The lad was much to be pitied on two special grounds. He had a "gift" on his thumb, and he was born with a mole on his right temple.
His mother was overjoyed when she saw this mole. It was the luckiest of omens. For had not seers of old-never mind what seers-declared that the child that was born with a mole on his right temple would surely, in the course of his life, arrive at sudden wealth and honour?
Meanwhile, with a dutiful regard for parental example, Ned followed his father's footsteps to the public-house, and, at a very early age, was fond of draining pots and glasses.
As Ned grew older, he extended the field of his operations. Thus it came about that one fine morning the young thief found himself in a police-court, and was sent to prison as a rogue and a vagabond. There was no doubt he was both.
When he was released from prison, he did not go home immediately; he thought it best to wait until his hair grew again.
He wandered about, at fairs chiefly, picking up food anyhow, and enjoying the life; and by the time he made his appearance again in Rosemary Lane, his hair was as long as ever, and his mother wept over him, and killed the fatted calf for her lovely lad. He brought home with him a new accomplishment in the shape of a tin whistle, upon which he discoursed the most eloquent music. With this whistle he charmed and soothed the tender nature of his mother, and the less impressionable nature of his father, who thoughtlessly helped him in his downward course by taking him to the public-house, where he delighted all around him. There he got his fill of drink, from the customers, and in after days, when the lovely lad's character was about as bad as his worst enemy could have desired, it caused the father real remorse to think that he had helped his son to his undoing. It was this which caused Mr. Chester to utter the words, "I've enough to reproach myself with one." The reprobate would not work; all that he would do was to drink, and thieve, and play upon a tin whistle; and five years ago Ned Chester disappeared from the neighbourhood of Rosemary Lane, and nothing had since been heard of him.
But the mother's heart never went from her boy. Not a day passed but her thoughts dwelt lovingly upon him. He had caused her the bitterest anguish of her life, and she loved him the more for it.
This brief digression ended, we return to Mrs. Chester, who lies asleep by the side of Sally and her baby-treasure. There is no light in the room, there is no moon in the sky. With trembling fingers, the man in the street plays upon the keys of his instrument, and pauses in the middle of a note, and shakes as though an ague were on him. It is a terrible fit, and lasts for minutes; when it subsides, he looks around him fearsomely, and sees monstrous shapes in the air coming towards him. Descending from the dark clouds, uprising from the black pavement, emerging from the viewless air, with eyes that glower, with features that threaten, with limbs that appal, they glide upon and surround him. With hoarse cries and shuddering hands he strives to beat them off, and staggers to the door of the house in which the mother and children are sleeping, with smiles upon their lips.
CHAPTER V
The first impression of the dreaming woman is that she and her young son are in a cart, out for a day's holiday in the country. It is early morning, and they are in the heart of the country, with its fields, and hedges, and scent of sweet flowers and fresh-mown hay. The clouds are bright, and the mother's heart is filled with love and gratitude as the horse jogs steadily along.
Their pace is slow, but not so slow as that of this white-smocked carter, sitting on the shaft of his lumbering wagon, which, as it rumbles onwards, makes noise enough for a dozen. The wagon is in the middle of the road-as though it were made solely for them to creep over, and nothing else had any business there-and when at length it moves aside, it does so in an indolent, reluctant fashion most tantalising to men and cattle more briskly inclined. Behind them thunders the mail-coach, and the guard's horn sounds merrily on the air.
"There comes the mail-coach!" the driver of the cart exclaims, and the dreamer watches it grow, as it were, out of the distant sky and land, where Liliputia lies. And now it is upon them, with no suspicion of Liliputia about it. On it comes, with Hillo! hallo! hi! hi! hi! heralding and proclaiming itself blithely. Their manner is right and proper, for are they not-guard, coachman, and horses-kings of the road? Out of the way, then, everybody and everything, and make room for their excellencies! Out of the way, you lumbering, white-smocked carter, and open your sleepy eyes! Out of the way, you pair of young dreamers, you, who, arm-in-arm so closely, are surely asleep and dreaming also! She, the first awake, starts in sudden alarm, with bright blushes now in her pretty, pensive face, and he-glad of the chance-throws his arm around her, and hurries her to the roadside, but a yard or two away from the bounding cattle, whose ringing hoofs play a brisker air upon the roadway than ever Apollo's son played upon the lyre. Away goes the coach, and the mother holds her lovely lad aloft in her arms, and in silent wonder, listens to the fading horn, and watches the coach grow smaller and smaller, until it disappears entirely from the sight. Onward they go through the dreamy solitudes, and shadows of green leaves and branches wave about them in never-ending beauty and variety.
How lovely is the day! The birds are singing, the bees are busy, all nature is glad. What a morning for a holiday-what a morning for lovers to walk through shady paths and narrow lanes, over stiles, and under great spreading branches, whose arms bend down caressingly to shield them from the sun! What a morning to bring a long courtship to a sweet conclusion, and to whisper the words that make lads' and lasses' hearts happier than the thrush that pipes its tremulous notes above them as they sit!
And now the mother and her child are in a narrow lane, with hedges on either side, over which they see the ripe corn waving. The mother sings a song about the days when we went gipsying a long time ago, and her friend, the driver, joins in the chorus heartily. At its conclusion, he says, incidentally:
"How about that mole on Neddy's right temple that Jane was telling me of?" (Jane is his young wife.) "What does it really signify?"
"You ask any fortune-teller," says the mother. "It's the very luckiest thing that ever can happen. When a child is born with a mole on the right temple, it is certain sure to arrive at sudden wealth and honour."
"That's a real piece of good fortune," says the driver. "If our young un's born with a mole on the right temple, it'll be the luckiest day of our lives."
"I'm sure I hope it will be," says the mother, "and that it'll be in the right place."
While this conversation is proceeding, the horse has slackened his pace-and the driver jumps off the cart to pick some sweet honeysuckle, a piece of which he gives to the mother and the child-and the heavens are beautifully bright, and fairy ships are sailing in the clouds-and they go jogging, jogging, jogging on, until they arrive at their journey's end.
Pulling up at a pretty little cottage, with a pretty little green gate for its boundary, a pretty little woman runs hastily out, wiping her hands, which are all over flour, on her apron. This is his Jane, whose visitors have caught her in the act of making a pudding. The first embraces over, they go into the kitchen, where the pudding is tied up, and put into the pot, and is cooked by magic, for the next moment they are eating their dinner. They pass a happy time within the cottage, and then the scene fades, and she and her child are in a field, pelting each other with flowers.
The child grows tired, and the mother makes a nest of fern for her darling to rest in, at the foot of an old tree, whose branches presently fill all the landscape, and cover them with delicious shade. Not a variation of colour in the sky, not a bird's note, not a whisper of the leaves, that the fond mother does not convert