S
halecray was a small station, where no very considerable number of trains stopped in the twenty-four hours. It was therefore a slow train by which Geoffrey Tudor and his new friend travelled; so, though the distance from London was really short, it took them fully two hours to reach their destination. And two hours on a raw drizzly November morning is quite a long enough time to spend in a third-class carriage, shivering if the windows are down, and suffering on the other hand from the odours of damp fustian and bad tobacco if they are up.
Cold as it was, it seemed pleasant in comparison when they got out at last, and were making their way down a very muddy, but really country lane. Geoff gave a sort of snort of satisfaction.
"I do love the country," he said.
His companion looked at him curiously.
"I believe you, sir," he replied. "You must like it, to find it pleasant in November," he went on, with a tone which made Geoff glance at him in surprise. Somehow in the last few words the countryman's accent seemed to have changed a little. Geoff could almost have fancied there was a cockney twang about it.
"Why, don'tyoulike it?" said Geoff. "You said you were lost and miserable in town."
"Of course, sir. What else could I be? I'm country born and bred. But it's not often as a Londoner takes to it as you do, and it's not to say lively at this time, and"—he looked down with a grimace—"the lanes is uncommon muddy."
"How far is it to your friend's place?" Geoff inquired, thinking to himself that ifhewere to remark on the mud it would not be surprising, but that it was rather curious for his companion to do so.
"A matter of two mile or so," Jowett—for Ned Jowett, he had told Geoff, was his name—replied; "and now I come to think of it, perhaps it'd be as well for you to leave your bag at the station. I'll see that it's all right; and as you're not sure of stopping at Crickwood, there's no sense in carrying it there and maybe back again for nothing. I'll give it in charge to the station-master, and be back in a moment."
He had shouldered it and was hastening back to the station almost before Geoff had time to take in what he said. The boy stood looking after him vaguely. He was beginning to feel tired and a little dispirited. He did not feel as if he could oppose anything just then.
"If he's a cheat and he's gone off with my bag, I just can't help it," he thought. "He won't gain much. Still, he looks honest."
And five minutes later the sight of the young man's cheery face as he hastened back removed all his misgivings.
"All right, sir," he called out. "It'll be quite safe; and if by chance you hit it off with Mr. Eames, the milk-cart that comes to fetch the empty cans in the afternoon can bring the bag too."
They stepped out more briskly after that. It was not such a very long walk to the farm, though certainly more than the two miles Jowett had spoken of. As they went on, the country grew decidedly pretty, or perhaps it would be more correct to say one saw that in summer and pleasant weather it must be very pretty. Geoff, however, was hardly at the age for admiring scenery much. He looked about him with interest, but little more than interest.
"Are there woods about here?" he asked suddenly. "I do like woods."
Jowett hesitated.
"I don't know this part of the country not to say so very well," he replied. "There's some fine gentlemen's seats round about, I believe. Crickwood Bolders, now, is a fine place—we'll pass by the park wall in a minute; it's the place that Eames's should by rights be the home farm to, so to say. But it's been empty for a many years. The family died down till it come to a distant cousin who was in foreign parts, and he let the farm to Eames, and the house has been shut up. They do speak of his coming back afore long."
Geoff looked out for the park of which Jowett spoke; they could not see much of it, certainly, without climbing the wall, for which he felt no energy. But a little farther on they came to gates, evidently a back entrance, and they stood still for a moment or two and looked in.
THEY STOOD STILL FOR A MOMENT OR TWO."Yes," said Geoff, gazing over the wide expanse of softly undulating ground, broken by clumps of magnificent old trees, which at one side extended into a fringe skirting the park for miles apparently, till it melted in the distance into a range of blue-topped hills—"yes, it must be a fine place indeed. That's the sort of place, now, I'd like to own, Jowett."
He spoke more cordially again, for Jowett's acquaintance with the neighbourhood had destroyed a sort of misgiving that had somehow come over him as to whether his new friend were perhaps "taking him in altogether."
"I believe you," said the countryman, laughing loudly, as if Geoff's remark had been a very good joke indeed. Geoff felt rather nettled.
"And why shouldn't I own such a place, pray?" he said haughtily. "Such things, when one is agentleman, are all a matter of chance, as you know. If my father, or my grandfather, rather, had not been a younger son, I should have been——"
Ned Jowett turned to him rather gravely.
"I didn't mean to offend you, sir," he said. "But you must remember you're taking up a different line from that. Farmer Eames, or farmer nobody, wouldn't engage a farm hand that expected to be treated as a gentleman. It's not my fault, sir. 'Twas yourself told me what you wished."
Geoff was silent for a moment or two. It was not easy all at once to make up his mind tonotbeing a gentleman any more, and yet his common sense told him that Jowett was right; it must be so. Unless, indeed, he gave it all up and went back home again to eat humble pie, and live on Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot's bounty, and go to some horrid school of his choosing, and be more "bullied" (so he expressed it to himself) than ever by his sisters, and scarcely allowed to see his mother at all. The silent enumeration of these grievances decided him. He turned round to Jowett with a smile.
"Yes," he said; "I was forgetting. You must tell Farmer Eames he'll not find any nonsense about me."
"All right, sir. But, if you'll excuse me, I'd best perhaps drop the 'sir'?"
Geoff nodded.
"And that reminds me," Jowett went on, "you've not told me your name—leastways, what name you wish me to give Eames. We're close to his place now;" and as he spoke he looked about him scrutinizingly. "Ten minutes past the back way through the park you'll come to a lane on the left. Eames's farm is the first house you come to on the right," he repeated to himself, too low for Geoff to hear. "Yes, I can't be wrong."
"You can call me Jim—Jim Jeffreys," said the boy. "He needn't be afraid of getting into any trouble if he takes me on. I've no father, and my mother won't worry about me," he added bitterly.
The entrance to the lane just then came in sight.
"This here's our way," said Jowett. "Supposing I go on a bit in front. I think it would be just as well to explain to Eames about my bringing you."
"All right," said Geoff. "I'll come on slowly. Where is the farm?"
"First house to the right; you can't miss it. But I'll come back to meet you again."
He hurried on, and Geoff followed slowly. He was hungry now as well as cold and tired—at least, he supposed he must be hungry, he felt so dull and stupid. What should he do if Farmer Eames could not take him on? he began to ask himself; he really felt as if it would be impossible for him to set off on his travels again like a tramp, begging for work all over the country. And for the first time it began faintly to dawn upon him that he had acted very foolishly.
"But it's too late now," he said to himself; "I'd die rather than go home and ask to be forgiven, and be treated by them all as if I deserved to be sent to prison. I've got enough money to keep me going for a day or two, anyway. If it was summer—haymaking-time, for instance, I suppose it would be easy enough to get work. But now——" and he shivered as he gazed over the bare, dreary, lifeless-looking fields on all sides, where it was difficult to believe that the green grass could ever spring again, or the golden grain wave in the sunshine—"I really wonder what work there can be to do in the winter. The ground's as hard as iron; and oh, my goodness, isn't it cold?"
Suddenly some little way in front he descried two figures coming towards him. The one was Jowett; the other, an older, stouter man, must be Farmer Eames. Geoff's heart began to beat faster. Would he be met by a refusal, and told to make his way back to the station? And if so, where would he go, what should he do? It had all seemed so easy when he planned it at home—he had felt so sure he would find what he wanted at once; he had somehow forgotten it would no longer be summer when he got out into the country again! For the first time in his life he realized what hundreds, nay, thousands of boys, no older than he, must go through every day—poor homeless fellows, poor and homeless through no fault of their own in many cases.
"If ever I'm a rich man," thought Geoff, "I'll think of to-day."
And his anxiety grew so great that by the time the two men had come up to him his usually ruddy face had become almost white.
Jowett looked at him curiously.
"You look uncommon cold, Jim," he said. "This 'ere's Jim Jeffreys as I've been a-talking to you of, Mr. Eames," he said, by way of introduction to the farmer.
"Ah, indeed!" Farmer Eames replied; "seems a well-grown lad, but looks delicate. Is he always so white-like?"
"Bless you! no," said Jowett; "he's only a bit done up with—with one thing and another. We made a hearly start of it, and it's chilly this morning."
The farmer grunted a little.
"He'd need to get used to starting early of a morning if he was to be any use to me," he said half-grudgingly. But even this sounded hopeful to Geoff.
"Oh, I don't mind getting up early," he said quickly. "I'm not used to lying in bed late."
"There's earlyandearly," said the farmer. "What I might take you on trial for would be to drive the milk-cart to and fro the station. There's four sendings in all—full and empty together. And the first time is for the up-train that passes Shalecray at half-past five."
Geoff shivered a little. But it would not do to seem daunted.
"I'll be punctual," he said.
"And of course, between times you'd have to make yourself useful about the dairy, and the pigs—you'd have to see to the pigs, and to make yourself useful," repeated the farmer, whose power of expressing himself was limited.
"Of course," agreed Geoff as heartily as he could, though, truth to tell, the idea of pigs had not hitherto presented itself to him.
"Well," Farmer Eames went on, turning towards Jowett, "I dunno as I mind giving him a trial, seeing as I'm just short of a boy as it happens. And for the station work, it's well to have a sharpish lad, and a civil-spoken one. You'll have to keep a civil tongue in your head, my boy—eh?"
"Certainly," said Geoff, but not without a slight touch of haughtiness. "Of course I'll be civil to every one who's civil to me."
"And who isn't civil to thee, maybe, now and then," said the farmer, with a rather curious smile. "'Twon't be all walking on roses—nay, 'twon't be all walking on roses to be odd boy in a farm. But there's many a one as'd think himself uncommon lucky to get the chance, I can tell you."
"Oh, and so I do," said Geoff, eagerly. "I do indeed. I think it's awfully good of you to try me; and you'll see I'm not afraid of work."
"And what about his character?" said the farmer, speaking again to Jowett. "Can you answer for his honesty?—that's the principal thing."
Geoff's cheeks flamed, and he was starting forward indignantly, when a word or two whispered, sternly almost, in his ear by Jowett, forced him to be quiet. "Don't be an idiot! do you want to spoil all your chances?" he said. And something in the tone again struck Geoff with surprise. He could scarcely believe it was the simple young countryman who was speaking.
"I don't think you need be uneasy on that score," he said. "You see it's all come about in a rather—uncommon sort of way."
"I should rather think so," said the farmer, shrugging his shoulders, but smiling too.
"And," pursued Jowett, "you'll have to stretch a point or two. Of course he'll want very little in the way of wages to begin."
"Half-a-crown a week and his victuals," replied the farmer, promptly. "And he must bind himself for three months certain—I'm not going to be thrown out of a boy at the orkardest time of the year for getting 'em into sharp ways. And I can't have no asking for holidays for three months, either."
Jowett looked at Geoff.
"Very well," said Geoff.
"And you must go to church reg'lar," added the farmer. "You can manage it well enough, and Sunday school, too, if you're sharp—there's only twice to the station on Sundays."
"On Sundays, too?" repeated Geoff. Sundays at worst had been a day of no work at home.
"To be sure," said Eames, sharply. "Beasts can't do for themselves on Sundays no more than any other day. And Londoners can't drink sour milk on Sundays neither."
"No," said Geoff, meekly enough. "Of course I'm used to church," he added, "but I think I'm rather too old for the Sunday school."
"I'll leave that to the parson," said the farmer. "Well, now then, we may as well see if dinner's not ready. It's quite time, and you'll be getting hungry, Mr. Jowett," he added, with a slight hesitation.
"Why not call me Ned? You're very high in your manners to-day, Eames," said the other, with a sort of wink.
Then they both laughed and walked on, leaving Geoff to follow. Nothing was said abouthisbeing hungry.
"PerhapsIshall be expected to dine with the pigs," he thought.
I
t was not quite so bad as that, however. Farmer Eames turned in at the farmyard gate and led the two strangers into a good-sized kitchen, where the table was already set, in a homely fashion, for dinner. A stout, middle-aged woman, with a rather sharp face, turned from the fire, where she was superintending some cooking.
"Here we are again, wife," said Eames. "Glad to see dinner's ready. Take a chair, Mr. Ned. You'll have a glass of beer to begin with?" and as he poured it out, "This here's the new boy, missis—I've settled to give him a trial."
Mrs. Eames murmured something, which Geoff supposed must have been intended as a kind of welcome. She was just then lifting a large pan of potatoes off the fire, and as she turned her face to the light, Geoff noticed that it was very red—redder than a moment before. He could almost have fancied the farmer's wife was shy.
"Shall I help you?" he exclaimed, darting forward to take hold of the pan.
Eames burst out laughing.
"That's a good joke," he said. "He knows which side his bread's buttered on, does this 'ere young fellow."
Geoff grew scarlet, and some angry rejoinder was on his lips, when Jowett, who to his great indignation was laughing too, clapped him on the shoulder.
"Come, my boy, there's naught to fly up about. Eames must have his joke."
"I see naught to laugh at," said Mrs. Eames, who had by this time shaken the potatoes into a large dish that stood ready to receive them; "the lad meant it civil enough."
"You're not to spoil him now, wife," said her husband. "It's no counter-jumpers' ways we want hereabouts. Sit thee down, Ned; and Jim, there, you can draw the bench by the door a bit nearer the dresser, and I'll give you some dinner by-and-by."
Geoff, his heart swelling, did as he was bid. He sat quietly enough, glad of the rest and the warmth, till Mr. and Mrs. Eames and their guest were all helped, and had allayed the first sharp edge of their appetites. But from time to time the farmer's wife glanced at Geoff uneasily, and once, he felt sure, he saw her nudge her husband.
HE SAT QUIETLY ENOUGH."She means to be kind," thought the boy.
And her kindness apparently had some effect. The farmer looked round, after a deep draught of beer, and pushed his tankard aside.
"Will you have a sup, Jim?" he said good-naturedly. "I can't promise it you every day; but for once in a way."
"No, thank you," Geoff replied. "I never take beer; moth——" but he stopped suddenly.
"As you like," said the farmer; "but though you're not thirsty, I dare say you're hungry."
He cut off a slice of the cold meat before him, and put it on a plate with some potatoes, and a bit of dripping from a dish on the table. The slice of meat was small in proportion to the helping of potatoes; but Geoff was faint with hunger. He took the plate, with the steel-pronged fork and coarse black-handled knife, and sat down again by the dresser to eat. But, hungry though he was, he could not manage it all. Half-way through, a sort of miserable choky feeling came over him: he thought of his meals at home—the nice white tablecloth, the sparkling glass and silver, the fine china—and all seemed to grow misty before his eyes for a minute or two; he almost felt as if he were going to faint, and the voices at the table sounded as if they came from the other side of the Atlantic. He drank some water—for on his refusing beer, Mrs. Eames had handed him a little horn mug filled with water;itwas as fresh and sweet as any he had ever tasted, and he tried at the same time to swallow down his feelings. And by the time that the farmer stood up to say grace, he felt pretty right again.
"And what are you going to be about, Eames?" said Jowett. "I'll walk round the place with you, if you like. I must take the four train up again."
"All right," the farmer replied; "Jim can take you to the station when he goes to fetch the cans. You'll see that he doesn't come to grief on the way. Do 'ee know how to drive a bit?"
"Oh yes," replied Geoff, eagerly. "I drove a good deal last summer at—in the country. And I know I was very fond of it."
"Well," said the farmer, drily, "you'll have enough of it here. But the pony's old; you mustn't drive him too fast. Now, I'll tell one of the men to show you the yard, and the pig-sties, and the missis'll show you where she keeps the swill-tub. It'll want emptying—eh, wife?"
"It do that," she replied. "But he must change his clothes afore he gets to that dirty work. Those are your best ones, ain't they?"
Geoff looked down at his suit. It was not his best, for he had left his Eton jackets and trousers behind him. The clothes he had on were a rough tweed suit he had had for the country; he had thought them very far from best. But now it struck him that they did look a great deal too good for feeding the pigs in.
"I've got an older pair of trousers in my bag," he said; "but this is my oldest jacket."
"He should have a rougher one," said Mrs. Eames. "I'll look out; maybe there's an old coat of George's as'd make down."
"All right," said Eames. "But you've no need of a coat at all to feed the pigs in. Whoever heard o' such a thing?"
Just then a voice was heard at the door.
"I'm here, master," it said, "fur the new boy."
"All right," said Eames; and, followed by Geoff, in his shirt-sleeves by this time, he led the way to the farmyard.
It was interesting, if only it had not been so cold. Matthew, the man, was not very communicative certainly, and it seemed to the new boy that he eyed him with some disfavour. Eames himself just gave a few short directions, and then went off with Jowett.
"Them's the stables," said Matthew, jerking his thumb towards a row of old buildings, "and them's the cow-houses," with a jerk the other way. "Old pony's with master's mare, as he drives hisself. I've nought to say to pony; it's your business. And I'll want a hand with cart-horses and plough-horses. Young folks has no call to be idle."
"I don't mean to be idle," said Geoff; "but if Mr. Eames doesn't find fault with me,you've no call to do so either."
He spoke more valiantly than he felt, perhaps, for Matthew's stolid face and small, twinkling eyes were not pleasant. He muttered something, and then went grumbling across the yard towards a wall, from behind which emanated an odour which required no explanation.
"Them's pigs," said he. Matthew had a curious trick of curtailing his phrases as his temper waxed sourer. Articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs disappeared, till at last his language became a sort of spoken hieroglyphics.
Geoff looked over the pig-sty wall. Grunt, grumph, snort—out they all tumbled, one on the top of the other, making for the trough. Poor things! it was still empty. Geoff could hardly help laughing, and yet he felt rather sorry for them.
"I'll go and fetch their dinner," he said. "I don't mind pigs; but they are awfully dirty."
"Ax the missus for soap to wash 'em," said Matthew, with a grin. He hadn't yet made up his mind if the new boy was sharp or not.
"No," said Geoff, "I'll not do that till the first of April; but I'll tell you what, Matthew, I'll not keep them as dirty as they are. AndIshould say that the chap that's been looking after them is a very idle fellow." Matthew scowled. "Pigs don'tneedto be so dirty," Geoff went on. "I know at Cole——" But he stopped abruptly. He was certainly not going to take Matthew into his confidence. He asked to be shown the pony—poor old pony! it didn't look as if it would be over "sperrity"—and then he went back to the house to fetch the pigs' dinner.
Very hot, instead of cold, he was by the time he had carried across pail after pail of Mrs. Eames's "swill," and emptied it into the barrel which stood by the sty. It wasn't savoury work, either, and the farmer's wife made a kind of excuse for there being so much of it. "Matthew were that idle," and they'd been a hand short the last week or two. But Geoff wasn't going to give in; there was a sort of enjoyment in it when it came to the actual feeding of the pigs, and for their digestion's sake, it was well that the farmer's wife warned him that theremightbe such a thing as over-feeding, even of pigs. He would have spent the best part of the afternoon in filling the trough and watching them squabble over it.
He was tired and hot, and decidedly dirtier-looking than could have been expected, when Eames and Jowett came back from the fields.
"Time to get the pony to!" shouted the farmer. Geoff turned off to the stable. He wanted to manage the harnessing alone; but, simple as it was, he found it harder than it looked, and he would have been forced to apply to Matthew, had not Jowett strolled into the stable. He felt sorry for the boy, sorrier than he thought it well to show, when he saw his flushed face and trembling hands, and in a trice he had disentangled the mysteries of buckles and straps, and got all ready.
"Been working hard?" he said good-naturedly. "Seems a bit strange at first."
"I don't mind the work; but—it does all seem very rough," said Geoff.
There was a slight quiver in his voice, but Jowett said no more till they were jogging along on their way to the station. Geoff's spirits had got up a little again by this time. He liked to feel the reins between his fingers, even though the vehicle was only a milk-cart, and the steed a sadly broken-winded old gray pony; and he was rather proud at having managed to steer safely through the yard gate, as to which, to tell the truth, he had felt a little nervous.
"Is there anything I can do for you on my way through town?" asked Jowett. "I'll be in your part of the world to-night."
"Are you going to sleep at the livery stables?" asked Geoff.
Jowett nodded.
"I wish——" began the boy. "If I'd thought of it, I'd have written a letter for you to post in London. But there's no time now."
Jowett looked at his watch—a very good silver watch it was—"I don't know that," he said. "I can get you a piece of paper and an envelope at the station, and I'll see that your letter gets to—wherever it is, at once."
"Thank you," said Geoff. "And Jowett"—he hesitated. "You've been very good to me—would you mind one thing more? There's some one I would like to hear from sometimes, but I don't want to give my address. Could I tell them—her—it's my sister—to write to your place, and you to send it to me?"
"To be sure," said Jowett. "But I won't give my address in the country. You just say to send on the letter to the care of
'Mr. Abel Smith,Livery Stables,Mowbray Place Mews,'
'Mr. Abel Smith,Livery Stables,Mowbray Place Mews,'
and I'll see it comes straight to you. You won't want to give your name maybe? Just put 'Mr. James, care of Abel Smith.'"
"Thank you," said Geoff, with a sigh of relief. "You see," he went on, half apologetically, "there's some one ill at home, and I'd like to know how—how they are."
"To be sure," said Jowett again; "it's only natural. And however bad one's been treated by one's people—and it's easy to see they must have treated youoncommon badly to make a young gent like you have to leave his home and come down to work for his living like a poor boy, though I respects you for it all the more—still own folks is own folks."
He cast a shrewd glance at Geoff, as he spoke. The boy could not help colouring. Had he been treated so "oncommon badly"? Was his determination to run away and be independent of Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot's assistance a real manly resolution, or not rather a fit of ill-tempered boyish spite? Would he not have been acting with far more true independence by accepting gratefully the education which would have fitted him for an honourable career in his own rank? for Mr. Byrne, as he knew well by his mother's trust in the old gentleman, was not one to have thrown him aside had he been worthy of assistance.
"But anyway, it's done now," thought the boy, choking down the feelings which began to assert themselves.
At the station, Jowett was as good as his word. He got the paper and a pencil, and Geoff wrote a short note to Vicky, just to tell her he was "all right," and enclosing the address to which she was to write. And Jowett undertook that she should have it that same evening. Had the boy been less preoccupied he could not but have been struck by the curious inconsistencies in the young countryman, who, when he had first met him that morning, had seemed scarcely able to find his way to the station, and yet, when occasion arose, had shown himself as sharp and capable as any Londoner.
But as it was, when the train had whizzed off again, he only felt as if his last friend had deserted him. And it was a very subdued and home-sick Geoffrey who, in the chilly, misty autumn evening, drove the old pony through the muddy lanes to the farm, the empty milk-cans rattling in the cart behind him, and the tears slowly coursing down his cheeks now there was no one to see them.
H
e drove into the yard, where Matthew's disagreeable face and voice soon greeted him. Half forgetting himself, Geoff threw the reins on to the pony's neck and jumped out of the cart, with his carpet-bag. He was making his way into the house, feeling as if even the old bag was a kind of comfort in its way, when the farm-man called him back.
"Dost think I's to groom pony?" he said ill-naturedly. "May stand till doomsday afore I'll touch him."
MATTHEW, THE MAN.
Geoff turned back. Of course, he ought to have remembered it was his work, and if Matthew had spoken civilly he would even have thanked him for the reminder—more gratefully, I dare say, than he had often thanked Elsa or Frances for a hint of some forgotten duty. But, as it was, it took some self-control not to "fly out," and to set to work, tired as he was, to groom the pony and put him up for the night. It was all so strange and new too; at Colethorne's he had watched the stablemen at their work, and thought it looked easy and amusing, but when it came to doing it, it seemed a very different thing, especially in the dusk, chilly evening, and feeling as he did both tired and hungry. He did his best, however, and the old pony was very patient, poor beast, and Geoff's natural love of animals stood him in good stead; he could never have relieved his own depression by ill temper to any dumb creature. And at last old Dapple was made as comfortable as Geoff knew how, for Matthew took care to keep out of the way, and to offer no help or advice, and the boy turned towards the house, carpet-bag in hand.
The fire was blazing brightly in the kitchen, and in front of it sat the farmer, smoking a long clay pipe, which to Geoff smelt very nasty. He coughed, to attract Mr. Eames's attention.
"I've brought my bag from the station," he said. "Will you tell me where I'm to sleep?"
The farmer looked up sharply.
"You've brought the milk-cans back, too, I suppose? Your bag's not the principal thing. Have you seen to Dapple?"
"Yes," said Geoff, and his tone was somewhat sulky.
Eames looked at him again, and still more sharply.
"I told you at the first you were to keep a civil tongue in your head," he said. "You'll say 'sir' when you speak to me."
But just then Mrs. Eames fortunately made her appearance.
"Don't scold him—he's only a bit strange," she said. "Come with me, Jim, and I'll show you your room."
"Thank you," said the boy, gratefully.
Mrs. Eames glanced at her husband, as much as to say she was wiser than he, and then led the way out of the kitchen down a short, flagged passage, and up a short stair. Then she opened a door, and, by the candle she held, Geoff saw a very small, very bare room. There was a narrow bed in one corner, a chair, a window-shelf, on which stood a basin, and a cupboard in the wall.
Mrs. Eames looked round. "It's been well cleaned out since last boy went," she said. "Master and me'll look in now and then to see that you keep it clean. Cupboard's handy, and there's a good flock mattress." Then she gave him the light, and turned to go.
"Please," said Geoff, meekly, "might I have a piece of bread? I'm rather hungry." It was long past his usual tea-time.
"To be sure!" she replied. "You've not had your tea? I put it on the hob for you." And the good woman bustled off again.
Geoff followed her, after depositing his bag in the cupboard. She poured out the tea into a bowl, and ladled in a good spoonful of brown sugar. Then she cut a hunch off a great loaf, and put it beside the bowl on the dresser. Geoff was so hungry and thirsty, that he attacked both tea and bread, though the former was coarse in flavour, and the latter butterless. But it was not the quality of the food that brought back again that dreadful choking in his throat, and made the salt tears drop into the bowl of tea. It was the thought of tea-time at home—the neat table, and Vicky's dear, important-looking little face, as she filled his cup, and put in the exact amount of sugar he liked—that came over him suddenly with a sort of rush. He felt as if he could not bear it. He swallowed down the tea with a gulp, and rammed the bread into his pocket. Then, doing his utmost to look unconcerned, he went up to the farmer.
"Shall I go to bed now, please, sir?" he said, with a little hesitation at the last word. "I'm—I'm rather tired."
"Go to bed?" repeated Eames. "Yes, I suppose so. You must turn out early—the milk must be at the station by half-past five."
"How shall I wake?" asked Geoff, timidly.
"Wake? You'll have to learn to wake like others do. However, for the first, I'll tell Matthew to knock you up."
"Thank you. Good-night, sir."
"Good-night." And the farmer turned again to the newspaper he was reading.
"You'll find your bed well aired. I made Betsy see to that," called out Mrs. Eames.
"Thank you," said Geoff again, more heartily this time. But he overheard Eames grumbling at his wife as he left the room, telling her "he'd have none of that there coddling of the lad."
"And you'd have him laid up with rheumatics—dying of a chill? That'd be a nice finish up to it all. You know quite well——" But Geoff heard no more. And he was too worn-out and sleepy to think much of what he had heard.
He got out what he required for the night. He wondered shiveringly how it would be possible to wash with only a basin. Water he was evidently expected to fetch for himself. He tried to say his prayers, but fell asleep, the tears running down his face, in the middle, and woke up with a sob, and at last managed somehow to tumble into bed. It was very cold, but, as Mrs. Eames had said, quite dry. The chilly feeling woke him again, and he tried once more to say his prayers, and this time with better success. He was able to add a special petition that "mother" might soon be well again, and that dear Vicky might be happy. And then he fell asleep—so soundly, so heavily, that when a drumming at the door made itself heard, he fancied he had only just begun the night. He sat up. Where was he? At first, in the darkness, he thought he was in his own bed at home, and he wondered who was knocking so roughly—wondered still more at the rude voice which was shouting out—
KNOCKING SO ROUGHLY."Up with you there, Jim, d'ye hear? I'm not a-going to stand here all day. It's past half-past four. Jim—you lazy lout. I'll call master if you don't speak—a-locking of his door like a fine gentleman!"
Gradually Geoff remembered all—the feeling of the things about him—the coarse bed-clothes, the slightly mildewy smell of the pillow, helped to recall him to the present, even before he could see.
"I'm coming, Matthew!" he shouted back. "I'll be ready in five minutes;" and out of bed he crept, sleepy and confused, into the chilly air of the little room. He had no matches, but there was a short curtain before the window, and when he pulled it back the moonlight came faintly in—enough for him to distinguish the few objects in the room. He dared not attempt to wash, he was so afraid of being late. He managed to get out his oldest pair of trousers, and hurried on his clothes as fast as he could, feeling miserably dirty and slovenly, and thinking to himself he would never again be hard on poor people for not being clean! "I must try to wash when I come back," he said to himself. Then he hurried out, and none too soon.
Matthew was in the yard, delighted to frighten him. "You'll have to look sharp," he said, as Geoff hurried to the stable. "Betsy's filling the cans, and rare and cross she is at having to do it. You should have been there to help her, and the missis'll be out in a minute."
The harnessing of Dapple was not easy in the faint light, and he could not find the stable lantern. But it got done at last, and Geoff led the cart round to the dairy door, where Betsy was filling the last of the cans. She was not so cross as she might have been, and Mrs. Eames had not yet appeared. They got the cans into the cart, and in a minute or two Geoff found himself jogging along the road, already becoming familiar, to the station.
It seemed to grow darker instead of lighter, for the moon had gone behind a cloud, and sunrise was still a good time off. Geoff wondered dreamily to himself why people need get up so early in the country, and then remembered that it would take two or three hours for the cans to get to London. How little he or Vicky had thought, when they drank at breakfast the nice milk which Mrs. Tudor had always taken care to have of the best, of the labour and trouble involved in getting it there in time! And though he had hurried so, he was only just at the station when the train whizzed in, and the one sleepy porter growled at him for not having "looked sharper," and banged the milk-cans about unnecessarily in his temper, so that Geoff was really afraid they would break or burst open, and all the milk come pouring out.
GEOFF AT THE STATIONGEOFF AT THE STATION.Click toENLARGE
"You'll have to be here in better time for the twelve train," he said crossly. "I'm not a-going to do this sort o' work for you nor no chap, if you can't be here in time."
Geoff did not answer—he was getting used to sharp words and tones. He nearly fell asleep in the cart as he jogged home again, and to add to his discomfort a fine, small, chill, November rain began to fall. He buttoned up his jacket, and wished he had put on his overcoat; and then he laughed rather bitterly to think how absurd he would look with this same overcoat, which had been new only a month before, driving old Dapple in the milk-cart. He was wet and chilled to the bone when he reached the farm, and even if he had energy to drive a little faster he would not have dared to do so, after the farmer's warning.
Mrs. Eames was in the kitchen when, after putting up the cart and pony, Geoff came in. There was a delicious fragrance of coffee about which made his mouth water, but he did not even venture to go near the fire. Mrs. Eames heard him, however, and looked up. She started a little at the sight of his pale, wan face.
"Bless me, boy!" she exclaimed, "but you do look bad. Whatever's the matter?"
Geoff smiled a little—he looked very nice when he smiled; it was only when he was in one of his ill-tempered moods that there was anything unlovable in his face—and his smile made Mrs. Eames still more sorry for him.
"There's nothing the matter, thank you," he said; "I'm only rather cold—and wet. I'm strange to it all, I suppose. I wanted to know what I should do next. Should I feed the pigs?"
"Have you met the master?" said the farmer's wife. "He's gone down the fields with Matthew and the others. Didn't you meet 'em?"
Geoff shook his head.
"No; I went straight to the stable when I came back from the station."
"You'd better take off your wet jacket," she said. "There—hang it before the fire. And," she went on, "there's a cup of coffee still hot, you can have for your breakfast this morning as you're so cold—it'll warm you better nor stir-about; and there's a scrap o' master's bacon you can eat with your bread."
She poured out the coffee, steaming hot, and forked out the bacon from the frying-pan as she spoke, and set all on the corner of the dresser nearest to the fire.
"Thank you, thank you awfully," said Geoff. Oh, how good the coffee smelt! He had never enjoyed a meal so much, and yet, had it been at home,howhe would have grumbled! Coffee in a bowl, with brown sugar—bread cut as thick as your fist, and no butter! Truly Geoff was already beginning to taste some of the sweet uses of adversity.
Breakfast over, came the pigs. The farmer had left word that the sty was to be cleaned out, and fresh straw fetched for the pigs' beds; and as Betsy was much more good-natured than Matthew in showing the new boy what was expected of him, he got on pretty well, even feeling a certain pride in the improved aspect of the pig-sty when he had finished. He would have dearly liked to try a scrubbing of the piggies themselves, if he had not been afraid of Matthew's mocking him. But besides this there was not time. At eleven the second lot of milk had to be carted to the station, and with the remembrance of the cross porter Geoff dared not be late. And in the still falling rain he set off again, though, thanks to Mrs. Eames, with a dry jacket, and, thanks to her too, with a horse-rug buckled round him, in which guise surely no one would have recognized Master Geoffrey Tudor.
After dinner the farmer set him to cleaning out the stables, which it appeared was to be a part of his regular work; then there were the pigs to feed again, and at four o'clock the milk-cans to fetch. Oh, how tired Geoff was getting of the lane to the station! And the day did not come to an end without his getting into terrible disgrace for not having rinsed out the cans with boiling water the night before, though nobody had told him to do it. For a message had come from London that the cans were dirty and the milk in danger of turning sour, and that if it happened again Farmer Eames would have to send his milk elsewhere. It was natural perhaps that he should be angry, and yet, as no one had explained about it to Geoff, it seemed rather hard for him to have to take the scolding.Veryhard indeed it seemed to him—to proud Geoff, who had never yet taken in good part his mother's mildest reprimands. And big boy though he was, he sobbed himself to sleep this second night of his new life, for it did seem too much, that when he had been trying his very best to please, and was aching in every limb from his unwonted hard work, he should get nothing but scolding. And yet he knew that he was lucky to have fallen into such hands as Farmer Eames's, for, strict as he was, he was a fair and reasonable master.
"I suppose," thought Geoff, "I have never really known what hardships were, though I did think I had plenty to bear at home."
What would Elsa have said had she heard him?