"But where"m I to take you?" cried Bindle. "You don"t like the pictures, you won"t go to the "alls, and I can"t stand that smelly little chapel of yours, listenin" to a cove wot tells you "ow uncomfortable you"re goin" to be when you"re cold meat."
"You could take me for a walk, couldn"t you?" demanded Mrs. Bindle.
"When I takes you round the "ouses, you bully-rags me because I cheer-o"s my pals, and if we pa.s.ses a pub you makes pleasant little remarks about gin-palaces. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. B.," he remarked on one occasion, "you ain"t good company, at least not in this world," he added.
"That"s right, go on," Mrs. Bindle would conclude. "Why did you marry me?"
"There, Mrs. B.," he would reply, "you "ave me beaten."
From the moment that Mrs. Bindle read of the Bishop of Fulham"s Summer-Camps for Tired Workers, she became obsessed by the idea of a holiday in a summer-camp. She was one of the first to apply for the literature that was advertised as distributed free.
The evening-paper that Bindle brought home possessed a new interest for her.
"Anything about the summer-camps?" she would ask, interrupting Bindle in his study of the cricket and racing news, until at last he came to hate the very name of summer-camps and all they implied.
"That"s the worst o" religion," he grumbled one night at The Yellow Ostrich; "it comes a-b.u.t.tin" into your "ome life, an" then there ain"t no peace."
"I don"t "old wiv religion," growled Ginger.
"I ain"t got nothink to say against religion _as_ religion," Bindle had remarked; "but I bars summer-camps."
Mrs. Bindle, however, was packing. With all the care of a practised housewife, she first devoted herself to the necessary cooking-utensils.
She packed and unpacked half-a-dozen times a day, always stowing away some article that, a few minutes later, she found she required.
Her conversation at meal-times was devoted exclusively to what they should take with them. She asked innumerable questions, none of which Bindle was able satisfactorily to answer. To him the bucolic life was a closed book; but he soon realised that a holiday at the Surrey Summer-Camp was inevitable.
"Wot am I to do in a summer-camp?" he mumbled, one evening after supper.
"I can drive an "orse, if some one"s leadin" it, an" I knows it"s an "en wot lays the eggs an" the c.o.c.k wot makes an "ell of a row in the mornin", same as them ole "orrors we used to "ave; but barrin" that, I"m done."
"That"s right," broke in Mrs. Bindle, "try and spoil my pleasure, it"s little enough I get."
"But wot are we goin" to do in the country?" persisted Bindle with wrinkled forehead. "I don"t like gardenin", an"----"
"Pity you don"t," she snapped.
"Yes, it"s a pity," he agreed; "still, it"s saved me an "ell of a lot o"
back-aches. But wot are we goin" to do in a summer-camp, that"s wot I want to know."
"You"ll be getting fresh air and--and you can watch the sunsets."
"But the sun ain"t goin" to set all day," he persisted. "Besides, I can see the sunset from Putney Bridge, an" d.a.m.n good sunsets too, for them as likes "em. There ain"t no need to go to a summer-camp to see a sunset."
"You can go on, you"re not hurting me." Mrs. Bindle drew in her lips and sat looking straight in front of her, a grim figure of Christian patience.
"I can"t milk a cow," Bindle continued disconsolately, reviewing his limitations. "I can"t catch chickens, me with various veins in my legs, I "ates the smell o" pigs, an" I ain"t good at weedin" gardens. Now I asks you, Mrs. B., wot use am I at a summer-camp? I"ll only be a sort o"
fly in the drippin"."
"You can enjoy yourself, I suppose, can"t you?" she snapped.
"But "ow?"
"Oh! don"t talk to me. I"m sick and tired of your grumbling, with your don"t like this, an" your don"t like that. Pity you haven"t something to grumble about."
"But I ain"t----"
"There"s many men would be glad to have a home like yours, an" chance it."
"Naughty!" cried Bindle, wagging an admonitory finger at her. "If I----"
"Stop it!" she cried, jumping up, and making a dash for the fire, which she proceeded to poke into extinction.
Meanwhile, Bindle had stopped it, seizing the opportunity whilst Mrs.
Bindle was engaged with the fire, to slip out to The Yellow Ostrich.
II
"Looks a bit lonely, don"t it?" Bindle gazed about him doubtfully.
"What did you expect in the country?" snapped Mrs. Bindle.
"Well, a tram or a bus would make it look more "ome-like."
The Bindles were standing on the down platform of Boxton Station surrounded by their luggage. There was a j.a.panese basket bursting to reveal its contents, a large cardboard hat-box, a small leather bag without a handle and tied round the middle with string to reinforce a dubious fastening. There was a string-bag blatantly confessing to its heterogeneous contents, and a roll of blankets, through the centre of which poked Mrs. Bindle"s second-best umbrella, with a travesty of a parrot"s head for a handle.
There was a small deal box without a lid and marked "Tate"s Sugar," and a frying-pan done up in newspaper, but still obviously a frying-pan.
Finally there was a small tin-bath, full to overflowing, and covered by a faded maroon-coloured table-cover that had seen better days.
Bindle looked down ruefully at the litter of possessions that formed an oasis on a desert of platform.
"They ain"t afraid of anythink "appening "ere," he remarked, as he looked about him. "Funny little "ole, I calls it."
Mrs. Bindle was obviously troubled. She had been clearly told at the temporary offices of the Committee of the Summer-Camps for Tired Workers, that a cart met the train by which she and Bindle had travelled; yet nowhere was there a sign of life. Vainly in her own mind she strove to a.s.sociate Bindle with the cause of their standing alone on a country railway-platform, surrounded by so uninviting a collection of luggage.
Presently an old man was observed leaving the distant signal-box and hobbling slowly towards them. When within a few yards of the Bindles, he halted and gazed doubtfully, first at them, then at the pile of their possessions. Finally he removed his cap of office as railway porter, and scratched his head dubiously.
"I missed un that time," he said at length, as he replaced his cap.
"Missed who?" enquired Bindle.
"The four-forty," replied the old man, stepping aside to get a better view of the luggage. "Got a-talkin" to Young Tom an" clean forgot un."
It was clear that he regarded the episode in the light of a good joke.
"Yours?" he queried a moment later, indicating with a jerk of his head the litter on the platform.
"Got it first time, grandpa," said Bindle cheerfully. "We come to start a p.a.w.nshop in these parts," he added.
The porter looked at Bindle with a puzzled expression, then his gaze wandered back to the luggage and finally on to Mrs. Bindle.
"We"ve come to join the Summer-Camp," she explained.