Chapter XV

Little Lord Fauntleroy

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California,
and he returned under very comfortable circumstances. Just before
his going, Mr. Havisham had an interview with him in which the lawyer
told him that the Earl of Dorincourt wished to do something for the
boy who might have turned out to be Lord Fauntleroy, and so he had
decided that it would be a good plan to invest in a cattle ranch of
his own, and put Ben in charge of it on terms which would make it pay
him very well, and which would lay a foundation for his son's future.
And so when Ben went away, he went as the prospective master of a
ranch which would be almost as good as his own, and might easily
become his own in time, as indeed it did in the course of a few
years; and Tom, the boy, grew up on it into a fine young man and was
devotedly fond of his father; and they were so successful and happy
that Ben used to say that Tom made up to him for all the troubles he
had ever had.

But Dick and Mr. Hobbs--who had actually come over with the
others to see that things were properly looked after--did not return
for some time. It had been decided at the outset that the Earl would
provide for Dick, and would see that he received a solid education;
and Mr. Hobbs had decided that as he himself had left a reliable
substitute in charge of his store, he could afford to wait to see the
festivities which were to celebrate Lord Fauntleroy's eighth
birthday. All the tenantry were invited, and there were to be
feasting and dancing and games in the park, and bonfires and
fire-works in the evening.

"Just like the Fourth of July!" said Lord Fauntleroy. "It seems
a pity my birthday wasn't on the Fourth, doesn't it? For then we
could keep them both together."

It must be confessed that at first the Earl and Mr. Hobbs were
not as intimate as it might have been hoped they would become, in the
interests of the British aristocracy. The fact was that the Earl had
known very few grocery-men, and Mr. Hobbs had not had many very close
acquaintances who were earls; and so in their rare interviews
conversation did not flourish. It must also be owned that Mr. Hobbs
had been rather overwhelmed by the splendors Fauntleroy felt it his
duty to show him.

The entrance gate and the stone lions and the avenue impressed
Mr. Hobbs somewhat at the beginning, and when he saw the Castle, and
the flower-gardens, and the hot-houses, and the terraces, and the
peacocks, and the dungeon, and the armor, and the great staircase,
and the stables, and the liveried servants, he really was quite
bewildered. But it was the picture gallery which seemed to be the
finishing stroke.

"Somethin' in the manner of a museum?" he said to Fauntleroy,
when he was led into the great, beautiful room.

"N--no--!" said Fauntleroy, rather doubtfully. "I don't think
it's a museum. My grandfather says these are my ancestors."

"Your aunt's sisters!" ejaculated Mr. Hobbs. "All of 'em? Your
great-uncle, he must have had a family! Did he raise 'em all?"

And he sank into a seat and looked around him with quite an
agitated countenance, until with the greatest difficulty Lord
Fauntleroy managed to explain that the walls were not lined entirely
with the portraits of the progeny of his great-uncle.

He found it necessary, in fact, to call in the assistance of
Mrs. Mellon, who knew all about the pictures, and could tell who
painted them and when, and who added romantic stories of the lords
and ladies who were the originals. When Mr. Hobbs once understood,
and had heard some of these stories, he was very much fascinated and
liked the picture gallery almost better than anything else; and he
would often walk over from the village, where he staid at the
Dorincourt Arms, and would spend half an hour or so wandering about
the gallery, staring at the painted ladies and gentlemen, who also
stared at him, and shaking his head nearly all the time.

"And they was all earls!" he would say, "er pretty nigh it! An'
he's goin' to be one of 'em, an' own it all!"

Privately he was not nearly so much disgusted with earls and
their mode of life as he had expected to be, and it is to be doubted
whether his strictly republican principles were not shaken a little
by a closer acquaintance with castles and ancestors and all the rest
of it. At any rate, one day he uttered a very remarkable and
unexpected sentiment:

"I wouldn't have minded bein' one of 'em myself!" he said--which
was really a great concession.

What a grand day it was when little Lord Fauntleroy's birthday
arrived, and how his young lordship enjoyed it! How beautiful the
park looked, filled with the thronging people dressed in their gayest
and best, and with the flags flying from the tents and the top of the
Castle! Nobody had staid away who could possibly come, because
everybody was really glad that little Lord Fauntleroy was to be
little Lord Fauntleroy still, and some day was to be the master of
everything. Every one wanted to have a look at him, and at his
pretty, kind mother, who had made so many friends. And positively
every one liked the Earl rather better, and felt more amiably toward
him because the little boy loved and trusted him so, and because,
also, he had now made friends with and behaved respectfully to his
heir's mother. It was said that he was even beginning to be fond of
her, too, and that between his young lordship and his young
lordship's mother, the Earl might be changed in time into quite a
well-behaved old nobleman, and everybody might be happier and better
off.

What scores and scores of people there were under the trees, and
in the tents, and on the lawns! Farmers and farmers' wives in their
Sunday suits and bonnets and shawls; girls and their sweethearts;
children frolicking and chasing about; and old dames in red cloaks
gossiping together. At the Castle, there were ladies and gentlemen
who had come to see the fun, and to congratulate the Earl, and to
meet Mrs. Errol. Lady Lorredaile and Sir Harry were there, and Sir
Thomas Asshe and his daughters, and Mr. Havisham, of course, and then
beautiful Miss Vivian Herbert, with the loveliest white gown and lace
parasol, and a circle of gentlemen to take care of her--though she
evidently liked Fauntleroy better than all of them put together. And
when he saw her and ran to her and put his arm around her neck, she
put her arms around him, too, and kissed him as warmly as if he had
been her own favorite little brother, and she said:

"Dear little Lord Fauntleroy! dear little boy! I am so glad!
I am so glad!"

And afterward she walked about the grounds with him, and let him
show her everything. And when he took her to where Mr. Hobbs and
Dick were, and said to her, "This is my old, old friend Mr. Hobbs,
Miss Herbert, and this is my other old friend Dick. I told them how
pretty you were, and I told them they should see you if you came to
my birthday,"--she shook hands with them both, and stood and talked
to them in her prettiest way, asking them about America and their
voyage and their life since they had been in England; while
Fauntleroy stood by, looking up at her with adoring eyes, and his
cheeks quite flushed with delight because he saw that Mr. Hobbs and
Dick liked her so much.

"Well," said Dick solemnly, afterward, "she's the daisiest gal I
ever saw! She's--well, she's just a daisy, that's what she is, 'n'
no mistake!"

Everybody looked after her as she passed, and every one looked
after little Lord Fauntleroy. And the sun shone and the flags
fluttered and the games were played and the dances danced, and as the
gayeties went on and the joyous afternoon passed, his little lordship
was simply radiantly happy.

The whole world seemed beautiful to him.

There was some one else who was happy, too,--an old man, who,
though he had been rich and noble all his life, had not often been
very honestly happy. Perhaps, indeed, I shall tell you that I think
it was because he was rather better than he had been that he was
rather happier. He had not, indeed, suddenly become as good as
Fauntleroy thought him; but, at least, he had begun to love
something, and he had several times found a sort of pleasure in doing
the kind things which the innocent, kind little heart of a child had
suggested,--and that was a beginning. And every day he had been more
pleased with his son's wife. It was true, as the people said, that
he was beginning to like her too. He liked to hear her sweet voice
and to see her sweet face; and as he sat in his arm-chair, he used to
watch her and listen as she talked to her boy; and he heard loving,
gentle words which were new to him, and he began to see why the
little fellow who had lived in a New York side street and known
grocery-men and made friends with boot-blacks, was still so well-bred
and manly a little fellow that he made no one ashamed of him, even
when fortune changed him into the heir to an English earldom, living
in an English castle.

It was really a very simple thing, after all,--it was only that
he had lived near a kind and gentle heart, and had been taught to
think kind thoughts always and to care for others. It is a very
little thing, perhaps, but it is the best thing of all. He knew
nothing of earls and castles; he was quite ignorant of all grand and
splendid things; but he was always lovable because he was simple and
loving. To be so is like being born a king.

As the old Earl of Dorincourt looked at him that day, moving
about the park among the people, talking to those he knew and making
his ready little bow when any one greeted him, entertaining his
friends Dick and Mr. Hobbs, or standing near his mother or Miss
Herbert listening to their conversation, the old nobleman was very
well satisfied with him. And he had never been better satisfied than
he was when they went down to the biggest tent, where the more
important tenants of the Dorincourt estate were sitting down to the
grand collation of the day.

They were drinking toasts; and, after they had drunk the health
of the Earl, with much more enthusiasm than his name had ever been
greeted with before, they proposed the health of "Little Lord
Fauntleroy." And if there had ever been any doubt at all as to
whether his lordship was popular or not, it would have been set that
instant. Such a clamor of voices, and such a rattle of glasses and
applause! They had begun to like him so much, those warm-hearted
people, that they forgot to feel any restraint before the ladies and
gentlemen from the castle, who had come to see them. They made quite
a decent uproar, and one or two motherly women looked tenderly at the
little fellow where he stood, with his mother on one side and the
Earl on the other, and grew quite moist about the eyes, and said to
one another:

"God bless him, the pretty little dear!"

Little Lord Fauntleroy was delighted. He stood and smiled, and
made bows, and flushed rosy red with pleasure up to the roots of his
bright hair.

"Is it because they like me, Dearest?" he said to his mother.
"Is it, Dearest? I'm so glad!"

And then the Earl put his hand on the child's shoulder and said
to him:

"Fauntleroy, say to them that you thank them for their
kindness."

Fauntleroy gave a glance up at him and then at his mother.

"Must I?" he asked just a trifle shyly, and she smiled, and so
did Miss Herbert, and they both nodded. And so he made a little step
forward, and everybody looked at him--such a beautiful, innocent
little fellow he was, too, with his brave, trustful face!--and he
spoke as loudly as he could, his childish voice ringing out quite
clear and strong.

"I'm ever so much obliged to you!" he said, "and--I hope you'll
enjoy my birthday--because I've enjoyed it so much--and--I'm very
glad I'm going to be an earl; I didn't think at first I should like
it, but now I do--and I love this place so, and I think it is
beautiful--and--and--and when I am an earl, I am going to try to be
as good as my grandfather."

And amid the shouts and clamor of applause, he stepped back with
a little sigh of relief, and put his hand into the Earl's and stood
close to him, smiling and leaning against his side.

And that would be the very end of my story; but I must add one
curious piece of information, which is that Mr. Hobbs became so
fascinated with high life and was so reluctant to leave his young
friend that he actually sold his corner store in New York, and
settled in the English village of Erlesboro, where he opened a shop
which was patronized by the Castle and consequently was a great
success. And though he and the Earl never became very intimate, if
you will believe me, that man Hobbs became in time more aristocratic
than his lordship himself, and he read the Court news every morning,
and followed all the doings of the House of Lords! And about ten
years after, when Dick, who had finished his education and was going
to visit his brother in California, asked the good grocer if he did
not wish to return to America, he shook his head seriously.

"Not to live there," he said. "Not to live there; I want to be
near him, an' sort o' look after him. It's a good enough country
for them that's young an' stirrin'--but there's faults in it.
There's not an auntsister among 'em--nor an earl!"