The Crown of Success Part 13

"Exquisite beauty--great attractions--such a voice--such a manner--such a killing smile! An ode from the poet-laureate; bouquets, sent without end; roses in the middle of winter; a hundred and fifty scented pink notes on Valentine's day; the star of the season; the--lack-a-day! that lovely bubble has gone for ever!"

"It's time that I should go too," said Mr. Learning; "I've heard enough of nonsense to last for a lifetime!"

He was about to depart when Matty suddenly burst into the cottage, in her eager haste almost knocking down her astonished guardian with a roll of goods which she carried on her shoulder. The shock of the collision was great, but not so great as the shock to poor Matty at so suddenly coming upon Mr. Learning when she only expected to find Miss Folly. She dropped her burden with an exclamation of surprise, and then tried to stammer forth an apology, but knew not how to begin. Mr. Learning stood straight before her, more erect and stately than ever, sternly looking down through his steel spectacles at the confused and blus.h.i.+ng girl.

Miss Folly, however, was quite at her ease, and hastily pus.h.i.+ng aside her basin and pipe, began instantly to unroll the large parcel which Matty had dropped in her fright.

"Ah, I knew it would be so! You have chosen the sweetest pattern--the prettiest--most tasteful--most charming little carpet that ever a girl set eyes on!" and she began spreading out on the floor a fabric so thin, that it seemed as if made of rose-leaves.

"Did you buy that trash from Mr. History?" said Mr. Learning sternly to Matty.

"No--why--I own--Miss Folly recommended me rather to try Mr. Fiction, who lives close to Amus.e.m.e.nt's bazaar. It is a great matter, you know, not to have to cross over brook Bother, or carry a carpet up-hill. And Mr. Fiction has such a magnificent shop, and his wares are so very cheap."

"Cheap and often worthless!" exclaimed the angry guardian, striking the carpet with his heel, and proving the truth of his words by tearing a great hole in the middle. "I brought a gift for you, Matilda Desley, but I have no intention of leaving it here now. My hammer of Memory, my bright bra.s.s Dates, are not required to fasten down such miserable trash as this! But," he muttered as he strode away, "it is at any rate all of a piece! a carpet framed by Fiction is just the thing for a cottage papered with fairies, furnished with fancies, and occupied by Miss Folly!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Folly, the moment that his back was turned, "I'm glad that the old owl has flown off--he looked ready to peck out my eyes!"

I should like, with wise Mr. Learning, to bid farewell to Folly for ever. Perhaps my readers may wonder that I should have introduced them to a creature so very absurd. I should not have done so had I had no suspicion that Folly might intrude herself, without introduction, when they themselves are furnis.h.i.+ng their own little cottages of Head. Has no little girl who now gazes on this page, ever sat for hours blowing bubbles of fancies with Folly, listening to worse--more ridiculous nonsense than that which shocked Mr. Learning? Has she not delighted to imagine herself great, rich, beautiful, and admired? has she not consulted Folly about her dress--spent her precious minutes and hours on a looking-gla.s.s--or a fanciful garment, or a worthless work of Fiction, when duties had to be performed, when valuable things were to be bought in the good town of Education?

Ah, dear little laughing reader, have I, like grave Mr. Learning, caught some one in the very fact of harbouring Miss Folly? Turn her out--at once turn her out! She is a silly companion, an unsafe guide; she will never make you loved, respected, or happy. Though not quite so dark and dangerous as Pride, she is much more closely related to him than people would at first imagine; there is much of Pride in Folly--and oh, for poor, weak, ignorant beings like ourselves, is not Folly seen in all Pride!

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CARPET OF HISTORY.

Mr. Learning now stood at the top of hill Puzzle, watching d.i.c.k, Lubin, and Nelly, returning laden with carpets from History's shop. Though the carpets, like the rooms, were but small, they were rather heavy burdens for children in wet and slippery weather.

Learning smiled his own quiet smile, to see the different and characteristic movements of his young charges, the Desleys. d.i.c.k, the quick and energetic d.i.c.k, was half-way up hill Puzzle when his brother and sister were only beginning to ascend. His bright young face was flushed, but rather with pleasure than fatigue; he sped on with a light elastic tread, neither panting nor pausing, but bearing the carpet of History as though he felt not its weight. He moved all the more swiftly for seeing that his guardian's eye was upon him, and on reaching the crown of the hill, saluted Mr. Learning with a very self-satisfied air.

"You make good progress," observed the sage, politely returning his salute.

"Oh, I get over everything with a hop, skip, and jump," replied the laughing boy, forgetting his flounder in Bother, "and you'll soon have the pleasure of presenting me with the silver crown of Success. It's nearly time, I should think, for you to introduce me to all your learned friends the Ologies! But there's one gentleman in Education whom I fancy more than all--the glorious old fellow who keeps a shop filled with jars of different colours, retorts, electric-machines, and bottles of powders and gases; I've heard that he sells such fireworks as would set all the world in a blaze!"

"You mean, of course, Mr. Chemistry," replied the sage; "he is my much valued friend; there is not a more pleasing companion to be found in the whole town of Education than he. But you are yet far too young, Master d.i.c.k, to make the acquaintance of so superior and intellectual a man.

His goods are not yet for you, though in time you may make them your own. Attend at present to your carpets and your grates; furnish your cottage with facts from General Knowledge; a day perhaps may arrive when you will be ready for things more abstruse, and then I'll introduce you myself both to the Ologies and to Mr. Chemistry, which latter will, I have no doubt, display to you all his magazine of wonders."

"Always putting off!" muttered d.i.c.k between his teeth; "always treating one like a mere child. I shall have long enough to wait if I wait for the introduction of slow Mr. Learning. I can do very well without it, and shall certainly try some day whether, by putting a bold face on the matter, I am not able to make my own way to the favour of Mr.

Chemistry!"

These last words were only overheard by Pride, for d.i.c.k had already entered his cottage. In a few minutes more the sound of his busy hammer told that he was already setting vigorously to work to nail down his History carpet.

"How comparatively slowly the two other children make their way up the hill!" said Learning, who stood watching Lubin and Nelly. "Why, the boy has twice sat down to rest on his bundle; and now, surely my spectacles must be at fault, can he be rolling his carpet up the hill, instead of carrying it on his shoulder! In a fine miry state it will be by the time that he reaches his dwelling!"

Surely enough the lazy boy was getting on with his History carpet in the laziest of ways, pus.h.i.+ng instead of bearing, rolling it along as if it were a s...o...b..ll, and seeming to be quite regardless of the fact that the path was covered with mud! Have none of my readers done the same, been content to get up a task in _any way_, however slothful and careless?

"Are you not ashamed of that?" exclaimed Mr. Learning, pointing to the dirty roll of carpet, as Lubin gained the top of the hill.

"Oh, sir, the mud will rub off when it is dry," said the boy with an air of unconcern; "the inner side, where the pattern is, cannot be soiled in the least."

"Unroll it and see," said stern Mr. Learning.

Lubin slowly obeyed, and had certainly little cause to be pleased with the condition of his new purchase. The pattern, which was full and rich, represented a hundred different scenes of interest. There was the wooden horse of old Troy; here appeared the gallant sons of Sparta defending the pa.s.s of Thermopylae; great men of Greece and of Rome, British monarchs and statesmen in varied costumes and different att.i.tudes, adorned the History carpet. Adorned, did I say? rather once had adorned, for all was now a jumble of confusion! There was a great blot of mud just over the face of Julius Caesar, and not a single Roman emperor stood out clear and distinct. In silent indignation Mr. Learning turned away, leaving Lubin to do the best that he could with his poor soiled History carpet.

Nelly Desley, weary, but cheerful, had just carried her burden home. She was unrolling it now in her simple but beautifully neat little parlour, and surveying with great delight the charming pattern upon it.

"Of all the purchases that I have made, this pleases me most!" she cried. "What a wonderful variety of pictures, so amusing and interesting! Ah, there is good Queen Philippa on her knees, begging for the citizens of Calais; and there brave Joan of Arc leading on her soldiers to battle! And there, oh, there are the holy martyrs tied to the stake for the sake of the truth, looking so calmly and meekly upwards, as though they had no fear of dying! I can never pa.s.s a dull evening now with this wonderful carpet before me; it seems as though it would take a lifetime to know all its various scenes."

"Yes," said Mr. Learning, who had entered her parlour un.o.bserved, "that beautiful carpet will serve as a constant feast for the mind. Fiction may boast that his dyes are the brightest; this I utterly deny; no colours are so vivid or so lasting as those that have been fixed by Truth, and these should alone be employed in the carpets which History produces."

Mr. Learning then graciously bestowed upon Nelly the gift of the hammer and nails, and quitted the cottages of Head well satisfied with at least one of his charges.

CHAPTER XIX.

HAMMERING IN DATES.

Knock--knock--knock! "Oh, this wearisome hammering!" sighed poor Nelly, as stooping over her carpet till the blood swelled the veins of her forehead, she tried to fasten in, one by one, the date-nails which Mr.

Learning had given. "I do not see why it is needful to knock in all these tiresome nails! Lubin has thrown his whole stock into a rubbish corner, I know, and says that he never means to p.r.i.c.k his fingers again by thrusting them into such a bag!" knock--knock! "Stephen came to the throne in 1145, or 1154, I'm sure I don't know which--and, what's more, I don't care! Ah!" the last exclamation was a cry of pain, for the hammer in the girl's awkward hand had come down with some force on her fingers.

"Well, Nelly, what is the matter?" asked Lubin, showing his jolly fat face at the door.

"I'm tired to death of these dates!" replied Nelly, raising her flushed face at the question.

"So was I with the very first of them; I never got beyond William the Conqueror; my carpet will stick on very well without nails, if no one takes to dancing a jig upon it! You are just wearing your spirits out, Nelly, and I'm sure that I wouldn't do that for any man, least of all for that sour Mr. Learning, who scribbled DUNCE on my wall!"

"I think," said Nelly, "that my friend Duty would tell me to go hammering on with these dates."

"Duty would keep one in tight order," laughed Lubin, "but I prefer following my own pleasure. I'm off to Amus.e.m.e.nt's bazaar, and I advise you to come with me now."

"Oh, Lubin, not now; not till I have finished my work."

"Then I'll go without you," said the boy, leaving poor Nelly to her troublesome task.

Scarcely had Nelly begun her hammering again, when Matty popped in her pretty little face.

"Why, Nelly, what's the use of tiring yourself like that! You will never manage to knock in all those nails!"

"I am afraid that I will not," sighed poor Nelly.

"Do as I do," continued Matty. "Miss Folly, kind creature, has supplied me with spangles, which are, all the world must own, just as pretty as any bra.s.s nails!"

"Spangles!" repeated Nelly in surprise; "no one can fasten down a carpet with spangles!"