Me and Nobbles | Page 3

them before he could
get to it. There were two rooms, one leading out of the other, and both
looked out at the back of the house. Bobby spent hours by the window,
and he knew every inch of the landscape outside.
First there was a paved yard with a high wall on one side, with a green
door in it, through which you passed into a walled kitchen garden. This

door was kept locked in fruit time; the gardener, old Tom, kept one key,
and Bobby's grandmother the other.
Old Tom was generally working in the kitchen garden, and Bobby
watched him from his window with keen interested eyes. Beyond this
garden was an orchard which ran down to the high-road. Bobby could
not see this road from his window, for a tall row of elms hid it from his
view. In the summer, when the windows were open, he could hear the
hoot of the motors as they tore along it. But he could see for miles
beyond this road. There was a stretch of green fields, two farms, and a
range of distant hills, behind which the sun always set. And when he
got tired of looking at all this, there was the sky; and the sky to him
was a never-ending joy. The clouds chasing each other across its
infinite blue, presented the most entrancing pictures to him. Monsters
pursuing their prey, ogres changing their shape as they flew, castles
dissolving into ocean waves, mermaids, angels, hunters, wolves,
chariots and horses. These, and hosts besides, all passed before him.
When it was dark in winter-time he would clamber down from his
window-seat and content himself with his toys. The nursery was very
plainly furnished. It had a square table in the middle of the room; there
was one cupboard for Bobby's toys, another for the nursery crockery; a
wooden rocking-chair, a low oak bench, and two rush chairs. The floor
was covered with red cocoanut matting. The fire was guarded by a high
wire screen, and above the mantelpiece hung a coloured illustration of
the battle of Waterloo. Bobby knew every man and horse in it by name.
He had his own stories for every one of them, and was found more than
once dissolved in tears after looking at it.
'That captain under his horse is so dreadfully hurt, his bones is broken,
and he was going home to his little boy!' he would say pitifully, when
Nurse would enquire the cause of his grief.
Nurse was a tall thin woman with a severe voice and a soft heart. But
though she adored her little charge she never let him know it, and the
only time she kissed him was when she tucked him up in his small bed
at night. Bobby was quite aware that the grown-up people in the house
did not care for him. This did not trouble him; he took it for granted

that all grown-up people were the same. With one exception, however.
In the depths of his heart he felt that his unknown father loved him.
One night after saying his prayers, and repeating the Lord's Prayer
sentence by sentence after his nurse, he said:
'Who's "Our Father?" Is it mine own, who's far away?'
'Dear, no!' said the nurse, in a shocked tone. ''Tis God Almighty, up in
heaven.'
'Then I shan't call him "Father," 'cause He isn't.'
'For shame, you wicked boy! God is everybody's Father, He loves you,
and gives you everything you want.'
'Does fathers always do that?'
'Of course they do. Fathers always love their children, and work for
them, and care for them. And the great God is called Father because He
loves you.'
Bobby thought over this. And he hugged the thought to his heart that he
had two fathers, both far away, but both loving him. He knew that God
was the nearest to him; he was told that He watched over him night and
day, and could always hear him when he spoke to Him. But his heart
went out to his earthly father in an unknown country. And he used to be
constantly picturing his return.
On the whole, though he had very big thoughts, and fits of dreaming,
Bobby was a happy, merry little soul. Sometimes he strayed along the
big passage and peeped through the green baize door which led down
the front stairs. He had a way of asking Jane what 'the House' was
doing, 'the House' being his grandmother, and uncle and aunt, and their
visitors. Occasionally he would make breathless little excursions of his
own into the rooms which seemed so strange and wonderful to him.
This was generally in the very early morning, or in the afternoon, when
everyone was out of doors. Nurse would