"What?" asked Paul, the ingenuous.
"I"d find my "igh-born parents."
"How?" asked Paul.
"I"d go through the whole of England, asking all the princes I met. You don"t meet "em at every village pump, ye know," he added quickly, lest the boy, detecting the bantering note, should freeze into reserve; "but, if you keep yer eyes skinned and yer ears standing up, you can learn where they are. Lor" lumme! I wouldn"t be a little n.i.g.g.e.r slave in a factory if I was the missin" heir. Not much. I wouldn"t be starved and beaten by Sam and Polly b.u.t.ton. Not me. D"ye think yer aforesaid "igh-born parents are going to dive down into this stinkin" suburb of h.e.l.l to find yer out? Not likely. You"ve got to find "em sonny. Yer can find anybody on the "ighroad if yer tramps long enough. What d"yer think?"
"I"ll find "em," said Paul, in dizzy contemplation of possibilities.
"When are yer going to start?" asked Barney Bill.
Paul felt his wages jingle in his pocket. He was a capitalist. The thrill of independence swept him from head to foot. What time like the present? "I"ll start now," said he.
It was night. Quite dark, save for the stars; the lights already disappearing in the fringe of mean houses whose outline was merged against the blackness of the town; the green and red and white disks along the railway line behind the dim ma.s.s of the gasworks; the occasional streak of conglomerate fireflies that was a tramcar; and the red, remorseless glow of here and there a furnace that never was extinct in the memory of man. And, save for the far shriek of trains, the less remote and more frequent clanging of pa.s.sing tramcars along the road edged with the skeleton cottages, and, startlingly near, the vain munching and dull footfall of the old horse, all was still.
Compared with home and Budge Street, it was the reposeful quiet of the tomb. Barney Bill smoked for a time in silence, while Paul sat with clenched fists and a beating heart. The simplicity of the high adventure dazed him. All he had to do was to walk away--walk and walk, free as a sparrow.
Presently Barney Bill slid from the footboard. "You stay here, sonny, till I come back."
He limped away across the dim brickfield and sat down at the edge of the hollow where the woman had been murdered. He had to think; to decide a nice point of ethics. A vagrant seller of brooms and jute mats, even though he does carry about with him "Ca.s.sell"s Family Reader" and "The Remains of Henry Kirke White," is distracted by few psychological problems. Sufficient for the day is the physical thereof.
And when a man like Barney Bill is unenc.u.mbered by the continuous feminine, the ordinary solution of life is simple. But now the man had to switch his mind back to times before Paul was born, when the eternal feminine had played the very devil with him, when all sorts of pa.s.sions and emotions had whirled his untrained being into dizziness. No pa.s.sions or emotions now affected him; but their memory created an atmosphere of puzzledom. He had to adjust values. He had to deputize for Destiny. He also had to harmonize the pathetically absurd with the grimly real. He took off his cap and scratched his cropped head. After a while he d.a.m.ned something indefinite and hastened in his dot-and-carry-one fashion to the van.
"Quite made up yer mind to go in search of yer "ighborn parents?"
"Ay," said Paul.
"Like me to give yer a lift, say, as far as London?"
Paul sprang to the ground and opened his mouth to speak. But his knees grew weak and he quivered all over like one who beholds the G.o.d. The abstract nebulous romance of his pilgrimage had been crystallized, in a flash, into the concrete. "Ay," he panted.
"Ay!" and he steadied himself with his back and elbows against the shafts.
"That"s all right," said Barney Bill, in a matter-of fact way, calm and G.o.dlike to Paul. "You can make up a bed on the floor of the old "bus with some of them there mats inside and we"ll turn in and have a sleep, and start at sunrise."
He clambered into the van, followed by Paul, and lit an oil lamp. In a few moments Paul"s bed was made. He threw himself down. The resilient surface of the mats was luxury after the sacking on the scullery stone.
Barney Bill performed his summary toilet, blew out the lamp and went to his couch.
Presently Paul started up, smitten by a pang straight through his heart. He sprang to his feet. "Mister," he cried in the darkness, not knowing how else to address his protector. "I mun go whoam."
"Wot?" exclaimed the other. "Thought better of it already? Well, go, then, yer little "eathen "ippocrite!"
"I"ll coom back," said Paul.
"Yer afeared, yer little rat," said Barney Bill, out of the blackness.
"I"m not," retorted Paul indignantly. "I"m freeten"d of nowt."
"Then what d"yer want to go for? If you"ve made up yer mind to come along of me, just stay where you are. If you go home they"ll nab you and whack you for staying out late, and lock you up, and you"ll not be able to get out in time in the morning. And I ain"t a-going to wait for yer, I tell yer straight."
"I"ll be back," said Paul.
"Don"t believe it. Good mind not to let yer go."
The touch of genius suddenly brushed the boy"s forehead. He drew from his pockets the handful of silver and copper that was his week"s wages, and, groping in the darkness, poured it over Barney Bill. "Then keep that for me till I coom back."
He fumbled hurriedly for the latch of the van door, found it, and leaped out into the waste under the stars, just as the owner of the van rose with a clatter of coins. To pick up money is a deeply rooted human instinct. Barney Bill lit his lamp, and, uttering juicy though innocuous flowers of anathema, searched for the scattered treasure.
When he had retrieved three shillings and sevenpence-halfpenny he peered out. Paul was far away. Barney Bill put the money on the shelf and looked at it in a puzzled way. Was it an earnest of the boy"s return, or was it a bribe to let him go? The former hypothesis seemed untenable, for if he got nabbed his penniless condition would be such an aggravation of his offence as to call down upon him a more ferocious punishment than he need have risked. And why in the name of sanity did he want to go home? To kiss his sainted mother in her sleep? To pack his blankety portmanteau? Barney Bill"s fancy took a satirical turn. On the latter hypothesis, the boy was in deadly fear, and preferred the certainty of the ferocious punishment to the terrors of an unknown future. Barney Bill smoked a reflective pipe, looking at the matter from the two points of view. Not being able to decide, he put out his lamp, shut his door and went to sleep.
Dawn awoke him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Paul was not there. He did not expect him to be there. He felt sorry. The poor little kid had funked it. He had hoped for better stuff. He rose and stretched himself, put on socks and boots, lit his cooking stove, set a kettle to boil and, opening the door, remained for a while breathing the misty morning air. Then he let himself down and proceeded to the back of the van, where stood a pail of water and a tin basin, his simple washing apparatus. Having sluiced bead and neck and dried them with something resembling a towel, he hooked up the pail, stowed the basin in a rack, unslung a nosebag, which he attached to the head of the old horse, and went indoors to prepare his own elementary breakfast. That over, he put the horse into the shafts. Barney Bill was a man of his word. He was not going to wait for Paul; but he cast a glance round the limited horizon of the brickfield, hoping, against reason, to see the little slim figure emerge from some opening and run toward him.
"Darn the boy!" said Barney Bill, taking off his cap and scratching his wet head.
A low moan broke the dead silence of the Sunday dawn. He started and looked about him. He listened. There was another. The moans were those of a sleeper. He bent down and looked under the van. There Jay Paul, huddled up, fast asleep on the bare ground.
"Well, I"m jiggered! I"m just jiggered. Here, you--h.e.l.lo!" cried Barney Bill.
Paul awakened suddenly, half sat up, grinned, grabbed at something on the ground beside him and wriggled out between the wheels.
"How long you been there?"
"About two hours," said Paul.
"Why didn"t yer wake me?"
"I didn"t like to disturb thee," said Paul.
"Did yer go home?"
"Ay," said Paul.
"Into the house?"
Paul nodded and smiled. Now, that it was all over, he could smile. But only afterwards, when he had greater command of language, could he describe the awful terror that shook his soul when he opened the front door, crept twice through the darkness of the sleeping kitchen and noiselessly closed the door again.
For many months he felt the terror of his dreams. Briefly he told Barney Bill of his exploit. How he had to lurk in the shadow of the street during the end of a battle between the b.u.t.tons, in which the lodgers and a policeman had intervened. How he had to wait--interminable hours--until the house was quiet. How he had stumbled over things in the drunken disorder of the kitchen floor, dreading to arouse the four elder little b.u.t.tons who slept in the room.
How narrowly he had missed running into the arms of the policeman who had pa.s.sed the door some seconds before he opened it. How he had crouched on the pavement until the policeman turned the corner, and how he had fled in the opposite direction.
"And if yer mother had caught ye, what would she have done to yer?"
"Half-killed me," said Paul.
Barney Bill twisted his head on one side and looked at him out of his twinkling eyes. Paul thought he resembled a grotesque bird.
"Wot did yer do it for?" he asked.
"This," said Paul, holding out a grubby palm in which lay the precious cornelian heart.
His friend blinked at it. "Wot the blazes is the good of that?"