Classic Poem

Ah, well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved!
Of all the creatures under Heaven's wide scope
We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,
And most beliefless, who had most believed.

--The City of Dreadful Night.


All this time not a word about Black Sheep. He came later, and Harry,
the black-haired boy, was mainly responsible for his coming.
Judy--who could help loving little Judy?--passed, by special permit,
into the kitchen and thence straight to Aunty Rosa's heart. Harry was
Aunty Rosa's one child, and Punch was the extra boy about the house.
There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was
forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the
manufacture of this world and his hopes for his future. Sprawling was
lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk.
They were talked to, and the talking to was intended for the benefit
of their morals. As the unquestioned despot of the house at Bombay,
Punch could not quite understand how he came to be of no account in
this new life.

Harry might reach across the table and take what he wanted; Judy might
point and get what she wanted. Punch was forbidden to do either. The
gray man was his great hope and stand-by for many months after Mamma
and Papa left, and he had forgotten to tell Judy to "bemember Mamma."

This lapse was excusable, because in the interval he had been
introduced by Aunty Rosa to two very impressive things--an abstraction
called God, the intimate friend and ally of Aunty Rosa, generally
believed to live behind the kitchen-range because it was hot
there--and a dirty brown book filled with unintelligible dots and
marks. Punch was always anxious to oblige everybody. He, therefore,
welded the story of the Creation on to what he could recollect of his
Indian fairy tales, and scandalized Aunty Rosa by repeating the result
to Judy. It was a sin, a grievous sin, and Punch was talked to for a
quarter of an hour. He could not understand where the iniquity came
in, but was careful not to repeat the offence, because Aunty Rosa told
him that God had heard every word he had said and was very angry. If
this were true why did n't God come and say so, thought Punch, and
dismissed the matter from his mind. Afterward he learned to know the
Lord as the only thing in the world more awful than Aunty Rosa--as a
Creature that stood in the background and counted the strokes of the
cane.

But the reading was, just then, a much more serious matter than any
creed. Aunty Rosa sat him upon a table and told him that A B meant ab.

"Why?" said Punch. "A is a and B is bee. Why does A B mean ab?"

"Because I tell you it does," said Aunty Rosa "and you've got to say
it."

Punch said it accordingly, and for a month, hugely against his will,
stumbled through the brown book, not in the least comprehending what
it meant. But Uncle Harry, who walked much and generally alone, was
wont to come into the nursery and suggest to Aunty Rosa that Punch
should walk with him. He seldom spoke, but he showed Punch all
Rocklington, from the mud-banks and the sand of the back-bay to the
great harbours where ships lay at anchor, and the dockyards where the
hammers were never still, and the marine-store shops, and the shiny
brass counters in the Offices where Uncle Harry went once every three
months with a slip of blue paper and received sovereigns in exchange;
for he held a wound-pension. Punch heard, too, from his lips the story
of the battle of Navarino, where the sailors of the Fleet, for three
days afterward, were deaf as posts and could only sign to each other.
"That was because of the noise of the guns," said Uncle Harry, "and I
have got the wadding of a bullet somewhere inside me now."

Punch regarded him with curiosity. He had not the least idea what
wadding was, and his notion of a bullet was a dockyard cannon-ball
bigger than his own head. How could Uncle Harry keep a cannon-ball
inside him? He was ashamed to ask, for fear Uncle Harry might be
angry.

Punch had never known what anger--real anger--meant until one terrible
day when Harry had taken his paint-box to paint a boat with, and Punch
had protested with a loud and lamentable voice. Then Uncle Harry had
appeared on the scene and, muttering something about "strangers'
children," had with a stick smitten the black-haired boy across the
shoulders till he wept and yelled, and Aunty Rosa came in and abused
Uncle Harry for cruelty to his own flesh and blood, and Punch
shuddered to the tips of his shoes. "It was n't my fault," he
explained to the boy, but both Harry and Aunty Rosa said that it was,
and that Punch had told tales, and for a week there were no more walks
with Uncle Harry.

But that week brought a great joy to Punch.

He had repeated till he was thrice weary the statement that "the Cat
lay on the Mat and the Rat came in."

"Now I can truly read," said Punch, "and now I will never read
anything in the world."

He put the brown book in the cupboard where his schoolbooks lived and
accidentally tumbled out a venerable volume, without covers, labelled
Sharpe's Magazine. There was the most portentous picture of a
Griffin on the first page, with verses below. The Griffin carried off
one sheep a day from a German village, till a man came with a
"falchion" and split the Griffin open. Goodness only knew what a
falchion was, but there was the Griffin, and his history was an
improvement upon the eternal Cat.

"This," said Punch, "means things, and now I will know all about
everything in all the world." He read till the light failed, not
understanding a tithe of the meaning, but tantalized by glimpses of
new worlds hereafter to be revealed.

"What is a 'falchion'? What is a 'e-wee lamb'? What is a 'base
ussurper'? What is a 'verdant me-ad'? he demanded, with flushed
cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished Aunt Rosa.

"Say your prayers and go to sleep," she replied, and that was all the
help Punch then or afterward found at her hands in the new and
delightful exercise of reading.

"Aunt Rosa only knows about God and things like that," argued Punch.
"Uncle Harry will tell me."

The next walk proved that Uncle Harry could not help either; but he
allowed Punch to talk, and even sat down on a bench to hear about the
Griffin. Other walks brought other stories as Punch ranged farther
afield, for the house held large store of old books that no one ever
opened--from Frank Fairlegh in serial numbers, and the earlier poems
of Tennyson, contributed anonymously to Sharpe's Magazine, to '62
Exhibition Catalogues, gay with colours and delightfully
incomprehensible, and odd leaves of "Gulliver's Travels."

As soon as Punch could string a few pot-hooks together, he wrote to
Bombay, demanding by return of post "all the books in all the world."
Papa could not comply with this modest indent, but sent "Grimm's Fairy
Tales" and a "Hans Andersen." That was enough. If he were only left
alone Punch could pass, at any hour he chose, into a land of his own,
beyond reach of Aunty Rosa and her God, Harry and his teasements, and
Judy's claims to be played with.

"Don't disturb me, I'm reading. Go and play in the kitchen," grunted
Punch. "Aunty Rosa lets you go there." Judy was cutting her second
teeth and was fretful. She appealed to Aunty Rosa, who descended on
Punch.

"I was reading," he explained, "reading a book. I want to read."

"You're only doing that to show off," said Aunty Rosa. "But we'll see.
Play with Judy now, and don't open a book for a week."

Judy did not pass a very enjoyable playtime with Punch, who was
consumed with indignation. There was a pettiness at the bottom of the
prohibition which puzzled him.

"It's what I like to do," he said, "and she's found out that and
stopped me. Don't cry, Ju--it was n't your fault--please don't cry, or
she'll say I made you."

Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two played in their nursery, a
room in the basement and half underground, to which they were
regularly sent after the midday dinner while Aunty Rosa slept. She
drank wine--that is to say, something from a bottle in the
cellaret--for her stomach's sake, but if she did not fall asleep she
would sometimes come into the nursery to see that the children were
really playing. Now bricks, wooden hoops, ninepins, and chinaware
cannot amuse forever, especially when all Fairyland is to be won by
the mere opening of a book, and, as often as not, Punch would be
discovered reading to Judy or tell her interminable tales. That was an
offence in the eyes of the law, and Judy would be whisked off by Aunty
Rosa, while Punch was left to play alone, "and be sure that I hear you
doing it."

It was not a cheering employ, for he had to make a playful noise. At
last, with infinite craft, he devised an arrangement whereby the table
could be supported as to three legs on toy bricks, leaving the fourth
clear to bring down on the floor. He could work the table with one
hand and hold a book with the other. This he did till an evil day when
Aunty Rosa pounced upon him unawares and told him that he was "acting
a lie."

"If you're old enough to do that," she said--her temper was always
worst after dinner--"you're old enough to be beaten."

"But--I'm--I'm not a animal!" said Punch, aghast. He remembered Uncle
Harry and the stick, and turned white. Aunty Rosa had hidden a light
cane behind her, and Punch was beaten then and there over the
shoulders. It was a revelation to him. The room door was shut, and he
was left to weep himself into repentance and work out his own Gospel
of Life.

Aunty Rosa, he argued, had the power to beat him with many stripes. It
was unjust and cruel and Mamma and Papa would never have allowed it.
Unless perhaps, as Aunty Rosa seemed to imply, they had sent secret
orders. In which case he was abandoned indeed. It would be discreet in
the future to propitiate Aunty Rosa, but, then, again, even in matters
in which he was innocent, he had been accused of wishing to "show
off." He had "shown off" before visitors when he had attacked a
strange gentleman--Harry's uncle, not his own--with requests for
information about the Griffin and the falchion, and the precise nature
of the Tilbury in which Frank Fairlegh rode--all points of paramount
interest which he was bursting to understand. Clearly it would not do
to pretend to care for Aunty Rosa.

At this point Harry entered and stood afar off, eying Punch, a
disheveled heap in the corner of the room, with disgust.

"You're a liar--a young liar," said Harry, with great unction, "and
you're to have tea down here because you're not fit to speak to us.
And you're not to speak to Judy again till Mother gives you leave.
You'll corrupt her. You're only fit to associate with the servant.
Mother says so."

Having reduced Punch to a second agony of tears Harry departed
upstairs with the news that Punch was still rebellious.

Uncle Harry sat uneasily in the dining-room. "D---- it all, Rosa,"
said he at last, "can't you leave the child alone? He's a good enough
little chap when I meet him."

"He puts on his best manners with you, Henry," said Aunty Rosa, "but
I'm afraid, I'm very much afraid, that he is the Black Sheep of the
family."

Harry heard and stored up the name for future use. Judy cried till she
was bidden to stop, her brother not being worth tears; and the evening
concluded with the return of Punch to the upper regions and a private
sitting at which all the blinding horrors of Hell were revealed to
Punch with such store of imagery as Aunty Rosa's narrow mind
possessed.

Most grievous of all was Judy's round-eyed reproach, and Punch went to
bed in the depths of the Valley of Humiliation. He shared his room
with Harry and knew the torture in store. For an hour and a half he
had to answer that young gentleman's question as to his motives for
telling a lie, and a grievous lie, the precise quantity of punishment
inflicted by Aunty Rosa, and had also to profess his deep gratitude
for such religious instruction as Harry thought fit to impart.

From that day began the downfall of Punch, now Black Sheep.

"Untrustworthy in one thing, untrustworthy in all," said Aunty Rosa,
and Harry felt that Black Sheep was delivered into his hands. He
would wake him up in the night to ask him why he was such a liar.

"I don't know," Punch would reply.

"Then don't you think you ought to get up and pray to God for a new
heart?"

"Y-yess."

"Get out and pray, then!" And Punch would get out of bed with raging
hate in his heart against all the world, seen and unseen. He was
always tumbling into trouble. Harry had a knack of cross-examining him
as to his day's doings, which seldom failed to lead him, sleepy and
savage, into half a dozen contradictions--all duly reported to Aunty
Rosa next morning.

"But it was n't a lie," Punch would begin, charging into a laboured
explanation that landed him more hopelessly in the mire. "I said that
I did n't say my prayers twice over in the day, and that was on
Tuesday. Once I did, I know I did, but Harry said I did n't," and so
forth, till the tension brought tears, and he was dismissed from the
table in disgrace.

"You use n't to be as bad as this?" said Judy, awe-stricken at the
catalogue of Black Sheep's crimes. "Why are you so bad now?"

"I don't know," Black Sheep would reply. "I'm not, if I only was n't
bothered upside down. I knew what I did, and I want to say so; but
Harry always makes it out different somehow, and Aunty Rosa does n't
believe a word I say. Oh, Ju! don't you say I'm bad too."

"Aunty Rosa says you are," said Judy. "She told the Vicar so when he
came yesterday."

"Why does she tell all the people outside the house about me? It is
n't fair," said Black Sheep. "When I was in Bombay, and was bad--doing
bad, not made-up bad like this--Mamma told Papa, and Papa told me he
knew, and that was all. Outside people did n't know too--even Meeta
did n't know."

"I don't remember," said Judy wistfully. "I was all little then. Mamma
was just as fond of you as she was of me, was n't she?"

"'Course she was. So was Papa. So was everybody."

"Aunty Rosa likes me more than she does you. She says that you are a
Trial and a Black Sheep, and I'm not to speak to you more than I can
help."

"Always? Not outside of the times when you must n't speak to me at
all?"

Judy nodded her head mournfully. Black Sheep turned away in despair,
but Judy's arms were round his neck.

"Never mind, Punch," she whispered. "I will speak to you just the same
as ever and ever. You're my own, own brother though you are--though
Aunty Rosa says you're Bad, and Harry says you're a little coward. He
says that if I pulled your hair hard, you'd cry."

"Pull, then," said Punch.

Judy pulled gingerly.

"Pull harder--as hard as you can! There! I don't mind how much you
pull it now. If you'll speak to me same as ever I'll let you pull it
as much as you like--pull it out if you like. But I know if Harry came
and stood by and made you do it I'd cry."

So the two children sealed the compact with a kiss, and Black Sheep's
heart was cheered within him, and by extreme caution and careful
avoidance of Harry he acquired virtue and was allowed to read
undisturbed for a week. Uncle Harry took him for walks and consoled
him with rough tenderness, never calling him Black Sheep. "It's good
for you, I suppose, Punch," he used to say. "Let us sit down. I'm
getting tired." His steps led him now not to the beach, but to the
Cemetery of Rocklington, amid the potato-fields. For hours the gray
man would sit on a tombstone, while Black Sheep read epitaphs, and
then with a sigh would stump home again.

"I shall lie there soon," said he to Black Sheep; one winter evening,
when his face showed white as a worn silver coin under the lights of
the chapel-lodge. "You need n't tell Aunty Rosa."

A month later, he turned sharp round, ere half a morning walk was
completed, and stumped back to the house. "Put me to bed, Rosa," he
muttered. "I've walked my last. The wadding has found me out."

They put him to bed, and for a fortnight