LITMIR.BIZ

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But somehow everything looked so different: the grass had not been cut for days, the beds were rapidly growing weedy, and the flowers and fruit looked so different, or seemed to look so different, that I was glad to go back into the house, where I found another stranger, a little dapper, red-faced man, who nodded to me familiarly, and then resumed a conversation with Mr Rowle.

      “My clerk will be here directly,” I heard him say, “and we’ll soon run over the inventory.”

      “The sooner the better, I say, Mr Jevins, sir,” said Mr Rowle, “and then we shall know what we’re at.”

      “You don’t mean – ” began the newcomer.

      “No, sir, I don’t, because I’ve had too sharp a hye on ’em; but there’s one young lady here as wouldn’t take nothing out of her reach, and if I was Mr Blakeford I’d make a clean sweep out, and the sooner the better.”

      The little man drew a silver pencil-case out of his pocket, slid out a pen, and then, taking a little ink-bottle from another pocket, he took out the cork and balanced it on the top of a china figure; then, securing the ink-bottle to one of the buttons of his coat by a little loop, he pulled out a long pocket-book, drew from it an elastic band with a snap, opened it, and fastened the leaves back with the band, just as a tall, gaunt, elderly man came in with a pen behind one ear, a pencil behind the other, making him look in profile like some peculiar kind of horned snail.

      I watched their acts with boyish interest as they proceeded methodically to set down the contents of room after room, punching the chairs, turning up the settees, feeling the curtains, and tapping the mirrors, till at the end of the second day, all being done, they closed their books with a snap, nodded to me, and after a short chat with Mr Rowle took their departure.

      “Sale’s on Toosday week,” said that gentleman as I looked at him inquiringly. “What’s going to be done o’ you?”

      “Done with me?” I said.

      “Yes; where are you going to be?”

      “I’m going to stop here,” I said.

      “That can’t be, anyhow, young un. Haven’t you got any friends?”

      “Yes,” I said; “there’s Dick Wilmot, but he’s at school.”

      “I say, young un, what a precious innocent you are! Haven’t you never been away at school?”

      “No, sir.”

      “Where have you been, then?”

      “Here at home with papa and mamma.”

      “Lor’, what a shame, to be sure! Why, you don’t seem to know nothin’.”

      “Indeed I do,” I said indignantly. “I can read, and write, and cipher, and I know a little botany, and Latin, and French, and papa was teaching me the violin.”

      “What, the fiddle? Well, that may be some use to you; but as for t’others, bah! I never found the want of any on ’em. How old are you?”

      “Just turned eleven, sir.”

      “’Leven, and bless your ’art, young un, you’re about as innocent as a baby.”

      “If you please, sir, I’m very sorry.”

      “Sorry? So am I. Why, up in London I’ve seen boys of ’leven as was reglar old men, and know’d a’most everything. Lookye here, young un, don’t you know as your poor guv’nor died ever so much in debt through some bank breaking?”

      “I heard poor papa say that the bank had shut its doors.”

      “That’s right,” said Mr Rowle, nodding. “Well, young un; and don’t you know what that means for you?”

      “No, sir,” I said.

      “Phew?” replied, Mr Rowle, whistling; “well, p’raps it’s kindest to tell you, after all. Why, look here, young un, this place, with every stick in it, is going to be sold up – plate, linen, furniture, chayney, glass, and the house and all, and you’ll have to go to some of your friends, unless Mr Blakeford’s got his plans made for you.”

      “Please, sir, I don’t think I’ve got any friends to go to,” I said; “I thought I was going to stay at home – at least, I hoped so,” I added despondently.

      “It’s a rum go,” muttered Mr Rowle, as he raised his hat with one hand and re-arranged his hair with the stem of his pipe. “Ah, well, I s’pose I’ve no call to be putting things into your head, only I should like to see you not quite so innocent, and better able to look after yourself.”

      Mr Rowle and I had many such conversations during the interval before the sale, in all of which he was so much troubled by what he called my innocence, that I began to look upon my ignorance of the world as something approaching a crime. I saw no more of Mr Blakeford or my uncle, and the days glided slowly by till just before the sale, when the servants came upon me one evening in the dining-room, to announce that they were going, and to say “good-bye.”

      “Going?” I said; “what, all?”

      “Yes,” said cook sharply, and I think there was a twinkle of moisture in her eyes; “yes, Master Antony, we’re all going, and we’ve come to say good-bye.”

      I believe that cook would have taken me in her arms and hugged me in good motherly fashion, but for the third person. As it was, she shook hands very warmly and looked tenderly at me for a moment – not more – for her soul seemed to be aroused within her at the presence of Mr Rowle, at whom she darted the most furious of glances, an example followed by the other two maids; and then we were alone.

      “Bless ’em!” said Mr Rowle, taking his pipe for a moment from his lips, and then going on smoking.

      Chapter Three.

      Mr Blakeford Shows His Teeth

      The morning of the sale arrived, and still no one took any notice of me. I had stood by in a melancholy fashion, and seen little tickets pasted or tied upon the various articles of furniture; the stair rods done up in bundles and the carpets in rolls. The chimney ornaments seemed to be holding a meeting in a corner of the sideboard recess, presided over by a bronze Neptune; and apparently deceived by the reflection of the sunshine, the steel fender had settled itself calmly on a table before the tall pier-glass as if it were a fire; the pictures looked down in the most melancholy way from the walls at the doleful chaos of furniture, all except one of her Majesty the Queen, and that seemed to follow me in a sorrowful, pitying fashion that made me gaze up at it again and again.

      Wearied with wandering from room to room – all dust and confusion now – I turned to go upstairs. As I did so I passed the study, whose door was wide open, with Mr Rowle in the easy-chair smoking away, his hat on, and the wretchedness of the place with its piled-up bundles of books seeming to have no effect upon him whatever.

      Upstairs matters appeared even worse, though it struck me that the rooms were not so dusty. After the “view” on the previous day the auctioneer’s men had arranged the things so that they would be handy for taking downstairs, and the grotesque positions they were now in suggested endless ideas. Pairs of sheets and blankets hung from pegs like so many culprits; towel-horses stood upon their heads, while chairs did acrobatic tricks, one at the bottom sustaining four or five piled up in a state of equilibrium; the tooth-brush trays all seemed to have been frightened into taking refuge in the ewers; while the bedsteads and toilet-tables appeared to think the place so dirty and untidy that they were holding up their trailing garments to keep them from being soiled.

      On the previous day I had taken refuge in my favourite haunt, the summer-house, till the strangers had gone, and now, hearing the auctioneer’s men below, I was hurriedly taking a farewell glance round before once more making my retreat.

      I had heard footsteps on the stairs, and supposed it to be one of the owners of the carpet-caps and aprons that lay tucked in a corner, when suddenly passing out of one of the bedrooms into the passage I came face to face with Mr Blakeford.

      “Oh! you’re there, are you?” he said, in quite an ill-used

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