第13章
Heroism is not all of one pattern. Dr. Washburn, had the Prince of Wales come to see him, would have put his bread and cheese and jug of beer upon the table, and helped His Royal Highness to half. But my father and mother's tea was very weak that Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith might have a glass of wine should they come to dinner. I remember the one egg for breakfast, my mother arguing that my father should have it because he had his business to attend to; my father insisting that my mother should eat it, she having to go out shopping, a compromise being effected by their dividing it between them, each clamouring for the white as the most nourishing. And I know however little the meal looked upon the table when we started I always rose well satisfied.
These are small things to speak of, but then you must bear in mind this is a story moving in narrow ways.
To me this life came as a good time. That I was encouraged to eat treacle in preference to butter seemed to me admirable. Personally, I preferred sausages for dinner; and a supper of fried fish and potatoes, brought in stealthily in a carpet bag, was infinitely more enjoyable than the set meal where nothing was of interest till one came to the dessert. What fun there was about it all! The cleaning of the doorstep by night, when from the ill-lit street a gentleman with a piece of sacking round his legs might very well pass for a somewhat tall charwoman. I would keep watch at the gate to give warning should any one looking like a possible late caller turn the corner of the street, coming back now and then in answer to a low whistle to help my father grope about in the dark for the hearthstone; he was always mislaying the hearthstone. How much better, helping to clean the knives or running errands than wasting all one's morning dwelling upon the shocking irregularity of certain classes of French verbs; or making useless calculations as to how long X, walking four and a quarter miles an hour, would be overtaking Y, whose powers were limited to three and a half, but who had started two and three quarter hours sooner; the whole argument being reduced to sheer pedantry by reason of no information being afforded to the student concerning the respective thirstiness of X and Y.
Even my father and mother were able to take it lightly with plenty of laughter and no groaning that I ever heard. For over all lay the morning light of hope, and what prisoner, escaping from his dungeon, ever stayed to think of his torn hands and knees when beyond the distant opening he could see the sunlight glinting through the brambles?
"I had no idea," said my mother, "there was so much to do in a house.
In future I shall arrange for the servants to have regular hours, and a little time to themselves, for rest. Don't you think it right, Luke?"
"Quite right," replied my father; "and I'll tell you another thing we'll do. I shall insist on the landlord's putting a marble doorstep to the next house we take; you pass a sponge over marble and it is always clean."
"Or tesselated," suggested my mother.
"Or tesselated," agreed my father; "but marble is more uncommon."
Only once, can I recall a cloud. That was one Sunday when my mother, speaking across the table in the middle of dinner, said to my father, "We might save the rest of that stew, Luke; there's an omelette coming."
My father laid down the spoon. "An omelette!"
"Yes," said my mother. "I thought I would like to try again."
My father stepped into the back kitchen--we dined in the kitchen, as a rule, it saved much carriage--returning with the wood chopper.
"What ever are you going to do, Luke, with the chopper?" said my mother.
"Divide the omelette," replied my father.
My mother began to cry.
"Why, Maggie--!" said my father.
"I know the other one was leathery," said my mother, "but it was the fault of the oven, you know it was, Luke."
"My dear," said my father, "I only meant it as a joke."