Chapter VI: The Blow Falls

The day after the Admiral's triumph over his fishy tenant he and his sister called a meeting in the morning-room after breakfast. It was an informal meeting, but, as he said that the business to be done was important, the young squire restrained his impatience to go and see the men about rolling the cricket pitch in the park, and waited to hear what his uncle had to say.

'I'm sorry, Frank,' the old man said, 'that you will have to put off "the Magpies" for next week, but I am afraid we can't have any cricket here this August.'

'Why, uncle,' expostulated Frank, 'it is the very best fun we have, and the Magpies are capital good fellows as well as good cricketers.'

'Yes, I know,' replied his uncle gravely, 'but even cricket must give way sometimes, and now it happens that your mother and I are suddenly called away on business, on very important business,' and here he looked sternly at his sister-in-law, who turned her face from the light, and appeared to busy herself with the arrangement of a vase of flowers on the old oak over-mantel.

'But, uncle,' put in Towzer, 'couldn't Frank take care of the Magpies even if you and mother were not here? Of course it would not be half such fun as if you were here to score and Mother to look on, but Humphreys (the butler) would see that the dinners were all right. I'm sure he could,' added the boy more confidently, catching at a sign of approval in his brother's face.

'It wouldn't do, my boy,' asserted Admiral Chris, 'it would not do at all; it would be rude to your guests, you wouldn't be able to manage, and besides,' he added, as if in despair for a convincing argument, 'we might be able to get back, and then neither your mother nor I need miss the match.'

This was quite another story, and so the boys consented, albeit with a very bad grace, to postpone their cricket.

'What I propose now instead of the match,' continued the Admiral, 'is a little travel for you two, and I've asked Snap Hales's uncle to let him go with you. I want you to go off and try a fishing tour in Wales, whilst your mother and I finish our business in London, and then we'll all meet again in a fortnight's time.'

'Bravo, uncle!' cried Frank, 'but what am I to do for a rod?'

'Oh, if yours is broken you had better take mine,' replied the Admiral.

'What, your big Castle Connel? Thank you, sir; it would be as much good to me in such cramped places as you used to tell us about as a clothes-prop!' replied Frank.

'No, not the Castle Connel, the Ogden; I shan't want it, and you will take care of it, I know,' was the unexpected reply.

'Your Ogden, sir!' said Frank; 'why, I thought no one might look at it from less than ten paces.'

'You're an impertinent young monkey, Frank,' laughed the Admiral, 'but still you may have it.'

And so it was settled that the Magpie match should be given up, and Frank and Billy be packed off on a fishing tour in Wales, whilst their mother and the Admiral went up to town and transacted the troublesome business which had had the bad taste to demand their attention during the Midsummer holidays.

A little later in the day a man came up from the village with a note from Mr. Hales for the Admiral. The boys did not see it, but it was understood to contain his consent in writing 'to the proposal that Snap should join the expedition.' For the rest of that day all was excitement and bustling preparations for a start. It seemed almost as if they were preparing for something much more important than a fortnight's trip into Wales. Snap was up at the house all day. That with him was common enough. His own packing had not taken him long. The boy was keener-eyed than his young companions, and, in spite of an apparent roughness, was more sensitive to external influences than either of them. Hence it was perhaps that he noticed what they overlooked; noticed that Mrs. Winthrop's eyes followed her sons about from room to room, that she seemed to dread to lose them from her sight, that the dinner that night was what the boys called a birthday dinner, that is, consisted of all the little dishes of which Mrs. Winthrop knew each boy was specially fond, and what struck him more than anything was that two or three times he was sure her eyes filled with tears at some chance remark of Frank's or Willy's which to him had no sad meaning in it. He was puzzled, and, worse than that, 'depressed.'

The start next morning was even less auspicious than 'packing-day' had been. The midsummer weather seemed to have gone, and the gables of the old house showed through a grey and rainy sky; rain knocked the leaves off the roses, and battered angrily at the window-panes. The pretty Tane was swollen and mud-coloured, and, altogether, leaving home on a fishing trip to Wales felt worse than leaving home the first time for school.

The Admiral had determined on seeing them on their way as far as the county town, and drove to the station with them in the morning. If it had not been so absolutely absurd, Snap would have fancied once or twice that the old gentleman did not like any of the boys to be alone with his neighbours, or even with the servants. It would have been very unlike him if it had been the case, so of course Snap was mistaken.

'Towzer,' asked Frank in a whisper as they drove away, 'what was the Mater crying about?'

The Admiral overheard him, and replied:

'Crying, what nonsense, Frank; your mother was waving good-bye and good riddance to you with that foolish scrap of lace of hers; that's all. Crying, indeed!' and the old seaman snorted indignantly at the idea.

It was all very well for the Admiral to deny the fact, and to go very near to getting angry about it, but Snap at any rate knew that it was a fact, and that Admiral Chris knew it too. It was the first untruth he had ever heard from the upright old gentleman by his side, and Snap's wonder and dislike to this journey grew. As Snap looked back a turn in the road gave him another rain-blurred glimpse of Fairbury, with a little drooping figure which still watched from the Hall steps, and a conviction that something was wrong somewhere forced itself insensibly upon him, though as yet he was not wise enough to guess where the evil threatened.

The rain had an angry sound in it, unlike the merry splash of heavy summer showers: there seemed a sorrow in the sigh of the wind, unlike the scent-laden sigh of summer breezes after rain. Nature looked ugly and unhappy, and the boys were soon glad to curl themselves up in their respective corners of the railway carriage, with their backs resolutely turned upon the rain-blurred panes of the carriage window.

At the station the Admiral had met his favourite aversion, Mr. Crombie. What Mr. Crombie had originally done to offend the Admiral no one knew, but he had done it effectually. Crombie gave Admiral Chris the gout even worse than '47 port or the east wind.

Crombie was on the point of addressing Frank when the Admiral intervened and carried off the boys to get tickets. A little to Frank's surprise, his uncle took third-class tickets, for, although on long journeys the old gentleman invariably practised this wise economy, Frank had been accustomed to hear him say, 'Always take "firsts" on our own line, to support a local institution.'

As the Admiral took his tickets the voice of his persecutor sounded behind him. Crombie had followed his foe.

'What!' he said--and the sneering tone was so marked that it made the boys wince--'an Admiral travelling third!'

'Yes, Sir,' retorted the Admiral fiercely. 'God bless me, you don't mean to say there is a "fourth" on? Only persons who are afraid of being mistaken for their butlers travel first nowadays,' and with an indignant snort the old gentleman squared his shoulders, poked out his chin, and walked down the platform with a regular quarter-deck roll, leaving Mr. Crombie to meditate on what he was pleased to call 'the "side" of them beggarly aristocrats.'

At Glowsbury, the county town for Fairbury, Admiral Chris left the boys, hurrying away with an old crony of his, who, in spite of nods and winks, would blurt out, 'I'm so sorry, Winthrop.' But the Admiral let him get no further. 'Good-bye, lads,' he sang out, and then away he trotted, holding on to his astonished friend, whom he rapidly hustled out of earshot, so that the boys never knew the cause of that old gentleman's sorrow.

It didn't trouble them much either, for, once in Wales, the weather grew fine again--provokingly fine, the boys thought. If ever you go to dear little Wales, O Transatlantic cousin, to see the view, you may bet your bottom dollar that you won't see it. You will be like that other tourist who 'viewed the mist, but missed the view.' If, however, you can jockey the Welsh climate into a belief that you are going there solely for fishing, you may rely on such weather as the Winthrops got, that is to say, clear skies, broiling suns, and tiny silver streams calling out for rain-storms to swell their diminished waters, and crying out in vain. The waters will be clearer than crystal, the fish more shy than a boy of fourteen amongst ladies, and the views perfect. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to jockey anything Welsh: Wales is very unbelieving, and especially does it disbelieve anglers.

The boys opened their campaign on the Welsh borders, fished successfully for samlets--bright, silvery little fellows, which had to be put back--and with a miserable want of success for the brown trout, which they were allowed to keep if they could catch them. Sometimes they walked from point to point, but then they found that their expenses in gingerbeer were almost as great as if they had spent the money in a third-class ticket; once they tried a long run by rail on the--well, I dare not tell you its real name--so I'll say the Grand Old Dawdler's line. They bought third-class tickets, but travelled first, because the line had only three coaches in at that time, and they were all first. Two rustics travelled with them; it was rather a busy day with the Grand Old Dawdler's line. The station-master at the starting-point, who sold them their tickets, went with them as engine-driver and guard, and at each of the little stations which they passed he acted as station-master. This system of centralising all the service in one person had its advantages: there is only one person to tip, and if he is sober the travelling, if slow (say seven miles an hour), is very fairly safe.

Once, and once only, they tried tricycles. Wales is not as level as a billiard-table. Towzer, careless of the picturesque, wished that it was. On tricycles, he explained, if you were not used to them, you could travel on the flat rather faster than you could walk; uphill you had to get off and shove, and downhill you were either run away with, or, if you put on the brake, the tricycle stopped, you didn't--on the contrary, you proceeded upon your journey by a series of gyrations through the air, until suddenly planted on your head in the next county but two. Besides all this it cost more to send back your tricycle by rail than a first-class ticket would have cost, whereas if you didn't send it back you were liable to be tried at the next assizes.

A letter which I insert here, and which Mrs. Winthrop still keeps, for the sake, not of its melodious metre, but for the sake of auld lang syne, will give the reader some idea of the Winthrops' fishing adventures. I am inclined to think that Frank wrote it. Big, strong fellow as he was, he had a habit of constantly writing to the Mater, and I happen to know that Snap was too bad-tempered at that time to write anything. He had passed all that morning in trying to cast on a certain wooded reach. He had caught the grass; he had cracked his line like a coach-whip, and lost a score of flies by so doing; and had at last settled solemnly down to dig up with his penknife a great furze-bush on the bank which appeared to his angry imagination to rise from behind at every fly which he tried to throw.

'Aug. 12, 1874.

'DEAR MATER,---

'Snap Hales arose, from his night's repose,
In the midst of the Cambrian mountains,
Where from cliff and from crag, over peat-moss and hag,
The Tanat shepherds her fountains.

(_Observe here the resemblance to Shelley._)

'He rolled in his tub, and tackled his grub,
He booted and hatted in haste,
Then said, "If you're wishing, boy Bill, to go fishing,
There isn't one moment to waste."

'He strode to the brook, and with lordly look
Quoth, "Now, little fish, if you're in,
Let some grayling or trout just put up his snout
And swallow this minnow of tin."

'As if at his wish, up bounded a fish,
Gave one dubious sniffle or snuff,
Thought 'It's covered with paint, I'll be hooked if it ain't,
And the fellow who made it's a muff."

'Then Harold had tries with all sorts of flies,
Which were brilliant, gigantic, and rare,
But among them were none which resembled a "dun,"
So the fish were content with a stare.

'To a tree by that brook many flies took their hook,
Many more were whipped off in the wind;
One fixed in the nose, several more in the clothes
Of that angler before and behind.

'Then his cast-line broke, and Harold spoke,
Right wrathful words spoke he,
"Very well! you may grin, but I'll just wade in
Where there's neither briar nor tree."

'With naked foot, without stocking or boot,
Right into the stream he strode--
With a splash and a splutter, with a murmur and a mutter,
And he frequently "Ah'd" and "Oh'd."

'Alas, as he tripped his bare feet slipped,
They slipped on those slimy stones,
And down he came (I forget the name
Of the very identical bones

'Upon which he sat); but he'd flies in his hat,
And as he went down the stream
The fish arose, and tugged at his clothes,
Until he began to scream.

'Round his hat's broad brim they began to swim,
And into his face did stare.
His mouth they eyed, they peeped inside,
Much wondering who lived there.

'Their victim cried, "In vain I've tried
To snare these fishes free.
Alas, for my sin, as they've got me in,
I fear they'll swallow me."

'But, "Alack, this Jonah's a fourteen-stoner,"
'Twas thus that the fishes cried.
"If we gape till we split, there will still be a bit
Of the monster left outside."

'So Will landed him safe, our fisherman waif,
In safety he landed him;
With gobble and munch he chawed up his lunch,
He was hungry after his swim.

'He has sworn he will never again endeavour
Those innocent fish to hurt,
For all he can get is thundering wet,
And any amount of dirt.

'Your truthful
'FRANK.'

After this, perhaps, it is not surprising that the boys voted fishing very poor fun, and took to mountaineering instead. They had climbed Cader Idris (a very pretty climb from its more difficult side) and Snowdon, and were resting at a first-rate hotel not far from Snowdon's foot, when they found the following letter on their breakfast-table from the Admiral:--

'DEAR FRANK,--As your mother is not very well, I intend to bring her down to Dolgelly for a few days. Take some nice quiet rooms where we can all be lodged together at less expense than at an hotel.

'Your affect. uncle,
'CHRISTOPHER WINTHROP.

'P.S.--I have some important news to give you, and should like you all to be at home when we arrive by the 12.50 train to-morrow.'

Frank read the letter out to the rest at breakfast, and then laid it quietly down by his plate.

'Snap,' he said, 'there is something wrong at home. I can't make out what the Admiral is always harping on economy for. Surely our mother' (and unconsciously there was a tone of pride in that 'our mother') 'can afford to go to any of these wretched little hotels if she likes. I shan't take rooms. It's all nonsense; I'm not going to have her murdered by Welsh cooks, especially if she is ill.'

No one having any explanation of the Admiral's letter to offer, or any objection to staying where they were, the conversation dropped, but the boys were restless and unhappy until the 12.50 train was clue in.

When that train pulled up with a jerk at the platform the three had already been waiting for it half an hour, for their impatience had made them early, and long habit had made the train late. As soon as they could find their mother and Admiral Chris the boys pounced upon them, and in the first burst of eager welcome the cloud vanished. But it reappeared again before the party reached the hotel, and the Admiral was as nearly angry as he knew how to be on finding that the rooms taken for himself and sister were, as usual, just the best in the hotel.

The dinner was a poor and spiritless affair, and Snap noticed that the old gentleman, instead of lighting a cigar after leaving the table, took at once to a pipe.

'Why, sir,' remonstrated Snap, 'you are false to your principles for the first time in my experience of you; I thought that you always told us that the cigar was a necessary appetiser, to be taken before the solid comfort of the evening pipe.'

'Nonsense, my boy, nonsense, I never said that. A cigar is a poor thing at best. Nothing like a pipe for a sailor,' blurted out the Admiral, looking annoyed at Snap's innocent speech, and glancing nervously in Mrs. Winthrop's direction, while over her sweet face a cloud passed as she too noticed for the first time this little change in her brother-in-law's habits.

Coming up to her eldest boy's chair, and leaning caressingly against him, the little mother turned Frank's head towards her, so that she could look down into his honest blue eyes.

'What is it, little mother; do you want a kiss in public? For shame, dear!' laughed Frank.

'Tell me, Frank,' she said, taking no notice of his chaff, 'do you want very much to go to Oxford?'

'Right away, mother? No, thank you. I am doing very well here.'

'But when you leave Fernhall, Frank?'

'Well, yes, mother! You wouldn't have me go to Cambridge, because, you see, all my own friends are at the Nose,' replied Frank.

'The Nose?' asked Mrs. Winthrop, looking puzzled.

'Brazen Nose, dear, Brazen Nose!--the college, you know, at which Dick and the Rector's son now are.'

'But what should you say, Frank, if you could not go either to Oxford or Cambridge?' persisted his mother.

'Conundrum, mother. I give it up,' answered the boy lazily; 'call me early, dear, to-morrow, and ask me an easier one.'

Poor little lady, the tears came into her eyes as the smile grew in his, and at last Frank saw it. Jumping up and putting his arm round her, he asked:

'Why, mother dear, what is it? I was joking. I'll go anywhere you want.'

'Yes, my boy, I know,' sobbed the little woman, 'but you can't go either to Oxford or Cambridge. There, Chris, tell them the rest,' and, slipping out of Frank's arms, she left the room.

After this beginning the whole story was soon told. The Admiral's pipe had gone out, his collar seemed to be choking him, but, now that he was fairly cornered, he didn't flinch any longer.

'Yes!' he said, 'that is about the truth of it. We are all ruined. Fairbury was sold three days after you left it. That is why we sent you down here. We wanted to spare Frank the wrench, and we didn't want any of you punching the auctioneer's head, or any nonsense of that sort. We have all got to work now, lads, for our living.'

Here the old man rose and put his strong hands on Frank's shoulders, and looked him full in the face.

'With God with them, my boys aren't afraid, are they?'

Frank gripped the old man's hand, and Billy crept up close to him, while Snap, watching from a distance, felt hurt to the heart that he had not lost and was not privileged to suffer with them.

And yet 'Fairbury sold' seemed too much for any of them to realise all at once. Fairbury seemed part and parcel of themselves. It was to them as its shell to an oyster. The Winthrops (the whole race) had been born in it, and it had grown as they grew. After a while Towzer broke the silence.

'Then, uncle, where are we going home to?' he asked.

'Home, my lad! Well, I suppose we must make a new home somewhere. It should not be difficult at our age, should it, Frank?' added the gallant old man, as if he were the youngest of the young as well as the bravest of the brave.

'But, uncle, won't mother's tenants pay their rent?' asked Frank.

'My boy, your mother has no tenants,' said Mrs. Winthrop, who had re-entered the room, 'and you'll never be Squire of Fairbury, as you should have been. It does seem hard.'

And so it did, and one young heart, of no kin to hers, felt it almost as much as she did, and Snap swore then, though it seemed a ludicrous thing even to himself, that, if ever he could, he would put back that sweet woman and her boy in their own old home.

But I must hurry over this part of my story. Sorrow and tears are only valuable for the effects they leave behind. Without the rain there would be no corn; without misfortune and poverty there would be very little effort and achievement in the world. But it is more pleasant to dwell on the happy results than on the causes.

When Frank had insisted on seeing his mother to her bedroom, with a quaint assumption of authority which she never resisted, the Admiral explained how all their troubles had arisen. A friend to whom Mrs. Winthrop had lent 500_l._ had repaid that sum to her agent in Scotland. The agent (a lawyer), acting on the Admiral's instructions with regard to small sums paid in the absence of Mrs. Winthrop on the Continent, had invested the 500_l._ in some bank shares. The shares were bought, he believed, much under their value. Alas, the public knew better than that lawyer. The bank was an unlimited affair, and broke soon after he had bought its shares, and Mrs. Winthrop became responsible for the payment of its debts to the last penny which she possessed. Without any fault of theirs, without warning, the Winthrops had to give up their all. This is one of the dangers of civilised life, and, unfortunately, company promoters, swindling bankers, and such like are not yet allowed to hang for their sins.

Luckily, the Admiral was not involved in the general ruin, and was as staunch and true as his kind generally are in the time of trouble. 'My dear,' he had said to his sister, when he had finished abusing the bank, the bankers, the Government, and every person or thing directly or indirectly connected with banking, 'it was my fault for not looking after the money myself. Nonsense! of course it was. What should a poor devil of a lawyer know about banking, or law, or anything except bills? However,' he added more calmly, 'there is my little property and pension for you and the boys, and, as for me, I dare say that I can get a secretaryship to a club or something of that sort in town.'

The Admiral had a hazy idea that the letters E.N. behind his name were sufficient qualification and testimonial for any public office, from the directorship of a guinea-pig company to the secretaryship of the Royal Geographical Society.

'And now, lads,' he was saying an hour after Mrs. Winthrop had retired for the night, 'think it all well over. There is a stool in an office for one of you, if you like. No place like the City for making money in; or, if you don't like that, Frank, we can find money enough somehow to send you to the Bar. We have employed attornies enough in our time, and of course some of them would send you briefs enough to give you a start' (would they? poor Admiral!); 'or there is young Sumner's craze--cattle-ranching or farming in the far West--a rough life, no doubt, but---- Ah, well, it's not for me to choose. I'm not beginning life. I wish I was--as a cowboy,' and the old man picked up his candle and trotted off to bed with almost enough fire in voice and eye to persuade you that he was still young enough to begin another round with Fate.

That night the boys sat up on the edges of their beds until long after midnight, talking things over. Frank was very grave, and inclined to persuade his younger brother to take to the office-stool.

'And you, Major?' asked Towzer; 'are you going to the Bar?'

'Well, no,' replied his brother, 'I don't think that I could stand being buried alive in those dim, musty chambers yet, and I've no ambition to conquer Fortune with the jawbone of an ass.'

'Very well, then, if you won't set me an example, let's drop London and talk cattle-ranching,' said Towzer. 'Snap, you've got an old "Field" in your bag, haven't you?'

'Yes, here you are,' replied the person addressed, producing an old copy of that one good paper from his portmanteau.

'Look in the advertisement-sheet,' suggested Frank, 'there is always something about ranching there.'

'"Expedition to Spitzbergen,"' read Snap; 'that won't do. "Wanted another gun to join a party going to the Zambesi." Ah, here you are, "Employment for gentlemen's sons. The advertiser, who has been settled at Oxloops, on the north fork of the Stinking Water, for the last ten years, is prepared to receive two or more sons of gentlemen upon his ranche, and instruct them in the practical part of this most lucrative business, a business in which from 35 to 50 per cent. can easily be made, whilst leading that open-air, sportsmanlike life so dear to English country gentlemen. All borne comforts found, and instruction given by the advertiser in person. Premium, 200_l._"'

'There!' cried Towzer, 'what do you think of that? The 200_l._ will be part of the start in life which Uncle talked about, and after the first year we can just buy cattle and start for ourselves. You'll come, of course, Snap?'

'Well, I don't know,' replied Snap; 'I've not got the 200_l._ in the first place, and in the second place, if cattle-ranching pays so well, I don't see why this cattle-king wants to bother himself with pupils for a paltry 200_l._ a year; besides, I fancy Sumner said that you could learn more as a cowboy than as a pupil, and the cowboy is paid, while the pupil pays for learning. I'll come if you go, but not as a pupil.'

'I half suspect that Snap is right, Billy,' said Frank; 'but, anyhow, we must talk this over with the Admiral.'

'Very well,' assented that young enthusiast; 'but I say, Major, wouldn't it be jolly if it was true? Fifty per cent., he says. Well, suppose the mother could start us with 1,000_l._ apiece, that would be 1,000_l._ profit between us the first year. Of course we would not spend any of it. Clothes last for ever out there, and food costs nothing. By adding what we made to our capital we could make a fortune and buy back Fairbury in no time.'

'Steady there, young 'un; optimism is a good horse, but you are riding his tail off at the start, and I expect that cattle-ranching wants almost as much work and patience as other things,' replied his more sober brother.

But Billy's enthusiasm had won the day in spite of reason, and they all turned in to dream of life in the Far West, and easily won fortunes.

Only one of them lay awake for long that night, watching the clouds drift across the mountain, and, if anyone had put his ear very close to Snap's pillow, he might have heard him mutter, as he tossed in his first restless slumbers, 'Poor little mother! it has almost broken her heart. If we could only win it back! If we could only win it back!'

And yet Snap was no kith or kin of the Winthrops, Fairbury was no home of his, nor the gentle lady of whom he dreamed his mother.