He
had a little round picture of the identical gray horse, caparisoned
with the identical pillion, before which he used to do a sort of
fetish worship, and abuse turnpike-roads and carriages. He wore an old
full-bottomed wig, the gift of some dandy old Brown whom he had valeted
in the middle of last century, which habiliment Master Tom looked upon
with considerable respect, not to say fear; and indeed his whole feeling
towards Noah was strongly tainted with awe. And when the old gentleman
was gathered to his fathers, Tom's lamentation over him was not
unaccompanied by a certain joy at having seen the last of the wig. "Poor
old Noah, dead and gone," said he; "Tom Brown so sorry. Put him in the
coffin, wig and all."
But old Benjy was young master's real delight and refuge. He was a
youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old--a cheery, humorous,
kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of Vale gossip, and of all
sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above all for children.
It was he who bent the first pin with which Tom extracted his first
stickleback out of "Pebbly Brook," the little stream which ran through
the village. The first stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous
red and blue gills. Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his
death, and became a fisherman from that day. Within a month from the
taking of the first stickleback, Benjy had carried off our hero to
the canal, in defiance of Charity; and between them, after a whole
afternoon's popjoying, they had caught three or four small, coarse fish
and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a half ounces each, which Tom
bore home in rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and which she
received like a true mother with equal rapture, instructing the cook
nevertheless, in a private interview, not to prepare the same for the
Squire's dinner.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39