Martin Rattler

CHAPTER ONE.

THE HERO AND HIS ONLY RELATIVE.

Martin Rattler was a very bad boy. At least his aunt, Mrs Dorothy
Grumbit, said so; and certainly she ought to have known, if anybody
should, for Martin lived with her, and was, as she herself expressed it,
"the bane of her existence; the very torment of her life." No doubt of
it whatever, according to Aunt Dorothy Grumbit's showing, Martin Rattler
was "a remarkably bad boy."

It is a curious fact, however, that, although most of the people in the
village of Ashford seemed to agree with Mrs Grumbit in her opinion of
Martin, there were very few of them who did not smile cheerfully on the
child when they met him, and say, "Good day, lad!" as heartily as if
they thought him the best boy in the place. No one seemed to bear
Martin Rattler ill-will, notwithstanding his alleged badness. Men
laughed when they said he was a bad boy, as if they did not quite
believe their own assertion. The vicar, an old whiteheaded man, with a
kind, hearty countenance, said that the child was full of mischief, full
of mischief; but he would improve as he grew older, he was quite certain
of that. And the vicar was a good judge; for he had five boys of his
own, besides three other boys, the sons of a distant relative, who
boarded with him; and he had lived forty years in a parish overflowing
with boys, and he was particularly fond of boys in general. Not so the
doctor, a pursy little man with a terrific frown, who hated boys,
especially little ones, with a very powerful hatred. The doctor said
that Martin was a scamp.