Held Fast For England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83). G. A. Henty

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СКАЧАТЬ was like a bear and a monkey in one cage, but it was really very funny.

      "So I have no doubt he will come round, with you. Do try and not vex him more than you can help, Bob. You know how much we all owe him."

      This was true. Bob's father had died when he was only three years old--he being a lawyer, with a good business, at Plymouth--but he had made no provision for his early death, and had left his wife and two children almost penniless. Mr. Bale had at once taken charge of them, and had made his sister an allowance that enabled her to live very comfortably. She had remained in Plymouth, as she had many friends there.

      Her daughter Carrie--who was six years older than Bob--had, four years before, married Gerald O'Halloran, who was then a lieutenant in the 58th Regiment, which was in garrison there. He had a small income, derived from an estate in Ireland, besides his pay; but the young couple would have been obliged to live very economically, had it not been for the addition of the money settled on her by her uncle.

      Her mother had died, a few months after the marriage; and Mr. Bale had at once placed Bob at the school, at Putney; and had announced his intention of taking him, in due time, into his business. The boy always spent one half of his holidays with his uncle, the other with his sister. The former had been a trial, both to him and to Mr. Bale. They saw but little of each other; for Mr. Bale, who, like most business men of the time, lived over his offices, went downstairs directly he had finished his breakfast, and did not come up again until his work was over when, at five o'clock, he dined. The meal over, he sometimes went out to the houses of friends, or to the halls of one or other of the city companies to which he belonged.

      While Bob was with him, he told off one of the foremen in his business to go about with the boy. The days, therefore, passed pleasantly, as they generally went on excursions by water up or down the river or, sometimes, when it was not otherwise required, in a light cart used in the business, to Epping or Hainault Forest. Bob was expected to be back to dinner and, thanks to the foreman--who knew that his employer would not tolerate the smallest unpunctuality--he always succeeded in getting back in time to wash and change his clothes for dinner.

      The meal was a very solemn one, Mr. Bale asking occasional questions, to which Bob returned brief answers. Once or twice the boy ventured upon some lively remark, but the surprise and displeasure expressed in his uncle's face, at this breach of the respectful silence then generally enforced upon the young, in the presence of their elders, deterred him from often trying the experiment.

      Mr. Bale was as much bored as was Bob by these meals, and the evenings that sometimes followed them. He would have been glad to have chatted more freely with his nephew, but he was as ill at ease with him, as he would have been with a young monkey. There was nothing in common between them, and the few questions he asked were the result of severe cogitation. He used to glance at the boy from under his eyebrows, wonder what he was smiling to himself about, and wish that he understood him better. It did not occur to him that if he had drawn him out, and encouraged him to chatter as he liked, he should get underneath the surface, and might learn something of the nature hidden there. It was in sheer desperation, at finding nothing to say, that he would often seize his hat and go out, when he had quite made up his mind to stay indoors for the evening.

      Bob put up, as well as he could, with his meals and the dull evenings, for the sake of the pleasant time he had during the day; but he eagerly counted the hours until the time when he was to take his place on the coach for Canterbury, where the 58th were now quartered. He looked forward with absolute dread to the time when he would have to enter his uncle's office.

      "What is the use of being rich, Carrie," he would say to his sister, "if one lives as uncle does? I would rather work in the fields."

      "Yes, Bob; but you see, when you get to be rich you needn't live in the same way, at all. You could live as some traders do, in the country at Hampstead, Dulwich, or Chelsea, and ride in to business; and you can, of course, marry and enjoy life. One needn't live like a hermit, all alone, because one is a trader in the city."

      The one consolation Bob had was that his uncle had once said that he considered it was a great advantage, to any young man going into the wine trade, to go over to Spain or Portugal for two or three years; to learn the whole routine of business there, to study the different growths and know their values, and to form a connection among the growers and shippers. Bob had replied gravely that he thought this would certainly be a great advantage, and that he hoped his uncle would send him over there.

      "I shall see, when the time comes, Robert. It will, of course, depend much upon the relations between this country and Spain and Portugal; and also upon yourself. I could not, of course, let you go out there until I was quite assured of your steadiness of conduct. So far, although I have nothing to complain of, myself, your schoolmaster's reports are by no means hopeful, on that head. Still, we must hope that you will improve."

      It was terrible to Bob to learn that he was to go, fifteen months sooner than he had expected, to his uncle's; but he was somewhat relieved when, upon his arrival at the house at Philpot Lane, his uncle, after a very grave lecture on the enormity of his conduct at school, said:

      "I have been thinking, Robert, that it will be more pleasant, both for you and for me, that you should not, at present, take up your abode here. I am not accustomed to young people. It would worry me having you here and, after your companionship with boys of your own age, you might find it somewhat dull.

      "I have therefore arranged with Mr. Medlin, my principal clerk, for you to board with him. He has, I believe, some boys and girls of about your own age. You will, I hope, be able to make yourself comfortable there."

      "Thank you, uncle," Bob said, suppressing his impulse to give a shout of satisfaction, and looking as grave as possible. "I think that would be a very nice arrangement."

      "Mr. Medlin is a very trustworthy person," Mr. Bale went on. "He has been with me for upwards of twenty years, and I have the greatest confidence in him.

      "You had better sit down here, and take a book. At five o'clock come down into the counting house. Mr. Medlin will leave at that hour."

      Bob had hitherto avoided the counting house. He had occasionally, on previous visits, slipped down to his friend the foreman; and had wandered through the great cellars, and watched the men at work bottling, and gazed in surprise at the long tiers of casks stacked up to the roof of the cellar, and the countless bottles stowed away in the bins. Once or twice he had gone down into the counting house, with his uncle; and waited there a few minutes, until the foreman was disengaged. He had noticed Mr. Medlin at work at his high desk, in one corner--keeping, as it seemed to him, his eye upon two young clerks, who sat on high stools at opposite sides of the desk, on the other side of the office.

      Mr. Medlin had a little rail round the top of his desk, and curtains on rods that could be drawn round it. He was a man of six or seven and thirty; with a long face, smooth shaven. He always seemed absorbed in his work and, when spoken to by Mr. Bale, answered in the fewest possible words, in an even, mechanical voice. It had seemed to Bob that he had been entirely oblivious to his presence; and it did not appear to him now, as he sat with a book before him, waiting for the clock on the mantel to strike five, that existence at Mr. Medlin's promised to be a lively one. Still, as there were boys and girls, it must be more amusing than it would be at his uncle's and, at any rate, the clerk would not be so formidable a personage to deal with as Mr. Bale.

      At one minute to five he went down, so as to open the counting house door as the clock struck. As he went in through the outer door, his uncle came out from the inner office.

      "Ah! There you are, Robert.

      "Mr. Medlin, this is my nephew who, as we have arranged, will take up his СКАЧАТЬ