going to school? it will be the ruin of him.”
“What will be the ruin of him, mother?” rejoined my aunt Milly; “going to school?”
“Hold your nonsense, child: you are as bad as the boy himself,” replied granny. “Boys are never ruined by education; girls sometimes are.”
Whether my mother thought that this was an innuendo reflecting upon any portion of her own life, I cannot tell; but she replied very tartly.
“You’re none the worse for my education, mother, or you would not be sitting here.”
“Very true, child,” replied granny; “but recollect, neither would you have married a marine—a private marine, Bella, while your sister looks up to the officers. Ay,” continued the old woman, leaving off her knitting and looking at her daughter, “and is likely to get one, too, if she plays her cards well—that Lieutenant Flat can’t keep out of the shop.” (My granny having at this moment given me an opportunity to replace her snuff-box, I did not fail to profit by it; and as I perceived her knitting-pin had dropped on the floor, I stuck it into the skirt of her gown behind, so that whenever she looked for it, it was certain ever to be behind her.)
“Mr. Flat is of a very respectable family, I hear say,” continued my grandmother.
“And a great fool,” interrupted my mother. “I hope Milly won’t listen to him.”
“He’s an officer,” replied my granny, “not a private.”
“Well, mother, I prefer my private marine, for I can make him do as I please; if he’s a private, I’m commanding officer, and intend so to be as long as I live.”
“Well, well, Bella, let us say no more on the old score; but that boy must go to school. Deary me, I have dropped my needle.”
My grandmother rose, and turned round and round, looking for her needle, which, strange to say, she could not find; she opened her snuff-box, and took a pinch to clear her optics. “Deary me, why, what’s the matter with my snuff? and where can that needle be? Child, come and look for the needle; don’t be sticking there in that corner.”
I thought proper to obey the order and pretended to be very diligent in my search. Catching aunt Milly’s eye, I pointed to the knitting-needle sticking in the hind skirts of my grandmother’s gown, and then was down on my knees again, while my aunt held her handkerchief to her mouth to check her laughter.
A minute afterwards, Ben the marine first tapped gently, and then opened the door and came in; for at that late hour the officers were all at dinner, and the shop empty.
“There are three parcels of books for you to take,” said my mother; “but you’ve plenty of time, so take down the tea-things, and get your tea in the kitchen before you go.”
“You haven’t got a shilling, Bella, about you? I want some ’baccy,” said Ben, in his quiet way.
“Yes, here’s a shilling, Ben; but don’t drink too much beer,” replied my mother.
“Deary me, what can have become of my needle?” exclaimed my grandmother, turning round.
“Here it is, ma’am,” said Ben, who perceived it sticking in her skirt. “That’s Percival’s work, I’ll answer for it.”
My granny received the needle from Ben, and then turned to me: “You good-for-nothing boy; so you put the needle there, did you? pretending to look for it all the while; you shall go to school, sir, that you shall.”
“You said a needle, granny; I was looking for a needle: you didn’t say your knitting-pin; I could have told you where that was.”
“Yes, yes, those who hide can find; to school you go, or I’ll not stay in the house.”
Ben took the tea-tray out of the room. He had been well drilled in and out of barracks.
“I’ll go down in the kitchen to father,” cried I, for I was tired of sitting still.
“No, you won’t, sir,” said my mother, “you naughty boy; the kitchen is not the place for you, and if ever I hear of you smoking a pipe again—”
“Captain Bridgeman smokes,” replied I.
“Yes, sir, he smokes cigars; but a child like you must not smoke a pipe.”
“And now come here, sir,” said my granny, who had the lid of her snuff-box off, and held it open in her hand; “what have you been doing with my snuff?”
“Why, granny, have I had your snuff-box the whole day?”
“How should I know?—a boy like you, with every finger a fish-hook; I do believe you have; I only wish I could find you out. I had fresh snuff this morning.”
“Perhaps they made a mistake at the shop, mother,” said aunt Milly; “they are very careless.”
“Well, I can’t tell: I must have some more; I can’t take this.”
“Throw it in the fire, granny,” said I; “and I’ll run with the box and get it full again.”
“Well, I suppose it’s the best thing I can do,” replied the old woman, who went to the grate, and leaning over, poured the snuff out on the live coals. The result was a loud explosion and a volume of smoke, which burst out of the grate into her face—the dinner and lappets singed, her spectacles lifted from her nose, and her face as black as a sweep’s. The old woman screamed, and threw herself back; in so doing, she fell over the chair upon which she had been sitting, and, somehow or another, tripped me up, and lay with all her weight upon me. I had been just attempting to make my escape during the confusion—for my mother and Milly were equally frightened—when I found myself completely smothered by the weight of my now almost senseless granny, and, as I have before mentioned, she was a very corpulent woman. Had I been in any other position I should not have suffered so much; but I had unfortunately fallen flat on my back, and was now lying with my face upwards, pressed upon by the broadest part of the old woman’s body; my nose was flattened, and my breath completely stopped. How long my granny might have remained there groaning I cannot tell; probably, as I was somewhat a spoiled child before this, it might have ended in her completely finishing me; but she was roused up from her state of half syncope by a vigorous attack from my teeth, which, in the agony of suffocation, I used with preternatural force of jaw from one so young. I bit right through everything she had on, and as my senses were fast departing, my teeth actually met with my convulsive efforts. My granny, roused by the extreme pain, rolled over on her side, and then it was that my mother and aunt, who supposed that I had made my escape from the room, discovered me lifeless, and black in the face. They ran to me, but I still held on with my teeth, nor could I be separated from my now screaming relative, until the admission of fresh air, and a plentiful sprinkling of cold water brought me to my senses, when I was laid on the sofa utterly exhausted. It certainly was a narrow escape, and it may be said that the “biter was nearly bit.” As for my granny, she recovered her fright and her legs, but she did not recover her temper; she could not sit down without a pillow on the chair for many days, and, although little was said to me in consequence of the danger I had incurred, yet there was an evident abhorrence of me on the part of the old woman, a quiet manner about my mother, and a want of her usual hilarity on the part of my aunt, which were to me a foreboding of something unpleasant. A few days brought to
