He turned savagely to the lady next him, “Have you got it?”
So far from having Bobbie’s money, it appeared that the lady herself had lost a purse which she had carried, for the better convenience of the thoughtful young man outside with the travelling rug, in a back pocket which everybody could get at but herself. Bobbie, sick and depressed at his loss, sat through the rest of the play trying to think out a plan of action, arriving just before eleven at a decision. The husband of the lady who had been robbed of her purse became so elated and triumphant over the event (having, it seemed, always prophesied that this would happen, and being one not often successful in forecasts) that he gave Bobbie sixpence, and Bobbie, after groaning in an unearthly way at the close of the piece, went out and down the stairs into the bright, crowded, busy street, with this coin for only monetary possession.
Charing Cross Station was filled with theatre patrons who, judging from their pleased faces, had been more fortunate than Bobbie, and were now hastening to suburban homes. Ladies in gossamer cloaks flew about excitedly in search of their platform; men in evening dress imperilled the catching of their last train by making frantic rushes to the refreshment bar. Bobbie discovered that the last train to Paddock Wood had gone; discovered also the platform from which the Tonbridge train (Tonbridge being the next convenient station) started, and, taking advantage of a sudden rush at the barrier, slipped in between the people and was borne by them along the platform. There he found the train waiting; found the guard’s van of the train; found a corner in the van, and whilst the young guard collected the offertory from third-class passengers for whom he had found room in another class of carriage, Bobbie secreted himself behind a big square wicker basket. The young guard whistled; the engine whistled, the doors banged to, the young guard jumped neatly into his brake, shouting good-night to the officials on the platform; the train went out across the bridge, and presently, after one or two stops, away into the dark country. The boy, crouching uncomfortably in ambuscade, consoled himself with anticipation. Once in the Duchess’s hotel comfort and he would not again separate. Perhaps they would put him in a uniform and make him General Commanding of the Hall; he could see the hall lined with giant palms; polite waiters at the far end guarding entrance to an elaborately-furnished dining-room. There would be mirrors with (he felt sure of this) roses painted upon them. He could imagine all this; what he could not adequately picture was the elaborate hot breakfast which the Duchess would cause to be prepared for him.
“And now,” said the young guard, entering the van from his compartment, “now for a struggle.”
Bobbie, hiding low behind the square basket, trembled. He had some thought of giving himself up and throwing himself upon the mercy of the guard, but he decided to wait. He could hear the rustling of pages as the young guard standing under the roof lamp commenced in a loud voice to recite:—
“A signalman sat in his signal-boxA thinking of this and that,When the eight-ten mail went rushing by,And he started, for—”
“A signalman sat in his signal-boxA thinking of this and that,When the eight-ten mail went rushing by,And he started, for—”
The young guard made his way steadily through the verses, then closing the book, tried to recite them without assistance, and partly succeeded, partly failed.
“I shall be no more better perfect by Thursday,” said the young guard hopelessly, “than my old lamp.”
At Tonbridge, when the train stopped—the hour being now near upon one—Bobbie, who had been dozing under the effects of the guard’s recital, warily bestirred himself. He waited until the guard had stepped out, and then, by rushing into the centre compartment of the van, he just managed to elude the porters who had thrown open the doors to clear out parcels. Bobbie jumped down from the off side of the brake on to the ballast, and intuitively made his way down the line. He had to reach the next station, Paddock Wood, and then the course would be clear; in all he guessed there was about a ten miles walk before him, and, by refraining from hurry, this ought to take him through the night. He walked carefully away from the station into the black night by the side of the lines, but not so carefully as to avoid an occasional stumble over iron rods connecting the points. By good chance he chose the line which would take him to Paddock Wood, and he made his way stolidly in the darkness along the straight rails, the cornet in his tail pocket knocking at his ankles. Looking back he saw the red and green lights of the junction that he had left; looking forward he saw nothing. Now and again he struck a match for the sake of company, and then for a moment he caught sight of the four shining rails and the tall gaunt telegraph posts; resting at one or two of these posts, he had a talk with them, and listened to their ceaseless humming. He was not afraid yet, because a spirit of adventure was in the air; he knew several boys at the Homes who would have shrieked with terror to find themselves alone like this on a black night in a lonely country with which they were not acquainted. The dead silence was just beginning to terrify him when far ahead he saw two small white eyes. They came nearer and nearer and larger and larger. The boy became nervous. He stopped and stumbled down into the dry ditch that ran along by the side of the railway; the two white eyes came upon him with a hissing sound, Bobbie put his hands over his face and held his breath. A fierce tumultuous rush past; a flash of light. Bobbie venturing to remove his hands after a full minute, saw that the engine, out alone at a time of night when all respectable engines should have been abed, was a distance off, its rear light showing redly.
He felt shaken by this, but he made his way doggedly along the loose ballasted walk, through the dark, still night, trying not to think of what he was doing; nevertheless, he still counted the gaunt telegraph posts, and told each of them its number. He had been walking, he thought, about an hour and a half, when he saw specks of coloured lights in the distance, and he knew that he was nearing a station. From thence he would have to branch off to the right.
“I’m getting on a fair treat,” he said, cheerfully.
At Paddock Wood, noise and commotion that were grateful after the silence of the walk. Goods trains blundering about in sidings and excited men with lamps begging them to be reasonable, but the trucks of goods trains declining to listen to advice, and quarrelling and nudging and punching and shoving each other in a great state of ill-temper. Engines, on the earnest appeal of the men with lamps, hurried to restore order, and the occasion being one demanding drastic remedy, half a dozen specially quarrelsome trucks were selected for punishment, a masterful engine drew them out on a middle line, and when one of the men with lamps had uncoupledthem, the engine made a sudden rush and sent them all flying away into a distant siding where they could no longer interfere with the general order. Something of quiet ensuing upon this, the engine-drivers drank hot tea out of tin cans, and the shunters with lamps made a hasty meal of thick bread and thick bacon—a meal interrupted by the arrival of a long, overgrown goods train, which insisted upon ridding itself of a dozen trucks, and went after a while with an exultant shriek at having got the best of somebody. Bobbie stood away from all this, watching it with great delight. He had begun to feel sleepy. This awakened him.
He went out through the flat, silent, straggling village, and found, by climbing a finger-post and striking a match, the direction that he had to take for Brenchley. There was a vague touch of lightness now in the starless sky; passing by the quick-set hedge, bordering a churchyard, he could see upright tombstones, dimly white, and the sight depressed the boy, for he knew that here were those whose memory to some was dear. The boy came to cross roads, and then found that his box of matches had disappeared through a hole in his frock-coat pocket. He sat down with his back against the post fixed in the grass triangle at the centre of the roads; before he had time to warn himself to keep awake, his eyes closed. He slept.
“Now, then!” said a voice. “Time all boys was out of bed.”
“It’s all right, mother,” said the boy sleepily. “I was just getting—”
He rubbed his eyes and looked around. Instead of the neat room with its red-counterpaned beds, and the mother of Collingwood Cottage shaking his shoulder—broad daylight and the open country. The person who had awakened him was a uniformed man, with a straight-peaked cap which bore the figure of a horse.
“Know where you are?” asked the uniformed man.
“Just beginning to guess,” said the boy blinking.
“Where you bound for?”
“What’s it got to do with you?” asked Bobbie, yawning.
“It’s got all to do with me, as it happens. I’m the constable in charge of this district.”
“Ho, yes!” said the boy incredulously. “Where’s your ’elmet?”
“Ah!” remarked the constable, with tolerance. “You’re town bred, I can see. What you got in your tail pocket?”
“Cornet.”
“Whose?”
“Mine,” said the boy defiantly. “Who’s did you think?”
“One minute,” said the constable sharply. “Haven’t done with you yet, my lad. If that’s your cornet, and you’ve come by it honest, you can no doubt play a tune on it.”
“Why should I play a tune to an amateur, ’alf-baked copper like you?”
“I’ve got you,” said the constable gleefully. “I’ve got you, my lad, on a piece of string. Wandering about with no vis’ble means of subsistence; also in possession of property that he is unable to account for. I’ll borrow a dog-cart, and take you off to Tonbridge.”
“Give it a name, then,” said the boy sulkily.
“‘Dreamt I dwelt in marble ’alls,’” suggested the constable.
Bobbie played this, and the constable, much delighted, not only gave up all idea of the dog-cart and Tonbridge, but asked for another verse.
“What time do you make it?” asked Bobbie, wiping his lips.
He felt hungry; the thought of hot coffee and hot rolls, and broiled ham and eggs, waiting for him at the Duchess’s magnificent hotel, made him anxious. The constable lifted a huge watch from his trousers pocket. “Wants a quarter to six,” he said.
“’Appen to know a place up at Brenchley called ‘The Happy Retreat’?”
“Do I not.”
“Rather fine hotel, isn’t it? One of the most important places of its kind in the district, eh?”
“Of its kind,” said the constable, “yes.”
“Do an extr’ordinary business there, don’t they?”
“Most extr’ordinary.”
“Which road do I take to get to it quickest?” The constable pointed with his stick. “I know the landlord and the landlady, and I want to get there for breakfast.”
“I could see you was well connected,” remarked the constable pleasantly, “by the fit of your coat. Give my regards to ’em, and tell ’em from me that ten o’clock’s their time for closing, not ’alf-past.”
“Right,” said Bobbie.
“Give us another verse of ‘Dreamt I dwelt,’” begged the constable, “’fore you go.”
The country was already rousing itself, being a country that went to bed early, and able, therefore, to rise betimes. Smoke puffed straight out of the chimneys stuck atop of the infrequent cottages; a grateful scent of boiling tea came from the open doors across the gardens of flowers to the roadway. Conceited poultry strutted out to the gate and crowed; birds up in the trees whistled and chirruped ceaselessly; rooks flew about near a row of tall poplars trying their voices, voices which seemed rather hoarse and out of practice. At one place by the side of the roadway where the green border was spacious, gipsies in their yellow-painted van were bestirring themselves, and scantily-clothed, brown-skinned children affected to wash at the brook whilst their parents quarrelled loudly. The male parent broke off to call to Bobbie, asking him if he wanted a lift to London. Bobbie shook his head, and hurried on up the hill. A postman went by on his tricycle, reading the postcards entrusted to him as he went; at the diamond-patterned windows on the top floor of cottages, apple-cheeked, white-shouldered girls were doing their hair, holding a rope of it between their teeth and plaiting the rest. A tramp who had been sleeping in a barn slouched along, picking straws from his deplorable clothes and swearing softly to himself. Men in thick, earth-covered boots came out of their houses to go to their work in the fields, and small babies waved hands to them from the protected doorways. Bobbie noticed, away from the road, a small, dilapidated house with a vague, unintelligible sign-post, and anxious to arrive at the Duchess’s hotel without error, he went to inquire. He pushed open the door; stepped in on the floor of uneven bricks. A lazy smell of stale beer pervaded the low-ceilinged passage; to the right was a room with a dirty table, dirtier by reason of sticky rings made by pots of beer. At the end of the table, smooth spaces caused by practice of the game of shove-halfpenny.
“Shop!” called Bobbie.
No answer! He went through the passage. It was a beer-house evidently; a few casks stood about and unwashed earthenware mugs linedthe counter. Dirt and untidiness everywhere. Upstairs he heard a voice crooning, and he listened anxiously, for the song seemed familiar.
“You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls.We’re daughters of nobility—”
“You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls.We’re daughters of nobility—”
“The Duchess!” cried the boy.
The song stopped. A window of the room above opened and the Duchess’s voice could be heard upbraiding Mr. Leigh.
“Fat lot of good you do pottering about in the garden and pretendin’ you was born and bred in the country. Wish to goodness we was back in Ely Place again.”
Mr. Leigh begged that the Duchess would hold her row and let him get on with his scarlet runners in peace.
“Peace?” cried the Duchess, scornfully. “There’s a jolly sight too much peace about this dead and alive ’ole. I’m a woman used to a certain amount of seeciety.”
Mr. Leigh advised her to go downstairs and have a drop of beer and then get back to bed again.
“Beer and bed,” complained the Duchess with great contempt. “That’s about all there is in this place. I’d rather be Bat Miller and—”
“For goodness sake,” begged Mr. Leigh, “’ush.”
“Shan’t ’ush,” declared the Duchess, preparing to slam the window. “I shall tell everybody why we’re come ’ere and what you—”
Mr. Leigh, speaking for once with decision, said imperatively, “Shut that winder and shut your mouth, or else I’ll come and do both.”
The Duchess obeyed, and Bobbie stood back as he heard her coming in slippered feet down the stairs. Few of us look our best at six o’clock in the morning, and the Duchess formed no exception. It was not easy to glance at her without a shudder.
The boy turned and hurried out. He ran swiftly, crying as he went, down the hill to the gipsies’ van.
Myddleton Weststill lived in the rooms over a fancy wool shop in Fetter Lane, which he had rented when he first came to London. At times he had thought of going into one of the Inns close by, and had inspected chambers there, but he found so many ghosts on every landing that, although a man of fair courage, he became affrighted. Over the fancy wool shop in Fetter Lane, no shadows interfered. The Misses Langley kept his rooms carefully dusted, seeing that the panel photograph of an attractive young nurse, with a thoughtful face, never moved from its position of honour on the mantelpiece. Myddleton West was getting on in the world and earning agreeable cheques every month; like many young men in this position, he found it difficult to increase his expenses without taking inordinate pains. Consequently he gave up attempts inthis direction, and remained in Fetter Lane, writing early and late on any subject that the world offered, finding this the only way to keep his mind from the thoughtful young woman of the panel portrait. Rarely she took brief holiday from the ward of which she was sister, and they met by appointment at an aerated bread shop, where, over chocolate, she knitted her pretty forehead and talked with the concentrated wisdom of at least three hundred young women, on Myddleton West becoming urgent in his protestations of love, reproving him with a quaint air of austerity that at once annoyed and delighted him. He found no argument in favour of their marriage that she did not instantly defeat by a proud reference to the work which Fate had assigned to her. This was their only contentious subject; once free of it they were on excellent terms, and West took her on from the tea-rooms to private views and to afternoon performances at the theatre, and to concerts, and was an enchanted man until the moment came for her to fly back in her grey silk cloak to the hospital.
“Hullo!” said Myddleton West.
“Excuse me interrupting, sir, in your writing work.”
“Doesn’t matter, Miss Langley.”
“As I often say to my sister,” persisted the thin lady at the doorway, “no one can possibly write sense if they’re to be continually broken in on—if I may use the expression—and—”
“Somebody called to see me?” asked West, patiently.
“And badgered out of their life,” concluded the lady. “I’m sure writing must be quite sufficient a tax on the brains without—”
“Miss Langley.”
“Sir to you.”
“Do I understand that some one has called to see me?”
“Mr. West,” confessed Miss Langley, with a burst of frankness, “some one has called to see you.”
“Then,” said Myddleton West, definitely, “show them up.”
“It isn’t a them, sir, it’s only a bit of a lad.”
“Very well, show him up.”
West finished the sentence which he had commenced, and then, hearing a slipping footstep, swung round in his chair again. A boy in a long worn frock-coat, his bowler hat dented, stood at the doorway, white of face, his under lip not quite under control.
“Wha’ cheer?” said the boy with an effort to appear at ease. “How goes it with you?”
“Wait a bit,” said Myddleton West, rising and standing in front of the fireplace. “Let me see now if I can remember you. Take off your hat.” West dropped his pince-nez and peered across the room at the boy. “I’ll have three shots,” he said presently. “Your name is Cumberland.”
“Not a bit like it.”
“I met you—let me see—at an inquest in Hoxton some years ago; I saw you later at the police station.”
“You’re getting warmer. Now try the letter L.”
“And your name is Lincoln.”
“Bit more to the left.”
“Lancaster!”
“A bull’s-eye!” said the white-faced boy approvingly. “What’ll you ’ave, cigar or a cokernut?” He staggered a little and caught the back of the chair.
“Hungry?” asked West sharply.
“You are a good guesser,” replied Bobbie, slipping to the chair. “I ’aven’t had a thing to eat for—for a day and a half.”
Myddleton West snatched a serviette from the drawer and spread it on the table in front of the boy. In another moment half a loaf of bread, a knuckle of ham, and cheese were on the serviette; in much less than another moment Bobbie had commenced.
“Excuse me wolfin’ me food,” said the boy with his mouth full. “Don’t suppose you know what it is to be famishing. I’ve had rather rough times the last few days.”
“But you went to the Poor Law schools surely. Did you run away?”
“Yes,” said Bobbie ruefully. “And I wish now I hadn’t. Can I trouble you for a glass of water, sir?”
“Like some lemonade?” asked Myddleton West.
“So long as it’s moist, sir, and there’s plenty of it, I don’t mind what it is.”
“And you’re not getting on well as an independent man?”
“I’m getting on,” said Bobbie, holding up the glass with a trembling hand, “pretty awful.” He drank and smacked his lips appreciatively, “Ah!” he said, “that’s something like!”
“Eat slowly.”
“Does it matter if I finish the bread, sir?”
“I shall be disappointed if you don’t.”
“Then rather’n cause you any annoyance,” said Bobbie with reviving spirits, “I’ll undertake to clear it all up.”
The meal finished, the boy asked for a cigarette, and, smoking this with great enjoyment, told Myddleton West his adventures. The journey back from Brenchley had not been without drawbacks. At Orpington, Bobbie had interfered on behalf of the gipsy’s wife, with the perfectly natural result that she had turned on him indignantly, and both man and wife had, in turns, thrashed him, and had then started him adrift without his cornet. From Orpington to London he had walked.
“And now,” said Bobbie—“and now my difficulty is how to get back to the ’omes without looking a silly fool. What would you advise, sir?”
“I should send a wire,” counselled Myddleton West promptly. “Apologize for your absence, and say that you will be there in a few hours.”
“It’d pave the way a bit,” acknowledged the boy.
“Here’s a form. Write the address of the Superintendent.”
“You must tell us what else to say.”
The telegram drawn up on the dictation of the newspaper man, seemed to Bobbie an admirable document; one calculated to remove difficulties. Miss Langley being summoned, the boy was conveyed to the kitchen downstairs, where, furnished with a cake of yellow soap, he remained under the tap for about ten minutes. This so much improved his appearance that when Myddleton West started with him to take train at Blackfriars, the two sisters forced upon his acceptance a triangular chunk of seed cake and a gay almanack with a portrait of the Princess of Wales, which Bobbie decided to take as a propitiatory offering to the mother of Collingwood Cottage. The telegram was despatched from an office in Fleet Street after Bobbie had read it through once more with increased satisfaction.
“It ain’t too humble,” he said approvingly, “and it ain’t too much the other way. Seems to me to hit the ’appy medium.”
The fares from Temple Station to Bishopsgate and from Liverpool Street to the destination being ascertained from a railway time book, Bobbie agreed to accept from Myddleton West the precise amount and no more. He showed gratitude with less reserve than he would have exhibited in the years before he entered the Homes, and, as he trotted beside the long-legged journalist, he endeavoured politely to find a subject for conversation that would be pleasing to his companion.
“How are you getting along with your young lady, sir?” he asked with interest.
“No progress,” replied West.
“You don’t go the right way to work,” said Bobbie knowingly. “Women folk can be managed if you only exercise a bit of what I call ingenuity.”
“I am always willing, Master Lancaster, to listen to the voice of experience.”
“What you want to do,” said the young sage, changing step as they went down Arundel Street, “is to be artful without lettin’ ’em see that you’re artful.”
“I know of no plan,” said West, “by which, under modern conditions, you can force a lady to marry you if she has decided not to do so.”
“Pretend there’s another lady,” suggested Bobbie;
“Always a risk that the announcement may be received with undisguised satisfaction.”
“Can but give it a trial,” urged Bobbie. “If she’s an ordinary sort of young lady, strikes me she’ll marry you like a shot. Is this my station?”
“This is the Temple Station,” said West. “Buy your ticket and be careful not to get out of the train before you get to Bishopsgate.”
“All right,” said Bobbie. “I’m old enough to take care of meself.”
“Let me know that you get down safely.”
“I shall be as right as rain now. I feel like twenty shillings in the pound since I saw you, sir.”
“Good-bye,” said Myddleton West, holding out his hand, “and good luck to you.”
“Good-bye,” said Bobbie, taking the hand awkwardly, “and good luck to you, sir. You know what I mean. And I’m—I’m very much obliged for all your—”
“There’s a train coming,” interrupted West. “Down you go.”
Bobbie, seated near the window of the impetuous underground train, held tightly the large card intender for the mother of Collingwood Cottage, and as he read advertisements in the compartment congratulated himself on the change of circumstances that had come to him within the last hour. He felt grateful for this, and decided that once safely back in the homes and enjoying the sunshine of favour again, he would comport himself in a manner that would be gratifying to those who wished him well. The bitter days of the journey up from Brenchley had proved to him that the world was full of unforeseen and highly inconvenient rocks for a boy who had no one to pilot him; he must wait until he became older before he courted the responsibility of taking charge of himself. In less than an hour he would be through the gates of the Homes; the delicate matter of his return would be all over, and the past few days could be sponged frommemory. So far as concerned the underground railway there could be no complaint of delay, for the train seemed in a great hurry to get round the circle, stopping momentarily at one or two stations in a breathless, panting manner, as who should say, Oh, for goodness sake, don’t stop me, I’m behind-hand as it is, some other time I’ll come round and stay, but just now really—
Other passengers in the compartment went out at one of the stations, and Bobbie stood up at the open window as the train hurried through the black smoky tunnel. The train pulled up, gasping, at another station, starting again immediately with a rough jerk that knocked the card out of Bobbie’s hand on to the platform. He jumped out, picked up the portrait and attempted to re-enter the compartment. The porters shouted,—
“Stan’ away from the train there!”
“Stan’ away, can’t you, stan’ away!”
“Whoa! Stop! You’ll break the door!”
The train pulled up suddenly in a great state of annoyance. At the end of the platform, where the black tunnel began, the boy had been flung and lay a mere bundle on the platform. The carriage door closed; the train went on into the tunnel ill-temperedly. The entire staff and a few stray passengers surrounded the senseless bundle on the platform.
“Here,” said the inspector to one of the porters, “you’re a ‘first aid’ man. See if you can tell what the damage is.”
“He’s ’urt,” said the “first aid” man, with a professional air.
“Yes, yes,” remarked the inspector, “we could have all guessed that.”
“It’s a case for the ’ospital,” said the “first aid” man cautiously. “I don’t feel justified in trying my ’and at it.”
“Then,” said the inspector, “fetch the ambulance cart, someone, for the poor little beggar, and let’s get him there as quick as possible. We can’t have passengers dying about here.”
Intoa long broad ward with scarlet counterpaned cots, headed against the wall on either side, and a shining floor between, Bobbie Lancaster, after being with ever so much tenderness bathed and combed in a small room, was conveyed, and there he relinquished for a few weeks his identity and became Number Twenty. The young doctor whom he saw when first brought into the hospital had whistled softly, and had murmured the words “compound fracture”; the damaged boy felt glad that the injury was of some importance and likely to attract attention. He woke the morning following his arrival on tea being brought round at five o’clock, to find that his arm, accurately bound up with two small boards, gave him less pain than be had expected. There was an acceptable scent of cleanliness in the ward, helped sternly by the universal scent of carbolic, receiving more joyful volunteer assistance from the bowl of heliotrope on the Sister’s table at the centre. Turning his head, Bobbie saw a comfortablefire blazing away not far from him; a fire that made all polished things reflect its flames; saw, too, that some of his neighbours were unable to rise, and had to be fed by the white-aproned nurses going softly to each cot. One or two of the numbers had arched protectors under the bedclothes to keep the sheets from touching their small bodies; Number Twenty-one had a head so fully bandaged that there was not much of his face to be seen but the eyes and the tip of a nose; wherefore he was called by the others “Fifth of November.” Bobbie’s other immediate neighbour, Number Nineteen, a white-faced boy, lost no time in bragging to the new-comer that he possessed hips about as bad as hips could manage to be.
“Well, Twenty,” said the nurse to Bobbie cheerfully. “You going to stay at our hotel for a few weeks?” The nurse was a pleasing round-faced young woman, who signalled the approach of an ironical remark by winking; in the absence of this intimation the ward understood Nurse Crowther to be serious. “All the nobility come here,” said Nurse Crowther, deflecting her eyelid, “seem to have given up Homburg and Wiesbaden and places, and to have made up their mind to come to Margaret Ward. Here’s Lord Bailey, otherwise known as Nineteen, for instance.” The white-faced boy laughed at this personal allusion. “He’s given up everything,” declared Nurse Crowther. “Dances, receptions, partridge shooting, and I don’t know what all, just in order that he should come and spend a few months here with us. Isn’t that right, Nineteen?”
“Gawspel!” affirmed little Nineteen, in a whisper.
“It must affect some of the other fashionable resorts,” said Nurse Crowther, pursuing the facetious vein. “I’m told that there’s nobody at Trouville this year, and as for Switzerland—”
“All the time you’re trying to be funny,” complained Master Lancaster, “you’re letting my milk get cold. Why don’t you attend to bisness first?”
“Hope you’re not going to be a tiresome boy,” said the nurse.
“Wait and see.”
“I must bring the Sister to see you presently. You’ve got a nice open face.”
“If I’ve got an open face I can keep me mouth shut,” said Twenty, drinking his milk. “That’s more than some of you can.”
“Arm pretty comfortable this morning?” asked the nurse, good-temperedly, as she smoothed the scarlet counterpane. “Had a good night’s rest? Weren’t disturbed by the noise of the traffic, were you? What—”
“One at a time, one at a time,” said Twenty crossly. “I can’t answer forty thousand blooming questions at once.”
“Sit back now, there’s a dear, and keep as quiet as you can till the doctors come round.”
“What time do they put in an appearance?”
“That, dear duke,” said the nurse winking, “entirely depends upon you. You have but to say the word.”
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand more’n another,” said the boy, settling himself down cautiously, “it is gels trying to be comic.”
The young doctor with three or four men still younger, and all of them endeavouring to look an incalculable age, paid their visit to Margaret Ward in due course, and Bobbie felt indignant because whereas theystayed at the end of his bed but a couple of minutes writing some casual marks on the blue form pinned on the board above his head, at the next bed they ordered a screen to be placed, and behind this they remained in consultation over the white-faced little Nineteen for quite a long time. When they had gone, Bobbie salved his jealousy by telling Nineteen at once that Nineteen need not think himself everybody, giving a long list of imaginary complaints that he (Bobbie) had in the past suffered from, ranging in character from a wart on the knuckles to complete paralysis of the right side. This seemed to restrain any idea that Nineteen might have had of exhibiting conceit, and that little chap contented himself by offering to bet two to one in halfpennies that he would he the next in the Margaret Ward to go. Bobbie forced the odds to three to one, and then closed with the wager.
“I shan’t be sorry,” said white-faced Nineteen, “’pon me word I shan’t. It can’t be much worse than this.”
“You be careful how you talk,” advised Bobbie. “A man that’s getting near to kicking the bucket can’t be too cautious of what he says.”
“Likely as not,” said Nineteen, “it’ll he a jolly sight better than this.”
“How can you tell?”
“Anyway,” said Nineteen, “it’ll he a rare old lark to watch and see what ’appens. I ’eard a man arguin’ once in Victoria Park that those what put up with a lot in this world, got it all their own way in the next, and vicer verser.”
“How did he get to know?”
“Of course,” admitted Nineteen, “it’s all speculation.” Little Nineteen yawned. “I feel bit tired.”
“You take jolly good care what you’re about, old man,” recommended Bobbie. “You’ll look jolly silly if you find yourself all at once in ’ell.”
“Even that’d be interesting.”
“And hot,” said Bobbie.
“I shouldn’t mind chancing it a bit,” said Nineteen, “only there’s the old woman. She worries about me a good deal, she does.”
“Your mother?”
“She’d he upset if she thought I hadn’t gone to ’Eaven.” Nineteen gave the skeleton of a laugh. “You know what Primitive Methodists are,” he added excusingly.
“Tell you what,” said Bobbie. “If anything ’appens to you and you pop off the hooks, I’ll tell her that you were going there all right, and I’ll make up something about angels, and say they was your last words. See!”
“I shall take it very kind of you,” said little Nineteen thankfully.
“You leave it me. And touchin’ that bet. Just occurs to me. If you lose you mayn’t be able to pay.”
“If I win I shan’t be able to dror it off of you.”
“Never mind,” said Bobbie, “we’ll see what ’appens.”
“I’ve never stole nothin’,” urged Nineteen, after a pause.
“You’re all right.” With some awkwardness.
“I’ve never had a copper even speak to me.”
“You’re as right as ninepence. There’s lots of cheps worse than you.”
“I’ve got to ’ave port wine and jellies,” remarked Nineteen after a pause.
“Some of you get all the luck,” said Bobbie. At which Nineteen dozed off contentedly.
When, later in the morning, the tall young Sister came up to Bobbie’s cot and introduced herself, he permitted her to talk for some time, and watched her quiet, attractive face. Dressed in her plain gown, she looked, the boy thought, perfect, and he touched the white hand that rested on the coverlet of his bed with shy respect. Sister Margaret talked of his accident; chatted about the other numbers of the ward. Leaving him for a moment to give white-faced Nineteen a kiss, she was called back by Bobbie.
“I say, Miss.”
“Well, Twenty.”
“Something to ask you. Bend down.”
As the tall young woman obeyed, Bobbie put one hand to his mouth in order that his confidential inquiry might not be heard by the other boys. “How’s your young man?” he whispered.
Sister Margaret flushed and stood upright.
“What do you mean, Twenty?” she answered, severely. “You must understand that here we don’t allow boys to be impudent.”
“It’s all right, Miss,” whispered Bobbie. “Don’t fly all to pieces. I’m not chaffing of you. I mean Mr. West—Mr. Myddleton West.”
“You know Mr. West?” she said, bending down again.
“Rather!” said the boy. “Saw your photograph in his place yesterday. Only one in the room.”
She sat down beside the bed, her eyes taking a light of interest. Bobbie looking round the ward to see that this special honour was being noted, and observed that the numbers on the opposite side scowled jealously at him.
“I’ve known him off and on,” said Bobbie, “these two or three years. Good sort, he is.”
“Mr. West is indeed a very good fellow,” said the Sister earnestly. “But you—you are wrong, Twenty, in assuming that we are engaged. Nothing, in point of fact, is further from the truth. We are very good friends, and that is all.”
“You don’t kid me,” said the boy knowingly.
“Twenty! I shall be extremely annoyed if, whilst you are in the ward, you couple my name with Mr. West’s.”
“Shouldn’t think of doing so, Sister,” he said seriously. “If there’s one thing I can do better than another it is keeping a secret. Once I make up my mind to shut my mouth, wild ’orses wouldn’t open it.”
“I like him,” she went on (it appeared that the Sister was not averse to speaking of Myddleton West), “I like him very much, but it is possible to like a person, Twenty, without going so far as to become engaged.”
“Depends!”
“There are several courses open nowadays to women,” she said half to herself, and with something of enthusiasm. “It is no longer marriage or nothing for them. There are certain duties in the world—public duties—that a woman can take upon herself, and marriage would only interfere with their performance. The old idea of woman’s place in the world was, to my mind, not quite decent. We are getting away from all that, and we are coming to see that the possibilities—”
“Don’t he mind your taking up with this nonsense?” asked Bobbie. The boy’s interruption stopped the argumentative young woman. Shelaughed brightly at finding herself lecturing to Twenty on this subject, and, smoothing his pillow before she went, asked him with a smile whether he did not agree with her.
“I call it a silly ass of an idea,” he said frankly.
This was not the last talk that he had with the tall young Sister of the ward, and for some days in that week the ward inclined to mutiny on account of the disproportionate time that she gave to Twenty and to little Nineteen. It almost seemed that Nineteen showed signs of improvement under the combined influence of her visits and the companionship of Bobbie his neighbour; Bobbie’s predecessor had been a gloomy boy, with his own views in regard to details of eternal torments, and Bobbie’s optimism cheered the white-faced boy so much that when his tearful mother came to see him, being by special permission admitted at any time, she found herself debating with him on his walk in life when he should grow up, and discussing the relative advantages of the position of engine-driver as compared with that of policeman. Nineteen introducing his neighbour, Nineteen’s mother gave Bobbie two oranges and an illuminated card bearing minatory texts. Bobbie enjoyed the oranges.
“I think he’s better, nurse,” said Nineteen’s mother respectfully. “Seems to have got more colour, and—”
“It’s my belief,” answered Nurse Crowther at the foot of the bed, “that there’s nothing whatever the matter with his lordship. I believe it’s all his nonsense. I tell him that he’ll have to take me to the theatre some evening, soon as ever he gives up playing this game of lying in bed.”
Little Nineteen smiled faintly. The good-humoured nurse went and placed her cool hand on his forehead.
“I don’t hold with theatres, nurse,” said Nineteen’s mother precisely. “To my mind chapel is a great deal better than all these devil’s playhouses.”
“Dam sight duller,” remarked Bobbie.
“Twenty! I’m surprised.”
“Well, nurse,” said Bobbie excusingly, “she said ‘devil.’”
“Anyway,” remarked Nurse Crowther, “we’re going to dodge off somewhere, the very first day he gets well, aren’t we, Nineteen?”
Happy nod of acquiescence from the tired boy.
“And we shan’t say anything to anybody else about it, shall we, Nineteen?”
Not a word, signalled poor Nineteen.
“And, goodness! how people will stare when they see us on the steamer together off to Rosherville.”
“I’ll come with you,” interposed Bobbie from the next bed.
“Not likely,” declared Nurse Crowther, with another wink. “Two’s company, three’s a crowd. Aye, Nineteen?”
“Most decidedly,” intimated the delighted boy.
“And now it’s time for your little pick-me-up. Say good-bye to your mother.”
Nineteen’s mother, having said good-bye, drew the nurse aside, whispering a question, and Bobbie heard the answer, “No hope!” This startled Bobbie, and made him think; presently he worked so hard in the endeavour to cheer little Nineteen that Sister Margaret had to command silence, because Nineteen required rest. That night, when the ward was silent, Bobbie watched him as he lay with eyes closed, his breathing shortand irregular, and for almost the first time in his life, Bobbie thought seriously of the desirability—taking everything into consideration—of becoming religious.
He could see the red fire, and watching it he considered this entirely new suggestion. He lifted the bed-clothes to shield himself from the sight of the distant fireplace, for he was becoming heated. It required much determination to put gloomy thoughts from him; when he had partly succeeded in doing this he looked again at the fire, and then he knew that there were tears in his eyes, because the light of the fire became starry and confused in appearance. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes. It seemed that he could see another fire, a small one, near to the grate, and this he assumed to be an optical delusion until it crept along a black rug and commenced to blaze, whereupon he slipped cautiously out of bed; his bandaged arm paining, despite his care, and called for the nurse. An answer did not come immediately, and the boy hurried bare-footed, in his scarlet gown only, across the floor to the burning rug. Afterwards, he remembered rolling it up awkwardly with one hand and stamping upon it; the night nurse hurrying up with a scream, forty heads up in forty cots—it was then for the first and last time in his life that Bobbie fainted.
“We shall have to send you to a home, Twenty.” Sister Margaret looked on a day or two later, whilst Nurse Crowther re-bound the lint and wool. “A convalescent home down by the sea-side, upon a hill, where you can watch the shipping, and—”
“That’ll suit me down to the ground, Sister.”
“I believe he got burnt purposely, Sister,” declared Nurse Crowther, “so that he should have a nice long holiday. Wish to goodness I was half as artful as Twenty is.”
“I’m sure,” said Sister Margaret sedately, “that Twenty is a very brave boy. If it hadn’t been for his courage there might have been quite a serious fire.”
Twenty blushed.
“Twenty has qualities,” went on the tall Sister, “that if properly directed—I should bring it twice over the knee, nurse, I think—will make him a fine young fellow, and a credit to his country.” Sister Margaret had raised her voice in order that her words might be heard. The ward listened alertly; little Nineteen, whose eyelids were now very tired, moving his head in order to hear. “Wrongly directed,” she said, lowering her voice, “they will only make him dangerous.”
“I should rather like to grow up and—and be brave,” said little Nineteen from the next bed.
“So you shall,” declared Nurse Crowther, cheerily, “so you shall, Nineteen. If you don’t get the Victoria Cross some day, Nineteen, never believe me again.” Little Nineteen consoled, closed his eyes wearily. “As for you, Marquis,” went on Nurse Crowther, pinning the end of the roll with which Bobbie’s limb had been enveloped, “I believe that what Sister says is perfectly true. If you can only keep on the main line you’ll make a capital journey. Only don’t get branching off.”
“If I don’t get along in the world,” said Bobbie, with a touch of his old impudence, “it won’t he for the want of telling.”
“You ought to be grateful, my Lord Bishop,” said Nurse Crowther, adjusting the bed-clothes carefully, “that you’ve got so many friends.”
“Me!” echoed the boy. “Why, I ain’t got a friend in the world.”
“Twenty!” said Sister Margaret reprovingly. “And Mr. West is coming all the way down here next visiting day specially to see you.”
“To see me?”
“Yes,” said Sister Margaret, a little unsteadily, “to see you.”
“Reckon,” said the boy, looking up, “he’s going to kill two birds with one stone. What he’s really coming for is to see—”
“Twenty,” she commanded, “silence!”
“Is to-morrow visiting day?” asked the thin voice of Nineteen, sleepily.
“To-morrow,” replied Nurse Crowther. “And mind you’re nice and bright, Saucy Face, by three o’clock against your mother comes.”
In the ward the next day occurred the usual excitement that preceded an afternoon for visitors. Little Nineteen alone uninterested; it almost seemed that he had ceased to take concern in worldly matters such as the arrival of apples and other contraband, and to be content, when not asleep, with staring very hard at the ceiling. Bobbie himself, cheered by receipt of a kindly note from Collingwood Cottage, gave his best endeavours to the task of enlivening Nineteen (“Sop me goodness,” said Bobbie, reproachfully to himself, “if I ain’t getting fond of the little beggar”), but with no result. Elsewhere in the ward movement and expectation; Sister Margaret and the nurses had trouble to preserve sanity amongst the boy patients. Thirty-five declared privately his opinion that all the clocks were slow; that someone had put them back on purpose; Thirty-five added darkly that if he could find the person responsible for the deed he would make it a County Court job. Nevertheless, the hour presently struck, and two minutes afterwards came the sound of many footsteps in the passage; the swing doors opened, and the visitors marched in under the narrow inspection of every scarlet-gowned occupant of every scarlet-counterpaned bed. There were sounds of kissing in different parts of the ward. Bobbie ordered Nineteen to wake up and look sharp about it, but little Nineteen did not answer.
“If you please, Miss, is there a boy named Robert Lancaster in this ward?”
Bobbie’s head came up. Nurse Crowther pointed him out to a young girl, dressed quietly, her hair rolled up into a neat bunch, and wearing brown gloves fiercely new. She carried a small paper bag, and looked casually at her silver watch as she advanced to the bedside of Twenty.
“What ho!” said Bobbie, not unkindly. “Who sent for you?”
“Mother told me I might come,” said Miss Trixie Bell, breathlessly, “and mother sent this bunch of the best grapes she could get in Spitalfields Market, and mother said I was to give you her kind regards, and tell you to get well as soon as you could.”
“Left to meself,” said Bobbie, “I should never ’ave thought of that. They ain’t so dusty them grapes, though, are they?” he added, admiringly.
“I should rather think not,” said Trixie. “They cost money. How’s your arm? You look nice and neat in your scarlet—” Miss Bell checked herself and bit her lips. “I nearly said bed-gown,” she remarked, apologetically, taking out her watch again.
“You’ve altered,” said Bobbie, “since you came to see me last.”
“Mother says I’m going to grow up tall.”
“Take care you don’t grow up silly the same time. Where’d you get your watch from?”
“Fancy your noticing,” said Trixie Bell, delightedly. “That’s newto-day. Mother gave it me because it was my birthday, and I’d helped nicely with the shop.”
“Many ’appy returns,” he said, gruffly.
“Thank you, Bobbie.”
“Ever see anything of them Drysdale Street bounders? I mean Nose and Libbis and—”
“I never take no notice of nobody,” said the young lady, precisely. “Mother says its best to ignore them altogether. Mother says its unwise even to pass the time of day. So when they call out after me, I simply walk on as though I hadn’t ’eard.”
“That’s right,” said Bobbie, approvingly.
“Your neighbour’s asleep.”
“Little beggar’s always at it. He’ll wake up directly when his mother comes.”
A scent of flowers and a familiar deep voice. Trixie, who had been resting one elbow on the pillow, drew back, as Myddleton West came up.
“Well, young man,” said Myddleton West, cheerily, “how are we getting on? Sister Margaret has been telling me of your fire brigade exploit.”
“That was nothing.”
“It might have been, apparently, if you had not acted as you did. This a friend of yours?” Miss Bell stood up and bowed. “Why, I’ve met you two together before. On a tram going Shoreditch way on the night when—”
“Let bygones be bygones,” said Bobbie, uneasily. “That was ages ago.”
“When you were mere boy and girl?”
“Jesso!”
“Sister Margaret thinks of getting you away to a convalescent home,” said Myddleton West.
“You seem to have had a rare old chat with her,” said the boy, pointedly. “Give her them flowers, instead of leaving them here. They’ll please her.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Trixie, “don’t you think you ought to call the nurse for this little chap in the next bed? I’ve just touched his hand, and somehow—”
Nurse Crowther and another nurse come quickly to the bed of Nineteen. Nurse Crowther flies for the screen; when this is fixed around the bed, a doctor is sent for. The doctor hurries in, goes away directly, but the screen remains. Nineteen’s mother arriving tardily with oranges for her boy, is admitted behind the screen, and there comes presently the sound of weeping.
“Ain’t he woke up, Nurse?” asks Bobbie, anxiously.
“Nearly time for visitors to go,” says Nurse Crowther. “You’ll soon have to say good-bye. Nice bright day outside, they tell me.”
“Ain’t he woke up yet, Nurse?”
“Who, your Highness?”
“Why, Nineteen.”
For once Nurse Crowther’s wink declines to respond to her summons. Her lips move, and she puts her hand up to control them.
“My chick,” she says, “Nineteen won’t wake again in this world.” The bed clothes go quickly over Bobbie’s head, and remain there forsome few minutes. When Sister Margaret’s voice is heard warning visitors of the approach of half-past four, his head reappears rather shamefacedly.
“Trixie.”
“Yes, Bobbie.”
“Anybody looking?”
“Not a soul.”
“Well,” whispers Bobbie, “if you like to bend down, you can give me a kiss.”
Miss Bell takes sedate advantage of this offer, and, readjusting her hat, when she has done so, finds her bright brown gloves.
“Thank you, Bobbie,” says Miss Bell. Then she adds very softly, “Dear.”
“Not so much of the ‘dear,’” orders Bobbie.
Theseaside institution to which Bobbie, with an attention that could not have been exceeded if he had been paying money recklessly to everybody around him, found himself conveyed, exactly fitted his desires. The cool, calm order of the place, the quiet service of serene women attendants in their dark gowns and white aprons, the well-chosen table, the pure white linen in spotless bedrooms—all these things, that might have irritated the boy had he been perfectly well, were, in his convalescent state, precisely what he required. The days had become warmer, and it was possible to spend a good deal of time on the wooden balconies of the Swiss-like building. From these balconies he could look away across the green waters, with their patches of dark purple; could watch the Channel steamer puffing its way across, presently to enter the harbour below. The harbour itself never ceased to delight him. There it was that steamers rested in a dignified manner when off duty, submitting themselves to an energetic washing of decks and rubbing of brasswork; near them, brown-sailed fishing vessels for ever going out to sea or coming back from sea, manned by limited crews, who shouted in the dialect of the Kentish coast, and whose aim in life it appeared to be not so much to do work themselves as to tell others to do it. The scent of the sea came up to the balconies, and most of the boys in varying stages of repair who inhaled it, declared their intention, once they had regained possession of that health which for the moment eluded them, of becoming admirals in her Majesty’s navy. Bobbie Lancaster on this subject said nothing, which was his way when engaged in making up his mind.
Stages marked the progress of improvement. One of the earliest came on permission being granted to walk about the green-grassed lawn around the Home, with its summer-houses, where, over the fence in the evenings, you could observe sons of mariners wooing, with economic speech, daughters of other mariners, and kissing them, under the impression that no one but a Martello tower looked on.
Here Bobbie himself fell in love.
A breezy curate attached to the church close by, for ever flying in and out of the Home with no hat, and an appearance of having another engagement of a highly urgent character for which he was a little late, hurried in one day to look round the sitting-room where the guests played dominoes, and found Bobbie well enough to go out; so well, indeed, that he had arranged to go down the long road towards the white cliffs in company with an adult patient, who, being in ordinary times a stoker ona London Bridge and Greenwich steamboat, posed as authority on all matters concerning the navy, and arbitrator in disputes concerning that branch of the service. Breezy Curate, in less than no time at all, found other work for the naval authority, gained the necessary permission from the Lady Superintendent, and was away with Bobbie, walking so fast that he had to run back now and then in the manner of a frisky terrier, in order that Bobbie should keep up with him. Ere the boy had time or breath to ask questions they arrived at the door of a round squat Martello tower (called by elderly acquaintances Billy Pitt’s Mansion), where he was lugged in and introduced to the coastguardsman who lived there; introduced also to coastguardsman’s immense niece, who appeared to Bobbie, panting on a chair, like a very large angel, only better dressed and much better looking, and who, it appeared, came in daily to make tidy her uncle’s tower. Breezy Curate, before hastening off for a fly along the cliffs, made the boy a friend of Coastguard and Coastguard’s niece, and promised to call back for him in an hour.
“Reckon you’ve been ’avin’ games, young man, ain’t you?” said Coastguard sternly. “What made you fall down and step on yerself in that manner for, eh?”
Bobbie explained. When he described the fire in Margaret Ward, the large angel, making tea and toasting bread that filled the small room with most appetizing odours, looked up.
“Bravo,” said the young woman. “Come here and I’ll give ye a kiss for that.”
Bobbie hesitated.
“Go on, lad,” counselled her uncle; “there’s them that wouldn’t want to be asked twice to do that, jigger me if they would.”
“Uncle!” said the large angel reprovingly. “Do give over.”
Bobbie considered it proof of the young woman’s angelic nature that, seeing he did not stir, she came to him, toasting-fork in hand, gave him a hug and then went back to her work at the fire. Coastguard, enormously amused at this, slapped his knee, saying that seeing kisses were cheap, jigger him if he wouldn’t have one, and a kiss he therefore took, and the three sat down to tea in great good-humour. By an effort, Bobbie determined to retain the correct behaviour that he had learnt in the Cottage Homes and at Margaret Ward; Coastguard, delighted with the boy’s respectful manner, declared that an earl could not comport himself better. From this, Coastguard passed, by easy transition, to a review of the Royal Family of his country, a review that became a glowing eulogy. The angel, too, preparing to cut cake, expressed so much affection for the younger members of the family, portraits of whom were on the walls of the little room of the Martello tower, that the boy found himself impressed, and convinced by views in regard to Royalty that were novel to him.
“Old Lady,” declared Coastguard, blowing at his tea, “will have the best. She don’t mind what she pays for her Navy, but she will ’ave it good.”
“I see what you mean,” said Bobbie.
“Do you like the outside or the inside?” asked the angel at the cake.
“Both, Miss,” said Bobbie.
“None of your ne’er-do-wells for her,” went on Coastguard. “None of your thieving—”
“You’ve dropped your knife on the floor, little boy,” said the angel. “That’s a sign you’re not careful.”
“‘None of your bad characters, none of your criminals for my Navy,’ she ses, ‘if you please.’ And jigger me,” said Coastguard explosively, “jigger me if the old Lady ain’t right.”
“You ought to call her ‘Her Majesty,’ uncle. You’d look silly if she happened to be listening.”
“Go’ bless my soul,” said Coastguard with enthusiasm, “she wouldn’t mind it from me. She knows my way of talking.”
“And,” stammered Bobbie, “is it—is it true then that you can’t get into the Navy if you’ve done anything wrong?”
“Devil a bit,” answered Coastguard. “Old Lady’d think it was a piece of impudence to try it on. Looey, my gell, whilst I’m havin’ my pipe jest give us a toon on the old harmonium.”
The large niece, seated at the harmonium, seemed, to the thoughtful Bobbie, more like an angel than ever; the music she produced helped to distract his troubled thoughts. Presently, however, the angel found a Moody and Sankey book and, having propped it on the ledge before her, picked out on the keys as with her foot she moved the pedals, a hymn that gave the boy memories. The Coastguard rolled his head to the rhythm; now and again taking his pipe from his mouth to growl a note or two and thus give his niece encouragement.
“Dare to be a Daniel,Dare to stand alone,Dare to—”
“Dare to be a Daniel,Dare to stand alone,Dare to—”
Bobbie sat forward in his chair, his eyes fixed on the broad bending back of the young lady at the harmonium, and thought of Ely Place. What a long way off Ely Place seemed now; Bat Miller, and Mrs. Bat Miller, and the Fright; all these were misty figures that for years had visited his memory infrequently. Bat Miller’s time would be up in a year or two. Bobbie shivered to think what he should do were Bat Miller’s face to appear suddenly at the window. For a few moments he dared not glance at the window, fearful that this impossible event might happen; when at the end of the hymn he nerved himself to look in that direction he felt almost surprised to find no face peering in.
“Gi’ us,” said the Coastguard cheerfully, “Gi’ us ‘Old the Fort.’ That’s the one I’m gone on. There’s a swing about ‘Old the Fort.’”
It seemed to the boy that already he had lived two lives; that the first had been broken off short on the day he turned out of Worship Street Police Court. He could not help feeling a vague admiration for that first boy because the first boy had been a fine young dare-devil, never trammelled by rules of behaviour; at the same time it was as well, perhaps, that the first boy had ceased to live, for he was not the kind of lad Bobbie could have introduced to the angel.
“And now,” said the Coastguard, “jigger my eyes if I mustn’t on with my jacket and find my spy-glass and see what’s going on outside. Where’s that young curate got to, I wonder?”
The Coastguard went presently, after telling Bobbie that he might call again at the Martello tower, and that if he behaved he should one day goout to the Coastguard Station and see, by aid of the telescope, the coast of France. Bobbie, alone with the angel, and allowed to seat himself at the end of the harmonium, behaved with a preciseness and a decorum that in any other lad would have been held by Bobbie as good justification for punching that boy’s head. The angel’s right hand remaining on the higher keys for a space in order to give full effect to a final chord, he bent and kissed it. The scent of brown Windsor soap ever afterwards reminded him of this first essay in affection.
“What ye up to?” demanded the angel.
“Only kissin’ your ’and,” said Bobbie confusedly.
“We don’t kiss hands down in these parts,” said the large young lady. “That ain’t Kentish fashion.”
“I like you,” remarked the boy shyly.
“My goodness!” said the angel with affectation of much concern, “this won’t do. I mustn’t be catched alone with a young man what says things like that. I’d better be seeing about taking you back to the home, I reckon.”
The curate not returning (having, as it proved, flown away to a neighbouring parish and forgotten all about the boy), this course had to be adopted, and the two walked back along the road on the edge of the white cliffs—Bobbie in a state of proud ecstasy, which reached its highest point, when a boy, in passing them, called out to him, “Why doan’ you marry the girl?” The angel herself spoke of the amount that the starting of a household cost; of the relative advantages of a house with folding doors but no bay windows, compared with a house having bay windows, but no folding doors; all in a manner that seemed to the boy, strutting by her side, highly encouraging, and, under the circumstances, as much as on such brief acquaintance a man could reasonably expect. At the home, any trouble that might have arisen by reason of the boy’s extended absence was removed by the fact that the angel had once been a highly-esteemed servant at the Institution; the Lady Superintendent met them without a frown. The large young lady found herself lugged into the kitchen by two of the white-aproned maids for a chat, and when presently she looked in to say good night, at the reading-room where Bobbie was finishing a sea story, she kissed him, to the great envy of the other convalescent young students.
“Serve us all alike, Miss,” begged a lad with crutches.
“You be quiet,” ordered Bobbie, “unless you want your head punched.”
“Give me ’alf a one,” urged the lad with crutches.
“No fear,” said the angel cheerfully. She nodded her head to Bobbie. “He’s my young man.”
“Should have thought you’d got better taste, Miss.”
“You leave off talking to that lady,” growled Bobbie, “or I’ll spoil your features for you.” The large young lady waved her hand and disappeared through the swing doors. “If you ain’t a gentleman, do, for goodness sake, try to ’ide the fact.”
In the few weeks of Bobbie’s residence, the Coastguard became his very good friend. The boy learned the secrets of flags, listened with an interest that he had never felt at school to the accounts of British victories by sea in the past, absorbing with great appetite the Coastguard’s figures illustrating the current state of the Navy. In his young heart patriotism was born.
Permitted to see through the telescope the coast of France, he commenced to realize actualities that he had never gained from maps. In the school of the Cottage Homes the general impression amongst incredulous small boys had been that no such places as foreign countries really existed; that these were fictions invented by adults for the more complete annoyance and trouble of children. Now the line of cliffs where on bright days tiny black specks could be seen moving, brought conviction; the boy found that he had much to learn, and something to forget. One Sunday afternoon, being allowed to go down to the sleeping harbour, and over the line, and along the quay by the Customs House, he met, by happy chance, the angel, in white, with green sunshade, who, it appeared, waited for some one who would be free as soon as the baggage had been cleared; together they watched the Channel steamer bustle in and wake up the harbour, saw ropes thrown, gangways fixed, and presently heard the arriving passengers chattering in a language which the angel told him was French.
“Ignorant set, ain’t they?” asked Bobbie.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the large young lady tolerantly.