Robin of Sun Court

Robin of Sun Court by Eleanora H. Stooke

Set in the slum district of Sun Court in Plymouth, England, the story centres on Robin Rodway, a ten-year-old boy living in poverty with his mother and his drunken stepfather, Richard Burt. Despite the squalor of their surroundings, Robin and his mother maintain honesty and integrity, sustained by the friendship and Christian counsel of their neighbour Jasper Blamey, an elderly cobbler of deep and practical faith who lives next door. Robin's circumstances begin to change when a kind-hearted artist, Mrs. Groves, notices him being bullied in the street and engages him as a model for a painting she intends to produce. The boy, nicknamed Ragged Robin by the neighbourhood children on account of his threadbare clothing, is painted exactly as he is, dressed in rags and reaching for wildflowers, in a work she titles Ragged Robins. Through this arrangement Robin earns a small income, befriends Mrs. Groves's delicate son Gilbert, and also comes to know Miss Maggs, the brusque but warm-hearted landlady with whom the Groves family lodge. Robin saves his earnings carefully, intending to give his mother a holiday on Dartmoor, the countryside she knew in her youth and which she longs to revisit. A complication arises when Robin receives a letter from his paternal grandfather, Robin Rodway senior, a retired Cornish sailor living at Newlyn in Cornwall, who has learned of the boy's existence through Mrs. Groves and her son Gilbert. The grandfather offers Robin a home with him and the prospect of a decent future. Robin is torn between loyalty to his mother and the opportunity his grandfather represents, though he eventually resolves to remain at his mother's side. His resolution is tested further when his carefully saved earnings are stolen, the lock of his mother's workbox having been forced. Both Robin and his mother immediately and painfully suspect Richard Burt, but the stepfather protests his innocence with such evident sincerity that they come to believe him. The theft is reported to the police but the culprit is not immediately identified. Shortly after, Richard Burt performs an act of unexpected heroism, flinging a small child out of the path of a motor-carriage and sustaining serious injuries himself. During his long convalescence, attended by the care of his wife and stepson, Richard undergoes a genuine transformation. He repents of his drinking and his past cruelties, resolves to take the pledge, and is reconciled with both his wife and Robin. The accident and its aftermath draw the small family together in a way nothing had managed before. While Richard recovers, Mrs. Groves sells the painting Ragged Robins to an American buyer and sends Mrs. Burt five pounds as a share of the proceeds, enabling the family to accept Robin's grandfather's invitation and travel to Newlyn for a holiday by the sea. There they find the old sailor to be a fine, upright man, and the Cornish air and surroundings restore Richard Burt's health and Mrs. Burt's spirits considerably. Arrangements are made for Robin to remain permanently with his grandfather, while his mother and stepfather take up posts as caretakers of a nearby property, enabling them to remain close to the boy. A final revelation comes through a letter delivered by Jasper Blamey. Dick Farrant, a rough older youth from Sun Court who had mixed dishonest tendencies with occasional kindness toward Robin, confesses that it was he who stole the boy's savings, having observed where the money was kept and used a key that happened to fit the door. Dick, prompted to this confession after a brief spell of imprisonment for another theft and subsequently helped by Jasper Blamey to emigrate to Canada with steadier companions, asks Robin's forgiveness and indicates that during his imprisonment he found and took comfort in the scriptural verse Robin had once quoted to him. Robin forgives him freely, and all concerned find hope in the possibility of Dick's genuine reformation. The story concludes with Jasper Blamey, who has visited Newlyn during his annual holiday and witnessed his friends' happiness, returning contentedly to Sun Court, convinced that God has turned the misfortunes of the family into unexpected blessings, and that his own place of duty and usefulness remains among the people of the slum he has always called home.

By Eleanora H. Stooke · First published 1908 · Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Adventure · 12 chapters · 31,185 words

First lines

SUN COURT was generally spoken of as one of the worst slums in Plymouth. Its name had been ill-chosen, for the sunlight only peeped into it early in the morning, and then only for an hour or so; during the rest of the day the place was dull and cheerless in the extreme. The houses surrounding the court were squalid and dilapidated for the most part. But some few looked better kept; and decorating a certain downstair window, on the May morning on which this story opens, was a wallflower in full bloom in a pot-an object of beauty in the midst of much which was unsightly, and, as the sun's rays fell on the streaky, golden-brown blooms, their delicious scent seemed to grow stronger until their fragrance filled the air.

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Robin of Sun Court is listed on Textopian as a novella by Eleanora H. Stooke, dated 1908 CE.

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Genres

Tags

children's fiction · historical fiction · historical adventure · British literature · Tudor England · sixteenth century · royal court · courtly life · young protagonist · coming of age · friendship · family

Contents

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