The Frances Hodgson Burnett MEGAPACK ®. Frances Hodgson Burnett
regular tiger-cat. She’d tear things to pieces when she got mad,—and she was mad all the time. Had a baby just like her,—yell day ’n’ night! An’ if I didn’t have to ’tend it! an’ when it screamed, she’d fire things at me. She fired a plate at me one day, an’ hit the baby—cut its chin. Doctor said he’d carry the mark till he died. A nice mother she was! Crackey! but didn’t we have a time—Ben ’n’ mehself ’n’ the young un. She was mad at Ben because he didn’t make money faster; ’n’ at last he went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch. An’ hadn’t been gone a week ’fore one night, I got home from sellin’ my papers, ’n’ the rooms wus locked up ’n’ empty, ’n’ the woman o’ the house, she told me Minna’d gone—shown a clean pair o’ heels. Some un else said she’d gone across the water to be nuss to a lady as had a little baby, too. Never heard a word of her since—nuther has Ben. If I’d ha’ bin him, I wouldn’t ha’ fretted a bit—’n’ I guess he didn’t. But he thought a heap o’ her at the start. Tell you, he was spoons on her. She was a daisy-lookin’ gal, too, when she was dressed up ’n’ not mad. She’d big black eyes ’n’ black hair down to her knees; she’d make it into a rope as big as your arm, and twist it ’round ’n’ ’round her head; ’n’ I tell you her eyes’d snap! Folks used to say she was part Itali-un—said her mother or father’d come from there, ’n’ it made her queer. I tell ye, she was one of ’em—she was!”
He often told Mr. Hobbs stories of her and of his brother Ben, who, since his going out West, had written once or twice to Dick.
Ben’s luck had not been good, and he had wandered from place to place; but at last he had settled on a ranch in California, where he was at work at the time when Dick became acquainted with Mr. Hobbs.
“That gal,” said Dick one day, “she took all the grit out o’ him. I couldn’t help feelin’ sorry for him sometimes.”
They were sitting in the store door-way together, and Mr. Hobbs was filling his pipe.
“He oughtn’t to ’ve married,” he said solemnly, as he rose to get a match. “Women—I never could see any use in ’em myself.”
As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the counter.
“Why!” he said, “if here isn’t a letter! I didn’t see it before. The postman must have laid it down when I wasn’t noticin’, or the newspaper slipped over it.”
He picked it up and looked at it carefully.
“It’s from him!” he exclaimed. “That’s the very one it’s from!”
He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.
“I wonder what news there is this time,” he said.
And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:
“DORINCOURT CASTLE
‘My dear Mr. Hobbs
“I write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to tell you i know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend when i tel you. It is all a mistake and i am not a lord and i shall not have to be an earl there is a lady whitch was marid to my uncle bevis who is dead and she has a little boy and he is lord fauntleroy becaus that is the way it is in England the earls eldest sons little boy is the earl if every body else is dead i mean if his farther and grandfarther are dead my grandfarther is not dead but my uncle bevis is and so his boy is lord Fauntleroy and i am not becaus my papa was the youngest son and my name is Cedric Errol like it was when i was in New York and all the things will belong to the other boy i thought at first i should have to give him my pony and cart but my grandfarther says i need not my grandfarther is very sorry and i think he does not like the lady but preaps he thinks dearest and i are sorry because i shall not be an earl i would like to be an earl now better than i thout i would at first becaus this is a beautifle castle and i like every body so and when you are rich you can do so many things i am not rich now becaus when your papa is only the youngest son he is not very rich i am going to learn to work so that i can take care of dearest i have been asking Wilkins about grooming horses preaps i might be a groom or a coachman. The lady brought her little boy to the castle and my grandfarther and Mr. Havisham talked to her i think she was angry she talked loud and my grandfarther was angry too i never saw him angry before i wish it did not make them all mad i thort i would tell you and Dick right away becaus you would be intrusted so no more at present with love from
“your old frend
“CEDRIC ERROL (Not lord Fauntleroy).”
Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, his pen-knife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope.
“Well!” he ejaculated, “I am jiggered!”
He was so dumfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had always been his habit to say, “I will be jiggered,” but this time he said, “I am jiggered.” Perhaps he really was jiggered. There is no knowing.
“Well,” said Dick, “the whole thing’s bust up, hasn’t it?”
“Bust!” said Mr. Hobbs. “It’s my opinion it’s a put-up job o’ the British ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he’s an American. They’ve had a spite agin us ever since the Revolution, an’ they’re takin’ it out on him. I told you he wasn’t safe, an’ see what’s happened! Like as not, the whole gover’ment’s got together to rob him of his lawful ownin’s.”
He was very much agitated. He had not approved of the change in his young friend’s circumstances at first, but lately he had become more reconciled to it, and after the receipt of Cedric’s letter he had perhaps even felt some secret pride in his young friend’s magnificence. He might not have a good opinion of earls, but he knew that even in America money was considered rather an agreeable thing, and if all the wealth and grandeur were to go with the title, it must be rather hard to lose it.
“They’re trying to rob him!” he said, “that’s what they’re doing, and folks that have money ought to look after him.”
And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, and when that young man left, he went with him to the corner of the street; and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time, staring at the “To Let,” and smoking his pipe, in much disturbance of mind.
CHAPTER XII
A very few days after the dinner party at the Castle, almost everybody in England who read the newspapers at all knew the romantic story of what had happened at Dorincourt. It made a very interesting story when it was told with all the details. There was the little American boy who had been brought to England to be Lord Fauntleroy, and who was said to be so fine and handsome a little fellow, and to have already made people fond of him; there was the old Earl, his grandfather, who was so proud of his heir; there was the pretty young mother who had never been forgiven for marrying Captain Errol; and there was the strange marriage of Bevis, the dead Lord Fauntleroy, and the strange wife, of whom no one knew anything, suddenly appearing with her son, and saying that he was the real Lord Fauntleroy and must have his rights. All these things were talked about and written about, and caused a tremendous sensation. And then there came the rumor that the Earl of Dorincourt was not satisfied with the turn affairs had taken, and would perhaps contest the claim by law, and the matter might end with a wonderful trial.
There never had been such excitement before in the county in which Erleboro was situated. On market-days, people stood in groups and talked and wondered what would be done; the farmers’ wives invited one another to tea that they might tell one another all they had heard and all they thought and all they thought other people thought. They related wonderful anecdotes about the Earl’s rage and his determination not to acknowledge the new Lord Fauntleroy, and his hatred of the woman who was the claimant’s mother. But, of course, it was Mrs. Dibble who could tell the most, and who was more in demand than ever.
“An’ a bad lookout it is,” she said. “An’