. I hardly think I should sit down comfortable in any chimney-corner but this, even if it were a better one."

In my secret heart I then resolved that whenever I became master of Lint Hall, I should let the old man have the cottage rent free; just as though it were likely that the old man would be living after my father, a man barely forty, and with every prospect of long life, was gone.

And now here was I a lodger in this poor cottage, my father newly laid in the family vault, and Lint Hall the property of Lawyer Burford, on whose interest I was depending for a situation as ticket-clerk at a country railway station.

I did wonder a little that there was such a scanty following at my father's funeral. Surely his old neighbours might have shown him this last mark of respect, despite his fallen fortunes! And they might have extended kind hands and said a word of sympathy to a lonely lad who had lost father, mother, and all.

Mr. Burford enlightened me as to the cause of their absence.

"Some of them have lost money through your father; not by lending, but he was so enthusiastic, so certain of gaining largely by his ventures, that they listened to his hopeful words and followed his example, though only in a small way. They cannot forgive him for having been mistaken and misled, though his ruin proves how entirely he was himself deceived."

"But I never did anything, and they used to be so kind to me," said I.

Mr. Burford did not answer. He only shrugged his shoulders and looked meaningly.

I think I understood for myself, when I remembered that the children must, to a great extent, reap what their fathers have sown. Besides, had not Mrs. Burford been worse than any one else because she had professed so much affection for me? I was the same Jack Simpson, but I was no longer heir to the Lint Hall estates. Truly, not only are the sins, but the misfortunes, of the fathers visited upon the children. I could not meet one of those whom I had been used to look upon as a friend without having this truth brought painfully home.

Mr. Burford proved the single exception amongst the elders. He could not do all to serve me that his kind heart prompted, for his wife held him back on the one hand, and I refused his offers on the other. He did, however, obtain for me the post of booking-clerk, with a salary of eight shillings a week to begin at. My joy on hearing of this appointment was in proportion to my previous anxiety about employment.

It had been such a long drop from Lint Hall to Jabez Harwood's cottage, that anything in the shape of an upward step, cheered me beyond description.

The duties that I was expected to perform, though considered worth only a small salary, were not exactly light. The working-hours were long, and began at ten minutes before six in the morning, the sliding-panel in the booking-office being finally closed at half-past eight at night. To be there in time, I must rise at five, summer and winter. And though there were intervals for meals, and I had exercise enough during the day, I had to be within reach, as it were, more than fourteen hours out of the twenty-four.

"You must mind what you are about when you are taking money," said the station-master. "It seems a small matter to give out tickets, receive payment, and hand the change, but you need to have your wits about you, and to reckon quickly as well as correctly. If you take bad money, you have to make it good out of your wages. If you give too much change, your pocket must supply the deficiency. Your cash must balance to a fraction, remember; so give your whole mind to what you are about, or you will pay forfeit for carelessness. I have gone through all this myself; ay, and gone short of a dinner when I was a lad, because the price of it must be put into the till to make up a deficiency that I could not explain to myself, much less to any one else."

I thanked Mr. Edelston, the station-master, and felt the value of his advice. I was a fairly ready reckoner, but at first I had to find out the amount of each fare, as well as to calculate what change would be needed. With a moderate allowance of time this would have been easy enough. But when people were rushing in, several at once, as was the case on market-days, dreading the being too late, too impatient to wait until the previous comer was served, and stretching across to shout various requests all at the same time, it was bewildering enough to confuse more experienced heads than mine.

"Take time to be correct, and resolutely serve one at once," said Mr. Edelston. "If some are left, it will be their own fault, not yours, for they will pour in at the last moment."

This was true enough, but, boy as I was, I knew how hard many of the labouring people had to work, how precious were the minutes to them, and how difficult it was to set home in order and arrange all for the family, before the house-mother could leave them with a mind at rest. I could not look at the hot, red faces, on which stood great beads of perspiration, which the bearers of heavy bundles or baskets had not time to wipe away, without feeling unwilling to cause needless trouble by any act of mine.

"I am only a booking-clerk, but I will be the smartest on the line," I resolved; and I succeeded. I studied names of places, fares, distances, timetables—everything, in short, that would enable me to give a prompt answer to every probable question. The travelling public reaped the first benefit of my painstaking, but in the long-run, my own work was lightened and time saved by it.

I also overheard remarks which proved that my endeavour to do my duties in the best possible way, was appreciated by the poorer travellers. Nearly all of these who lived within a few miles of Lint Hall knew me, and many amongst them looked the sympathy they did not venture to put into words. It gratified my family pride, too, when I heard a speech like this, addressed by one cottager's wife to another who was perplexed about something—

"Ax young Mr. Simpson. He'll tell you in a minute. He has it all at his tongue-end, and it's a civil, kindly tongue, too. No fear of him 'saucing' you for axing a question that young men are put there to answer and won't trouble to do it in a general way; or if they do, are just fit to snap one's head off. No, no. He's a well-bred 'un, is young Mr. Simpson, and the gentleman shows his true sort wherever you put him. We might all be ladies, the way he speaks to us."

Such words, and others of a like kind, though not meant for my ear, lingered very pleasantly in my memory, and cheered me on from day to day. It was much to feel that my efforts were not in vain, and that to the poor folk, at any rate, Jack Simpson was as truly a gentleman as when they deemed him heir to Lint Hall and its broad acres.

I had more substantial marks of goodwill from the old tenants, both farmers and cottagers. Sometimes they came in the shape of a little basket of fruit, half-a-dozen fresh eggs, half-a-pound of butter between two cool cabbage-leaves, or garden produce, often far more than I could consume unassisted, and always the best of its kind.

I have had a couple of big rosy apples pushed in at the booking-office window, as the giver put in her hand to take the ticket. Then, towards Christmas-time, when pig-killing was going on, I had to ask my kind friends to stay their hands, for mince-pies, sausages, and other seasonable dainties came from all quarters, and far beyond my power to dispose of, even when assisted by Jabez and his good wife. Moreover, I was always "young Mr. Simpson," whilst the station-master was "Edelston" to his neighbours, he having been one of themselves, and not the son of a gentleman.