First Love. Mrs. Loudon
sort of travelling tinker, coming up at the moment, and uttering a violent curse, struck her a blow that, poised as she just then was on one foot, brought her to the ground.
During the scuffle which ensued, the poor little sufferer, who had occasioned it all, crept through the hedge of a field by the road side, and hid himself under some bushes. But the woman, soon after pursuing in search of him, jumped the fence, and dropped among the very brambles where he lay. She perceived him instantly, and shook her clenched hand, which so paralysed him, that he did not dare to move, though she for some time delayed seizing him. Finding that the inside of the hedge was covered with clothes for bleaching, she thought it best, the first thing she did, to secure a good bundle of so desirable a booty, and fling it over to her husband. She was just in the act of so doing, when the owner of the linen came into the field, and immediately set up the halloo of “Thieves! thieves!” upon which, dropping what she had collected, and giving up all thoughts of carrying the child with her, she made the best of her way, and disappeared not only from the spot, but from the neighbourhood.
About an hour after, when the poor boy, pressed by hunger, crept from his hiding place, a girl, who was left to watch the clothes, spying him, cried out, “Ha! you little spawn e—the devil! did she leave you to bring her the bundle?” And so saying, she pursued and beat him, till she drove him out of the field, and into the adjoining garden of an old woman, who was standing at the moment with a long pole in her hand, endeavouring to beat down, as well as her failing sight would permit, the few remaining apples from the topmost branches of her single apple-tree: the well laden lower boughs of which had been robbed of their goodly winter store but the preceding night.
On seeing a boy scramble through her hedge, she concluded, of course, that his errand was to possess himself of the said remaining apples, and, accordingly, uttering a yell of execration, she converted her fruit-pole into a weapon defensive and offensive, and hobbling towards the poor child, drove him from her premises; over the boundary of which, long after he had so far escaped, she continued to address to him, at the very top of her voice, every opprobrious epithet of which she was mistress: her shrill tones the while collecting, at the heels of the fugitive, hooting boys, and barking curs innumerable. These, however, did not follow him far; and when they returned to their homes or their sports, he wandered about for the rest of the day, avoiding houses and people, and fearing that every one he met would beat him.
At length, towards evening, he found himself on the borders of the lake of Derwent, and seeing a boat fastened close to the land, he got into it; partly with the idea of hiding himself, and partly with a vague recollection of having often wished to be a sailor-boy, when begging about with his mother in sea-port towns. He rolled himself up in an old cloak which lay under one of the benches, where, exhausted by pain, hunger, and fatigue, he fell asleep.
Shortly after our poor wanderer had chosen this refuge, in stepped Master Henry St. Aubin, whose pleasure-boat it was, to take a sail alone, contrary to reiterated commands, and for no other reason, but because, for fear of accidents, he had been desired never to go without a servant. He pushed from the land, and began to arrange his canvass. He put up his main-sail, which filling immediately, bent his little bark on one side, almost level with the water, and made it fly across the lake in great style. When, however, it got under shade of the high mountains on the Borrowdale coast, the breeze slackened, and he determined to add his mizen and jib; but what was his surprise, when, on attempting to remove the old cloak which lay near them, he discovered within its folds the sleeping boy. Supposing him to be a spy placed there to watch his movements, and report his disobedience, he began to curse and swear, kicked at him under the bench, and ordered him to pack out of his boat instantly. The poor child, but half awake, gazed all round him, got up as well as his bruises would permit, and was about to obey in silence; but, when, he saw how far they were from land, he hesitated; upon which Henry took up a rope’s end, and lashed at him in the manner that sailors call starting, repeating at each stroke, “Jump, spy! jump!”
Driven almost wild with the pain of the blows, the child at last did jump; but, at the same moment, caught instinctively at the side of the boat, to which he hung with both hands, and so kept his head above water. Henry set up a loud laugh, and rowed out, towing him after him. Then, willing to make sport for himself, by terrifying the beggar brat, he attempted to push his fingers off the edge of the boat, but they clung to it with all the tenacity of self preservation; when the one hand was forced for a moment from its hold, the grasp of the other became but the more convulsively strong; and when the second was assailed by the united efforts of both of Henry’s, the first returned to its former position.
At length, tired of the jest himself, Master St. Aubin turned into shallow water, leaped ashore, and suffering the half-drowned child to land as he might, bade him scamper, ere he had well got footing. Then, intent on pursuing his sweet, because forbidden amusement, he stepped back into his boat, which with its white sails, contrasted with the dark woods of the coast it glided silently beneath, soon became as picturesque an object as though the urchin that guided it had been the most noble and adventurous of romantic heroes.
CHAPTER II.
—“And I tremble amid the night.”
About the centre of the entrance of the vale of Borrowdale, conspicuously situated, stands that curious rock, called, by the native Cumbrians, Borrowdale-stane. In form and position it is much like a dismasted and stranded vessel, laying on its keel and leaning a little to one side. On the highest point of this rock, a station well known to the lovers of the sublime, stood a lady wrapped in a warm fur lined cloak. Her air, however, was much too fashionable and modern to harmonize in any degree with the wild desolation of the surrounding region, which, when viewed from the elevated position she thus occupied, as far as the eye could reach, resembled a stormy ocean: its gigantic billows formed by the congregated tops of mountains.
The evening was cold, approaching to frost; and the sun, though still much above the natural horizon, was just sinking from view behind the lofty chain of western hills: his last rays lingered a while on the most prominent parts of each stupendous height, then, gradually retiring, left point after point, which, like so many beacon lights extinguished by an invisible hand, successively disappeared, till all became shrouded alike in cheerless gloom and volumes of mist rolling down the sides of the mountains, a dense fog settled in the valley like a white and waveless lake.
The lady on the rock appeared to deem it time to return home, for, withdrawing her eyes from the distant view, she cast them downward in search of the path by which to descend; when, amid the rocks and huge rough stones which lay scattered beneath like the ruins of a former world, she thought she saw something move, though very slightly. She looked at it for a time; it quitted not the spot where she first descried it; yet, still it certainly did move! She descended, approached, and beheld a poor little boy, who seemed about five or six years old. He was sitting on the ground; the wretched rags, in which he was dressed, were dripping with wet; his poor limbs, which were all bent together, and drawn up close to his face, trembled extremely, while his little hands, with their long emaciated fingers, spread and hooked round his knees, seemed endeavouring to hold them, as though the violence of their motion was becoming too much for his frame to bear.
The lady stood looking down on him for a moment with mingled pity and surprise. He was slowly rocking himself from side to side: it was a movement quite expressive of despondency, his chin rested on the backs of the hands which held his knees, and his eyes wandered hopelessly among the bare stones that lay around him, while his head retained the same fixed position.
“Little boy, look up!” she said, taking one of his cold wet hands in hers. He raised his face; misery was depicted in every feature: his teeth chattered excessively, and his poor eyes, that swam in tears, were now lifted to hers with an expression truly piteous.
“Poor child! come with me,” she said. Something like hope began to dawn on his forlorn countenance; but she finished her sentence, in what she intended for the most comforting manner, by saying, “and I will take you home to your mother.”
He had