"Will you stand still and listen to me a moment?" he said at last.
Tom growled out an oath, and halted in front of him.
"Be quick," said he.
"I"m not going to preach," said Jim, "I want you to look at something."
"I want to look at nothing," muttered Tom, beginning to walk again.
"But you must, you shall look at it!" exclaimed Jim, starting at once to his feet.
Tom stopped short, suddenly, and turned upon him like a hunted animal.
But Jim neither faltered nor quailed. He walked resolutely up to the poor fellow, and suddenly drawing me from his pocket, held me out towards him, saying,--
"Look at this, Tom Drift!"
Tom knew me at once, and I never saw a man change as he did that moment.
The savage scowl vanished from his face, and a sudden pallor came to his hollow cheeks. A trembling seized him as he held out his hand to take me, and but for Jim"s support he would hardly have remained standing. My master led him gently to the bench, and putting me into his hand, said,--
"I"ll leave it with you till to-morrow, old fellow; good-bye."
I heard the key turn in the door behind him, and counted his retreating footsteps down the gallery, and then became fully conscious where and in whose charge I was.
And now an old familiar sound rang in my ears once more, "Be good to Tom Drift!" Long, long had I ceased to believe it possible that the chance of obeying my dear first master"s request would ever again come to me; but here it was. I lay in the prodigal"s trembling hands, and looked up into his troubled face, and heard his deep-drawn sigh, and felt that there was still something left for me to do.
No one disturbed Tom Drift and me that night, Jim had explained enough to the governor to gain permission for me to remain in the poor fellow"s company till next day, and I need hardly say I never left his hand.
Memories of better days, of n.o.ble friends, of broken vows, crowded in upon him as he sat bending over me that night.
Daylight faded, but still he never stirred; the governor made his nightly round, but he never took his eyes off me; and when it was too dark to see me he held me clasped between his hands as tenderly as if I had been a child.
I cannot, and would not if I could, describe all that pa.s.sed through Tom Drift"s soul that night. What struggles, what remorse, what penitence.
Once he murmured Charlie Newcome"s name, and once he whispered to himself, in the words of the parable he had so lately heard, "No more worthy, no more worthy!" Save for this he neither spoke nor moved, till an early streak of dawn shot through the grated window and fell upon us.
Then he turned and knelt, with me still clasped in his hands. And so that night, and with it the crisis of Tom Drift"s life, was pa.s.sed.
There was no more difficulty now for Jim Halliday. Tom even gave me up when he heard how I had come into my master"s possession.
Then he asked about Charlie, and Jim told him all he knew. And so the weeks went on, and hope once more lit up Tom Drift"s face. How could I help rejoicing in the share I had had in this blessed work of restoration?
Alas! how fleeting is this world"s satisfaction!
A short time afterwards, only a week or so before the termination of Tom Drift"s imprisonment, my master was returning home from the gaol, tired- out after his day"s work. His way lay over a place half brickfield, half common, across which a narrow footpath went. We had got half way over when suddenly a dreadful sensation seized me. I was slipping through the bottom of my pocket! Though I had a watered ribbon attached to me my master always carried me loose in his waistcoat pocket, with never a suspicion of the hole that was there. But now that hole seemed suddenly to expand in order to let me through.
Lower and lower I slipped. I tried to scream, I endeavoured to attract my master"s attention. But all in vain. He strode unconsciously on, never giving a thought to me or my peril. I held on as long as I could.
Then I dropped. If only I could have fallen on his foot, or struck his knee as I descended! But no. I slid quietly down, scarcely grazing his trousers, and just out of the reach of his boot. For a moment I hoped wildly he would see me as I lay at his feet. Alas! he walked heedlessly on, leaving me on my back on the footpath, powerless to cry after him, and not daring to guess what would become of me.
In fact, reader, I was lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
HOW I WAS UNEXPECTEDLY ENLISTED IN A NEW SERVICE, IN COMPANY WITH AN IRISHMAN.
The first thing I was conscious of, after partially recovering from the agony, mental and bodily, of my late accident, was a sharp tugging at my handle.
"Watch! I say, watch!" I heard a voice whisper, "what"s to be done?"
It was the watered ribbon.
"How should I know?" I growled; "if you had done your duty we should never have been here!"
One is always ready to blame somebody for everything that happens amiss.
"Oh, yes, I dare say," it replied; "if you hadn"t poked your nose into that hole we should never have been here."
I did not like being thus talked to by a disreputable piece of watered ribbon, and so kept a dignified silence.
"What"s to be done?" presently repeated my companion, giving me another rude tug at the collar.
"Hold your tongues, if we"ve nothing to say," was my curt reply.
"Oh, but I"ve a lot to say," went on this irrepressible chatterbox; "in the first place--"
"_Will_ you be silent?" said I, angrily; "isn"t it bad enough to be down here, all through your carelessness?"
"But it"s not through my carelessness; it was through the hole in the pocket you got down here."
"If you had half the sense of a--"
"Of a nickel watch, let us say," said the watered ribbon, losing his temper; "and that would be precious little. Well?"
"If you had half the sense of a blade of gra.s.s, you would have been able to prevent it."
"But you see I hadn"t half the sense of a blade of gra.s.s, or a quarter, or an eighth, or a sixteenth. If I had I should have known better than to lend my moral support to a good-for-nothing, tarnished, ill- regulated, mendacious piece of Britannia metal, that chooses to call itself a silver watch. Ha, ha! what do you think of that?"
What I thought of that this impudent ribbon was not destined then to hear; for there came at that moment a sound of approaching footsteps across the field, which made us both hold our breaths. Unless the comer, whoever he was, could get sight of us, he was sure to tread right on the top of us! Luckily the moon was out, and with her aid I made myself as bright as possible. The footsteps belonged to a youth, not, certainly, oppressed by melancholy, to judge by the tune he was whistling, or very infirm, to judge by the pace at which he advanced.
He came nearer and nearer, and in another step would have been upon me when suddenly both he and the whistling halted. He stooped, and, with an exclamation of surprise, picked me up.
"Man alive, an" it"s a watch! Hout, boys! there"s luck for yez!"
So saying he thrust me and the ribbon into a pocket crowded with all sorts of oddments, and walked on more rapidly than ever.
I was too bewildered at first by my narrow escape and the sudden change in my fortunes to pay much heed to my new quarters; but presently that everlasting ribbon jerked my neck roughly, and called out in a loud whisper,--
"I say, watch, he"s an Irishman!"
"Oh!" said I, as briefly as I could.