In the schoolroom meanwhile the inevitable reaction had taken place.
As the door closed behind Jeffreys, Jonah, hardly knowing what he did, gave vent to a hysterical laugh.
It was the signal for an explosion such as he had little counted on.
"Thou little dirty toad!" said the farmer, rounding on him wrathfully; "what dost mean by that? Hey? For shame!"
"Beast!" shouted Freddy, choking with anger and misery.
"Beast!" echoed the school.
Some one threw a wet sponge across the room, but Mr Rosher intercepted it.
"Nay, nay, lads; don"t waste your clean things on him. Freddy and Teddy, my lads--where"s Teddy?--come along home. You"ve done with Galloway House."
"Why, sir--" expostulated the wretched Jonah.
"Hold thy tongue again," roared the farmer. "Coom away, lads. Thee can take a half-holiday to-day, all of you, and if thy parents ask why, say Farmer Rosher will tell them."
"I"ll have you prosecuted," growled Trimble, "for interfering with my--"
"Dost want to be shut up in yon cupboard?" roared the hot-headed farmer.
And the hint was quite enough.
Galloway House on that day turned a corner. Farmer Rosher, who had sore doubts in his own mind whether he had done good or harm by his interference, spoke his mind freely to his neighbours on the subject of Jonah Trimble, a proceeding in which his two sons heartily backed him up. The consequence was that that worthy young pedagogue found his scholastic labours materially lightened--for a dozen boys are easier to teach than fifty--and had time to wonder whether after all he would not have served his day and generation quite as well by looking after his own affairs, as after the most unprofitable affairs of somebody else.
CHAPTER TEN.
TOSSED ABOUT.
Jeffreys, as the reader will have discovered, did not possess the art of doing himself common justice. He had brooded so long and so bitterly over his fatal act of violence at Bolsover, that he had come almost to forget that accident had had anything to do with poor Forrester"s injuries. And now, when confronted with his crime, even by a despicable wretch like Trimble, he had not the spirit to hold up his head and make some effort at any rate to clear himself of all that was charged against him.
Jeffreys was still a blunderer, or else his conscience was unusually sensitive. You and I, reader, no doubt, would have put a bold face on the matter, and insisted the whole affair was entirely an accident, and that we were to be pitied rather than blamed for what had happened. And a great many people would have pitied us accordingly. But Jeffreys claimed no pity. He saw nothing but his own ruthless fault; and he chose to take the whole burden of it, and the burden of the accident besides, on his own shoulders.
And so it was he left Galloway House without a word, and cast himself and his bad name once more adrift on a pitiless world.
But as he walked on he was not thinking of Galloway House, or Farmer Rosher, or Freddy or Teddy. The last words of Trimble rang in his ears, and deafened him to all beside.
"He"s dead--_I_ can tell you that!"
It never occurred to him to wonder whence Jonah had derived his information, or whether it was true or false.
Mr Brampton"s letter five months ago had left little hope of the boy"s recovery, but not till now had Jeffreys heard any one say, in so many words "He is dead." Jonah apparently knew the whole story. How he had discovered it, it was useless to guess. And yet for a moment Jeffreys was tempted to return and seize his accuser by the throat and demand the truth of him. But he dismissed the notion with a shudder.
His steps turned, half mechanically, half by chance, towards his guardian"s house. He had never been in that quarter of York since the night of his expulsion, and he did not know why of all places he should just now turn thither. His guardian, as he well knew, was even more pitiless and cynical than ever, and any hope of finding shelter or rest under his roof he knew to be absurd. He might, however, be out; indeed, he had spoken of going to America, in which case Mrs Jessop might be there alone.
One clings to the idea of a home; and this place, such as it was, was the only place which for Jeffreys had ever had any pretensions to the blessed name. His expectations--if he had any--vanished as he abruptly turned the corner of the street and stood in front of the house. The shutters on the lower floor were closed, and the windows above were curtainless and begrimed with dust. A notice "To let," stared out from a board beside the front door, and the once cosy little front garden was weed-grown and run to seed.
Jeffreys felt a stronger man as he walked out of York in the deepening twilight. He was in the way of old a.s.sociations just now, for almost without knowing it he found himself quitting York by way of Ash Lane, every step of which by this time was familiar--painfully familiar ground. The bank on which he had last found Jonah"s knife had now new attractions for him. Not so a garden shed, by the back of which he pa.s.sed, and whence proceeded the glimmer of a light, and the sound of boys" voices.
He could not help standing a moment, and motioning Julius close to his heels, listening.
"It"s broken worse than ever now," said Freddy. "It"s no use trying to mend it."
"Jeff could have done it. I say, Freddy, whatever did father mean?"
"I don"t know. All I know is I"ll never forget dear old Jeff; shall you?"
"Rather not. I"m going to pray for him once a day, Freddy."
"All serene--so shall I."
Jeffreys stole one hurried glance through the cracked timbers, and then walked away quickly and with a heart brim full.
Whenever in after days his soul needed music, he had only to call up the voices of those two little fellows in the shed as he last heard them.
Little heeded they what came of their childish words. Little heeded they that they were helping to make a true man of the Jeff they loved, and that whatever true strength he came to possess for fighting life"s battles and bearing life"s burdens, he owed it beyond any one to them!
He walked on rapidly and steadily for two hours, until the last lingering glow of the summer light had faded from the sky, and the lights of York behind him were lost in the night. A field of new-mown hay provided him with the most luxurious bedroom man could desire.
The thought uppermost in his mind when he awoke next morning was young Forrester. He felt that it would be useless for him to attempt anything or hope for anything till he had ascertained whatever was to be known respecting the boy"s fate. Trimble"s words, which rang in his ears, had a less positive sound about them. At least he would find out for himself whether they were true or false.
Grangerham, the small country town in which he had ascertained Forrester lived, and to which he had been removed from Bolsover, was far enough away from York. Jeffreys had many a time sought it out on the map, and speculated on how it was to be reached, should a summons arrive to call him thither. It was seventy miles away as the crow flies. Jeffreys had the way there by heart. He knew what time the trains left York, what were the junctions along the line, and how far the nearest railway station would take him to his journey"s end.
Now, however, it was a question of walking, not riding. The two pounds in his pocket, all he possessed, scarcely seemed his at all as long as Mr Frampton"s school bill was unsettled. At any rate, it was too precious to squander in railway fares for a man who could walk for nothing.
It was a long, hara.s.sing journey, over moors and along stony roads. It was not till the evening of the second day that the footsore traveller read on a sign-post the welcome words, "Four miles to Grangerham." He had eaten little and rested little on the way, and during the last twelve hours a broiling sun had beaten down pitilessly upon him.
If the journey of the two last days had been exhausting, the fruitless search of the day that followed was fully as wearisome. Grangerham was a pretty big manufacturing town, and Jeffreys" heart sank within him as soon as he entered it. For who among these busy crowds would be likely to know anything of an invalid old lady and her cripple grandson?
In vain he enquired in street after street for Mrs Forrester"s address.
Some had not heard the name. Some knew a public-house kept by one Tony Forrester. Some recollected an old lady who used to keep a costermonger"s stall and had a baby with fits. Others, still more tantalising, began by knowing all about it, and ended by showing that they knew nothing. At the police-office they looked at him hard, and demanded what he wanted with anybody of the name of Forrester. At the post-office they told him curtly they could not tell him anything unless he could give the old lady"s address.
At length, late in the day, he ventured to knock at the door of the clergyman of that part of the town in which the only few residents"
houses seemed to be, and to repeat his question there.
The clergyman, a hard-working man who visited a hundred families in a week, at first returned the same answer as everybody else. No, he did not know any one of that name.
"Stay," he said; "perhaps you mean old Mrs Wilc.o.x."
Jeffreys groaned. Everybody had been suggesting the name of some old lady to him different from the one he wanted.
"She had a nephew, I think, who was a cripple. The poor fellow had had an accident at school, so I heard. I almost think he died. I never saw him myself, but if you come with me, I"ll take you to the Wesleyan minister. I think he knows Mrs Wilc.o.x."
Thankful for any clue, however slight, Jeffreys accompanied the good man to the Wesleyan minister.
"Mrs Wilc.o.x--ah, yes," said the latter, when his brother pastor had explained their errand. "She died in Torquay five months ago. She was a great sufferer."