So Judy promised always to "bemember Mamma."
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any and many a time was Mamma's command laid upon Punch, and Papawould say the same thing with an insistence that awed the child. "You must make haste and learn to write, Punch," said Papa, "and thenyou'll be able to write letters to us in Bombay." "I'll come into your room," said Punch, and Papa choked. Papa and Mamma were always choking in those days. If Punch took Judyto task for not "bemembering," they choked. If Punch sprawled on thesofa in the Southampton lodging-house and sketched his future inpurple and gold, they choked; and so they did if Judy put up her mouthfor a kiss. Through many days all four were vagabonds on the face of the earth:Punch with no one to give orders to, Judy too young for anything, andPapa and Mamma grave, distracted, and choking. "Where," demanded Punch, wearied of a loathsome contrivance on fourwheels with a mound of luggage atop--"where is our broom-gharri? Thisthing talks so much that I can't talk. Where is our own broom-gharri?When I was at Bandstand before we comed away, I asked Inverarity Sahibwhy he was sitting in it, and he said it was his own. And I said, 'Iwill give it you'--I like Inverarity Sahib--and I said, 'Can you putyour legs through the pully-wag loops by the windows? And InveraritySahib said No, and laughed. I can put my legs through the pully-wagloops. I can put my legs through these pully-wag loops. Look! Oh,Mamma's crying again! I did n't know. I was n't not to do so." Punch drew his legs out of the loops of the four-wheeler: the dooropened and he slid to the earth, in a cascade of parcels, at the doorof an austere little villa whose gates bore the legend "Downe Lodge."Punch gathered himself together and eyed the house with disfavour. Itstood on a sandy road, and a cold wind tickled his knickerbockeredlegs. "Let us go away," said Punch. "This is not a pretty place." But Mamma and Papa and Judy had quitted the cab, and all the luggagewas being taken into the house. At the door-step stood a woman inblack, and she smiled largely, with dry chapped lips. Behind her was aman, big, bony, gray, and lame as to one leg--behind him a boy oftwelve, black-haired and oily in appearance. Punch surveyed the trio,and advanced without fear, as he had been accustomed to do in Bombaywhen callers came and he happened to be playing in the veranda. "How do you do?" said he. "I am Punch." But they were all looking atthe luggage--all except the gray man, who shook hands with Punch andsaid he was a "smart little fellow." There was much running about andbanging of boxes, and Punch curled himself up on the sofa in thedining-room and considered things. "I don't like these people," said Punch. "But never mind. We'll goaway soon. We have always went away soon from everywhere. I wish wewas gone back to Bombay soon." The wish bore no fruit. For six days Mamma wept at intervals, andshowed the woman in black all Punch's clothes--a liberty which Punchresented. "But p'raps she's a new white ayah," he thought. "I'm tocall her Antirosa, but she does n't call me Sahib. She says justPunch," he confided to Judy. "What is Antirosa?" Judy did n't know. Neither she nor Punch had heard anything of ananimal called an aunt. Their world had been Papa and Mamma, who kneweverything, permitted everything, and loved everybody--even Punch whenhe used to go into the garden at Bombay and fill his nails with moldafter the weekly nail-cutting, because, as he explained between twostrokes of the slipper to his sorely tried Father, his fingers "feltso new at the ends." In an undefined way Punch judged it advisable to keep both parentsbetween himself and the woman in black and the boy in black hair. Hedid not approve of them. He liked the gray man, who had expressed awish to be called "Uncleharri." They nodded at each other when theymet, and the gray man showed him a little ship with rigging that tookup and down. "She is a model of the _Brisk_--the little _Brisk_ that was soreexposed that day at Navarino." The gray man hummed the last words andfell into a reverie. "I'll tell you about Navarino, Punch, when we gofor walks together; and you must n't touch the ship, because she's the_Brisk_." Long before that walk, the first of many, was taken, they roused Punchand Judy in the chill dawn of a February morning to say Good-bye; andof all people in the wide earth to Papa and Mamma--both crying thistime. Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross. "Don't forget us," pleaded Mamma. "Oh, my little son, don't forget us,and see that Judy remembers too." "I've told Judy to bemember," said Punch, wiggling, for his father'sbeard tickled his neck. "I've told Judy--ten--forty--'leven thousandtimes. But Ju 's so young--quite a baby--is n't she?" "Yes," said Papa, "Quite a baby, and you must be good to Judy, andmake haste to learn to write and--and--and----" Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was fast asleep, and there wasthe rattle of a cab below. Papa and Mamma had gone away. Not toNassick; that was across the sea. To some place much nearer, ofcourse, and equally of course they would return. They came back afterdinner-parties, and Papa had come back after he had been to a placecalled "The Snows," and Mamma with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs.Inverarity's house in Marine Lines. Assuredly they would come backagain. So Punch fell asleep till the true morning, when theblack-haired boy met him with the information that Papa and Mamma hadgone to Bombay, and that he and Judy were to stay at Downe Lodge"forever." Antirosa, tearfully appealed to for a contradiction, saidthat Harry had spoken the truth, and that it behooved Punch to fold uphis clothes neatly on going to bed. Punch went out and wept bitterlywith Judy, into whose fair head he had driven some ideas of themeaning of separation. When a matured man discovers that he has been deserted by Providence,deprived of his God, and cast without help, comfort, or sympathy, upona world which is new and strange to him, his despair, which may findexpression in evil-living, the writing of his experiences, or the moresatisfactory diversion of suicide, is generally supposed to beimpressive. A child, under exactly similar circumstances as far as itsknowledge goes, cannot very well curse God and die. It howls till itsnose is red, its eyes are sore, and its head aches. Punch and Judy,through no fault of their own, had lost all their world. They sat inthe hall and cried; the black-haired boy looking on from afar. The model of the ship availed nothing, though the gray man assuredPunch that he might pull the rigging up and down as much as hepleased; and Judy was promised free entry into the kitchen. Theywanted Papa and Mamma, gone to Bombay beyond the seas, and their griefwhile it lasted was without remedy. When the tears ceased the house was very still. Antirosa had decidedit was better to let the children "have their cry out," and the boyhad gone to school. Punch raised his head from the floor and sniffedmournfully. Judy was nearly asleep. Three short years had not taughther how to bear sorrow with full knowledge. There was a distant, dullboom in the air--a repeated heavy thud. Punch knew that sound inBombay in the Monsoon. It was the sea--the sea that must be traversedbefore anyone could get to Bombay. "Quick, Ju!" he cried, "we're close to the sea. I can hear it! Listen!That's where they've went. P'raps we can catch them if we was in time.They did n't mean to go without us. They've only forgot." "Iss," said Judy. "They've only forgotted. Less go to the sea." The hall-door was open and so was the garden-gate. "It's very, very big, this place," he said, looking cautiously downthe road, "and we will get lost; but I will find a man and order himto take me back to my house--like I did in Bombay." He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled hatless in the direction ofthe sound of the sea. Downe Villa was almost the last of a range ofnewly built houses running out, through a chaos of brick-mounds, to aheath where gypsies occasionally camped and where the GarrisonArtillery of Rocklington practised. There were few people to be seen,and the children might have been taken for those of the soldiery, whoranged far. Half an hour the wearied little legs tramped acrossheath, potato-field, and sand-dune. "I'se so tired," said Judy, "and Mamma will be angry." "Mamma's never angry. I suppose she is waiting at the sea now whilePapa gets tickets. We'll find them and go along with them. Ju, youmust n't sit down. Only a little more and we'll come to the sea. Ju,if you sit down I'll thmack you!" said Punch. They climbed another dune, and came upon the great gray sea at lowtide. Hundreds of crabs were scuttling about the beach, but there wasno trace of Papa and Mamma not even of a ship upon the waters--nothingbut sand and mud for miles and miles. And "Uncleharri" found them by chance--very muddy and veryforlorn--Punch dissolved in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an"ickle trab," and Judy wailing to the pitiless horizon for "Mamma,Mamma!"--and again "Mamma!"
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