The vicar nodded his head slowly, as though Darvell"s conduct was not quite incomprehensible under such circ.u.mstances, and Mrs Darvell continued in a lower tone:
"You know, sir, it wur because my man lifted his hand to Frank that the lad went off; and I don"t seem as how I can forget it. When I look at Darvell I keep on rememberin" as how, if he"d bin more patient with the boy we should ha" had him with us still. Darvell"s been a good man to me, but I can"t help speaking sharp to him; though maybe I"m sorry after I done it, for there"s only the two on us now, and we"ll have to worry along together."
The vicar shook his head.
"Hard blows are bad things, Mrs Darvell, but hard words do quite as much mischief in their way. If your husband has driven Frank from home, does it mend matters for you to drive your husband to the public-house?"
"There"s truth in what you say, sir," said Mrs Darvell, rubbing her arms with her ap.r.o.n; "but I don"t seem as if I cared to do any different now the boy"s gone. I"ve allers had a quick tongue from a gall, and Darvell, he must just take the consequences."
"But suppose," said the vicar, looking earnestly at her, "suppose that Frank were to come back to you safe and well, and Darvell were to promise never to be so harsh to him again, wouldn"t you try then to keep from saying sharp things?"
Mrs Darvell"s black eyes fixed themselves keenly on the vicar"s face.
"You"ve heard summat, sir?" she said, laying one damp red hand on his coat-sleeve. "Is the lad livin"? Just tell me that. Is he livin"?"
"Look there," said the vicar.
He turned and pointed down the road, where, at the top of the hill leading up from Danecross, two figures were just visible. They came nearer and nearer. One was that of Darvell, broad-shouldered and heavily built, but the other one was small and slender, and had rough yellow hair.
Mrs Darvell was a woman of decisive action as well as of a quick tongue. One look was enough for her. She immediately took off her pattens, which had iron rings to them, and were not adapted for rapid movement, and placed them quickly and quite unconsciously in the vicar"s arms as he stood beside her.
"Bless you, sir!" she said.
Before he had realised his situation she had flown down the road, reached the two figures, and enveloped Frank in her embrace, Darvell standing by meanwhile with a broad smile on his fair and foolish countenance.
The neighbours gathered round the group, and all the dogs, and pigs, and chickens belonging to the settlement also drew near. Jack Gunn"s donkey looked over the hedge, his furry ears showing a pointed interest in the affair, and in the distance the vicar surveyed the scene from the cottage door, still holding Mrs Darvell"s pattens.
So Frank had got home again; and after all his wanderings he found that:
"From east to west At home is best."
STORY TWO, CHAPTER 1.
FAITHFUL MOSES--A SHORT STORY.
Those of you who live near any of the great high-roads that lead to London may remember to have been awake sometimes in the middle of the night, and to have heard the sound of horses" feet, and of cart wheels rumbling slowly and heavily along.
If it be winter, frosty and dry, you hear them very sharply and distinctly; and perhaps you wonder, drowsily, who it is that has business so late, and whither they are bound. "How cold it must be outside!" you think, and it is quite a pleasure to snuggle cosily down in your comfortable bed and feel how warm you are.
Gradually, as the sounds grow less and less, and die away mysteriously in the distance, your eyes close; soon you are fast asleep again, and that is all you know about the cold, dark night outside.
But Tim, the van-boy, knew a great deal more about it than this, for he had now been "on the road" between Roydon and London for more than a year. The carrier"s cart started at eleven o"clock in the morning, and having distributed and received parcels on the way the driver put up his horses at an inn called "The Magpie and Stump," in a part of London named the Borough. So far it was all very well, and not at all hard work; but then came the return journey at night, which began just at the moment when a boy, after a good warm supper, naturally thinks of going to bed. This was trying, and at first Tim felt it a good deal, for he never got home until three o"clock in the morning; he was so anxious, too, to do his duty and fill his post well, that he would not have closed his eyes for the world, though he might well have taken a nap without anyone"s knowledge. His "mate" as he called him, whose name was Joshua, sat in front driving his two strong black horses, and Tim"s place was at the other open end of the van, so that he might keep his eye on the parcels and prevent their being stolen or lost.
It was a responsible situation he felt for a boy of thirteen, and he meant to do his very best to keep it now that he had been lucky enough to get it; in the far-off future, too, he saw himself no longer the van-boy, but in the proud position now occupied by Joshua as driver, and this he considered, though a lofty, was by no means an unreasonable ambition.
When Tim first began his work it was summertime, and the nights were so balmy, and soft, and light that it was not so very difficult to keep awake--there seemed so many other thing"s awake too. After they were well out of London, and the horses no longer clattered noisily over the stones, it was like getting into another world. The stars looked brightly down from the clear smokeless sky. Soft little winds blew a thousand flowery scents from over the fields, and sometimes, singing quite close to the road, Tim heard the nightingale. Even Joshua, a gruff man, was affected by the sweet influence of the season, for Tim noticed that he always sang one particular song on fine nights in summer. Joshua"s voice was hoa.r.s.e from much exposure to weather, but Tim thought he sang with great expression. The words were not easy to follow, because the middle of the verse always became inaudible; but by degrees the boy made out that it was the description of a letter received by a rustic from his sweetheart. It began:
"All _on_ a summer"s day As _I_ pursued my way."
Then came some lines impossible to hear, and then each verse ended with:
"Com--_men_cing with "my dearest,"
And con--_clu_ding with her name--"
Joshua"s song and the steady tramp, tramp of the horses were sometimes the only sounds disturbing the still night, and Tim, a small erect figure with widely opened eyes, would sit perched on a convenient packing-case at the back of the cart, and listen admiringly.
But the winter! That was another matter. Joshua did not sing then, but kept his teeth clenched, and his head bent, before the sleet, or wind, or driving rain. Then the brightly lighted London streets seemed cheerful, and much to be preferred to the lonely open country, where the bitter wind swept across the wide fields, and, gathering strength as it came, rushed in among Tim and the parcels. That was hard to bear, but of all kinds of weather, and he knew them all pretty well now, he thought the very worst was a fog. It was not only that it penetrated everywhere, and laid its cold damp finger on everything; but it spread such a thick veil of dreadful mystery over well-known objects. Nothing looked the same. The houses in the streets towered up like giant castles, and if Tim had read fairy tales he might well have fancied them inhabited by ogres. But he had not. He only felt a dim sense of discomfort and fear, as though he were lost in a strange place. Then it was a comfort to know that Joshua was there, almost invisible indeed, but making himself evident by hoa.r.s.e shouts, now of encouragement to his horses, and now of derision at some luckless driver. Out in the country, when the heavily laden market carts loomed slowly out of the fog as they pa.s.sed, they had the appearance of being miles up in the air, and as if they must inevitably topple over. Joshua knew all the carters, not by sight, for he could not see them, but by the time and place he met them on his nightly journey. Tim could reckon pretty well that after he had heard his gruff salutation of "a dark night, mate,"
repeated a certain number of times, that they must be nearing home, for they always met about the same number of Joshua"s friends; as he had no watch this was a comfort to him on the dark nights. Taught by experience, he learned to contrive for himself a sort of Robinson Crusoe but with the various hampers and boxes, and in this he lay curled round in tolerable comfort, covered with an old horse-cloth; nevertheless, it was often very cold, and then the only consolation was in thinking that Joshua must be cold also. It is always easier to bear things if there is some one to bear them with you--unless you are a hero.
One December evening the carrier"s cart was just starting homewards from the door of the Magpie and Stump. Joshua, reins in hand, and closely b.u.t.toned up to the chin, stood ready to mount to his perch, saying a few last words to the landlord, who was a crony of his; Tim was already in his place. From where he sat he could see something which interested and excited him a good deal, and this was an old woman close by who was selling roasted chestnuts. They did look good! So beautifully done, with nice cracks in their brown skins showing just a little bit of the soft yellow nut inside. Tim looked and longed, and fingered a penny in his pocket. How jolly it would be to have a penn"orth of hot chestnuts to eat on his way home! They would keep his hands warm too. Joshua still talked, there was yet time, he would give himself a treat. He scrambled down from the cart and went up to the old woman, who sat crouched on a stool warming her hands over her little charcoal brazier.
She looked a cross old thing, he thought, but she was not, for when he had paid for his chestnuts she picked out an extra fine one and gave it him "for luck," with a kind grin on her wrinkled face. He was turning away with a warm pocketful, when he saw, sitting on the edge of the pavement near, a very poor thin dog, who trembled with cold or fear, and blinked his eyes sorrowfully at the glowing coals. He was not at all a pretty dog, and probably never had been, even in the days of his prosperity, and these were evidently gone by. He was long-legged and rough-coated, with coa.r.s.e black hair mingled with yellowish brown, and his large bright eyes had a timid look in them as though he feared ill-treatment; he sat with his thin body drawn together as closely as possible, as if anxious to escape observation.
Tim stood and looked at him, and felt sorry. He was such a very miserable dog, and yet so patient.
"Is he your dog?" he asked the old woman.
"Bless yer "art, no," she answered. "He"s a stray, he is; he"ll come and sit there often at nights, and I sometimes give him a mouthful o"
supper."
"I suppose he"s rare and "ungry?" pursued Tim.
"He"s starving, that"s what he is," said the woman, "and he"s hurt his leg badly besides. The boys are allers ready to chuck stones at him when they see him prowlin" round. He don"t belong to no one."
Tim felt still more sorry; if he had seen the dog before, he thought, he would have bought a "penn"orth" of liver for him instead of the chestnuts. Now he could do nothing for him. He looked round at the old woman, who was rocking herself to and fro with crossed arms, and said:
"Shall you give him any supper to-night?"
"Nay," she said with a sort of chuckle; "he"s come too late to-night.
I"ve had my supper. There"s many a one besides him as has to go supperless."
The dog during this conversation was evidently conscious that he was being noticed, for he trembled more than ever, and gazed up at Tim with his pleading eyes.
"Pore feller, then," said the boy.
The kind voice woke some bygone memory in the animal; it reminded him perhaps of the days when he belonged to somebody, and was treated gently. He got up, slowly reared his poor stiff limbs into a begging att.i.tude, and wagged his short tail. He soon dropped down again, for he was evidently weak, but he looked apologetically from the old woman to Tim, as much as to say:
"I know it was a poor performance, but it was the best I could do. In old days it used to please."
"See there now," said the woman, "someone must a taught him that. Maybe he"s bin a Punch"s dog."
Tim stood absorbed in thought. He had forgotten Joshua, and the cart, and his own important position as van-boy; one idea filled his mind.
Could he, ought he, might he take the dog home with him and have him for his own?
He was a prudent boy, and he considered that he would have to pay a tax for him and feed him out of his wages. "But he could have "arf my dinner," he reflected; "and how useful he"d be to look after the parcels. And he do look so thin and poor. I"ll ask Joshua."
He looked round. Fortunately for him, Joshua and the landlord had entered into a discussion as to the respective merits of warm mashes, and were still engaged upon it, so Tim had not been missed. He went up to the two men, and standing a little in front of them waited for a convenient moment to make his request. He was glad to see that Joshua looked good-tempered just now; he had evidently had the best of the argument which had been going on, for there was a gleam of triumph in his eye, and he repeating some a.s.sertion in a loud voice, while the landlord stood in a dejected att.i.tude with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets.