325

XXXI. NOT DEAD, BUT TRANSLATED, 335

XXXII. A BOY NO LONGER, 349

CHAPTER I.

BERT IS INTRODUCED.

If Cuthbert Lloyd had been born in the time of our great grandfathers,
instead of a little later than the first half of the present century,
the gossips would assuredly have declared that the good fairies had had
it all their own way at his birth.

To begin with, he was a particularly fine handsome baby; for did not all
the friends of the family say so? In the second place, he was an only
son, which meant that he had no big brothers to bully him. Next, his
birthplace was the stirring seaport of Halifax, where a sturdy,
energetic boy, such as Cuthbert certainly gave good promise of being,
need never lack for fun or adventure. Finally, he had plenty of
relations in the country to whom he might go in the summer time to learn
the secrets and delights of country life.

Now, when to all these advantages are added two fond but sensible
parents in comfortable circumstances, an elder sister who loved little
Cuthbert with the whole strength of her warm unselfish heart, and a
pleasant home in the best part of the city, they surely make us as fine
a list of blessings as the most benevolent fairy godmother could
reasonably have been expected to bestow.

And yet there was nothing about Master Cuthbert's early conduct to
indicate that he properly appreciated his good fortune. He was not half
as well-behaved a baby, for instance, as red-headed little Patsey Shea,
who, a few days after his first appearance, brought another hungry mouth
to the already over-populated cottage of the milkwoman down in
Hardhand's lane. As he grew older, it needed more whippings than the sum
total of his own chubby fingers and toes to instil into him a proper
understanding of parental authority. Sometimes his mother, who was a
slight small woman, stronger of mind than of body, would feel downright
discouraged about her vigorous, wilful boy, and wonder,
half-despairingly, if she were really equal to the task of bringing him
up in the way he should go.

Cuthbert was in many respects an odd mixture. His mother often said that
he seemed more like two boys of opposite natures rolled into one, than
just one ordinary boy. When quite a little chap, he would at one time be
as full of noise, action, and enterprise as the captain o