by Frances
Hodgson Burnett
He was thinking uneasily about this as he talked to Mrs. Errol until the
child came into the room. When the door opened, he actually hesitated a moment
before looking at Cedric. It would, perhaps, have seemed very queer to a great
many people who knew him, if they could have known the curious sensations that
passed through Mr. Havisham when he looked down at the boy, who ran into his
mother's arms. He experienced a revulsion of feeling which was quite exciting.
He recognized in an instant that here was one of the finest and handsomest
little fellows he had ever seen.
His beauty was something unusual. He had a
strong, lithe, graceful little body and a manly little face; he held his
childish head up, and carried himself with a brave air; he was so like his
father that it was really startling; he had his father's golden hair and his
mother's brown eyes, but there was nothing sorrowful or timid in them. They
were innocently fearless eyes; he looked as if he had never feared or doubted
anything in his life.
"He is the best-bred-looking and
handsomest little fellow I ever saw," was what Mr. Havisham thought. What
he said aloud was simply, "And so this is little Lord Fauntleroy."
And, after this, the more he saw of little
Lord Fauntleroy, the more of a surprise he found him. He knew very little about
children, though he had seen plenty of them in England--fine, handsome, rosy
girls and boys, who were strictly taken care of by their tutors and
governesses, and who were sometimes shy, and sometimes a trifle boisterous, but
never very interesting to a ceremonious, rigid old lawyer. Perhaps his personal
interest in little Lord Fauntleroy's fortunes made him notice Ceddie more than
he had noticed other children; but, however that was, he certainly found
himself noticing him a great deal.
Cedric did not know he was being
observed, and he only behaved himself in his ordinary manner. He shook hands
with Mr. Havisham in his friendly way when they were introduced to each other,
and he answered all his questions with the unhesitating readiness with which he
answered Mr. Hobbs. He was neither shy nor bold, and when Mr. Havisham was
talking to his mother, the lawyer noticed that he listened to the conversation
with as much interest as if he had been quite grown up.
"He seems to be a very mature
little fellow," Mr. Havisham said to the mother.
"I think he is, in some
things," she answered. "He has always been very quick to learn, and
he has lived a great deal with grownup people. He has a funny little habit of
using long words and expressions he has read in books, or has heard others use,
but he is very fond of childish play. I think he is rather clever, but he is a
very boyish little boy, sometimes."
The next time Mr. Havisham met him, he saw
that this last was quite true. As his coupe turned the corner, he caught sight
of a group of small boys, who were evidently much excited. Two of them were
about to run a race, and one of them was his young lordship, and he was
shouting and making as much noise as the noisiest of his companions. He stood
side by side with another boy, one little red leg advanced a step.
"One, to make ready!" yelled the
starter. "Two, to be steady. Three--and away!"
Mr. Havisham found himself leaning out of
the window of his coupe with a curious feeling of interest. He really never
remembered having seen anything quite like the way in which his lordship's
lordly little red legs flew up behind his knickerbockers and tore over the
ground as he shot out in the race at the signal word. He shut his small hands
and set his face against the wind; his bright hair streamed out behind.
"Hooray, Ced Errol!"
all the boys shouted, dancing and shrieking with excitement. "Hooray,
Billy Williams! Hooray, Ceddie! Hooray, Billy! Hooray! 'Ray! 'Ray!"
"I really believe he is going to
win," said Mr. Havisham. The way in which the red legs flew and flashed up
and down, the shrieks of the boys, the wild efforts of Billy Williams, whose
brown legs were not to be despised, as they followed closely in the rear of the
red legs, made him feel some excitement. "I really--I really can't help
hoping he will win!" he said, with an apologetic sort of cough. At that
moment, the wildest yell of all went up from the dancing, hopping boys. With one
last frantic leap the future Earl of Dorincourt had reached the lamp-post at
the end of the block and touched it, just two seconds before Billy Williams
flung himself at it, panting.
"Three cheers for Ceddie
Errol!" yelled the little boys. "Hooray for Ceddie Errol!"
Mr. Havisham drew his head in at the window
of his coupe and leaned back with a dry smile.
"Bravo, Lord
Fauntleroy!" he said.
As his carriage stopped before the door of
Mrs. Errol's house, the victor and the vanquished were coming toward it,
attended by the clamouring crew. Cedric walked by Billy Williams and was
speaking to him. His elated little face was very red, his curls clung to his
hot, moist forehead, his hands were in his pockets.
"You see," he was saying,
evidently with the intention of making defeat easy for his unsuccessful rival,
"I guess I won because my legs are a little longer than yours. I guess
that was it. You see, I'm three days older than you, and that gives me a
'vantage. I'm three days older."
And this view of the case seemed to cheer
Billy Williams so much that he began to smile on the world again, and felt able
to swagger a little, almost as if he had won the race instead of losing it.
Somehow, Ceddie Errol had a way of making people feel comfortable. Even in the
first flush of his triumphs, he remembered that the person who was beaten might
not feel so gay as he did, and might like to think that he might have
been the winner under different circumstances.
That morning Mr. Havisham had quite a long
conversation with the winner of the race--a conversation which made him smile
his dry smile, and rub his chin with his bony hand several times.
Mrs. Errol had been called out of the
parlor, and the lawyer and Cedric were left together. At first Mr. Havisham
wondered what he should say to his small companion. He had an idea that perhaps
it would be best to say several things which might prepare Cedric for meeting
his grandfather, and, perhaps, for the great change that was to come to him. He
could see that Cedric had not the least idea of the sort of thing he was to see
when he reached
Mr. Havisham sat in an arm-chair on one
side of the open window; on the other side was another still larger chair, and
Cedric sat in that and looked at Mr. Havisham. He sat well back in the depths
of his big seat, his curly head against the cushioned back, his legs crossed,
and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, in a quite Mr. Hobbs-like way. He
had been watching Mr. Havisham very steadily when his mamma had been in the
room, and after she was gone he still looked at him in respectful thoughtfulness.
There was a short silence after Mrs. Errol went out, and Cedric seemed to be
studying Mr. Havisham, and Mr. Havisham was certainly studying Cedric. He could
not make up his mind as to what an elderly gentleman should say to a little boy
who won races, and wore short knickerbockers and red stockings on legs which
were not long enough to hang over a big chair when he sat well back in it.
But Cedric relieved him by suddenly
beginning the conversation himself.
"Do you know," he said,
"I don't know what an earl is?"
"Don't you?" said Mr.
Havisham.
"No," replied Ceddie.
"And I think when a boy is going to be one, he ought to know. Don't
you?"
"Well--yes," answered Mr.
Havisham.
"Would you mind,"
said Ceddie respectfully--"would you mind 'splaining it to me?"
(Sometimes when he used his long words he did not pronounce them quite
correctly.) "What made him an earl?"
"A king or queen, in the first
place," said Mr. Havisham. "Generally, he is made an earl because he
has done some service to his sovereign, or some great deed."
"Oh!" said Cedric;
"that's like the President."
"Is it?" said Mr. Havisham.
"Is that why your presidents are elected?"
"Yes," answered Ceddie
cheerfully. "When a man is very good and knows a great deal, he is elected
president. They have torch-light processions and bands, and everybody makes
speeches. I used to think I might perhaps be a president, but I never thought
of being an earl. I didn't know about earls," he said, rather hastily,
lest Mr. Havisham might feel it impolite in him not to have wished to be
one,--"if I'd known about them, I dare say I should have thought I should
like to be one"
"It is rather different from being
a president," said Mr. Havisham.
"Is it?" asked Cedric.
"How? Are there no torch-light processions?"
Mr. Havisham crossed his own legs and put
the tips of his fingers carefully together. He thought perhaps the time had
come to explain matters rather more clearly.
"An earl is--is a very important
person," he began.
"So is a president!" put in
Ceddie. "The torch-light processions are five miles long, and they shoot
up rockets, and the band plays! Mr. Hobbs took me to see them."
"An earl," Mr. Havisham went
on, feeling rather uncertain of his ground, "is frequently of very ancient
lineage----"
"What's that?" asked Ceddie.
"Of very old family--extremely
old."
"Ah!" said Cedric,
thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets. "I suppose that is the way
with the apple-woman near the park. I dare say she is of ancient lin-lenage.
She is so old it would surprise you how she can stand up. She's a hundred, I
should think, and yet she is out there when it rains, even. I'm sorry for her,
and so are the other boys. Billy Williams once had nearly a dollar, and I asked
him to buy five cents' worth of apples from her every day until he had spent it
all. That made twenty days, and he grew tired of apples after a week; but
then--it was quite fortunate--a gentleman gave me fifty cents and I bought
apples from her instead. You feel sorry for any one that's so poor and has such
ancient lin-lenage. She says hers has gone into her bones and the rain makes it
worse."
Mr. Havisham felt rather at a loss as he
looked at his companion's innocent, serious little face.
"I am afraid you did not quite
understand me," he explained. "When I said `ancient lineage' I did
not mean old age; I meant that the name of such a family has been known in the
world a long time; perhaps for hundreds of years persons bearing that name have
been known and spoken of in the history of their country."
"Like George Washington," said
Ceddie. "I've heard of him ever since I was born, and he was known about,
long before that. Mr. Hobbs says he will never be forgotten. That's because of
the Declaration of Independence, you know, and the Fourth of July. You see, he
was a very brave man."
"The first Earl of Dorincourt,"
said Mr. Havisham solemnly, "was created an earl four hundred years
ago."
"Well, well!" said
Ceddie. "That was a long time ago! Did you tell Dearest that? It would
int'rust her very much. We'll tell her when she comes in. She always likes to
hear cur'us things. What else does an earl do besides being created?"
"A great many of them have helped
to govern
"I should like to do that
myself," said Cedric. "My papa was a soldier, and he was a very brave
man--as brave as George Washington. Perhaps that was because he would have been
an earl if he hadn't died. I am glad earls are brave. That's a great
'vantage--to be a brave man. Once I used to be rather afraid of things--in the
dark, you know; but when I thought about the soldiers in the Revolution and
George Washington--it cured me."
"There is another
advantage in being an earl, sometimes," said Mr. Havisham slowly, and he
fixed his shrewd eyes on the little boy with a rather curious expression.
"Some earls have a great deal of money."
He was curious because he wondered if his
young friend knew what the power of money was.
"That's a good thing to
have," said Ceddie innocently. "I wish I had a great deal of
money."
"Do you?" said Mr. Havisham.
"And why?"
"Well," explained Cedric,
"there are so many things a person can do with money. You see, there's the
apple-woman. If I were very rich I should buy her a little tent to put her
stall in, and a little stove, and then I should give her a dollar every morning
it rained, so that she could afford to stay at home. And then--oh! I'd give her
a shawl. And, you see, her bones wouldn't feel so badly. Her bones are not like
our bones; they hurt her when she moves. It's very painful when your bones hurt
you. If I were rich enough to do all those things for her, I guess her bones
would be all right."
"Ahem!" said Mr. Havisham.
"And what else would you do if you were rich?"
"Oh! I'd do a great many things. Of
course I should buy Dearest all sorts of beautiful things, needle-books and
fans and gold thimbles and rings, and an encyclopaedia, and a carriage, so that
she needn't have to wait for the street-cars. If she liked pink silk dresses, I
should buy her some, but she likes black best. But I'd, take her to the big
stores, and tell her to look 'round and choose for herself. And then Dick
"
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