I was assured by Mr. Bannerbridge that my father’s
health and appetite were excellent; he gave me a number
of unsatisfying messages, all the rest concerning
his interview he whispered to his daughter and his
sister, Miss Bannerbridge, who said they hoped they
would have news from Hampshire very early, so that
the poor child might be taken away by the friends
of his infancy. I could understand that my father
was disapproved of by them, and that I was a kind
of shuttlecock flying between two battledores; but
why they pitied me I could not understand. There
was a great battle about me when Mrs. Waddy appeared
punctual to her appointed hour. The victory was
hers, and I, her prize, passed a whole day in different
conveyances, the last of which landed us miles away
from London, at the gates of an old drooping, mossed
and streaked farmhouse, that was like a wall-flower
in colour.
DIPWELL FARM
In rain or in sunshine this old farmhouse had a constant
resemblance to a wall-flower; and it had the same
moist earthy smell, except in the kitchen, where John
and Martha Thresher lived, apart from their furniture.
All the fresh eggs, and the butter stamped, with three
bees, and the pots of honey, the fowls, and the hare
lifted out of the hamper by his hind legs, and the
country loaves smelling heavenly, which used to come
to Mrs. Waddy’s address in London, and appear
on my father’s table, were products of Dipwell
farm, and presents from her sister, Martha Thresher.
On receiving this information I felt at home in a moment,
and asked right off, ’How long am I to stay
here?—Am I going away tomorrow?—What’s
going to be done with me?’ The women found these
questions of a youthful wanderer touching. Between
kissings and promises of hens to feed, and eggs that
were to come of it, I settled into contentment.
A strong impression was made on me by Mrs. Waddy’s
saying, ’Here, Master Harry, your own papa will
come for you; and you may be sure he will, for I have
his word he will, and he’s not one to break it,
unless his country’s against him; and for his
darling boy he’d march against cannons.
So here you’ll sit and wait for him, won’t
you?’ I sat down immediately, looking up.
Mrs. Waddy and Mrs. Thresher raised their hands.
I had given them some extraordinary proof of my love
for my father. The impression I received was,
that sitting was the thing to conjure him to me.
‘Where his heart’s not concerned,’
Mrs. Waddy remarked of me flatteringly, ‘he’s
shrewd as a little schoolmaster.’
‘He’ve a bird’s-nesting eye,’
said Mrs. Thresher, whose face I was studying.
John Thresher wagered I would be a man before either
of them reached that goal. But whenever he spoke
he suffered correction on account of his English.
