Chapter Fourteen.Mr Dengate is Indignant, And Dexter wants some “Wums.”Mr Grayson was delighted when he heard the narrative from Helen.“There! what did I tell you!” he cried. “Proofs of my theory.”“Do you think so, papa?”“Think, my dear? I’m sure. Why, there it all was; what could have been better? Young Danby has breed in him, and what did he do? Lay down like a girl, and fainted. No, my dear, you cannot get over it. Pick your subject if you will, but you may make what you like of a boy.”“I hope so, papa.”“That’s right, my dear. Brave little fellow! Afraid I should scold him about his cap? Thoughtless young dog, but it was all chivalrous. Couldn’t have been better. He shall have a hundred caps if he likes. Hah! I’m on the right track, I’m sure.”The doctor rubbed his hands and chuckled, and Helen went to bed that night better pleased with her task.Sir James Danby, who was the magnate of Coleby, sent a very furious letter to Dengate the butcher, threatening proceedings against him for allowing a herd of dangerous bullocks to be at large in one of his fields, and ordering him to remove them at once.Dengate the butcher read the letter, grew red in the face, and, after buttoning up that letter in his breast-pocket, he put on his greasy cap, and went to Topley the barber to get shaved.Dengate’s cap was greasy because, though he was a wealthy man, he worked hard at his trade, calling for orders, delivering meat, and always twice a week, to use his own words, “killing hisself.”Topley lathered Dengate’s red round face, and scraped it perfectly clean, feeling it all over with his soapy fingers, as well as carefully inspecting it with his eye, to make sure that none of the very bristly stubble was left.While Topley shaved, Dengate made plans, and as soon as the operation was over he went back home, and what he called “cleaned hisself.” That is to say, he put on his best clothes, stuck a large showy flower in his button-hole, cocked his rather broad-brimmed hat on one side of his head, and went straight to Dr Grayson’s.Maria opened the door, stared at the butcher, who generally came to the back entrance, admitted him, received his message, and went into the study, where the doctor was writing, and Dexter busily copying a letter in a fairly neat round hand, but could only on an average get one word and a half in a line, a fact which looked awkward, especially as Dexter cut his words anywhere without studying the syllables.Dexter had just left off at the end of a line, and finished the first letters of the word toothache, leaving “toot” as his division, and taking a fresh dip of ink ready for writing “hache.”“Don’t put your tongue out, Dexter, my boy.”“All right,” said Dexter.“And I would not suck the pen. Ink is not wholesome.”“All right, I won’t,” said Dexter; and he put the nibs between his lips.“Mr Dengate, sir,” said Maria.“Dengate? What does he want, Maria? Let him see Mrs Millett or Miss Helen.”Maria looked scornfully at Dexter, as if he had injured her in some way.“Which is what I said to him, sir. ‘Master’s busy writing,’ I says; but he says his dooty, sir, and if you would see him five minutes he would be greatly obligated.”The doctor said, “Send him in.”Maria left the room, and there was a tremendous sound of wiping shoes all over the mat, although it was a dry day without, and the butcher’s boots were speckless.Then there was another burst of wiping on the mat by the study door as a finish off, a loud muttering of instructions to Maria, and the door was opened to admit the butcher, looking hot and red, with his hat in one hand, a glaring orange handkerchief in the other, with which he dabbed himself from time to time.“Good morning, Dengate,” said the doctor; “what can I do for you?”“Good morning, sir; hope you’re quite well, sir. If you wouldn’t mind, sir, reading this letter, sir. Received this morning, sir. Sir James, sir.”“Read it? ah, yes,” said the doctor.He ran through the missive and frowned.“Well, Dengate,” he said, “Sir James is a near neighbour and friend of mine, and I don’t like to interfere in these matters.”“No, sir, of course you wouldn’t, sir, but as a gentleman, sir, as I holds in the highest respect—a gentleman as runs a heavy bill with me.”“Hasn’t your account been paid, Dengate!” said the doctor, frowning, while Dexter looked hard at the butcher, and wondered why his face was so red, and why little drops like beads formed all over his forehead.“No, sir, it hasn’t, sir,” said the butcher, with a chuckle, “and I’m glad of it. I never ask for your account, sir, till it gets lumpy. I always leave it till I want it, for it’s good as the bank to me, and I know I’ve only to give you a hint like, and there it is.”“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor.“What I have come about is them bullocks, sir, hearing as your young lady, sir, and young shaver here—”“Mr Dengate,” said the doctor, frowning, “this young gentleman is my adopted son.”“Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure,” said the butcher obsequiously. “I had heared as you’d had taken a boy from the—”“Never mind that, Dengate,” said the doctor shortly, as the butcher dabbed himself hurriedly,—“business.”“Exactly, sir. Well, sir, it’s like this here: I’m the last man in the world to put dangerous beasts in any one’s way, and if I knowed that any one o’ them was the least bit risky to a human being, he’d be bullock to-day and beef to-morrow. D’yer see?”“Yes, of course,” said the doctor, “and very proper.”“But what I holds is, sir, and my man too says is, that there ain’t a bit o’ danger in any on ’em, though if there was nobody ought to complain.”“Well, there I don’t agree with you, Dengate,” said the doctor haughtily, as Dexter came and stood by him, having grown deeply interested.“Don’t you, sir? Well, then, look here,” said the butcher, rolling his yellow handkerchief into a cannon ball and ramming it into his hat, as if it were a cannon that he now held beneath his left arm. “There’s a path certainly from stile to stile, but it only leads to my farrest medder, and though I never says nothing to nobody who thinks it’s a nice walk down there by the river to fish or pick flowers or what not, though they often tramples my medder grass in a way as is sorrowful to see, they’re my medders, and the writing’s in my strong-box, and not a shilling on ’em. All freehold, seven-and-twenty acres, and everybody as goes on is a trespasser, so what do you say to that?”The butcher unloaded the imaginary cannon as he said this triumphantly, and dabbed his face with the ball.“Say?” said the doctor, smiling; “why, that I’m a trespasser sometimes, for I like to go down there for a walk. It’s the prettiest bit out of the town.”“Proud to hear you say so, sir,” said the butcher eagerly. “It is, isn’t it? and I’m proud to have you go for a walk there, sir. Honoured, I’m sure, and if the—er—the young gentleman likes to pick a spot out to keep ground baited for a bit o’ fishing, why, he’s hearty welcome, and my man shall save him as many maddicks for bait as ever he likes.”“I’ll come,” cried Dexter eagerly. “May I go?” he added.“Yes, yes; we’ll see,” said the doctor; “and it’s very kind of Mr Dengate to give you leave.”“Oh, that’s nothing, sir. He’s welcome as the flowers in May; but what I wanted to say, sir, was that as they’re my fields, and people who comes is only trespassers, I’ve a right to put anything I like there. I don’t put danger for the public: they comes to the danger.”“Yes; that’s true,” said the doctor. “Of course, now you mention it, there’s no right of way.”“Not a bit, sir, and I might turn out old Billy, if I liked.”“I say, who is old Billy?” said Dexter.“Hush, my boy! Don’t interpose when people are speaking.”“Oh, let him talk, sir,” said the butcher, good-naturedly. “I like to hear a boy want to know. It’s what my boy won’t do. He’s asleep half his time, and I feed him well too.”“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor.“Billy’s my old bull, as I always keeps shut up close in my yard, because he is dangerous.”“And very properly,” said the doctor.“Quite right, sir, quite right; and I want to know then what right Sir James has to come ordering me about. He’s no customer of mine. Took it all away and give it to Mossetts, because he said the mutton was woolly, when I give you my word, sir, that it was as good a bit o’ mutton as I ever killed.”“Yes, yes, Dengate, but what has all this to do with me?” said the doctor testily.“Well, sir, begging your pardon, only this: your young lady and young gentleman was there, and I want to know the rights of it all. My man says the beasts are quiet enough, only playful, and I say the same; but I may be making a mistake. I went in the medder this morning, with my boy Ezry, and he could drive ’em anywheres, and he’s only ten. Did they trouble your young folks, sir?”“Well, Dexter: you can answer that,” said the doctor.“Trouble us?—no!” said Dexter, laughing. “Miss Grayson was a bit afraid of ’em, but I ran the big one, and he galloped off across the fields.”“There,” said the butcher; “what did I say? Bit playful, that’s all.”“And when we heard a noise, and found one of ’em standing over that young Danby, he was only turning him over, that’s all.”“Yes; he was running away, and fell down, and the beasts came to look at him,” said Dengate, laughing.“And Sir James was over on the stile calling for help. Why, as soon as I ran at the bullocks they all galloped off, all but the big one, and I give him a crack on the horn, and soon made him go.”“Of course. Why, a child would make ’em run. That’s all, sir, I only wanted to know whether they really was dangerous, because if they had been, as I said afore, bullock it is now, but beef it should be. Good morning, sir.”“What are you going to do!” said the doctor.“Do, sir? I’m a-going to let Sir James do his worst. My beasts ain’t dangerous, and they ain’t on a public road, so there they stay till I want ’em for the shop. Morning, young—er—gentleman. You’re not afraid of a bullock?”“No,” said Dexter quietly, “I don’t think I am.”“I’m sure you ain’t, my lad, if you’ll ’scuse me calling you so. Morning, sir, morning.”The butcher backed out, smiling triumphantly, but only to put his head in again—“Beg pardon, sir, only to say that if he’d asked me polite like, I’d ha’ done it directly; but he didn’t, and I’ll stand upon my medder like a man.”“Humph!” said the doctor, as soon as they were alone; “and so you were not afraid of the bullocks, Dexter?”“There wasn’t anything to be afraid of,” said the boy. “I’m ever so much more afraid of you.”“Afraid?”“Yes, when you look cross, sir, only then.”“Well, you must not make me look cross, Dexter; and now get on with your copying. When you’ve done that you may go in the garden if you’ll keep out of mischief.”“And when may I go fishing?”“When you like.”“Down the meadows!”“Why not fish down the garden; there’s a capital place.”“All right,” said Dexter. “I’ll go there. But I want a rod and line.”“There is an old rod in the hall, and you can buy a line. No, Helen is going out, and she will buy you one.”Dexter’s eyes glistened at the idea of going fishing, and he set to work most industriously at the copying, which in due time he handed over to the Doctor, who expressed himself as highly satisfied: though if he really was, he was easily pleased.Helen had received her instructions, and she soon afterwards returned with the fishing-line, and a fair supply of extra hooks, and odds and ends, which the doctor, as an old angler, had suggested.“These—all for me!” cried the boy joyfully.The doctor nodded.“Recollect: no mischief, and don’t tumble in.”“All right, sir,” cried the boy, who was gloating over the new silk line, with its cork float glistening in blue and white paint brought well up with varnish.“Do you know how to fish!”“Yes, I know all about it, sir.”“How’s that? You never went fishing at the workhouse.”“No, sir; but old Dimsted in the House used to tell us boys all about it, and how he used to catch jack and eels, and roach and perch, in the river.”“Very well, then,” said the doctor. “Now you can go.”Dexter went off in high glee, recalling divers instructions given by the venerable old pauper who had been a fishing idler all his life, the river always having more attractions for him than work. His son followed in his steps, and he again had a son with the imitative faculty, and spending every hour he could find at the river-side.It was a well-known fact in Coleby that the Dimsteds always knew where fish was to be found, and the baskets they made took the place of meat that other fathers and sons of families would have earned.Rod, line, and hooks are prime necessaries for fishing; but a fish rarely bites at a bare hook, so one of Dexter’s first proceedings was to obtain some bait.Mr Dengate had said that his man should save plenty of gentles for him; but Dexter resolved not to wait for them that day, but to try what he could do with worms and paste. So his first proceeding was to appeal to Mrs Millett for a slice or two of bread.Mrs Millett was not in the kitchen, but Maria was, and on being appealed to, she said sharply that she was not the cook.Dexter looked puzzled, and he flushed a little as he wondered why it was that the maid looked so cross, and always answered him so snappishly.Just then Mrs Millett, who was a plump elderly female with a pleasant countenance and expression, appeared in the doorway, and to her Dexter appealed in turn.Mrs Millett had been disposed to look at Dexter from the point of view suggested by Maria, who had been making unpleasant allusions to the boy’s birth and parentage, and above all to “Master’s strange goings on,” ever since Dexter’s coming. Hence, then, the old lady, who looked upon herself as queen of the kitchen, had a sharp reproof on her tongue, and was about to ask the boy why he hadn’t stopped in his own place, and rung for what he wanted. The frank happy expression on his face disarmed her, and she smiled and cut the required bread.“Well, I never!” said Maria.“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Millett; “I was young once, and I didn’t like to be scolded. He isn’t such a bad-looking boy after all, only he will keep apples in his bedroom, and make it smell.”“What’s looks!” said Maria tartly, as she gave a candlestick she was cleaning a fierce rub.“A deal, my dear, sometimes,” said the old housekeeper. “Specially if they’re sweet ones, and that’s what yours are not now.”Dexter was not yet armed with all he wanted, for he was off down the kitchen-garden in search of worms.His first idea was to get a spade and dig for himself; but the stern countenance of Dan’l Copestake rose up before him, and set him wondering what would be the consequences if he were to be found turning over some bed.On second thoughts he determined to find the gardener and ask for permission, the dread of not succeeding in his mission making him for the moment more thoughtful.Dan’l did not need much looking for. He had caught sight of Dexter as soon as he entered the garden, and gave vent to a grunt.“Now, what mischief’s he up to now?” he grumbled; and he set to and watched the boy while making believe to be busy cutting the dead leaves and flowers off certain plants.He soon became aware of the fact that Dexter was searching for him, and this altered the case, for he changed his tactics, and kept on moving here and there, so as to avoid the boy.“Here! Hi! Mr Copestake!” cried Dexter; but the old man had been suddenly smitten with that worst form of deafness peculiar to those who will not hear; and it was not until Dexter had pursued him round three or four beds, during which he seemed to be blind as well as deaf, that the old man was able to see him.“Eh!” he said. “Master want me?”“No. I’m going fishing; and, please, I want some worms.”“Wums? Did you say wums!” said Dan’l, affecting deafness, and holding his hand to his ear.“Yes.”“Ay, you’re right; they are,” grumbled Dan’l. “Deal o’ trouble, wums. Gets inter the flower-pots, and makes wum castesses all over the lawn, and they all has to be swept up.”“Yes; but I want some for fishing.”“’Ficient? Quite right, not sufficient help to get ’em swep’ away.”“Will you dig a few worms for me, please?” shouted Dexter in the old man’s ear.“Dig wums? What for? Oh, I see, thou’rt going fishing. No; I can’t stop.”“May I dig some!” cried Dexter; but Dan’l affected not to hear him, and went hurriedly away.“He knew what I wanted all the time,” said the boy to himself. “He don’t like me no more than Maria does.”Just then he caught sight of Peter Cribb, who, whenever he was not busy in the stable, seemed to be chained to a birch broom.“Will you dig a few worms for me, please?” said Dexter; “red ones.”“No; I’m sweeping,” said the groom gruffly; and then, in the most inconsistent way, he changed his tone, for he had a weakness for the rod and line himself. “Going fishing!”“Yes, if I can get some worms.”“Where’s old Copestake!”“Gone into the yard over there,” said Dexter.“All right. I’ll dig you some. Go behind the wall there, by the cucumber frames. Got a pot!”Dexter shook his head.“All right. I’ll bring one.”Dexter went to the appointed place, and in a few minutes Peter appeared, free from the broom now, and bearing a five-pronged fork and a small flower-pot; for the fact that the boy was a brother angler superseded the feeling of animosity against one who had so suddenly been raised from a lowly position and placed over his head.Peter winked one eye as he scraped away some of the dry straw, and then turned over a quantity of the moist, rotten soil, displaying plenty of the glistening red worms suitable for the capture of roach and perch.“There you are,” he said, after putting an ample supply in the flower-pot, whose hole he had stopped with a piece of clay; “there’s as many as you’ll want; and now, you go and fish down in the deep hole, where the wall ends in the water, and I wish you luck.”
Mr Grayson was delighted when he heard the narrative from Helen.
“There! what did I tell you!” he cried. “Proofs of my theory.”
“Do you think so, papa?”
“Think, my dear? I’m sure. Why, there it all was; what could have been better? Young Danby has breed in him, and what did he do? Lay down like a girl, and fainted. No, my dear, you cannot get over it. Pick your subject if you will, but you may make what you like of a boy.”
“I hope so, papa.”
“That’s right, my dear. Brave little fellow! Afraid I should scold him about his cap? Thoughtless young dog, but it was all chivalrous. Couldn’t have been better. He shall have a hundred caps if he likes. Hah! I’m on the right track, I’m sure.”
The doctor rubbed his hands and chuckled, and Helen went to bed that night better pleased with her task.
Sir James Danby, who was the magnate of Coleby, sent a very furious letter to Dengate the butcher, threatening proceedings against him for allowing a herd of dangerous bullocks to be at large in one of his fields, and ordering him to remove them at once.
Dengate the butcher read the letter, grew red in the face, and, after buttoning up that letter in his breast-pocket, he put on his greasy cap, and went to Topley the barber to get shaved.
Dengate’s cap was greasy because, though he was a wealthy man, he worked hard at his trade, calling for orders, delivering meat, and always twice a week, to use his own words, “killing hisself.”
Topley lathered Dengate’s red round face, and scraped it perfectly clean, feeling it all over with his soapy fingers, as well as carefully inspecting it with his eye, to make sure that none of the very bristly stubble was left.
While Topley shaved, Dengate made plans, and as soon as the operation was over he went back home, and what he called “cleaned hisself.” That is to say, he put on his best clothes, stuck a large showy flower in his button-hole, cocked his rather broad-brimmed hat on one side of his head, and went straight to Dr Grayson’s.
Maria opened the door, stared at the butcher, who generally came to the back entrance, admitted him, received his message, and went into the study, where the doctor was writing, and Dexter busily copying a letter in a fairly neat round hand, but could only on an average get one word and a half in a line, a fact which looked awkward, especially as Dexter cut his words anywhere without studying the syllables.
Dexter had just left off at the end of a line, and finished the first letters of the word toothache, leaving “toot” as his division, and taking a fresh dip of ink ready for writing “hache.”
“Don’t put your tongue out, Dexter, my boy.”
“All right,” said Dexter.
“And I would not suck the pen. Ink is not wholesome.”
“All right, I won’t,” said Dexter; and he put the nibs between his lips.
“Mr Dengate, sir,” said Maria.
“Dengate? What does he want, Maria? Let him see Mrs Millett or Miss Helen.”
Maria looked scornfully at Dexter, as if he had injured her in some way.
“Which is what I said to him, sir. ‘Master’s busy writing,’ I says; but he says his dooty, sir, and if you would see him five minutes he would be greatly obligated.”
The doctor said, “Send him in.”
Maria left the room, and there was a tremendous sound of wiping shoes all over the mat, although it was a dry day without, and the butcher’s boots were speckless.
Then there was another burst of wiping on the mat by the study door as a finish off, a loud muttering of instructions to Maria, and the door was opened to admit the butcher, looking hot and red, with his hat in one hand, a glaring orange handkerchief in the other, with which he dabbed himself from time to time.
“Good morning, Dengate,” said the doctor; “what can I do for you?”
“Good morning, sir; hope you’re quite well, sir. If you wouldn’t mind, sir, reading this letter, sir. Received this morning, sir. Sir James, sir.”
“Read it? ah, yes,” said the doctor.
He ran through the missive and frowned.
“Well, Dengate,” he said, “Sir James is a near neighbour and friend of mine, and I don’t like to interfere in these matters.”
“No, sir, of course you wouldn’t, sir, but as a gentleman, sir, as I holds in the highest respect—a gentleman as runs a heavy bill with me.”
“Hasn’t your account been paid, Dengate!” said the doctor, frowning, while Dexter looked hard at the butcher, and wondered why his face was so red, and why little drops like beads formed all over his forehead.
“No, sir, it hasn’t, sir,” said the butcher, with a chuckle, “and I’m glad of it. I never ask for your account, sir, till it gets lumpy. I always leave it till I want it, for it’s good as the bank to me, and I know I’ve only to give you a hint like, and there it is.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor.
“What I have come about is them bullocks, sir, hearing as your young lady, sir, and young shaver here—”
“Mr Dengate,” said the doctor, frowning, “this young gentleman is my adopted son.”
“Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure,” said the butcher obsequiously. “I had heared as you’d had taken a boy from the—”
“Never mind that, Dengate,” said the doctor shortly, as the butcher dabbed himself hurriedly,—“business.”
“Exactly, sir. Well, sir, it’s like this here: I’m the last man in the world to put dangerous beasts in any one’s way, and if I knowed that any one o’ them was the least bit risky to a human being, he’d be bullock to-day and beef to-morrow. D’yer see?”
“Yes, of course,” said the doctor, “and very proper.”
“But what I holds is, sir, and my man too says is, that there ain’t a bit o’ danger in any on ’em, though if there was nobody ought to complain.”
“Well, there I don’t agree with you, Dengate,” said the doctor haughtily, as Dexter came and stood by him, having grown deeply interested.
“Don’t you, sir? Well, then, look here,” said the butcher, rolling his yellow handkerchief into a cannon ball and ramming it into his hat, as if it were a cannon that he now held beneath his left arm. “There’s a path certainly from stile to stile, but it only leads to my farrest medder, and though I never says nothing to nobody who thinks it’s a nice walk down there by the river to fish or pick flowers or what not, though they often tramples my medder grass in a way as is sorrowful to see, they’re my medders, and the writing’s in my strong-box, and not a shilling on ’em. All freehold, seven-and-twenty acres, and everybody as goes on is a trespasser, so what do you say to that?”
The butcher unloaded the imaginary cannon as he said this triumphantly, and dabbed his face with the ball.
“Say?” said the doctor, smiling; “why, that I’m a trespasser sometimes, for I like to go down there for a walk. It’s the prettiest bit out of the town.”
“Proud to hear you say so, sir,” said the butcher eagerly. “It is, isn’t it? and I’m proud to have you go for a walk there, sir. Honoured, I’m sure, and if the—er—the young gentleman likes to pick a spot out to keep ground baited for a bit o’ fishing, why, he’s hearty welcome, and my man shall save him as many maddicks for bait as ever he likes.”
“I’ll come,” cried Dexter eagerly. “May I go?” he added.
“Yes, yes; we’ll see,” said the doctor; “and it’s very kind of Mr Dengate to give you leave.”
“Oh, that’s nothing, sir. He’s welcome as the flowers in May; but what I wanted to say, sir, was that as they’re my fields, and people who comes is only trespassers, I’ve a right to put anything I like there. I don’t put danger for the public: they comes to the danger.”
“Yes; that’s true,” said the doctor. “Of course, now you mention it, there’s no right of way.”
“Not a bit, sir, and I might turn out old Billy, if I liked.”
“I say, who is old Billy?” said Dexter.
“Hush, my boy! Don’t interpose when people are speaking.”
“Oh, let him talk, sir,” said the butcher, good-naturedly. “I like to hear a boy want to know. It’s what my boy won’t do. He’s asleep half his time, and I feed him well too.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor.
“Billy’s my old bull, as I always keeps shut up close in my yard, because he is dangerous.”
“And very properly,” said the doctor.
“Quite right, sir, quite right; and I want to know then what right Sir James has to come ordering me about. He’s no customer of mine. Took it all away and give it to Mossetts, because he said the mutton was woolly, when I give you my word, sir, that it was as good a bit o’ mutton as I ever killed.”
“Yes, yes, Dengate, but what has all this to do with me?” said the doctor testily.
“Well, sir, begging your pardon, only this: your young lady and young gentleman was there, and I want to know the rights of it all. My man says the beasts are quiet enough, only playful, and I say the same; but I may be making a mistake. I went in the medder this morning, with my boy Ezry, and he could drive ’em anywheres, and he’s only ten. Did they trouble your young folks, sir?”
“Well, Dexter: you can answer that,” said the doctor.
“Trouble us?—no!” said Dexter, laughing. “Miss Grayson was a bit afraid of ’em, but I ran the big one, and he galloped off across the fields.”
“There,” said the butcher; “what did I say? Bit playful, that’s all.”
“And when we heard a noise, and found one of ’em standing over that young Danby, he was only turning him over, that’s all.”
“Yes; he was running away, and fell down, and the beasts came to look at him,” said Dengate, laughing.
“And Sir James was over on the stile calling for help. Why, as soon as I ran at the bullocks they all galloped off, all but the big one, and I give him a crack on the horn, and soon made him go.”
“Of course. Why, a child would make ’em run. That’s all, sir, I only wanted to know whether they really was dangerous, because if they had been, as I said afore, bullock it is now, but beef it should be. Good morning, sir.”
“What are you going to do!” said the doctor.
“Do, sir? I’m a-going to let Sir James do his worst. My beasts ain’t dangerous, and they ain’t on a public road, so there they stay till I want ’em for the shop. Morning, young—er—gentleman. You’re not afraid of a bullock?”
“No,” said Dexter quietly, “I don’t think I am.”
“I’m sure you ain’t, my lad, if you’ll ’scuse me calling you so. Morning, sir, morning.”
The butcher backed out, smiling triumphantly, but only to put his head in again—
“Beg pardon, sir, only to say that if he’d asked me polite like, I’d ha’ done it directly; but he didn’t, and I’ll stand upon my medder like a man.”
“Humph!” said the doctor, as soon as they were alone; “and so you were not afraid of the bullocks, Dexter?”
“There wasn’t anything to be afraid of,” said the boy. “I’m ever so much more afraid of you.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes, when you look cross, sir, only then.”
“Well, you must not make me look cross, Dexter; and now get on with your copying. When you’ve done that you may go in the garden if you’ll keep out of mischief.”
“And when may I go fishing?”
“When you like.”
“Down the meadows!”
“Why not fish down the garden; there’s a capital place.”
“All right,” said Dexter. “I’ll go there. But I want a rod and line.”
“There is an old rod in the hall, and you can buy a line. No, Helen is going out, and she will buy you one.”
Dexter’s eyes glistened at the idea of going fishing, and he set to work most industriously at the copying, which in due time he handed over to the Doctor, who expressed himself as highly satisfied: though if he really was, he was easily pleased.
Helen had received her instructions, and she soon afterwards returned with the fishing-line, and a fair supply of extra hooks, and odds and ends, which the doctor, as an old angler, had suggested.
“These—all for me!” cried the boy joyfully.
The doctor nodded.
“Recollect: no mischief, and don’t tumble in.”
“All right, sir,” cried the boy, who was gloating over the new silk line, with its cork float glistening in blue and white paint brought well up with varnish.
“Do you know how to fish!”
“Yes, I know all about it, sir.”
“How’s that? You never went fishing at the workhouse.”
“No, sir; but old Dimsted in the House used to tell us boys all about it, and how he used to catch jack and eels, and roach and perch, in the river.”
“Very well, then,” said the doctor. “Now you can go.”
Dexter went off in high glee, recalling divers instructions given by the venerable old pauper who had been a fishing idler all his life, the river always having more attractions for him than work. His son followed in his steps, and he again had a son with the imitative faculty, and spending every hour he could find at the river-side.
It was a well-known fact in Coleby that the Dimsteds always knew where fish was to be found, and the baskets they made took the place of meat that other fathers and sons of families would have earned.
Rod, line, and hooks are prime necessaries for fishing; but a fish rarely bites at a bare hook, so one of Dexter’s first proceedings was to obtain some bait.
Mr Dengate had said that his man should save plenty of gentles for him; but Dexter resolved not to wait for them that day, but to try what he could do with worms and paste. So his first proceeding was to appeal to Mrs Millett for a slice or two of bread.
Mrs Millett was not in the kitchen, but Maria was, and on being appealed to, she said sharply that she was not the cook.
Dexter looked puzzled, and he flushed a little as he wondered why it was that the maid looked so cross, and always answered him so snappishly.
Just then Mrs Millett, who was a plump elderly female with a pleasant countenance and expression, appeared in the doorway, and to her Dexter appealed in turn.
Mrs Millett had been disposed to look at Dexter from the point of view suggested by Maria, who had been making unpleasant allusions to the boy’s birth and parentage, and above all to “Master’s strange goings on,” ever since Dexter’s coming. Hence, then, the old lady, who looked upon herself as queen of the kitchen, had a sharp reproof on her tongue, and was about to ask the boy why he hadn’t stopped in his own place, and rung for what he wanted. The frank happy expression on his face disarmed her, and she smiled and cut the required bread.
“Well, I never!” said Maria.
“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Millett; “I was young once, and I didn’t like to be scolded. He isn’t such a bad-looking boy after all, only he will keep apples in his bedroom, and make it smell.”
“What’s looks!” said Maria tartly, as she gave a candlestick she was cleaning a fierce rub.
“A deal, my dear, sometimes,” said the old housekeeper. “Specially if they’re sweet ones, and that’s what yours are not now.”
Dexter was not yet armed with all he wanted, for he was off down the kitchen-garden in search of worms.
His first idea was to get a spade and dig for himself; but the stern countenance of Dan’l Copestake rose up before him, and set him wondering what would be the consequences if he were to be found turning over some bed.
On second thoughts he determined to find the gardener and ask for permission, the dread of not succeeding in his mission making him for the moment more thoughtful.
Dan’l did not need much looking for. He had caught sight of Dexter as soon as he entered the garden, and gave vent to a grunt.
“Now, what mischief’s he up to now?” he grumbled; and he set to and watched the boy while making believe to be busy cutting the dead leaves and flowers off certain plants.
He soon became aware of the fact that Dexter was searching for him, and this altered the case, for he changed his tactics, and kept on moving here and there, so as to avoid the boy.
“Here! Hi! Mr Copestake!” cried Dexter; but the old man had been suddenly smitten with that worst form of deafness peculiar to those who will not hear; and it was not until Dexter had pursued him round three or four beds, during which he seemed to be blind as well as deaf, that the old man was able to see him.
“Eh!” he said. “Master want me?”
“No. I’m going fishing; and, please, I want some worms.”
“Wums? Did you say wums!” said Dan’l, affecting deafness, and holding his hand to his ear.
“Yes.”
“Ay, you’re right; they are,” grumbled Dan’l. “Deal o’ trouble, wums. Gets inter the flower-pots, and makes wum castesses all over the lawn, and they all has to be swept up.”
“Yes; but I want some for fishing.”
“’Ficient? Quite right, not sufficient help to get ’em swep’ away.”
“Will you dig a few worms for me, please?” shouted Dexter in the old man’s ear.
“Dig wums? What for? Oh, I see, thou’rt going fishing. No; I can’t stop.”
“May I dig some!” cried Dexter; but Dan’l affected not to hear him, and went hurriedly away.
“He knew what I wanted all the time,” said the boy to himself. “He don’t like me no more than Maria does.”
Just then he caught sight of Peter Cribb, who, whenever he was not busy in the stable, seemed to be chained to a birch broom.
“Will you dig a few worms for me, please?” said Dexter; “red ones.”
“No; I’m sweeping,” said the groom gruffly; and then, in the most inconsistent way, he changed his tone, for he had a weakness for the rod and line himself. “Going fishing!”
“Yes, if I can get some worms.”
“Where’s old Copestake!”
“Gone into the yard over there,” said Dexter.
“All right. I’ll dig you some. Go behind the wall there, by the cucumber frames. Got a pot!”
Dexter shook his head.
“All right. I’ll bring one.”
Dexter went to the appointed place, and in a few minutes Peter appeared, free from the broom now, and bearing a five-pronged fork and a small flower-pot; for the fact that the boy was a brother angler superseded the feeling of animosity against one who had so suddenly been raised from a lowly position and placed over his head.
Peter winked one eye as he scraped away some of the dry straw, and then turned over a quantity of the moist, rotten soil, displaying plenty of the glistening red worms suitable for the capture of roach and perch.
“There you are,” he said, after putting an ample supply in the flower-pot, whose hole he had stopped with a piece of clay; “there’s as many as you’ll want; and now, you go and fish down in the deep hole, where the wall ends in the water, and I wish you luck.”
Chapter Fifteen.Dexter makes a Friend.“I like him,” said Dexter to himself, as he hurried down the garden, found the place, and for the next ten minutes he was busy fitting up his tackle, watching a boy on the other side of the river the while, as he sat in the meadow beneath a willow-tree fishing away, and every now and then capturing a small gudgeon or roach.The river was about thirty yards broad at this spot, and as Dexter prepared his tackle and watched the boy opposite, the boy opposite fished and furtively watched Dexter.He was a dark, snub-nosed boy, shabbily-dressed, and instead of being furnished with a bamboo rod and a new line with glistening float, he had a rough home-made hazel affair in three pieces, spliced together, but fairly elastic; his float was a common quill, and his line of so many hairs pulled out of a horse’s tail, and joined together with a peculiarly fast knot.Before Dexter was ready the shabby-looking boy on the other side had caught two more silvery roach, and Dexter’s heart beat fast as he at last baited his hook and threw in the line as far as he could.He was pretty successful in that effort, but his cork float and the shot made a loud splash, while the boy opposite uttered a chuckle.“He’s laughing at me,” said Dexter to himself; and he tried the experiment of watching his float with one eye and the boy with the other, but the plan did not succeed, and he found himself gazing from one to the other, always hurriedly glancing back from the boy to the float, under the impression that it bobbed.He knew it all by heart, having many a time drunk in old Dimsted’s words, and he remembered that he could tell what fish was biting by the way the float moved. If it was a bream, it would throw the float up so that it lay flat on the water. If it was a roach, it would give a short quick bob. If it was a perch, it would give a bob, and then a series of sharp quick bobs, the last of which would be right under, while if it was a tench, it would glide slowly away.But the float did nothing but float, and nothing in the way of bobbing, while the shabby boy on the other side kept on striking, and every now and then hooking a fish.“Isn’t he lucky!” thought Dexter, and he pulled out his line to find that the bait had gone.He began busily renewing it in a verynonchalantmanner, as he was conscious of the fact that the boy was watching him keenly with critical eyes.Dexter threw in again; but there was no bite, and as the time went on, it seemed as if all the fish had been attracted to the other side of the river, where the shabby-looking boy, who fished skilfully and well, kept on capturing something at the rate of about one every five minutes.They were not large, but still they were fish, and it was most tantalising to one to be patiently waiting, while the other was busy landing and rebaiting and throwing in again.At last a happy thought struck Dexter, and after shifting his float about from place to place, he waited till he saw the boy looking at him, and he said—“I say?”“Hullo!” came back, the voices easily passing across the water.“What are you baiting with?”“Gentles.”“Oh!”Then there was a pause, and more fishing on one side, waiting on the other. At last the shabby boy said—“You’re baiting with worms, ain’t you?”“Yes.”“Ah, they won’t bite at worms much this time o’ day.”“Won’t they?” said Dexter, putting out his line.“No. And you ain’t fishing deep enough.”“Ain’t I!”“No. Not by three foot.”“I wish I’d got some gentles,” said Dexter at last.“Do you!”“Yes.”“Shall I shy some over in the box?”“Can you throw so far?”“Yers!” cried the shabby boy. “You’ll give me the box again, won’t you?”“Yes; I’ll throw it back.”The boy on the other side divided his bait by putting some in a piece of paper. Then putting a stone in his little round tin box, he walked back a few yards so as to give himself room, stepped forward, and threw the box right across, Dexter catching it easily.“Now, you try one o’ them,” said the donor of the fresh bait.Dexter eagerly did as was suggested, and five minutes after there was a sharp tug, which half drew his float below the surface.“Why, you didn’t strike,” said the boy sharply.“Well, you can’t strike ’em till you’ve got hold of them,” retorted Dexter; and the shabby-looking boy laughed.“Yah!” he said; “you don’t know how to fish.”“Don’t I! Why, I was taught to fish by some one who knows all about it.”“So it seems,” said the boy jeeringly. “Don’t even know how to strike a fish. There, you’ve got another bite. Look at him; he’s running away with it.”It was no credit to Dexter that he got hold of that fish, for the unfortunate roach had hooked itself.As the float glided away beneath the surface, Dexter gave a tremendous snatch with the rod, and jerked the fish out of the water among the branches of an overhanging tree, where the line caught, and the captive hung suspended about a foot below a cluster of twigs, flapping about and trying to get itself free.Dexter’s fellow-fisherman burst into a roar of laughter, laid down his rod, and stamped about on the opposite bank slapping his knees, while the unlucky fisherman stood with his rod in his hand, jigging the line.“You’ll break it if you don’t mind,” cried the shabby boy.“But I want to get it out.”“You shouldn’t have struck so hard. Climb up the tree, get out on that branch, and reach down.”Dexter looked at the tree, which hung over the water to such an extent that it seemed as if his weight would tear it from its hold in the bank, while the water looked terribly deep and black beneath.“I say,” cried the shabby boy jeeringly; “who taught you how to fish!”“Why, old Dimsted did, and he knew.”“Who did!” cried the boy excitedly.“Old Dimsted.”“Yah! That he didn’t. Why, he’s been in the House these ten years—ever since I was quite a little un.”“Well, I know that,” shouted back Dexter. “He taught me all the same.”“Why, how came you to know grandfather!” cried the shabby boy.Dexter ceased pulling at the line, and looked across at his shabbily-dressed questioner. For the first time he glanced down at his well-made clothes, and compared his personal appearance with that of the boy opposite, and in a curiously subtle way he began to awake to the fact that he was growing ashamed of the workhouse, and the people in it.“Yah! you didn’t know grandfather,” cried the boy mockingly; “and you don’t know how to fish. Grandfather wouldn’t have taught you to chuck a fish up in the tree. You should strike gently, like that.”He gave the top of his rod a slight, quick twitch, and hooked a good-sized roach. Dexter grinning to see him play it till it was feeble enough to be drawn to the side and lifted out.“That’s the way grandfather taught me how to fish,” continued the boy, as he took the hook from the captive’s mouth, “I say, what’s your name!”“Dexter Grayson,” was the answer, for the boy felt keenly already that the names Obed Coleby were ones of which he could not be proud.“Ever been in the workus!”“Yes.”“Ever see grandfather there!”“Yes, I’ve seen him,” said Dexter, who felt no inclination to enlighten the boy further.“Ah, he could fish,” said the boy, baiting and throwing in again. “My name’s Dimsted—Bob Dimsted. So’s father’s. He can fish as well as grandfather. So can I,” he added modestly; “there ain’t a good place nowheres in the river as we don’t know. I could take you where you could ketch fish every swim.”“Could you?” said Dexter, who seemed awed in the presence of so much knowledge.“Course I could, any day.”“And will you?” said Dexter eagerly.“Ah dunno,” said the boy, striking and missing another fish. “You wouldn’t care to go along o’ me?”“Yes, I should—fishing,” cried Dexter. “But my line’s fast.”“Why don’t you climb up and get it then? Ain’t afraid, are you!”“What, to climb that tree?” cried Dexter. “Not I;” and laying the rod down with the butt resting on the bank, he began to climb at once.“Mind yer don’t tumble in,” cried Bob Dimsted; “some o’ them boughs gets very rotten—like touchwood.”“All right,” said Dexter; and he climbed steadily on in happy ignorance of the fact that the greeny lichen and growth was not good for dark cloth trousers and vests. But the bole of the tree was short, for it had been pollarded, and in a minute or two he was in a nest of branches, several of which protruded over the water, the one in particular which had entangled the fishing-line being not even horizontal, but dipping toward the surface.“That’s the way,” shouted Bob Dimsted. “Look sharp, they’re biting like fun.”“Think it’ll bear?” said Dexter.“Bear? Yes; half a dozen on yer. Sit on it striddling, and work yourself along till you can reach the line. Got a knife?”“Yes.”“Then go right out, and when you git far enough cut off the little bough, and let it all drop into the water.”“Why, then, I should lose the fish.”“Not you. Ain’t he hooked? You do as I say, and then git back, and you can pull all out together.”Dexter bestrode the branch, and worked himself along further and further till an ominous crack made him pause.“Go on,” shouted the boy from the other side.“He’ll think I’m a coward if I don’t,” said Dexter to himself, and he worked himself along for another three feet, with the silvery fish just before him, seeming to tempt him on.“There, you can reach him now, can’t you?” cried the boy.“Yes; I think I can reach him now,” said Dexter. “Wait till I get out my knife.”It was not so easy to get out that knife, and to open it, as it would have been on land. The position was awkward; the branch dipped at a great slope now toward the water, and Dexter’s trousers were not only drawn half-way up his legs, but drawn so tightly by his attitude that he could hardly get his hand into his pocket.It was done though at last, the thin bough in which the line was tangled seized by the left hand, while the right cut vigorously with the knife.It would have been far easier to have disentangled the line, but Bob Dimsted was a learned fisher, and he had laid down the law. So Dexter cut and cut into the soft green wood till he got through the little bough all but one thin piece of succulent bark, dancing up and down the while over the deep water some fifteen feet from the bank.Soss!That last vigorous cut did it, and the bough, with its summer burden of leaves, dropped with a splash into the water.“There! What did I tell you!” cried Dexter’s mentor. “Now you can get back and pull all out together. Fish won’t bite for a bit after this, but they’ll be all right soon.”Dexter shut up his knife, thrust it as well as he could into his pocket, and prepared to return.This was not so easy, for he had to go backwards. What was more, he had to progress up hill. But, nothing daunted, he took tight hold with his hands, bore down upon them, and was in the act of thrusting himself along a few inches, when—Crack!One loud, sharp, splintering crack, and the branch, which was rotten three parts through, broke short off close to the trunk, and like an echo to the crack came a tremendous—Plash!That water, as already intimated, was deep, and, as a consequence, there was a tremendous splash, and branch and its rider went down right out of sight, twig after twig disappearing leisurely in the eddying swirl.
“I like him,” said Dexter to himself, as he hurried down the garden, found the place, and for the next ten minutes he was busy fitting up his tackle, watching a boy on the other side of the river the while, as he sat in the meadow beneath a willow-tree fishing away, and every now and then capturing a small gudgeon or roach.
The river was about thirty yards broad at this spot, and as Dexter prepared his tackle and watched the boy opposite, the boy opposite fished and furtively watched Dexter.
He was a dark, snub-nosed boy, shabbily-dressed, and instead of being furnished with a bamboo rod and a new line with glistening float, he had a rough home-made hazel affair in three pieces, spliced together, but fairly elastic; his float was a common quill, and his line of so many hairs pulled out of a horse’s tail, and joined together with a peculiarly fast knot.
Before Dexter was ready the shabby-looking boy on the other side had caught two more silvery roach, and Dexter’s heart beat fast as he at last baited his hook and threw in the line as far as he could.
He was pretty successful in that effort, but his cork float and the shot made a loud splash, while the boy opposite uttered a chuckle.
“He’s laughing at me,” said Dexter to himself; and he tried the experiment of watching his float with one eye and the boy with the other, but the plan did not succeed, and he found himself gazing from one to the other, always hurriedly glancing back from the boy to the float, under the impression that it bobbed.
He knew it all by heart, having many a time drunk in old Dimsted’s words, and he remembered that he could tell what fish was biting by the way the float moved. If it was a bream, it would throw the float up so that it lay flat on the water. If it was a roach, it would give a short quick bob. If it was a perch, it would give a bob, and then a series of sharp quick bobs, the last of which would be right under, while if it was a tench, it would glide slowly away.
But the float did nothing but float, and nothing in the way of bobbing, while the shabby boy on the other side kept on striking, and every now and then hooking a fish.
“Isn’t he lucky!” thought Dexter, and he pulled out his line to find that the bait had gone.
He began busily renewing it in a verynonchalantmanner, as he was conscious of the fact that the boy was watching him keenly with critical eyes.
Dexter threw in again; but there was no bite, and as the time went on, it seemed as if all the fish had been attracted to the other side of the river, where the shabby-looking boy, who fished skilfully and well, kept on capturing something at the rate of about one every five minutes.
They were not large, but still they were fish, and it was most tantalising to one to be patiently waiting, while the other was busy landing and rebaiting and throwing in again.
At last a happy thought struck Dexter, and after shifting his float about from place to place, he waited till he saw the boy looking at him, and he said—
“I say?”
“Hullo!” came back, the voices easily passing across the water.
“What are you baiting with?”
“Gentles.”
“Oh!”
Then there was a pause, and more fishing on one side, waiting on the other. At last the shabby boy said—
“You’re baiting with worms, ain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, they won’t bite at worms much this time o’ day.”
“Won’t they?” said Dexter, putting out his line.
“No. And you ain’t fishing deep enough.”
“Ain’t I!”
“No. Not by three foot.”
“I wish I’d got some gentles,” said Dexter at last.
“Do you!”
“Yes.”
“Shall I shy some over in the box?”
“Can you throw so far?”
“Yers!” cried the shabby boy. “You’ll give me the box again, won’t you?”
“Yes; I’ll throw it back.”
The boy on the other side divided his bait by putting some in a piece of paper. Then putting a stone in his little round tin box, he walked back a few yards so as to give himself room, stepped forward, and threw the box right across, Dexter catching it easily.
“Now, you try one o’ them,” said the donor of the fresh bait.
Dexter eagerly did as was suggested, and five minutes after there was a sharp tug, which half drew his float below the surface.
“Why, you didn’t strike,” said the boy sharply.
“Well, you can’t strike ’em till you’ve got hold of them,” retorted Dexter; and the shabby-looking boy laughed.
“Yah!” he said; “you don’t know how to fish.”
“Don’t I! Why, I was taught to fish by some one who knows all about it.”
“So it seems,” said the boy jeeringly. “Don’t even know how to strike a fish. There, you’ve got another bite. Look at him; he’s running away with it.”
It was no credit to Dexter that he got hold of that fish, for the unfortunate roach had hooked itself.
As the float glided away beneath the surface, Dexter gave a tremendous snatch with the rod, and jerked the fish out of the water among the branches of an overhanging tree, where the line caught, and the captive hung suspended about a foot below a cluster of twigs, flapping about and trying to get itself free.
Dexter’s fellow-fisherman burst into a roar of laughter, laid down his rod, and stamped about on the opposite bank slapping his knees, while the unlucky fisherman stood with his rod in his hand, jigging the line.
“You’ll break it if you don’t mind,” cried the shabby boy.
“But I want to get it out.”
“You shouldn’t have struck so hard. Climb up the tree, get out on that branch, and reach down.”
Dexter looked at the tree, which hung over the water to such an extent that it seemed as if his weight would tear it from its hold in the bank, while the water looked terribly deep and black beneath.
“I say,” cried the shabby boy jeeringly; “who taught you how to fish!”
“Why, old Dimsted did, and he knew.”
“Who did!” cried the boy excitedly.
“Old Dimsted.”
“Yah! That he didn’t. Why, he’s been in the House these ten years—ever since I was quite a little un.”
“Well, I know that,” shouted back Dexter. “He taught me all the same.”
“Why, how came you to know grandfather!” cried the shabby boy.
Dexter ceased pulling at the line, and looked across at his shabbily-dressed questioner. For the first time he glanced down at his well-made clothes, and compared his personal appearance with that of the boy opposite, and in a curiously subtle way he began to awake to the fact that he was growing ashamed of the workhouse, and the people in it.
“Yah! you didn’t know grandfather,” cried the boy mockingly; “and you don’t know how to fish. Grandfather wouldn’t have taught you to chuck a fish up in the tree. You should strike gently, like that.”
He gave the top of his rod a slight, quick twitch, and hooked a good-sized roach. Dexter grinning to see him play it till it was feeble enough to be drawn to the side and lifted out.
“That’s the way grandfather taught me how to fish,” continued the boy, as he took the hook from the captive’s mouth, “I say, what’s your name!”
“Dexter Grayson,” was the answer, for the boy felt keenly already that the names Obed Coleby were ones of which he could not be proud.
“Ever been in the workus!”
“Yes.”
“Ever see grandfather there!”
“Yes, I’ve seen him,” said Dexter, who felt no inclination to enlighten the boy further.
“Ah, he could fish,” said the boy, baiting and throwing in again. “My name’s Dimsted—Bob Dimsted. So’s father’s. He can fish as well as grandfather. So can I,” he added modestly; “there ain’t a good place nowheres in the river as we don’t know. I could take you where you could ketch fish every swim.”
“Could you?” said Dexter, who seemed awed in the presence of so much knowledge.
“Course I could, any day.”
“And will you?” said Dexter eagerly.
“Ah dunno,” said the boy, striking and missing another fish. “You wouldn’t care to go along o’ me?”
“Yes, I should—fishing,” cried Dexter. “But my line’s fast.”
“Why don’t you climb up and get it then? Ain’t afraid, are you!”
“What, to climb that tree?” cried Dexter. “Not I;” and laying the rod down with the butt resting on the bank, he began to climb at once.
“Mind yer don’t tumble in,” cried Bob Dimsted; “some o’ them boughs gets very rotten—like touchwood.”
“All right,” said Dexter; and he climbed steadily on in happy ignorance of the fact that the greeny lichen and growth was not good for dark cloth trousers and vests. But the bole of the tree was short, for it had been pollarded, and in a minute or two he was in a nest of branches, several of which protruded over the water, the one in particular which had entangled the fishing-line being not even horizontal, but dipping toward the surface.
“That’s the way,” shouted Bob Dimsted. “Look sharp, they’re biting like fun.”
“Think it’ll bear?” said Dexter.
“Bear? Yes; half a dozen on yer. Sit on it striddling, and work yourself along till you can reach the line. Got a knife?”
“Yes.”
“Then go right out, and when you git far enough cut off the little bough, and let it all drop into the water.”
“Why, then, I should lose the fish.”
“Not you. Ain’t he hooked? You do as I say, and then git back, and you can pull all out together.”
Dexter bestrode the branch, and worked himself along further and further till an ominous crack made him pause.
“Go on,” shouted the boy from the other side.
“He’ll think I’m a coward if I don’t,” said Dexter to himself, and he worked himself along for another three feet, with the silvery fish just before him, seeming to tempt him on.
“There, you can reach him now, can’t you?” cried the boy.
“Yes; I think I can reach him now,” said Dexter. “Wait till I get out my knife.”
It was not so easy to get out that knife, and to open it, as it would have been on land. The position was awkward; the branch dipped at a great slope now toward the water, and Dexter’s trousers were not only drawn half-way up his legs, but drawn so tightly by his attitude that he could hardly get his hand into his pocket.
It was done though at last, the thin bough in which the line was tangled seized by the left hand, while the right cut vigorously with the knife.
It would have been far easier to have disentangled the line, but Bob Dimsted was a learned fisher, and he had laid down the law. So Dexter cut and cut into the soft green wood till he got through the little bough all but one thin piece of succulent bark, dancing up and down the while over the deep water some fifteen feet from the bank.
Soss!
That last vigorous cut did it, and the bough, with its summer burden of leaves, dropped with a splash into the water.
“There! What did I tell you!” cried Dexter’s mentor. “Now you can get back and pull all out together. Fish won’t bite for a bit after this, but they’ll be all right soon.”
Dexter shut up his knife, thrust it as well as he could into his pocket, and prepared to return.
This was not so easy, for he had to go backwards. What was more, he had to progress up hill. But, nothing daunted, he took tight hold with his hands, bore down upon them, and was in the act of thrusting himself along a few inches, when—Crack!
One loud, sharp, splintering crack, and the branch, which was rotten three parts through, broke short off close to the trunk, and like an echo to the crack came a tremendous—Plash!
That water, as already intimated, was deep, and, as a consequence, there was a tremendous splash, and branch and its rider went down right out of sight, twig after twig disappearing leisurely in the eddying swirl.
Chapter Sixteen.“Them as is born to be hanged.”It might have been presumed that Bob Dimsted would either have tried to render some assistance or else have raised an alarm.Bob Dimsted did nothing of the kind.For certain reasons of his own, and as one who had too frequently been in the hot water of trouble, Master Bob thought only of himself, and catching his line in his hand as he quickly drew it from the water, he hastily gathered up his fishing paraphernalia, and ran off as hard as he could go.He had time, however, to see Dexter’s wet head rise to the surface and then go down again, for the unwilling bather had one leg hooked in the bough, which took him down once more, as it yielded to the current, and the consequence was that when Dexter rose, breathless and half-strangled, he was fifty yards down the stream.But he was now free, and giving his head a shake, he trod the water for a few moments, and then struck out for the shore, swimming as easily as a frog.A few sturdy strokes took him out of the sharp current and into an eddy near the bank, by whose help he soon reached the deep still water, swimming so vigorously that before long he was abreast of the doctor’s garden, where a group beneath the trees startled him more than his involuntary plunge.For there, in a state of the greatest excitement, were the doctor and Helen, with Peter Cribb, with a clothes-prop to be used for a different purpose now.Further behind was Dan’l Copestake, who came panting up with the longest handled rake just as Dexter was nearing the bank.“Will he be drowned?” whispered Helen, as she held tightly by her father’s arm.“No; he swims like a water-rat,” said the doctor.“No, no,” shouted Dexter, beginning to splash the water, and sheering off as he saw Dan’l about to make a dab at him with the rake.There was more zeal than discretion in the gardener’s use of this implement, for it splashed down into the water heavily, the teeth nearly catching the boy’s head.“Here, catch hold of this,” cried Peter Cribb.“No, no; let me be,” cried Dexter, declining the offer of the clothes-prop, as he had avoided it before when he was on the top of the wall. “I can swim ashore if you’ll let me be.”This was so self-evident that the doctor checked Dan’l as he was about to make another skull-fracturing dash with the rake; and the next minute Dexter’s hand clutched the grass on the bank, and he crawled out, with the water streaming down out of his clothes, and his short hair gummed, as it were, to his head.“Here!” he cried; “where’s my fish?”“Fish, sir!” cried the doctor; “you ought to be very thankful that you’ve saved your life.”“O Dexter!” cried Helen.“I say, don’t touch me,” cried the boy, as she caught at his hand. “I’m so jolly wet.”He was like a sponge just lifted out of a pail, and already about him there was a pool.“Here, quick, sir; run up to the house and change your clothes,” cried the doctor.“But I must get my fish, sir.”“Fish!” cried the doctor angrily; “that’s not the way to fish.”“Yes, it was, sir; and I caught one.”“You caught one!”“Yes, sir; a beauty.”“Look here, Dexter,” cried the doctor, catching him by his wet arm; “do you mean to tell me that you dived into the river like that and caught a fish!”“No, sir; I fell in when I was getting my line out of the tree.”“Oh, I see.”“Beg pardon, sir,” said Dan’l sourly; “but he’ve broke a great branch off this here tree.”“Well, I couldn’t help it,” said Dexter, in an ill-used tone. “I caught my line in the tree, and was obliged to get up and fetch it, and—stop a minute. I can see it. All right.”He ran off along the river-bank till they saw him stoop just where the wall dipped down into the river. There he found the rod floating close to the edge, and, securing it, he soon after drew in the loose branch he had cut off the tree, and disentangled his line, with the little roach still on the hook.“There!” he cried in triumph, as he ran back with rod, line, and fish; “look at that, Miss Grayson, isn’t it a beauty, and— What are you laughing at!”This was at Peter Cribb, who was grinning hugely, but who turned away, followed by Dan’l.“Them as is born to be hanged’ll never be drowned,” grumbled the old gardener sourly, as the two men went away.“No fear of him being drowned,” said Peter. “Swims like a cork.”“It’s disgusting; that’s what I say it is,” growled Dan’l; “disgusting.”“What’s disgusting?” said Peter.“Why, they cuddles and makes a fuss over a boy as is a reg’lar noosance about the place, just as any other varmint would be. Wish he had drowned himself. What call was there for me to come and bring a rake!”“Ah, he’s a rum un, that he is,” said Peter. “And master’s a rum un; and how they can take to that boy, Miss Helen specially, and have him here’s more’n I can understand. It caps me, that it do.”“Wait a bit, my lad, and you’ll see,” cried the old gardener. “He’s begun his games just as such a boy would, and afore long this here garden will be turned into such a wreck as’ll make the doctor tear his hair, and wish as he’d never seen the young rascal. He’s a bad un; you can see it in his eye. He’s got bad blood in him, and bad blood allus comes out sooner or later. Peter Cribb, my lad—”“Yes.”“We’re getting old fellow-servants, though you’re only young. Peter, my lad, I’m beginning to tremble for my fruit.”“Eh?”“Yes; that I am, my lad,” said Dan’l in a whisper. “Just as I expected—I was watching of him—that rip’s took up with bad company, Poacher Dimsted’s boy; and that means evil. They was talking together, and then young Dimsted see me, and run away.”“Did he?”“Did he? Yes, he just did; and you mark my words, Peter Cribb, it will not be long before the gov’ner gets rid of him.”“Oh yes; it’s a very beautiful fish,” said the doctor testily; “but make haste in. There, run and get all your wet things off as quickly as you can.”Dexter was so deeply interested in the silvery scales and graceful shape of his fish that he hardly heard the doctor’s words, which had to be repeated before the boy started, nodded shortly, and ran off toward the house, while his patron walked to a garden chair, sat down, and gazed up at Helen in a perplexed way.Helen did not speak, but gazed back at her father with a suppressed laugh twinkling about the corners of her lips.“You’re laughing at me, my dear,” said the doctor at last; “but you mark my words—what I say is true. All this is merely the froth of the boy’s nature, of which he is getting rid. But tut, tut, tut! All this must be stopped. First a new cap destroyed by being turned into a bucket, and now a suit of clothes gone.”“They will do for a garden suit, papa,” said Helen, speaking as if she had had charge of boys for years.“Well, yes: I suppose so,” said the doctor. “But there: I am not going to worry myself about trifles. The cost of a few suits of clothes are as nothing compared to the success of my scheme. Now let’s go in and see if the young dog has gone to work to change his things.”The doctor rose and walked up the garden, making comments to his daughter about the course of instruction he intended to pursue with Dexter, and on reaching the house and finding that the object of his thoughts was in his bedroom, he went on to the study just as Maria came from the front door with a letter.“Letter, eh? Oh, I see. From Lady Danby!”The doctor opened the letter.“Any one waiting!” he said.“Yes, sir. Groom waiting for an answer.”“I’ll ring, Maria,” said the doctor, and then he smiled and looked pleased. “There, my deaf,” he cried, tossing the note to his daughter. “Now I call that very kind and neighbourly. You see, Sir James and Lady Danby feel and appreciate the fine manly conduct of Dexter over that cattle, and they very wisely think that he not only deserves great commendation, but that the present is a favourable opportunity for beginning an intimacy and companionship.”“Yes, papa,” said Helen, with rather a troubled look.“Danby sees that he was wrong, and is holding out the right hand of good fellowship. Depend upon it that we shall have a strong tie between those two boys. They will go to a public school together, help one another with their studies, and become friends for life. Hah! Yes. Sit down, my dear,” continued the doctor, rubbing his hands. “My kind regards to Sir James and Lady Danby, that I greatly appreciate their kindness, and that Dexter shall come and spend the day with Edgar on Friday.”Helen wrote the note, which was despatched, and the doctor smiled, and looked highly satisfied.“You remember how obstinate Sir James was about boys?”“Yes, papa. I heard a part of the conversation, and you told me the rest.”“To be sure. You see my selection was right. Dexter behaved like a little hero over that adventure.”“Yes,” said Helen; “he was as brave as could be.”“Exactly. All justification of my choice. I don’t want to prophesy, Helen, but there will be a strong friendship between those boys from that day. Edgar, the weak, well-born boy, will always recognise the manly confidence of Dexter, the er—er, well, low-born boy, who in turn will have his sympathies aroused by his companion’s want of—er—well, say, ballast.”“Possibly, papa.”“My dear Helen, don’t speak like that,” said the doctor pettishly. “You are so fond of playing wet blanket to all my plans.”“Oh no, papa; I am sure I will help you, and am helping you, in all this, but it is not in my nature to be so sanguine.”“Ah, well, never mind that. But you do like Dexter!”“Yes; I am beginning to like him more and more.”“That’s right. I’m very, very glad, and I feel quite grateful to the Danbys. You must give Dexter a few hints about behaving himself, and, so to speak, keeping down his exuberance when he is there.”“May I say a word, papa!”“Certainly, my dear; of course.”“Well, then, I have an idea of my own with respect to Dexter.”“Ah, that’s right,” said the doctor, smiling and rubbing his hands. “What is it!”“I have been thinking over it all a great deal, dear,” said Helen, going to her father’s side and resting her hand upon his shoulder; “and it seems to me that the way to alter and improve Dexter will be by example.”“Ah yes, I see; example better than precept, eh!”“Yes. So far his life has been one of repression and the severest discipline.”“Yes, of course. Cut down; tied down, and his natural growth stopped. Consequently wild young shoots have thrust themselves out of his nature.”“That is what I mean.”“Quite right, my dear; then we will give him as much freedom as we can. You will give him a hint or two, though.”“I will do everything I can, papa, to make him presentable.”“Thank you, my dear. Yes, these boys will become great companions, I can see. Brave little fellow! I am very, very much pleased.”The doctor forgot all about the broken branch, and Dexter’s spoiled suit of clothes, and Helen went to see whether the boy had obeyed the last command.
It might have been presumed that Bob Dimsted would either have tried to render some assistance or else have raised an alarm.
Bob Dimsted did nothing of the kind.
For certain reasons of his own, and as one who had too frequently been in the hot water of trouble, Master Bob thought only of himself, and catching his line in his hand as he quickly drew it from the water, he hastily gathered up his fishing paraphernalia, and ran off as hard as he could go.
He had time, however, to see Dexter’s wet head rise to the surface and then go down again, for the unwilling bather had one leg hooked in the bough, which took him down once more, as it yielded to the current, and the consequence was that when Dexter rose, breathless and half-strangled, he was fifty yards down the stream.
But he was now free, and giving his head a shake, he trod the water for a few moments, and then struck out for the shore, swimming as easily as a frog.
A few sturdy strokes took him out of the sharp current and into an eddy near the bank, by whose help he soon reached the deep still water, swimming so vigorously that before long he was abreast of the doctor’s garden, where a group beneath the trees startled him more than his involuntary plunge.
For there, in a state of the greatest excitement, were the doctor and Helen, with Peter Cribb, with a clothes-prop to be used for a different purpose now.
Further behind was Dan’l Copestake, who came panting up with the longest handled rake just as Dexter was nearing the bank.
“Will he be drowned?” whispered Helen, as she held tightly by her father’s arm.
“No; he swims like a water-rat,” said the doctor.
“No, no,” shouted Dexter, beginning to splash the water, and sheering off as he saw Dan’l about to make a dab at him with the rake.
There was more zeal than discretion in the gardener’s use of this implement, for it splashed down into the water heavily, the teeth nearly catching the boy’s head.
“Here, catch hold of this,” cried Peter Cribb.
“No, no; let me be,” cried Dexter, declining the offer of the clothes-prop, as he had avoided it before when he was on the top of the wall. “I can swim ashore if you’ll let me be.”
This was so self-evident that the doctor checked Dan’l as he was about to make another skull-fracturing dash with the rake; and the next minute Dexter’s hand clutched the grass on the bank, and he crawled out, with the water streaming down out of his clothes, and his short hair gummed, as it were, to his head.
“Here!” he cried; “where’s my fish?”
“Fish, sir!” cried the doctor; “you ought to be very thankful that you’ve saved your life.”
“O Dexter!” cried Helen.
“I say, don’t touch me,” cried the boy, as she caught at his hand. “I’m so jolly wet.”
He was like a sponge just lifted out of a pail, and already about him there was a pool.
“Here, quick, sir; run up to the house and change your clothes,” cried the doctor.
“But I must get my fish, sir.”
“Fish!” cried the doctor angrily; “that’s not the way to fish.”
“Yes, it was, sir; and I caught one.”
“You caught one!”
“Yes, sir; a beauty.”
“Look here, Dexter,” cried the doctor, catching him by his wet arm; “do you mean to tell me that you dived into the river like that and caught a fish!”
“No, sir; I fell in when I was getting my line out of the tree.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Dan’l sourly; “but he’ve broke a great branch off this here tree.”
“Well, I couldn’t help it,” said Dexter, in an ill-used tone. “I caught my line in the tree, and was obliged to get up and fetch it, and—stop a minute. I can see it. All right.”
He ran off along the river-bank till they saw him stoop just where the wall dipped down into the river. There he found the rod floating close to the edge, and, securing it, he soon after drew in the loose branch he had cut off the tree, and disentangled his line, with the little roach still on the hook.
“There!” he cried in triumph, as he ran back with rod, line, and fish; “look at that, Miss Grayson, isn’t it a beauty, and— What are you laughing at!”
This was at Peter Cribb, who was grinning hugely, but who turned away, followed by Dan’l.
“Them as is born to be hanged’ll never be drowned,” grumbled the old gardener sourly, as the two men went away.
“No fear of him being drowned,” said Peter. “Swims like a cork.”
“It’s disgusting; that’s what I say it is,” growled Dan’l; “disgusting.”
“What’s disgusting?” said Peter.
“Why, they cuddles and makes a fuss over a boy as is a reg’lar noosance about the place, just as any other varmint would be. Wish he had drowned himself. What call was there for me to come and bring a rake!”
“Ah, he’s a rum un, that he is,” said Peter. “And master’s a rum un; and how they can take to that boy, Miss Helen specially, and have him here’s more’n I can understand. It caps me, that it do.”
“Wait a bit, my lad, and you’ll see,” cried the old gardener. “He’s begun his games just as such a boy would, and afore long this here garden will be turned into such a wreck as’ll make the doctor tear his hair, and wish as he’d never seen the young rascal. He’s a bad un; you can see it in his eye. He’s got bad blood in him, and bad blood allus comes out sooner or later. Peter Cribb, my lad—”
“Yes.”
“We’re getting old fellow-servants, though you’re only young. Peter, my lad, I’m beginning to tremble for my fruit.”
“Eh?”
“Yes; that I am, my lad,” said Dan’l in a whisper. “Just as I expected—I was watching of him—that rip’s took up with bad company, Poacher Dimsted’s boy; and that means evil. They was talking together, and then young Dimsted see me, and run away.”
“Did he?”
“Did he? Yes, he just did; and you mark my words, Peter Cribb, it will not be long before the gov’ner gets rid of him.”
“Oh yes; it’s a very beautiful fish,” said the doctor testily; “but make haste in. There, run and get all your wet things off as quickly as you can.”
Dexter was so deeply interested in the silvery scales and graceful shape of his fish that he hardly heard the doctor’s words, which had to be repeated before the boy started, nodded shortly, and ran off toward the house, while his patron walked to a garden chair, sat down, and gazed up at Helen in a perplexed way.
Helen did not speak, but gazed back at her father with a suppressed laugh twinkling about the corners of her lips.
“You’re laughing at me, my dear,” said the doctor at last; “but you mark my words—what I say is true. All this is merely the froth of the boy’s nature, of which he is getting rid. But tut, tut, tut! All this must be stopped. First a new cap destroyed by being turned into a bucket, and now a suit of clothes gone.”
“They will do for a garden suit, papa,” said Helen, speaking as if she had had charge of boys for years.
“Well, yes: I suppose so,” said the doctor. “But there: I am not going to worry myself about trifles. The cost of a few suits of clothes are as nothing compared to the success of my scheme. Now let’s go in and see if the young dog has gone to work to change his things.”
The doctor rose and walked up the garden, making comments to his daughter about the course of instruction he intended to pursue with Dexter, and on reaching the house and finding that the object of his thoughts was in his bedroom, he went on to the study just as Maria came from the front door with a letter.
“Letter, eh? Oh, I see. From Lady Danby!”
The doctor opened the letter.
“Any one waiting!” he said.
“Yes, sir. Groom waiting for an answer.”
“I’ll ring, Maria,” said the doctor, and then he smiled and looked pleased. “There, my deaf,” he cried, tossing the note to his daughter. “Now I call that very kind and neighbourly. You see, Sir James and Lady Danby feel and appreciate the fine manly conduct of Dexter over that cattle, and they very wisely think that he not only deserves great commendation, but that the present is a favourable opportunity for beginning an intimacy and companionship.”
“Yes, papa,” said Helen, with rather a troubled look.
“Danby sees that he was wrong, and is holding out the right hand of good fellowship. Depend upon it that we shall have a strong tie between those two boys. They will go to a public school together, help one another with their studies, and become friends for life. Hah! Yes. Sit down, my dear,” continued the doctor, rubbing his hands. “My kind regards to Sir James and Lady Danby, that I greatly appreciate their kindness, and that Dexter shall come and spend the day with Edgar on Friday.”
Helen wrote the note, which was despatched, and the doctor smiled, and looked highly satisfied.
“You remember how obstinate Sir James was about boys?”
“Yes, papa. I heard a part of the conversation, and you told me the rest.”
“To be sure. You see my selection was right. Dexter behaved like a little hero over that adventure.”
“Yes,” said Helen; “he was as brave as could be.”
“Exactly. All justification of my choice. I don’t want to prophesy, Helen, but there will be a strong friendship between those boys from that day. Edgar, the weak, well-born boy, will always recognise the manly confidence of Dexter, the er—er, well, low-born boy, who in turn will have his sympathies aroused by his companion’s want of—er—well, say, ballast.”
“Possibly, papa.”
“My dear Helen, don’t speak like that,” said the doctor pettishly. “You are so fond of playing wet blanket to all my plans.”
“Oh no, papa; I am sure I will help you, and am helping you, in all this, but it is not in my nature to be so sanguine.”
“Ah, well, never mind that. But you do like Dexter!”
“Yes; I am beginning to like him more and more.”
“That’s right. I’m very, very glad, and I feel quite grateful to the Danbys. You must give Dexter a few hints about behaving himself, and, so to speak, keeping down his exuberance when he is there.”
“May I say a word, papa!”
“Certainly, my dear; of course.”
“Well, then, I have an idea of my own with respect to Dexter.”
“Ah, that’s right,” said the doctor, smiling and rubbing his hands. “What is it!”
“I have been thinking over it all a great deal, dear,” said Helen, going to her father’s side and resting her hand upon his shoulder; “and it seems to me that the way to alter and improve Dexter will be by example.”
“Ah yes, I see; example better than precept, eh!”
“Yes. So far his life has been one of repression and the severest discipline.”
“Yes, of course. Cut down; tied down, and his natural growth stopped. Consequently wild young shoots have thrust themselves out of his nature.”
“That is what I mean.”
“Quite right, my dear; then we will give him as much freedom as we can. You will give him a hint or two, though.”
“I will do everything I can, papa, to make him presentable.”
“Thank you, my dear. Yes, these boys will become great companions, I can see. Brave little fellow! I am very, very much pleased.”
The doctor forgot all about the broken branch, and Dexter’s spoiled suit of clothes, and Helen went to see whether the boy had obeyed the last command.
Chapter Seventeen.Dan’l is too Attentive.Things were not quite so smooth as Dr Grayson thought, for there had been stormy weather at Sir James’s.“Well, my dear, you are my husband, and it is my duty to obey,” said Lady Danby; “but I do protest against my darling son being forced to associate with a boy of an exceedingly low type.”“Allow me, my dear,” said Sir James importantly. “By Dr Grayson’s act, in taking that boy into his house, he has wiped away any stigma which may cling to him; and I must say that the lad displayed a great deal of animal courage—that kind of brute courage which comes from an ignorance of danger.”“Is it animal courage not to be afraid of animals, ma?” said Master Edgar.“Yes, my dear, of course,” said Lady Danby.“I wish Edgar would display courage of any kind,” said Sir James.“Why, you ran away from the bulls too, papa,” said Master Edgar.“I am a great sufferer from nervousness, Edgar,” said Sir James reprovingly; “but we were not discussing that question. Dr Grayson has accepted the invitation for his adopted son. It is his whim for the moment, and it is only becoming on my part to show that we are grateful for the way in which the boy behaved. By the time a month has gone by, I have no doubt that the boy will be back at the—the place from which he came; but while he is at Dr Grayson’s I desire that he be treated as if he were Dr Grayson’s son.”“Very well, James,” said Lady Danby, in an ill-used tone of voice. “You are master here, and we must obey.”The day of the invitation arrived. Dexter was to be at Sir James’s in time for lunch, and directly after breakfast he watched his opportunity and followed Helen into the drawing-room.“I say,” he said; “I can’t go there, can I?”“Why not?” said Helen.“Lookye here.”“Why, Dexter!” cried Helen, laughing merrily; “what have you been doing!”“Don’t I look a guy!”There was a change already in the boy’s aspect; his face, short as the time had been, was beginning to show what fresh air and good feeding could achieve. His hair had altered very slightly, but still there was an alteration for the better, and his eyes looked brighter, but his general appearance was comical all the same.Directly after breakfast he had rushed up to his room and put on the clothes in which he had taken his involuntary bath. These garments, as will be remembered, had been obtained in haste, and were of the kind known in the trade as “ready-mades,” and in this case composed of a well-glazed and pressed material, containing just enough wool to hold together a great deal of shoddy.The dip in the river had been too severe a test for the suit, especially as Maria had been put a little more out of temper than usual by having the garments handed to her to dry.Maria’s mother was a washerwoman who lived outside Coleby on the common, and gained her income by acting as laundress generally for all who would intrust her with their family linen; but she called herself in yellow letters on a brilliant scarlet ground a “clear starcher.”During Maria’s early life at home she had had much experience in the ways of washing. She knew the smell of boiled soap. She had often watched the steam rising from the copper, and played among the clouds, and she well knew that the quickest way to dry anything that has been soaked is to give it a good wringing.She had therefore given Dexter’s new suit a good wringing, and wrung out of it a vast quantity of sticky dye which stained her hands. Then she had—grumbling bitterly all the time—given the jacket, vest, and trousers a good shake, and hung them over a clothes-horse as near to the fire as she could get them without singeing.Mrs Millett told her to be sure and get them nice and dry, and Maria did get them “nice and dry.”And now Dexter had put them on and presented himself before Helen, suggesting that he looked a guy.Certainly his appearance was suggestive of the stuffed effigy borne about on the fifth of November, for the garments were shrunken so that his arms and legs showed to a terrible extent, and Maria’s wringing had given them curves and hollows never intended by the cutter, the worst one being in the form of a hump between the wearer’s shoulders.“The things are completely spoiled. You foolish boy to put them on.”“Then I can’t go to that other house.”“Nonsense! You have the new clothes that came from the tailor’s—those for which you were measured.”“Yes,” said Dexter reluctantly; “but it’s a pity to put on them. I may get ’em spoiled.”“Then you do not want to go, Dexter,” said Helen, smiling.“No,” he cried eagerly. “Ask him to let me stop here.”“No, no,” said Helen kindly. “Papa wishes you to go there; it is very kind of the Danbys to ask you, and I hope you will go, and behave very nicely, and make great friends with Edgar Danby.”“How?” said Dexter laconically.“Well, as boys generally do. You must talk to him.”“What about?”“Anything. Then you must play with him.”“What at?”“Oh, he’ll be sure to suggest something to play at.”“I don’t think he will,” said Dexter thoughtfully. “He don’t look the sort of chap to.”“Don’t say chap, Dexter; say boy.”“Sort of boy to play any games. He’s what we used to call a soft Tommy sort of a chap—boy.”“Oh no, no, no! I don’t suppose he will be rough, and care for boisterous sports; but he may prove to be a very pleasant companion for you.”Dexter shook his head.“I don’t think he’ll like me.”“Nonsense! How can you tell that? Then they have a beautiful garden.”“Can’t be such a nice one as this,” said Dexter.“Oh yes, it is; and it runs down to the river as this one does, and Sir James has a very nice boat.”“Boat!” cried Dexter, pricking up his ears. “And may you go in it!”“Not by yourselves, I suppose. There, I’m sure you will enjoy your visit.”Dexter shook his head again.“I say, you’ll come too, won’t you?” he cried eagerly.“No, Dexter; not this time.”The boy’s forehead grew wrinkled all over.“Come, you are pretending that you do not want to go.”“I don’t,” said the boy, hanging his head. “I want to stay here along with you.”“Perhaps I should like you to stay, Dexter,” said Helen; “but I wish you to go and behave nicely, and you can tell me all about it when you come back.”“And how soon may I come back?”“I don’t suppose till the evening, but we shall see. Now, go and change those things directly. What would papa say if he saw you?”Dexter went slowly up to his room, and came down soon after to look for Helen.He found her busy writing letters, so he went off on tiptoe to the study, where the doctor was deep in his book, writing with a very severe frown on his brow.“Ah, Dexter,” he said, looking up and running his eye critically over the boy, the result being very satisfactory. “Let’s see, you are to be at Sir James’s by half-past twelve. Now only ten. Go and amuse yourself in the garden, and don’t get into mischief.”Dexter went back into the hall, obtained his cap, and went out through the glass door into the verandah, where the great wisteria hung a valance of lavender blossoms all along the edge.“He always says don’t get into mischief,” thought the boy. “I don’t want to get into mischief, I’m sure.”Half-way across the lawn he was startled by the sudden appearance of Dan’l, who started out upon him from behind a great evergreen shrub.“What are you a-doing of now?” snarled Dan’l.“I wasn’t doing anything,” said Dexter, staring.“Then you were going to do something,” cried the old man sharply. “Look here, young man; if you get meddling with anything in my garden there’s going to be trouble, so mind that. I know what boys is, so none of your nonsense here.”He went off grumbling to another part of the garden, and Dexter felt disposed to go back indoors.“He’s watching me all the time,” he thought to himself; “just as if I was going to steal something. He don’t like me.”Dexter strolled on, and heard directly a regular rustling noise, which he recognised at once as the sound made by a broom sweeping grass, and sure enough, just inside the great laurel hedge, where a little green lawn was cut off from the rest of the garden, there was Peter Cribb, at his usual pursuit, sweeping all the sweet-scented cuttings of the grass.Peter was a sweeper who was always on the look-out for an excuse. He was, so to speak, chained to that broom so many hours a day, and if he had been a galley slave, and the broom an oar, it is morally certain that he would have been beaten with many stripes, for he would have left off rowing whenever he could.“Well, squire,” he said, laying his hands one over the other on the top of the broom-handle.“Well, Peter. How’s the horse?”“Grinding his corn, and enjoying himself,” said Peter. “He’s like you: a lucky one—plenty to eat and nothing to do.”“Don’t you take him out for exercise?” said Dexter.“Course I do. So do you go out for exercise.”“Think I could ride?” said Dexter.“Dersay you could, if you could hold on.”“I should like to try.”“Go along with you!”“But I should. Will you let me try!”Peter shook his head, and began to examine his half-worn broom.“I could hold on. Let me go with you next time!”“Oh, but I go at ha’-past six, hours before you’re awake. Young gents don’t get up till eight.”“Why, I always wake at a quarter to six,” said Dexter. “It seems the proper time to get up. I say, let me go with you.”“Here, I say, you, Peter,” shouted Dan’l; “are you a-going to sweep that bit o’ lawn, or am I to come and do it myself. Gawsiping about!”“Hear that?” said Peter, beginning to make his broom swing round again. “There, you’d better be off, or you’ll get me in a row.”Dexter sighed, for he seemed to be always the cause of trouble.“I say,” said Peter, as the boy was moving off; “going fishing again?”“No; not now.”“You knows the way to fish, don’t you? Goes in after them.”Dexter laughed, and went on down to the river, examined the place where the branch had broken off, and then gazed down into the clear water at the gliding fish, which seemed to move here and there with no more effort than a wave of the tail.His next look was across the river in search of Bob Dimsted; but the shabby-looking boy was not fishing, and nowhere in sight either up or down the stream.Dexter turned away with another sigh. The garden was very beautiful, but it seemed dull just then. He wanted some one to talk to, and if he went again to Peter, old Dan’l would shout and find fault.“It don’t matter which way I go,” said Dexter, after a few minutes, during which time he had changed his place in the garden again and again; “that old man is always watching me to see what I am going to do.”He looked round at the flowers, at the coming fruit, at everything in turn, but the place seemed desolate, and in spite of himself he began thinking of his old companions at the great school, and wondering what they were doing.Then he recalled that he was to go to Sir James Danby’s soon, and he began to think of Edgar.“I shan’t like that chap,” he said to himself. “I wonder whether he’ll like me.”He was standing thinking deeply and gazing straight before him at the high red brick wall when he suddenly started, for there was a heavy step on the gravel.Dan’l had come along the grass edge till he was close to the boy, and then stepped off heavily on to the path.“They aren’t ripe yet,” he said with an unpleasant leer; “and you’d best let them alone.”Dexter walked quickly away, with his face scarlet, and a bitter feeling of annoyance which he could not master.For the next quarter of an hour he was continually changing his position in the garden, but always to wake up to the fact that the old gardener was carrying out a purpose which he had confided to Peter.This the boy soon learned, for after a time he suddenly encountered the groom, still busy with the broom.“Why, hullo, youngster!” he said; “what’s the matter!”“Nothing,” said Dexter, with his face growing a deeper scarlet.“Oh yes, there is; I can see,” cried Peter.“Well, he’s always watching me, and pretending that I’m getting into mischief, or trying to pick the fruit.”“Hah!” said Peter, with a laugh; “he told me he meant to keep his eye on you.”Just then there was a call for Dan’l from the direction of the house, and Mrs Millett was seen beyond a laurel hedge.Directly after the old man went up to the house, and it seemed to Dexter as if a cloud had passed from across the sun. The garden appeared to have grown suddenly brighter, and the boy began to whistle as he went about in an aimless way, looking here and there for something to take his attention.He was not long in finding it, for just at the back of the dense yew hedge there were half a dozen old-fashioned round-topped hives, whose occupants were busy going to and fro, save that at the hive nearest the cross-path a heavy cluster, betokening a late swarm, was hanging outside, looking like a double handful of bees.Dexter knew a rhyme beginning—“How doth the little busy bee—”and he knew that bees made honey; but that was all he did know about their habits, save that they lived in hives; and he stood and stared at the cluster hanging outside.“Why, they can’t get in,” he said to himself. “Hole’s stopped up.”He stood still for a few minutes, and then, as he looked round, he caught sight of some bean-sticks—tall thin pieces of oak sapling, and drawing one of these out of the ground he rubbed the mould off the pointed end, and, as soon as it was clean, took hold of it, and returned to the hive, where he watched the clustering bees for a few minutes, and then, reaching over, he inserted the thin end of the long stick just by the opening to the hive, thrust it forward, and gave it a good rake to right and left.There was a tremendous buzz and a rush, and the next moment Dexter, stick in hand, was running down the path toward the river, pursued by quite a cloud of angry bees.Dexter ran fast, of course, and as it happened, right down one of the most shady paths, beneath the densely growing apple-trees, where the bees could not fly, so that by the time he reached the river-side he was clear of his pursuers, but tingling from a sting on the wrist, and from two more on the neck, one being among the hair at the back, and the other right down in his collar.“Well, that’s nice,” he said, as he rubbed himself, and began mentally to try and do a sum in the Rule of Three—if three stings make so much pain, how much pain would be caused by the stings of a whole hiveful of bees?“Bother the nasty vicious little things!” he cried, as he had another rub, and he threw the bean-stick angrily away.“Don’t hurt so much now,” he said, after a few minutes’ stamping about. Then his face broke up into a merry smile. “How they did make me run!”Just then there was a shout—a yell, and a loud call for help.Dexter forgot his own pain, and, alarmed by the cries, ran as hard as he could back again towards the spot from whence the sounds came, and to his horror found that Old Dan’l was running here and there, waving his arms, while Peter had come to his help, and was whisking his broom about in all directions.For a few moments Dexter could not comprehend what was wrong, then, like a flash, he understood that the bees had attacked the old gardener, and that it was due to his having irritated them with the stick.Dexter knew how a wasp’s nest had been taken in the fields by the boys one day, and without a moment’s hesitation he ran to the nearest shrub, tore off a good-sized bough, and joined in the task of beating down the bees.It is pretty sport to fight either bees or wasps in this way, but it requires a great deal of courage, especially as the insects are sure to get the best of it, as they did in this case, putting their enemies to flight, their place of refuge being the tool-house, into whose dark recesses the bees did not attempt to come.“Much stung, Dan’l!” said Peter.“Much stung, indeed! I should think I am. Offle!”“You got it much, youngster?” said Peter.“I’ve got three stings,” replied Dexter, who had escaped without further harm.“And I’ve got five, I think,” said Peter. “What was you doing to ’em, Dan’l!”“Doin’ to ’em!” growled Dan’l, who was stamping about and rubbing himself, and looking exceedingly like the bear in the old fable. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ to ’em. One o’ the hives have been threatenin’ to swarm again, and I was just goin’ by, when they come at me like a swarm o’ savidges, just as if some one had been teasing them.” Dexter was rubbing the back of his neck, and feeling horribly guilty, as he asked himself whether he had not better own to having disturbed the hive; but there was something so unpleasantly repellent about the old gardener, and he was looking so suspiciously from one to the other, that the boy felt as if he could not speak to him.If it had been Peter, who, with all his roughness, seemed to be tolerant of his presence, he would have spoken out at once; but he could not to Dan’l, and he remained silent.“They stings pretty sharp,” said Peter, laughing. “Blue-bag’s best thing. I shall go up and get Maria to touch mine up. Coming?”“Nay, I’m not coming,” growled Dan’l. “I can bear a sting or two of a bee without getting myself painted up with blue-bags. Dock leaves is good enough for me.”“And there aren’t a dock left in the garden,” said Peter. “You found fault with me for not pulling the last up.”So Peter went up to the house to be blue-bagged, Dan’l remained like a bear in his den, growling to himself, and Dexter, whose stings still throbbed, went off across the lawn to walk off the pain, till it was time to go to Sir James’s.“Who’d have thought that the little things could hurt so much!”Then the pain began to diminish till it was only a tingle, and the spots where the stings went in were round and hard, and now it was that Dexter’s conscience began to prick him as sharply as the bees’ stings, and he walked about the garden trying to make up his mind as to whether he should go and confess to Dan’l that he stirred the bees up with a long stick.But as soon as he felt that he would do this, something struck him that Dan’l would be sure to think he had done it all out of mischief, and he knew that he could not tell him.“Nobody will know,” he said to himself; “and I won’t tell. I didn’t mean to do any harm.”“Dexter! Dexter!”He looked in the direction from whence the sounds came, and could see Helen waving her handkerchief, as a signal for him to come in.“Time to go,” he said to himself as he set off to her. “Nobody will know, so I shan’t tell him.”And then he turned cold.Only a few moments before he had left Dan’l growling in his den, and now here he was down the garden, stooping and picking up something.For a few moments Dexter could not see what the something was, for the trees between them hindered the view, but directly after he made out that Dan’l had picked up a long stick, which had been thrown among the little apple-trees, and was carefully examining it.The colour came into Dexter’s cheeks as he wondered whether Dan’l would know where that stick came from.The colour would have been deeper still had he known that Dan’l had a splendid memory, and knew exactly where every stick or plant should be. In fact, Dan’l recognised that stick as having been taken from the end of the scarlet-runner row.“A young sperrit o’ mischief! that’s what he is,” muttered the old man, giving a writhe as he felt the stinging of the bees. “Now what’s he been up to with that there stick? making a fishing-rod of it, I s’pose, and tearing my rows o’ beans to pieces. I tell him what it is—”Dan’l stopped short, and stared at the end of the stick—the thin end, where there was something peculiar, betraying what had been done with it.It was a sight which made him tighten his lips up into a thin red line, and screw up his eyes till they could be hardly seen, for upon the end of that stick were the mortal remains of two crushed bees.
Things were not quite so smooth as Dr Grayson thought, for there had been stormy weather at Sir James’s.
“Well, my dear, you are my husband, and it is my duty to obey,” said Lady Danby; “but I do protest against my darling son being forced to associate with a boy of an exceedingly low type.”
“Allow me, my dear,” said Sir James importantly. “By Dr Grayson’s act, in taking that boy into his house, he has wiped away any stigma which may cling to him; and I must say that the lad displayed a great deal of animal courage—that kind of brute courage which comes from an ignorance of danger.”
“Is it animal courage not to be afraid of animals, ma?” said Master Edgar.
“Yes, my dear, of course,” said Lady Danby.
“I wish Edgar would display courage of any kind,” said Sir James.
“Why, you ran away from the bulls too, papa,” said Master Edgar.
“I am a great sufferer from nervousness, Edgar,” said Sir James reprovingly; “but we were not discussing that question. Dr Grayson has accepted the invitation for his adopted son. It is his whim for the moment, and it is only becoming on my part to show that we are grateful for the way in which the boy behaved. By the time a month has gone by, I have no doubt that the boy will be back at the—the place from which he came; but while he is at Dr Grayson’s I desire that he be treated as if he were Dr Grayson’s son.”
“Very well, James,” said Lady Danby, in an ill-used tone of voice. “You are master here, and we must obey.”
The day of the invitation arrived. Dexter was to be at Sir James’s in time for lunch, and directly after breakfast he watched his opportunity and followed Helen into the drawing-room.
“I say,” he said; “I can’t go there, can I?”
“Why not?” said Helen.
“Lookye here.”
“Why, Dexter!” cried Helen, laughing merrily; “what have you been doing!”
“Don’t I look a guy!”
There was a change already in the boy’s aspect; his face, short as the time had been, was beginning to show what fresh air and good feeding could achieve. His hair had altered very slightly, but still there was an alteration for the better, and his eyes looked brighter, but his general appearance was comical all the same.
Directly after breakfast he had rushed up to his room and put on the clothes in which he had taken his involuntary bath. These garments, as will be remembered, had been obtained in haste, and were of the kind known in the trade as “ready-mades,” and in this case composed of a well-glazed and pressed material, containing just enough wool to hold together a great deal of shoddy.
The dip in the river had been too severe a test for the suit, especially as Maria had been put a little more out of temper than usual by having the garments handed to her to dry.
Maria’s mother was a washerwoman who lived outside Coleby on the common, and gained her income by acting as laundress generally for all who would intrust her with their family linen; but she called herself in yellow letters on a brilliant scarlet ground a “clear starcher.”
During Maria’s early life at home she had had much experience in the ways of washing. She knew the smell of boiled soap. She had often watched the steam rising from the copper, and played among the clouds, and she well knew that the quickest way to dry anything that has been soaked is to give it a good wringing.
She had therefore given Dexter’s new suit a good wringing, and wrung out of it a vast quantity of sticky dye which stained her hands. Then she had—grumbling bitterly all the time—given the jacket, vest, and trousers a good shake, and hung them over a clothes-horse as near to the fire as she could get them without singeing.
Mrs Millett told her to be sure and get them nice and dry, and Maria did get them “nice and dry.”
And now Dexter had put them on and presented himself before Helen, suggesting that he looked a guy.
Certainly his appearance was suggestive of the stuffed effigy borne about on the fifth of November, for the garments were shrunken so that his arms and legs showed to a terrible extent, and Maria’s wringing had given them curves and hollows never intended by the cutter, the worst one being in the form of a hump between the wearer’s shoulders.
“The things are completely spoiled. You foolish boy to put them on.”
“Then I can’t go to that other house.”
“Nonsense! You have the new clothes that came from the tailor’s—those for which you were measured.”
“Yes,” said Dexter reluctantly; “but it’s a pity to put on them. I may get ’em spoiled.”
“Then you do not want to go, Dexter,” said Helen, smiling.
“No,” he cried eagerly. “Ask him to let me stop here.”
“No, no,” said Helen kindly. “Papa wishes you to go there; it is very kind of the Danbys to ask you, and I hope you will go, and behave very nicely, and make great friends with Edgar Danby.”
“How?” said Dexter laconically.
“Well, as boys generally do. You must talk to him.”
“What about?”
“Anything. Then you must play with him.”
“What at?”
“Oh, he’ll be sure to suggest something to play at.”
“I don’t think he will,” said Dexter thoughtfully. “He don’t look the sort of chap to.”
“Don’t say chap, Dexter; say boy.”
“Sort of boy to play any games. He’s what we used to call a soft Tommy sort of a chap—boy.”
“Oh no, no, no! I don’t suppose he will be rough, and care for boisterous sports; but he may prove to be a very pleasant companion for you.”
Dexter shook his head.
“I don’t think he’ll like me.”
“Nonsense! How can you tell that? Then they have a beautiful garden.”
“Can’t be such a nice one as this,” said Dexter.
“Oh yes, it is; and it runs down to the river as this one does, and Sir James has a very nice boat.”
“Boat!” cried Dexter, pricking up his ears. “And may you go in it!”
“Not by yourselves, I suppose. There, I’m sure you will enjoy your visit.”
Dexter shook his head again.
“I say, you’ll come too, won’t you?” he cried eagerly.
“No, Dexter; not this time.”
The boy’s forehead grew wrinkled all over.
“Come, you are pretending that you do not want to go.”
“I don’t,” said the boy, hanging his head. “I want to stay here along with you.”
“Perhaps I should like you to stay, Dexter,” said Helen; “but I wish you to go and behave nicely, and you can tell me all about it when you come back.”
“And how soon may I come back?”
“I don’t suppose till the evening, but we shall see. Now, go and change those things directly. What would papa say if he saw you?”
Dexter went slowly up to his room, and came down soon after to look for Helen.
He found her busy writing letters, so he went off on tiptoe to the study, where the doctor was deep in his book, writing with a very severe frown on his brow.
“Ah, Dexter,” he said, looking up and running his eye critically over the boy, the result being very satisfactory. “Let’s see, you are to be at Sir James’s by half-past twelve. Now only ten. Go and amuse yourself in the garden, and don’t get into mischief.”
Dexter went back into the hall, obtained his cap, and went out through the glass door into the verandah, where the great wisteria hung a valance of lavender blossoms all along the edge.
“He always says don’t get into mischief,” thought the boy. “I don’t want to get into mischief, I’m sure.”
Half-way across the lawn he was startled by the sudden appearance of Dan’l, who started out upon him from behind a great evergreen shrub.
“What are you a-doing of now?” snarled Dan’l.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” said Dexter, staring.
“Then you were going to do something,” cried the old man sharply. “Look here, young man; if you get meddling with anything in my garden there’s going to be trouble, so mind that. I know what boys is, so none of your nonsense here.”
He went off grumbling to another part of the garden, and Dexter felt disposed to go back indoors.
“He’s watching me all the time,” he thought to himself; “just as if I was going to steal something. He don’t like me.”
Dexter strolled on, and heard directly a regular rustling noise, which he recognised at once as the sound made by a broom sweeping grass, and sure enough, just inside the great laurel hedge, where a little green lawn was cut off from the rest of the garden, there was Peter Cribb, at his usual pursuit, sweeping all the sweet-scented cuttings of the grass.
Peter was a sweeper who was always on the look-out for an excuse. He was, so to speak, chained to that broom so many hours a day, and if he had been a galley slave, and the broom an oar, it is morally certain that he would have been beaten with many stripes, for he would have left off rowing whenever he could.
“Well, squire,” he said, laying his hands one over the other on the top of the broom-handle.
“Well, Peter. How’s the horse?”
“Grinding his corn, and enjoying himself,” said Peter. “He’s like you: a lucky one—plenty to eat and nothing to do.”
“Don’t you take him out for exercise?” said Dexter.
“Course I do. So do you go out for exercise.”
“Think I could ride?” said Dexter.
“Dersay you could, if you could hold on.”
“I should like to try.”
“Go along with you!”
“But I should. Will you let me try!”
Peter shook his head, and began to examine his half-worn broom.
“I could hold on. Let me go with you next time!”
“Oh, but I go at ha’-past six, hours before you’re awake. Young gents don’t get up till eight.”
“Why, I always wake at a quarter to six,” said Dexter. “It seems the proper time to get up. I say, let me go with you.”
“Here, I say, you, Peter,” shouted Dan’l; “are you a-going to sweep that bit o’ lawn, or am I to come and do it myself. Gawsiping about!”
“Hear that?” said Peter, beginning to make his broom swing round again. “There, you’d better be off, or you’ll get me in a row.”
Dexter sighed, for he seemed to be always the cause of trouble.
“I say,” said Peter, as the boy was moving off; “going fishing again?”
“No; not now.”
“You knows the way to fish, don’t you? Goes in after them.”
Dexter laughed, and went on down to the river, examined the place where the branch had broken off, and then gazed down into the clear water at the gliding fish, which seemed to move here and there with no more effort than a wave of the tail.
His next look was across the river in search of Bob Dimsted; but the shabby-looking boy was not fishing, and nowhere in sight either up or down the stream.
Dexter turned away with another sigh. The garden was very beautiful, but it seemed dull just then. He wanted some one to talk to, and if he went again to Peter, old Dan’l would shout and find fault.
“It don’t matter which way I go,” said Dexter, after a few minutes, during which time he had changed his place in the garden again and again; “that old man is always watching me to see what I am going to do.”
He looked round at the flowers, at the coming fruit, at everything in turn, but the place seemed desolate, and in spite of himself he began thinking of his old companions at the great school, and wondering what they were doing.
Then he recalled that he was to go to Sir James Danby’s soon, and he began to think of Edgar.
“I shan’t like that chap,” he said to himself. “I wonder whether he’ll like me.”
He was standing thinking deeply and gazing straight before him at the high red brick wall when he suddenly started, for there was a heavy step on the gravel.
Dan’l had come along the grass edge till he was close to the boy, and then stepped off heavily on to the path.
“They aren’t ripe yet,” he said with an unpleasant leer; “and you’d best let them alone.”
Dexter walked quickly away, with his face scarlet, and a bitter feeling of annoyance which he could not master.
For the next quarter of an hour he was continually changing his position in the garden, but always to wake up to the fact that the old gardener was carrying out a purpose which he had confided to Peter.
This the boy soon learned, for after a time he suddenly encountered the groom, still busy with the broom.
“Why, hullo, youngster!” he said; “what’s the matter!”
“Nothing,” said Dexter, with his face growing a deeper scarlet.
“Oh yes, there is; I can see,” cried Peter.
“Well, he’s always watching me, and pretending that I’m getting into mischief, or trying to pick the fruit.”
“Hah!” said Peter, with a laugh; “he told me he meant to keep his eye on you.”
Just then there was a call for Dan’l from the direction of the house, and Mrs Millett was seen beyond a laurel hedge.
Directly after the old man went up to the house, and it seemed to Dexter as if a cloud had passed from across the sun. The garden appeared to have grown suddenly brighter, and the boy began to whistle as he went about in an aimless way, looking here and there for something to take his attention.
He was not long in finding it, for just at the back of the dense yew hedge there were half a dozen old-fashioned round-topped hives, whose occupants were busy going to and fro, save that at the hive nearest the cross-path a heavy cluster, betokening a late swarm, was hanging outside, looking like a double handful of bees.
Dexter knew a rhyme beginning—
“How doth the little busy bee—”
“How doth the little busy bee—”
and he knew that bees made honey; but that was all he did know about their habits, save that they lived in hives; and he stood and stared at the cluster hanging outside.
“Why, they can’t get in,” he said to himself. “Hole’s stopped up.”
He stood still for a few minutes, and then, as he looked round, he caught sight of some bean-sticks—tall thin pieces of oak sapling, and drawing one of these out of the ground he rubbed the mould off the pointed end, and, as soon as it was clean, took hold of it, and returned to the hive, where he watched the clustering bees for a few minutes, and then, reaching over, he inserted the thin end of the long stick just by the opening to the hive, thrust it forward, and gave it a good rake to right and left.
There was a tremendous buzz and a rush, and the next moment Dexter, stick in hand, was running down the path toward the river, pursued by quite a cloud of angry bees.
Dexter ran fast, of course, and as it happened, right down one of the most shady paths, beneath the densely growing apple-trees, where the bees could not fly, so that by the time he reached the river-side he was clear of his pursuers, but tingling from a sting on the wrist, and from two more on the neck, one being among the hair at the back, and the other right down in his collar.
“Well, that’s nice,” he said, as he rubbed himself, and began mentally to try and do a sum in the Rule of Three—if three stings make so much pain, how much pain would be caused by the stings of a whole hiveful of bees?
“Bother the nasty vicious little things!” he cried, as he had another rub, and he threw the bean-stick angrily away.
“Don’t hurt so much now,” he said, after a few minutes’ stamping about. Then his face broke up into a merry smile. “How they did make me run!”
Just then there was a shout—a yell, and a loud call for help.
Dexter forgot his own pain, and, alarmed by the cries, ran as hard as he could back again towards the spot from whence the sounds came, and to his horror found that Old Dan’l was running here and there, waving his arms, while Peter had come to his help, and was whisking his broom about in all directions.
For a few moments Dexter could not comprehend what was wrong, then, like a flash, he understood that the bees had attacked the old gardener, and that it was due to his having irritated them with the stick.
Dexter knew how a wasp’s nest had been taken in the fields by the boys one day, and without a moment’s hesitation he ran to the nearest shrub, tore off a good-sized bough, and joined in the task of beating down the bees.
It is pretty sport to fight either bees or wasps in this way, but it requires a great deal of courage, especially as the insects are sure to get the best of it, as they did in this case, putting their enemies to flight, their place of refuge being the tool-house, into whose dark recesses the bees did not attempt to come.
“Much stung, Dan’l!” said Peter.
“Much stung, indeed! I should think I am. Offle!”
“You got it much, youngster?” said Peter.
“I’ve got three stings,” replied Dexter, who had escaped without further harm.
“And I’ve got five, I think,” said Peter. “What was you doing to ’em, Dan’l!”
“Doin’ to ’em!” growled Dan’l, who was stamping about and rubbing himself, and looking exceedingly like the bear in the old fable. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ to ’em. One o’ the hives have been threatenin’ to swarm again, and I was just goin’ by, when they come at me like a swarm o’ savidges, just as if some one had been teasing them.” Dexter was rubbing the back of his neck, and feeling horribly guilty, as he asked himself whether he had not better own to having disturbed the hive; but there was something so unpleasantly repellent about the old gardener, and he was looking so suspiciously from one to the other, that the boy felt as if he could not speak to him.
If it had been Peter, who, with all his roughness, seemed to be tolerant of his presence, he would have spoken out at once; but he could not to Dan’l, and he remained silent.
“They stings pretty sharp,” said Peter, laughing. “Blue-bag’s best thing. I shall go up and get Maria to touch mine up. Coming?”
“Nay, I’m not coming,” growled Dan’l. “I can bear a sting or two of a bee without getting myself painted up with blue-bags. Dock leaves is good enough for me.”
“And there aren’t a dock left in the garden,” said Peter. “You found fault with me for not pulling the last up.”
So Peter went up to the house to be blue-bagged, Dan’l remained like a bear in his den, growling to himself, and Dexter, whose stings still throbbed, went off across the lawn to walk off the pain, till it was time to go to Sir James’s.
“Who’d have thought that the little things could hurt so much!”
Then the pain began to diminish till it was only a tingle, and the spots where the stings went in were round and hard, and now it was that Dexter’s conscience began to prick him as sharply as the bees’ stings, and he walked about the garden trying to make up his mind as to whether he should go and confess to Dan’l that he stirred the bees up with a long stick.
But as soon as he felt that he would do this, something struck him that Dan’l would be sure to think he had done it all out of mischief, and he knew that he could not tell him.
“Nobody will know,” he said to himself; “and I won’t tell. I didn’t mean to do any harm.”
“Dexter! Dexter!”
He looked in the direction from whence the sounds came, and could see Helen waving her handkerchief, as a signal for him to come in.
“Time to go,” he said to himself as he set off to her. “Nobody will know, so I shan’t tell him.”
And then he turned cold.
Only a few moments before he had left Dan’l growling in his den, and now here he was down the garden, stooping and picking up something.
For a few moments Dexter could not see what the something was, for the trees between them hindered the view, but directly after he made out that Dan’l had picked up a long stick, which had been thrown among the little apple-trees, and was carefully examining it.
The colour came into Dexter’s cheeks as he wondered whether Dan’l would know where that stick came from.
The colour would have been deeper still had he known that Dan’l had a splendid memory, and knew exactly where every stick or plant should be. In fact, Dan’l recognised that stick as having been taken from the end of the scarlet-runner row.
“A young sperrit o’ mischief! that’s what he is,” muttered the old man, giving a writhe as he felt the stinging of the bees. “Now what’s he been up to with that there stick? making a fishing-rod of it, I s’pose, and tearing my rows o’ beans to pieces. I tell him what it is—”
Dan’l stopped short, and stared at the end of the stick—the thin end, where there was something peculiar, betraying what had been done with it.
It was a sight which made him tighten his lips up into a thin red line, and screw up his eyes till they could be hardly seen, for upon the end of that stick were the mortal remains of two crushed bees.