Chapter Nineteen.William Revitts On Lessons.Sometime passed before William Revitts replied in full to my question. He had, of course, asked me what I meant, and I had explained to him the treatment I had received, but his duties and mine kept us a great deal apart. One night, however, when he had returned to day-duty, he was seated in his shirt-sleeves talking to me, and said all of a sudden: “Yes, I could teach you how to fight, Antony.”“And will you?” I said eagerly.“Give me my ’bacco and pipe off the chimney-piece.”I handed them to him, and waited patiently while he filled and lighted his pipe, and then all at once, along with a puff of smoke, he exclaimed:“No, I sha’n’t. Fighting’s all blackguardism, as I know as well as most men. I’ve had the taking up of some of the beauties as go in for it, and beauties they are. I don’t say as if I was you I wouldn’t give that Master Jem Smith an awful crack for himself if he meddled with me again; but I should do it when I was in a passion, and when he’d hurt me. You’ll hit as hard again then, and serve him right. Now let’s have a turn at spelling.”We did “have a turn at spelling,” and I dictated while Revitts wrote, varying the task with bits of advice to me—absurd enough, some of them, while others were as shrewd and full of common-sense.By that time I had rapidly begun to fish up odds and ends of experience, such as stood me in good stead, and, in spite of what was really little better than contemptible persecution on the overseer’s part, I was making some little way at the printing-office.I shall not soon forget the feeling of pride with which on the first Friday night I heard my name called out by a business-like clerk with a book, after he had summoned everyone in the room, and received from him a little paper-bag containing my wages.“You haven’t been full time, Grace,” he said, entering the sum paid in a book; “but the firm said I was to pay you for the week, as you were a beginner.”As soon as I thought I was unobserved, I counted out seven shillings, a sum that showed that I was a little favoured, for honestly I believe that I was not worth that amount to my employers.Hardly had I made sure of my good fortune than I had a visit from Jem Smith, who came up grinning.“Now, then,” he said, “old Grim’s gone for the night, and you’ve got to come down and pay your footing.”I stared at him in my ignorance, but, fully under the impression that something unpleasant was meant, I resolutely determined to stay where I was, and I was saved from further persecution by Mr Hallett coming up, which was the signal for Jem Smith to sneak off. I asked Hallett what was meant, and he explained to me that it was a custom for working men on entering a new place to pay for some beer for their fellow-workmen.“But don’t you pay a penny to the young wolves,” he said, and I determined that I would not.I was well on in the second week, and during the intervening days I had been set to every dirty and objectionable task Mr Grimstone could invent for me, but I did them patiently and well. I had seen nothing of my employers, and but little of Mr Hallett, who seemed too busy to take much notice of me; but he somehow had a knack of turning up in emergencies, just when I required help and counsel, showing that he kept an eye upon me for my good.I noticed as I sat beneath a frame eating my dinner in the composing-room that he always employed a good deal of his time in drawing or calculating, and I found, too, that he was no great favourite with his fellow-workmen, who nicknamed him the steam-engine, because he worked so rapidly and did so much. It was very plain, too, that the overseer hated him, giving him the most difficult and unpleasant tasks, but they were always willingly done by Mr Hallett, who was too good a workman to be spared.I had just completed the washing of some very dirty type one day, and, according to orders, made my way up to Mr Grimstone’s glass case, very dirty and grubby-looking, no doubt, when I stared with surprise on seeing there before me a little cleanly-shaven man who, except in clothes, was the exact counterpart of Mr Rowle.Somehow or other I had been so occupied, and my mind so intent upon the task given me, that I had thought no more about asking to see him; and now, here he was, Mr Rowle’s twin brother, in angry altercation with the overseer, while Jem Smith stood in the door. The latter had been let off a good many dirty, tasks of late, and I had succeeded to them, but the promotion he had received did not seem to have been attended with success.“Now look hero, Grimstone,” the little man was saying, “you needn’t bark at me, for I don’t care a pinch of snuff for all your snarls. I asked you to send me up the best boy you had, to read, and you sent me your worst.”“Mr Rowle, it is false, sir.”“And I say it is true, and that you did it all out of your crass obstinacy and determination to be as disagreeable as you can to everybody in the place.”“I sent you up one of my best boys, Mr Rowle.”“And I say you sent me your very worst—as thick-headed, stupid a dunce as ever entered the place. Look here,” he continued, flourishing a sheet of manuscript in one hand, a long slip of printed paper in the other. “He can’t read that plain piece of writing, and as to the print, why, he’s little better.”“No such thing, sir,” said Mr Grimstone, fuming.“Don’t tell me ‘no such thing,’” said the little man fiercely. “Why, the biggest fool in the office would do better. Here, boy,” he cried to me, as I stood there with my hands as black as dirty type could make them; “come here.”I went up to him.“He’s no good,” said Mr Grimstone sharply. “He has only just come.”“Don’t talk to me, sir,” cried Mr Rowle angrily. “You can’t pick out a decent boy, so I must do it myself. Here, boy, read that out aloud.”I took the piece of paper with trembling hands, doubting my own power to read the lines of crabbed writing, and feeling that even if I could read it I should give dire offence to the overseer by so doing; but I could not help myself, and raising the piece of manuscript written closely on a sheet of ruled foolscap, I saw that it was just such a legal document as I had often copied at Mr Blakeford’s. In fact, something of the old feeling of dread that I used to experience when receiving such a paper from him made a huskiness come in my throat, but clearing my voice, I began:“‘And the aforesaid deponent also saith that in such a case it would be necessary for the said lessor, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to make over and deliver, whenever and wheresoever the aforesaid lessee, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns should desire him so to do—”“Stop!” said the little man tightening his lips and taking a pinch of snuff. “You did not read that exactly as it’s written there.”“No, sir,” I said, “‘executors, administrators, and assigns,’ were all contracted.”“There!” he exclaimed, turning to the overseer triumphantly, “What did I say? Here’s the first boy I meet, fresh from the lye-tub, and he reads it straight off without a blunder, and better than you could have read it yourself. Here, boy, read that.”He took a letter from his pocket, written in a terribly puzzling hand, and placed it before me.I took it, hesitated for a moment, and then began:“‘My dear sir,—I have given the most careful consideration to your proposal, and I am quite willing to—to—to—to—’ If you please, sir, I’m very sorry,” I stammered, “but I can’t make out that word.”“No, boy, nor I neither. I don’t believe the writer can. There, go and wash those dirty hands,” he continued, snatching the letter from me.“No: stop!” cried Mr Grimstone wrathfully; “I want that boy here.”“Then you may take your great clever noodle, Jem Smith,” said the little man.“Mr Rowle, I will not have my rules and regulations broken in this way, sir.”“Hang you and your rules,” said the little man. “Have a pinch? No? Then let it alone.”“I cannot and will not spare that boy,” cried Mr Grimstone, motioning away the snuff-box.For answer the little man tightened his lips, snapped-to the lid of his snuff-box, hastily took a pinch, snapped his fingers in the overseer’s face, and taking me by the shoulder, marched me before him towards the door, and past Mr Hallett’s frame.“Here, get your jacket, my lad,” said the little man. “You can wash your hands upstairs.”Mr Hallett nodded to me and looked, as I thought, pleased as I passed him, and preceding my new taskmaster, I went up to the next floor, where he led me to a glass case, exactly like that occupied by Mr Grimstone and the reader in his room, the sides being similarly decorated with slips of paper hanging from nails.He showed me where to wash, and, this done, I was soon by his side, reading steadily on to him various pieces of manuscript, while, spectacles on nose, he pored over and made corrections on the margins of the printed slips of paper that were constantly being brought to him by a youth who printed them from the column galleys at a small hand-press.I got on pretty well, for my home training had made manuscript easy to me. In fact, I had often copied pieces for my father, containing letters from various naturalist friends, while my sojourn at Mr Blakeford’s had made anything of a legal character perfectly clear.That night, when it was time to go, and I had had no greater unpleasantness to contend with than several severe fits of sneezing brought on when the little man used his snuff-box, I timidly asked him if I was wanted the next day, for as yet no opportunity had served for making known my knowledge of his brother.“Wanted!” he cried; “why, I had serious thoughts of locking you up, boy, so as to make sure of you to-morrow. Wanted! Yes: I’ve got you, and I mean to keep you; and if Grimstone says another word—but only let him. Look here: you are very stupid yet, but you’ll soon improve; and mind this, come with clean hands and face to-morrow, and clean apron.”“Yes, sir,” I said, and then I hesitated.“Well, what is it?”“Please, sir, you are Mr Jabez Rowle, are you not?”“Yes, and what then?” he said shortly.“Only, sir, that Mr Peter Rowle, who is a friend of mine, said I might mention his name to you.”“Oh, he did, did he? Well, he need not have taken the trouble. There, be off, and mind you are here in good time.”This was damping, especially as Mr Jabez Rowle took snuff viciously, and stood staring before him, tapping his box, and muttering angrily, in which state I left him, and made the best of my way home.I was in good time next morning, but, all the same, there sat Mr Jabez Rowle in his glass case waiting for me, and as I entered and said “Good-morning, sir,” he just nodded shortly and pointed with the penholder in his hand to a piece of paper.“Go on?” he said; and, taking it up, I began to read.“Not quite so fast, and sayparwhen you come to a fresh paragraph.”I read on, making a good many blunders in my anxiety to be right, but, I presume, getting on very well, for Mr Rowle found but little fault, as he seemed to dart his pen down at every error in the slip proofs before him—turned letters,p’swhereq’sshould be, andb’sford’s;c’swere often in the place ofe’s; and then there were omissions, repetitions, absence of spaces or points, a score of different little omissions on the compositor’s part; and, besides all these, the busy pen made marks and signs that were cabalistic to me.This had gone on about a couple of days, and I was reading away to him what I believed was a prayer in a chancery-bill, when Mr Jabez suddenly laid down his pen, took out his snuff-box, and said, looking me full in the face, “How’s Peter?”“I beg your pardon, sir?”“I say, how’s Peter?”“How’s Peter, sir?”“Don’t pretend to be stupid, boy, when you’re as sharp as a needle,” he cried, tapping the desk angrily with his snuff-box. “Didn’t you say you knew my brother Peter?”“Oh yes, sir! he was very kind to me, but I haven’t seen him for some weeks. He was quite well then.”“Humph! look old?”“He looks very much like you, sir.”“Then he does look old. We’re very fond of one another, boy, but we; always quarrel; so we never meet. ‘And your petitioner furthermore sayeth—’”“I beg your pardon, sir.”“‘And your petitioner furthermore sayeth’—get on, boy: go on.”I dashed at the manuscript again, for he had resumed his work, and read on to the end, for he made no further inquiries about his brother.I soon grew quite accustomed to reading, and found that Mr Jabez Rowle meant what he said about keeping to me, for I was regularly installed as reading-boy, and, as I have said, I was delighted with the change. I often met Jem Smith, and, from his looks, it was evident that he bore me no good will, and, to be frank, I felt rather revengeful for his treatment. One day, during the dinner hour, I went down into the lower part before the men came back, and, after getting some slips which Mr Rowle had told me to have ready for him, my enemy pounced upon me, coming in at the door just as I was about to leave.“Now I’ve got yer, then,” he cried, with a malicious grin, and, rushing at me, I had only time to evade the first onslaught by running round the frames, when a hot chase ensued, ending in my being brought to bay, and receiving blow after blow from my stronger antagonist.I did all I could to defend myself, till, closing with me, he held me tight with one arm, and struck me so cruelly in the face, that it roused me to greater efforts, and, after a short wrestle, I was free.It was but a moment’s respite before he dashed at me again, and, in my rage and desperation, I struck out at him so fiercely that my fist caught him full between the eyes, making him stagger and catch at the first object he could to save himself, and the result was that he pulled over a full case of small type. There was a crash, I uttered a cry, and some twenty pounds of type were scattered in confusion all over the floor.Before I had recovered from my horror, the door was thrown open, and Mr Grimstone came hurrying in.“What’s this—what’s this?” he cried.“Please, sir, Grace was playing larks with one of the cases, and he let it fall.”“Then Mr Grace shall soon find out what it is to destroy the property of the firm in this wanton way,” he cried.“Indeed, sir—” I began.“Not a word, sir—not a word!” he cried. “Smith, go about your work. You, Grace, pick up every bit of that pie at once.”“But please, sir, I did not knock it down, and Mr Rowle is waiting for me.”“Pick it up, sir.”“But Mr Rowle—”“Pick it up, sir.”I was so hot and excited that I was about to declare angrily that I would not, when I caught Mr Hallett’s eyes gazing fixedly at me, and without a word, but feeling half-choked with anger and indignation, I fetched a galley and began to pick up the fallen type.I had not been engaged in my uncongenial task many minutes before Mr Jabez Rowle came down to see where I was, and I noticed that there was quite a triumphant look in Mr Grimstone’s eyes as he said I must stay and pick up all the type, the matter being compromised on the understanding that as soon as the metal was picked up I was to resume my reading upstairs, and, by Mr Grimstone’s orders, stay in every dinner-time and get to the office an hour sooner every morning till I had set up and distributed the whole of the pie.How I dwelt on the injustice of that task! It was one which seemed to give Mr Grimstone great satisfaction, for it took my inexperienced fingers many weeks, and I had to toil very hard. But all the same, it was no waste of time, for it gave me dexterity in handling type such as I should not otherwise have had.I had suffered a great deal from anxiety lest some morning Mr Blakeford should step into the office and claim me; for, unpleasant as were my dealings with Mr Grimstone, Jem Smith, and through the latter with several of the other boys, I thoroughly enjoyed my present existence. Revitts was very kind, and, in spite of his sharp abruptness, I did not dislike quaint old Mr Jabez Rowle, who seemed never to be happy unless he was correcting proofs.My dread arose from the thought that Revitts might in some communication to Mary be the cause of her naming my whereabouts to the lawyer. Then I was afraid that Mr Ruddle might write down and make inquiries. Lastly, that Mr Jabez Rowle might mention me in writing to his brother. But I grew more reassured as it became evident that Mr Ruddle had not written, while Mr Jabez Rowle said one day, just in the middle of some corrections:“Ah, I’m very fond of Peter, so I never write to him.”Then, too, I found that Mr Revitts never wrote to Mary without, in a half-bashful way, showing me the letter.“Lookye here,” he would say, “we said we’d help one another, lad. Some o’ these days you’ll want to write such a letter as this here, and so you may as well see how it’s done. Then you can just shove your pen through where the spellin’ ain’t quite square, and I’ll write it out again. I don’t know as it’s quite right to let her get thinking as I’m such a tip-topper at spellin’, but she came the same game with me over the writing, making me think as she’d improved wonderful, when it was you; so it’s six o’ one and half-a-dozen o’ t’other. What do you say?”“I don’t think Mary meant to deceive you, Bill,” I said. “Poor girl, she had to work very hard, and her hands were not used to holding a pen. I don’t suppose she ever thought of saying who wrote for her. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in trying to improve your spelling.”“No, there ain’t, is there, lad?”“Nothing at all. Mr Hallett says we go on learning all our lives.”“Hah! I suppose we do. What would you do then?”“I should tell Mary I helped you.”“So I will—so I will,” he said, in his quiet simple way; for as sure as the subjectMarywas in question, all William Revitts’ sharp police-constable ways dropped off, and he was as simple and smiling as a child.“Give my love to her, Bill,” I said.He looked heavily and steadily at me for a few moments, and then in a very stupid way he began:“I say, youngster, do you think Mary is fond of you?”“I’m sure she is—very,” I said.He fidgeted in his chair, and then continued:“And you like her?”“Very, very, very much. She was horribly cross at first, but towards the last nobody could have been kinder.”“I say, how old are you?”“Between thirteen and fourteen,” I said.“Ah, to be sure; of course, lad, so you are,” he said, brightening up and shaking hands. “Yes, I’ll give your love to her. I say, boy, it won’t be long first,” he continued, rubbing his hands.“Won’t it?” I said, easily divining what he meant.“No, not long now, for we’ve been engaged a precious long while.”
Sometime passed before William Revitts replied in full to my question. He had, of course, asked me what I meant, and I had explained to him the treatment I had received, but his duties and mine kept us a great deal apart. One night, however, when he had returned to day-duty, he was seated in his shirt-sleeves talking to me, and said all of a sudden: “Yes, I could teach you how to fight, Antony.”
“And will you?” I said eagerly.
“Give me my ’bacco and pipe off the chimney-piece.”
I handed them to him, and waited patiently while he filled and lighted his pipe, and then all at once, along with a puff of smoke, he exclaimed:
“No, I sha’n’t. Fighting’s all blackguardism, as I know as well as most men. I’ve had the taking up of some of the beauties as go in for it, and beauties they are. I don’t say as if I was you I wouldn’t give that Master Jem Smith an awful crack for himself if he meddled with me again; but I should do it when I was in a passion, and when he’d hurt me. You’ll hit as hard again then, and serve him right. Now let’s have a turn at spelling.”
We did “have a turn at spelling,” and I dictated while Revitts wrote, varying the task with bits of advice to me—absurd enough, some of them, while others were as shrewd and full of common-sense.
By that time I had rapidly begun to fish up odds and ends of experience, such as stood me in good stead, and, in spite of what was really little better than contemptible persecution on the overseer’s part, I was making some little way at the printing-office.
I shall not soon forget the feeling of pride with which on the first Friday night I heard my name called out by a business-like clerk with a book, after he had summoned everyone in the room, and received from him a little paper-bag containing my wages.
“You haven’t been full time, Grace,” he said, entering the sum paid in a book; “but the firm said I was to pay you for the week, as you were a beginner.”
As soon as I thought I was unobserved, I counted out seven shillings, a sum that showed that I was a little favoured, for honestly I believe that I was not worth that amount to my employers.
Hardly had I made sure of my good fortune than I had a visit from Jem Smith, who came up grinning.
“Now, then,” he said, “old Grim’s gone for the night, and you’ve got to come down and pay your footing.”
I stared at him in my ignorance, but, fully under the impression that something unpleasant was meant, I resolutely determined to stay where I was, and I was saved from further persecution by Mr Hallett coming up, which was the signal for Jem Smith to sneak off. I asked Hallett what was meant, and he explained to me that it was a custom for working men on entering a new place to pay for some beer for their fellow-workmen.
“But don’t you pay a penny to the young wolves,” he said, and I determined that I would not.
I was well on in the second week, and during the intervening days I had been set to every dirty and objectionable task Mr Grimstone could invent for me, but I did them patiently and well. I had seen nothing of my employers, and but little of Mr Hallett, who seemed too busy to take much notice of me; but he somehow had a knack of turning up in emergencies, just when I required help and counsel, showing that he kept an eye upon me for my good.
I noticed as I sat beneath a frame eating my dinner in the composing-room that he always employed a good deal of his time in drawing or calculating, and I found, too, that he was no great favourite with his fellow-workmen, who nicknamed him the steam-engine, because he worked so rapidly and did so much. It was very plain, too, that the overseer hated him, giving him the most difficult and unpleasant tasks, but they were always willingly done by Mr Hallett, who was too good a workman to be spared.
I had just completed the washing of some very dirty type one day, and, according to orders, made my way up to Mr Grimstone’s glass case, very dirty and grubby-looking, no doubt, when I stared with surprise on seeing there before me a little cleanly-shaven man who, except in clothes, was the exact counterpart of Mr Rowle.
Somehow or other I had been so occupied, and my mind so intent upon the task given me, that I had thought no more about asking to see him; and now, here he was, Mr Rowle’s twin brother, in angry altercation with the overseer, while Jem Smith stood in the door. The latter had been let off a good many dirty, tasks of late, and I had succeeded to them, but the promotion he had received did not seem to have been attended with success.
“Now look hero, Grimstone,” the little man was saying, “you needn’t bark at me, for I don’t care a pinch of snuff for all your snarls. I asked you to send me up the best boy you had, to read, and you sent me your worst.”
“Mr Rowle, it is false, sir.”
“And I say it is true, and that you did it all out of your crass obstinacy and determination to be as disagreeable as you can to everybody in the place.”
“I sent you up one of my best boys, Mr Rowle.”
“And I say you sent me your very worst—as thick-headed, stupid a dunce as ever entered the place. Look here,” he continued, flourishing a sheet of manuscript in one hand, a long slip of printed paper in the other. “He can’t read that plain piece of writing, and as to the print, why, he’s little better.”
“No such thing, sir,” said Mr Grimstone, fuming.
“Don’t tell me ‘no such thing,’” said the little man fiercely. “Why, the biggest fool in the office would do better. Here, boy,” he cried to me, as I stood there with my hands as black as dirty type could make them; “come here.”
I went up to him.
“He’s no good,” said Mr Grimstone sharply. “He has only just come.”
“Don’t talk to me, sir,” cried Mr Rowle angrily. “You can’t pick out a decent boy, so I must do it myself. Here, boy, read that out aloud.”
I took the piece of paper with trembling hands, doubting my own power to read the lines of crabbed writing, and feeling that even if I could read it I should give dire offence to the overseer by so doing; but I could not help myself, and raising the piece of manuscript written closely on a sheet of ruled foolscap, I saw that it was just such a legal document as I had often copied at Mr Blakeford’s. In fact, something of the old feeling of dread that I used to experience when receiving such a paper from him made a huskiness come in my throat, but clearing my voice, I began:
“‘And the aforesaid deponent also saith that in such a case it would be necessary for the said lessor, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to make over and deliver, whenever and wheresoever the aforesaid lessee, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns should desire him so to do—”
“Stop!” said the little man tightening his lips and taking a pinch of snuff. “You did not read that exactly as it’s written there.”
“No, sir,” I said, “‘executors, administrators, and assigns,’ were all contracted.”
“There!” he exclaimed, turning to the overseer triumphantly, “What did I say? Here’s the first boy I meet, fresh from the lye-tub, and he reads it straight off without a blunder, and better than you could have read it yourself. Here, boy, read that.”
He took a letter from his pocket, written in a terribly puzzling hand, and placed it before me.
I took it, hesitated for a moment, and then began:
“‘My dear sir,—I have given the most careful consideration to your proposal, and I am quite willing to—to—to—to—’ If you please, sir, I’m very sorry,” I stammered, “but I can’t make out that word.”
“No, boy, nor I neither. I don’t believe the writer can. There, go and wash those dirty hands,” he continued, snatching the letter from me.
“No: stop!” cried Mr Grimstone wrathfully; “I want that boy here.”
“Then you may take your great clever noodle, Jem Smith,” said the little man.
“Mr Rowle, I will not have my rules and regulations broken in this way, sir.”
“Hang you and your rules,” said the little man. “Have a pinch? No? Then let it alone.”
“I cannot and will not spare that boy,” cried Mr Grimstone, motioning away the snuff-box.
For answer the little man tightened his lips, snapped-to the lid of his snuff-box, hastily took a pinch, snapped his fingers in the overseer’s face, and taking me by the shoulder, marched me before him towards the door, and past Mr Hallett’s frame.
“Here, get your jacket, my lad,” said the little man. “You can wash your hands upstairs.”
Mr Hallett nodded to me and looked, as I thought, pleased as I passed him, and preceding my new taskmaster, I went up to the next floor, where he led me to a glass case, exactly like that occupied by Mr Grimstone and the reader in his room, the sides being similarly decorated with slips of paper hanging from nails.
He showed me where to wash, and, this done, I was soon by his side, reading steadily on to him various pieces of manuscript, while, spectacles on nose, he pored over and made corrections on the margins of the printed slips of paper that were constantly being brought to him by a youth who printed them from the column galleys at a small hand-press.
I got on pretty well, for my home training had made manuscript easy to me. In fact, I had often copied pieces for my father, containing letters from various naturalist friends, while my sojourn at Mr Blakeford’s had made anything of a legal character perfectly clear.
That night, when it was time to go, and I had had no greater unpleasantness to contend with than several severe fits of sneezing brought on when the little man used his snuff-box, I timidly asked him if I was wanted the next day, for as yet no opportunity had served for making known my knowledge of his brother.
“Wanted!” he cried; “why, I had serious thoughts of locking you up, boy, so as to make sure of you to-morrow. Wanted! Yes: I’ve got you, and I mean to keep you; and if Grimstone says another word—but only let him. Look here: you are very stupid yet, but you’ll soon improve; and mind this, come with clean hands and face to-morrow, and clean apron.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and then I hesitated.
“Well, what is it?”
“Please, sir, you are Mr Jabez Rowle, are you not?”
“Yes, and what then?” he said shortly.
“Only, sir, that Mr Peter Rowle, who is a friend of mine, said I might mention his name to you.”
“Oh, he did, did he? Well, he need not have taken the trouble. There, be off, and mind you are here in good time.”
This was damping, especially as Mr Jabez Rowle took snuff viciously, and stood staring before him, tapping his box, and muttering angrily, in which state I left him, and made the best of my way home.
I was in good time next morning, but, all the same, there sat Mr Jabez Rowle in his glass case waiting for me, and as I entered and said “Good-morning, sir,” he just nodded shortly and pointed with the penholder in his hand to a piece of paper.
“Go on?” he said; and, taking it up, I began to read.
“Not quite so fast, and sayparwhen you come to a fresh paragraph.”
I read on, making a good many blunders in my anxiety to be right, but, I presume, getting on very well, for Mr Rowle found but little fault, as he seemed to dart his pen down at every error in the slip proofs before him—turned letters,p’swhereq’sshould be, andb’sford’s;c’swere often in the place ofe’s; and then there were omissions, repetitions, absence of spaces or points, a score of different little omissions on the compositor’s part; and, besides all these, the busy pen made marks and signs that were cabalistic to me.
This had gone on about a couple of days, and I was reading away to him what I believed was a prayer in a chancery-bill, when Mr Jabez suddenly laid down his pen, took out his snuff-box, and said, looking me full in the face, “How’s Peter?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I say, how’s Peter?”
“How’s Peter, sir?”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid, boy, when you’re as sharp as a needle,” he cried, tapping the desk angrily with his snuff-box. “Didn’t you say you knew my brother Peter?”
“Oh yes, sir! he was very kind to me, but I haven’t seen him for some weeks. He was quite well then.”
“Humph! look old?”
“He looks very much like you, sir.”
“Then he does look old. We’re very fond of one another, boy, but we; always quarrel; so we never meet. ‘And your petitioner furthermore sayeth—’”
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“‘And your petitioner furthermore sayeth’—get on, boy: go on.”
I dashed at the manuscript again, for he had resumed his work, and read on to the end, for he made no further inquiries about his brother.
I soon grew quite accustomed to reading, and found that Mr Jabez Rowle meant what he said about keeping to me, for I was regularly installed as reading-boy, and, as I have said, I was delighted with the change. I often met Jem Smith, and, from his looks, it was evident that he bore me no good will, and, to be frank, I felt rather revengeful for his treatment. One day, during the dinner hour, I went down into the lower part before the men came back, and, after getting some slips which Mr Rowle had told me to have ready for him, my enemy pounced upon me, coming in at the door just as I was about to leave.
“Now I’ve got yer, then,” he cried, with a malicious grin, and, rushing at me, I had only time to evade the first onslaught by running round the frames, when a hot chase ensued, ending in my being brought to bay, and receiving blow after blow from my stronger antagonist.
I did all I could to defend myself, till, closing with me, he held me tight with one arm, and struck me so cruelly in the face, that it roused me to greater efforts, and, after a short wrestle, I was free.
It was but a moment’s respite before he dashed at me again, and, in my rage and desperation, I struck out at him so fiercely that my fist caught him full between the eyes, making him stagger and catch at the first object he could to save himself, and the result was that he pulled over a full case of small type. There was a crash, I uttered a cry, and some twenty pounds of type were scattered in confusion all over the floor.
Before I had recovered from my horror, the door was thrown open, and Mr Grimstone came hurrying in.
“What’s this—what’s this?” he cried.
“Please, sir, Grace was playing larks with one of the cases, and he let it fall.”
“Then Mr Grace shall soon find out what it is to destroy the property of the firm in this wanton way,” he cried.
“Indeed, sir—” I began.
“Not a word, sir—not a word!” he cried. “Smith, go about your work. You, Grace, pick up every bit of that pie at once.”
“But please, sir, I did not knock it down, and Mr Rowle is waiting for me.”
“Pick it up, sir.”
“But Mr Rowle—”
“Pick it up, sir.”
I was so hot and excited that I was about to declare angrily that I would not, when I caught Mr Hallett’s eyes gazing fixedly at me, and without a word, but feeling half-choked with anger and indignation, I fetched a galley and began to pick up the fallen type.
I had not been engaged in my uncongenial task many minutes before Mr Jabez Rowle came down to see where I was, and I noticed that there was quite a triumphant look in Mr Grimstone’s eyes as he said I must stay and pick up all the type, the matter being compromised on the understanding that as soon as the metal was picked up I was to resume my reading upstairs, and, by Mr Grimstone’s orders, stay in every dinner-time and get to the office an hour sooner every morning till I had set up and distributed the whole of the pie.
How I dwelt on the injustice of that task! It was one which seemed to give Mr Grimstone great satisfaction, for it took my inexperienced fingers many weeks, and I had to toil very hard. But all the same, it was no waste of time, for it gave me dexterity in handling type such as I should not otherwise have had.
I had suffered a great deal from anxiety lest some morning Mr Blakeford should step into the office and claim me; for, unpleasant as were my dealings with Mr Grimstone, Jem Smith, and through the latter with several of the other boys, I thoroughly enjoyed my present existence. Revitts was very kind, and, in spite of his sharp abruptness, I did not dislike quaint old Mr Jabez Rowle, who seemed never to be happy unless he was correcting proofs.
My dread arose from the thought that Revitts might in some communication to Mary be the cause of her naming my whereabouts to the lawyer. Then I was afraid that Mr Ruddle might write down and make inquiries. Lastly, that Mr Jabez Rowle might mention me in writing to his brother. But I grew more reassured as it became evident that Mr Ruddle had not written, while Mr Jabez Rowle said one day, just in the middle of some corrections:
“Ah, I’m very fond of Peter, so I never write to him.”
Then, too, I found that Mr Revitts never wrote to Mary without, in a half-bashful way, showing me the letter.
“Lookye here,” he would say, “we said we’d help one another, lad. Some o’ these days you’ll want to write such a letter as this here, and so you may as well see how it’s done. Then you can just shove your pen through where the spellin’ ain’t quite square, and I’ll write it out again. I don’t know as it’s quite right to let her get thinking as I’m such a tip-topper at spellin’, but she came the same game with me over the writing, making me think as she’d improved wonderful, when it was you; so it’s six o’ one and half-a-dozen o’ t’other. What do you say?”
“I don’t think Mary meant to deceive you, Bill,” I said. “Poor girl, she had to work very hard, and her hands were not used to holding a pen. I don’t suppose she ever thought of saying who wrote for her. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in trying to improve your spelling.”
“No, there ain’t, is there, lad?”
“Nothing at all. Mr Hallett says we go on learning all our lives.”
“Hah! I suppose we do. What would you do then?”
“I should tell Mary I helped you.”
“So I will—so I will,” he said, in his quiet simple way; for as sure as the subjectMarywas in question, all William Revitts’ sharp police-constable ways dropped off, and he was as simple and smiling as a child.
“Give my love to her, Bill,” I said.
He looked heavily and steadily at me for a few moments, and then in a very stupid way he began:
“I say, youngster, do you think Mary is fond of you?”
“I’m sure she is—very,” I said.
He fidgeted in his chair, and then continued:
“And you like her?”
“Very, very, very much. She was horribly cross at first, but towards the last nobody could have been kinder.”
“I say, how old are you?”
“Between thirteen and fourteen,” I said.
“Ah, to be sure; of course, lad, so you are,” he said, brightening up and shaking hands. “Yes, I’ll give your love to her. I say, boy, it won’t be long first,” he continued, rubbing his hands.
“Won’t it?” I said, easily divining what he meant.
“No, not long now, for we’ve been engaged a precious long while.”
Chapter Twenty.The Wayzegoose.Long before the fallen type was sorted I had heard rumours of the annual holiday and dinner of theemployésof the firm; and on a delicious autumn morning I found myself in a great covered van, one of three conveying the large party down to Epping Forest.According to old custom, the members of the firm did a great deal to encourage the affair, supplying a large proportion of the funds required, and presiding at the dinner at an inn in the forest.Boy-like, I was very eager to go, and looked forward to joining in a projected game at cricket; but, somehow, when we reached the inn, after a drive made noisy by a good deal of absurd mirth, the result of several calls at public-houses on the way to give the horses hay and water, the pleasure seemed to be taken a good deal out of the affair, and the presence of Mr Grimstone did not tend to make me feel upon the highest pinnacle of enjoyment.Somehow or another the boys seemed to look upon me as a sort of butt, and, headed by Jem Smith, they had played several practical jokes upon me already, so that at last I was standing wistfully looking on instead of playing cricket, and wishing I was alone, when a handsome waggonette was driven by, and to my surprise I saw in it Mr Ruddle, Mr Lister, his partner, and the two young ladies whom I had met on my first day in Short Street.As I started forward and took off my cap, Miss Carr saw me, and smiled and nodded: and then as I stood gazing after the departing carriage, a change seemed to have come over the day, and I began to wonder whether I should see them again, and, if so, whether they would speak to me, when a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and turning round, there stood Mr Hallett.“Well, my solitary little philosopher,” he said, in a quiet, half-cynical way, “what are you doing? Not playing with the boys at cricket, and not drinking more beer than is good for you, according to the immemorial custom of a British workman taking a holiday?”“No,” I said, “I was looking after that carriage.”“Carriage? Oh, that! Well, what was there in it to take your attention?”“Mr Ruddle and Mr Lister were in it, with Miss Carr and her sister.”“What, in that?” he said. “Are you sure?”“Yes, sir, quite sure. Miss Carr nodded to me.”“Nodded? to you, Grace?”“Oh yes, Mr Hallett, it was through Miss Carr that I was engaged;” and I told him how it happened.“And so you are not going to play cricket?” he said dreamily, as he stood gazing wistfully in the direction taken by the waggonette.“No, thank you,” I replied sadly. “I’d rather not.”“Well, I’m going for a ramble in the forest. Dinner will not be ready for two hours. Will you come?”“Oh yes, sir.”“Come along then, Grace, and well throw away the work for one day, and enjoy the country.”I had never seen him look so bright and pleasant before. The stern, cold, distant air was gone, and his eyes were bright and eager. He seemed to unbend, and it was delightful to find him take so much interest in me as he did.“Well,” he exclaimed, as we turned right into the wood by the first narrow foot-path, “and how are you getting on with the pie?”“Very slowly, sir,” I said sadly.“Never mind, my boy; patience, and you will do it all; and it will not hurt you.”“But it was so unjust, sir. It was Smith who upset it.”“Ah! and he said it was you?”“Yes, sir; and it was a lie.”“I thought as much; a young rascal! but never mind, Grace. I would rather be the lad who manfully bears an injustice like a hero, than be the big successful blackguard who escapes his punishment by a contemptible lie.”“So would I, sir,” I said, swallowing down something which seemed to rise in my throat as I gazed in his bright, intelligent face.“Bah! It was a pitiful bit of triumph for the young idiot; but never mind, my lad: work at it and finish it like a man, and it will be a piece of self-denial that you may be proud of to the end of your days.”We walked on for some distance in silence, he evidently thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the forest as we rambled on, knee-deep in ferns and heather, and I feeling that the old days were coming back, such as I used to love when wandering with my father through one of our woods, botanising or collecting bird and insect. Almost involuntarily as Mr Hallett took off his soft felt hat to let the breeze blow on his broad white forehead, I began, as of old, to pick a specimen here and there, till, after being in a musing fit for some time, he suddenly noticed what I was doing, and became interested.“What have you got there?” he said, pointing to a plant I had just picked.“Oh, that’s a twayblade,” I replied, “one of the orchis family.”“Indeed,” he said, looking at me curiously, “and what is this?”“Oh, a very common plant—dog’s mercury.”“And this, Grace?” he continued, pointing to another, with its bulbous roots in the water.“Water hemlock, sir.”“Why, Antony Grace, you are quite a young botanist,” he said, smiling and showing his white teeth, while I gazed up at him wonderingly, he seemed so changed.“I only know a little that papa—I mean my father, taught me.”“He used to take you for walks, then, my boy?”“Oh, such delicious walks, sir.”“And you learned a good deal? Look! What a great toadstool! Don’t handle it, my boy, some of these things are very poisonous.”“This is not, sir,” I said eagerly; “this isBoletus edulis, and very good eating.”“Indeed; and pray what doesBoletus edulismean?”“The eatableboletus, sir. There is a family of fungi called theboleti, sir, and you can easily tell them, because they are all full of pores, or little holes, underneath, while the ordinary agarics have gills like this.”I picked up one with a brilliant scarlet top as I spoke, and showed him the white gills beneath.“And has that a name?” he said.“Oh yes; that is a very poisonous and rather rare specimen: it isRussula emetica.”“Why, Grace,” he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, “you and I must come for country walks together. You must take me for a pupil. Good heavens?” he muttered, “how one does live to find out one’s ignorance.”His whole manner from that moment was changed towards me. He seemed to throw off his mask of cold reserve, and laughed and chatted; ran up banks to get rare ferns, and climbed a tree to look at a late wood-pigeon’s nest, so that the time flew by till, on referring to his watch, he found that we should have enough to do to get back to the dinner.“I would rather stay in the forest,” he said.“So would I, sir,” I replied rather dolefully.“But no,” he continued, “the firm are very kind, and we should be wanting in respect if we stayed away. Come along; you sit beside me, and we’ll slip off afterwards and have another run.”We hurried back just in time for the dinner, but I did not get a place by Mr Hallett; and as soon as this was over speech-making began. It did not interest me, for my eyes were fixed upon a kind of gallery above the heads of the people at the upper table, in which I could see Miss Carr and her sister had taken their places, apparently to listen to the speeches made by Mr Ruddle and Mr Lister in turn.They seemed, however, to pay little attention to them after the first, and as I sat watching them, and wishing Miss Carr could see me, to my disappointment I saw them rise to go, just as, after a good deal of whispering between Mr Grimstone, Mr Jabez Rowle, and Mr Hallett, the latter, evidently unwillingly, rose to propose the health of the firm.At the first sound of his voice I saw Miss Carr pause and stay her sister, and as he went on, she paid more and more attention, leaning over the rail to catch every word, while he, quite unconscious of the presence of such listeners, warmed to his task, and in well-chosen vigorous language, spoke in praise of the firm, and, at the same time, urged his fellow-workmen to give them in the future their best support as earnestly as they would promise it upon this present day.He grew eager and excited as he spoke, and carried his eloquent speech on to such a climax that he sat down amidst a perfect tempest of cheering, both Mr Ruddle and Mr Lister leaving their seats afterwards to go and quietly shake hands with him, Mr Grimstone all the while apparently seeing in him a rival, for he scowled ominously, and Mr Jabez Rowle completely emptied his box of snuff.My eyes, though, were principally fixed upon the ladies in the little gallery, and I was near enough to see that Miss Carr’s lips were parted, and her eyes looked eager and strange as she leaned forward more and more, till the speech was at an end. The next time I looked, she was gone.Soon after I felt some one pull my arm, and starting round, there stood Mr Hallett, and hurriedly following him out of the hot, noisy room, we made our way once more into the forest.As we rambled on, delighted with the delicious coolness and the sweet scents of the woodlands, Mr Hallett asked me a few questions about myself, soon learning my little history, while my respect for him had increased as I found out more and more how different he was from the ordinary workmen at the office. He was evidently a scholar, and seemed to have a great depth of knowledge in mechanical contrivances.“We must know more of one another, Grace,” he said; “I am glad we have been together to-day. What do you do on Sundays?”I explained that when Mr Revitts was off duty we went for a walk.“And pray who is Mr Revitts?” he said.I explained that he was a policeman, and had been very kind to me since I had lodged with him in town.“I am quite alone in London, you see, Mr Hallett,” I said in an old-fashioned way at which I now can smile.He nodded, and seemed thoughtful for a few minutes.“Mine is not a very cheerful home, Grace,” he said at length; “but if you will come and spend a Sunday—say Sunday week—with us, I shall be glad to see you. Will you come?”“I should be so glad,” I cried, and then I stopped short.“What is it?” he said.“Mr Revitts will be off duty that day, sir; and he would be so disappointed if I were not at home. He has been so very kind to me.”Mr Hallett looked amused.“Do you mind, sir?” I said.“No, Grace. You are quite right,” he quietly said. “Always be faithful to your friends. You shall come next Sunday instead,” he added, as we turned into a beautiful little glade that looked bright and golden with the setting sun. “Never throw a trusted friend over for the sake of one you believe to be—”He stopped short, for we had come suddenly upon two ladies, one of whom was Miss Carr.
Long before the fallen type was sorted I had heard rumours of the annual holiday and dinner of theemployésof the firm; and on a delicious autumn morning I found myself in a great covered van, one of three conveying the large party down to Epping Forest.
According to old custom, the members of the firm did a great deal to encourage the affair, supplying a large proportion of the funds required, and presiding at the dinner at an inn in the forest.
Boy-like, I was very eager to go, and looked forward to joining in a projected game at cricket; but, somehow, when we reached the inn, after a drive made noisy by a good deal of absurd mirth, the result of several calls at public-houses on the way to give the horses hay and water, the pleasure seemed to be taken a good deal out of the affair, and the presence of Mr Grimstone did not tend to make me feel upon the highest pinnacle of enjoyment.
Somehow or another the boys seemed to look upon me as a sort of butt, and, headed by Jem Smith, they had played several practical jokes upon me already, so that at last I was standing wistfully looking on instead of playing cricket, and wishing I was alone, when a handsome waggonette was driven by, and to my surprise I saw in it Mr Ruddle, Mr Lister, his partner, and the two young ladies whom I had met on my first day in Short Street.
As I started forward and took off my cap, Miss Carr saw me, and smiled and nodded: and then as I stood gazing after the departing carriage, a change seemed to have come over the day, and I began to wonder whether I should see them again, and, if so, whether they would speak to me, when a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and turning round, there stood Mr Hallett.
“Well, my solitary little philosopher,” he said, in a quiet, half-cynical way, “what are you doing? Not playing with the boys at cricket, and not drinking more beer than is good for you, according to the immemorial custom of a British workman taking a holiday?”
“No,” I said, “I was looking after that carriage.”
“Carriage? Oh, that! Well, what was there in it to take your attention?”
“Mr Ruddle and Mr Lister were in it, with Miss Carr and her sister.”
“What, in that?” he said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, quite sure. Miss Carr nodded to me.”
“Nodded? to you, Grace?”
“Oh yes, Mr Hallett, it was through Miss Carr that I was engaged;” and I told him how it happened.
“And so you are not going to play cricket?” he said dreamily, as he stood gazing wistfully in the direction taken by the waggonette.
“No, thank you,” I replied sadly. “I’d rather not.”
“Well, I’m going for a ramble in the forest. Dinner will not be ready for two hours. Will you come?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“Come along then, Grace, and well throw away the work for one day, and enjoy the country.”
I had never seen him look so bright and pleasant before. The stern, cold, distant air was gone, and his eyes were bright and eager. He seemed to unbend, and it was delightful to find him take so much interest in me as he did.
“Well,” he exclaimed, as we turned right into the wood by the first narrow foot-path, “and how are you getting on with the pie?”
“Very slowly, sir,” I said sadly.
“Never mind, my boy; patience, and you will do it all; and it will not hurt you.”
“But it was so unjust, sir. It was Smith who upset it.”
“Ah! and he said it was you?”
“Yes, sir; and it was a lie.”
“I thought as much; a young rascal! but never mind, Grace. I would rather be the lad who manfully bears an injustice like a hero, than be the big successful blackguard who escapes his punishment by a contemptible lie.”
“So would I, sir,” I said, swallowing down something which seemed to rise in my throat as I gazed in his bright, intelligent face.
“Bah! It was a pitiful bit of triumph for the young idiot; but never mind, my lad: work at it and finish it like a man, and it will be a piece of self-denial that you may be proud of to the end of your days.”
We walked on for some distance in silence, he evidently thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the forest as we rambled on, knee-deep in ferns and heather, and I feeling that the old days were coming back, such as I used to love when wandering with my father through one of our woods, botanising or collecting bird and insect. Almost involuntarily as Mr Hallett took off his soft felt hat to let the breeze blow on his broad white forehead, I began, as of old, to pick a specimen here and there, till, after being in a musing fit for some time, he suddenly noticed what I was doing, and became interested.
“What have you got there?” he said, pointing to a plant I had just picked.
“Oh, that’s a twayblade,” I replied, “one of the orchis family.”
“Indeed,” he said, looking at me curiously, “and what is this?”
“Oh, a very common plant—dog’s mercury.”
“And this, Grace?” he continued, pointing to another, with its bulbous roots in the water.
“Water hemlock, sir.”
“Why, Antony Grace, you are quite a young botanist,” he said, smiling and showing his white teeth, while I gazed up at him wonderingly, he seemed so changed.
“I only know a little that papa—I mean my father, taught me.”
“He used to take you for walks, then, my boy?”
“Oh, such delicious walks, sir.”
“And you learned a good deal? Look! What a great toadstool! Don’t handle it, my boy, some of these things are very poisonous.”
“This is not, sir,” I said eagerly; “this isBoletus edulis, and very good eating.”
“Indeed; and pray what doesBoletus edulismean?”
“The eatableboletus, sir. There is a family of fungi called theboleti, sir, and you can easily tell them, because they are all full of pores, or little holes, underneath, while the ordinary agarics have gills like this.”
I picked up one with a brilliant scarlet top as I spoke, and showed him the white gills beneath.
“And has that a name?” he said.
“Oh yes; that is a very poisonous and rather rare specimen: it isRussula emetica.”
“Why, Grace,” he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, “you and I must come for country walks together. You must take me for a pupil. Good heavens?” he muttered, “how one does live to find out one’s ignorance.”
His whole manner from that moment was changed towards me. He seemed to throw off his mask of cold reserve, and laughed and chatted; ran up banks to get rare ferns, and climbed a tree to look at a late wood-pigeon’s nest, so that the time flew by till, on referring to his watch, he found that we should have enough to do to get back to the dinner.
“I would rather stay in the forest,” he said.
“So would I, sir,” I replied rather dolefully.
“But no,” he continued, “the firm are very kind, and we should be wanting in respect if we stayed away. Come along; you sit beside me, and we’ll slip off afterwards and have another run.”
We hurried back just in time for the dinner, but I did not get a place by Mr Hallett; and as soon as this was over speech-making began. It did not interest me, for my eyes were fixed upon a kind of gallery above the heads of the people at the upper table, in which I could see Miss Carr and her sister had taken their places, apparently to listen to the speeches made by Mr Ruddle and Mr Lister in turn.
They seemed, however, to pay little attention to them after the first, and as I sat watching them, and wishing Miss Carr could see me, to my disappointment I saw them rise to go, just as, after a good deal of whispering between Mr Grimstone, Mr Jabez Rowle, and Mr Hallett, the latter, evidently unwillingly, rose to propose the health of the firm.
At the first sound of his voice I saw Miss Carr pause and stay her sister, and as he went on, she paid more and more attention, leaning over the rail to catch every word, while he, quite unconscious of the presence of such listeners, warmed to his task, and in well-chosen vigorous language, spoke in praise of the firm, and, at the same time, urged his fellow-workmen to give them in the future their best support as earnestly as they would promise it upon this present day.
He grew eager and excited as he spoke, and carried his eloquent speech on to such a climax that he sat down amidst a perfect tempest of cheering, both Mr Ruddle and Mr Lister leaving their seats afterwards to go and quietly shake hands with him, Mr Grimstone all the while apparently seeing in him a rival, for he scowled ominously, and Mr Jabez Rowle completely emptied his box of snuff.
My eyes, though, were principally fixed upon the ladies in the little gallery, and I was near enough to see that Miss Carr’s lips were parted, and her eyes looked eager and strange as she leaned forward more and more, till the speech was at an end. The next time I looked, she was gone.
Soon after I felt some one pull my arm, and starting round, there stood Mr Hallett, and hurriedly following him out of the hot, noisy room, we made our way once more into the forest.
As we rambled on, delighted with the delicious coolness and the sweet scents of the woodlands, Mr Hallett asked me a few questions about myself, soon learning my little history, while my respect for him had increased as I found out more and more how different he was from the ordinary workmen at the office. He was evidently a scholar, and seemed to have a great depth of knowledge in mechanical contrivances.
“We must know more of one another, Grace,” he said; “I am glad we have been together to-day. What do you do on Sundays?”
I explained that when Mr Revitts was off duty we went for a walk.
“And pray who is Mr Revitts?” he said.
I explained that he was a policeman, and had been very kind to me since I had lodged with him in town.
“I am quite alone in London, you see, Mr Hallett,” I said in an old-fashioned way at which I now can smile.
He nodded, and seemed thoughtful for a few minutes.
“Mine is not a very cheerful home, Grace,” he said at length; “but if you will come and spend a Sunday—say Sunday week—with us, I shall be glad to see you. Will you come?”
“I should be so glad,” I cried, and then I stopped short.
“What is it?” he said.
“Mr Revitts will be off duty that day, sir; and he would be so disappointed if I were not at home. He has been so very kind to me.”
Mr Hallett looked amused.
“Do you mind, sir?” I said.
“No, Grace. You are quite right,” he quietly said. “Always be faithful to your friends. You shall come next Sunday instead,” he added, as we turned into a beautiful little glade that looked bright and golden with the setting sun. “Never throw a trusted friend over for the sake of one you believe to be—”
He stopped short, for we had come suddenly upon two ladies, one of whom was Miss Carr.
Chapter Twenty One.In the Forest.Miss Carr started slightly on seeing my companion, and it seemed to me that she coloured for the moment, but she recovered her composure on the instant, responded to Mr Hallett’s salute with a quiet bend of the head, and turned at once to me, talking in a sweet grave way, as if there were no one else present, though Mr Hallett stood close by me, hat in hand.“Antony,” she said, laying; her hand upon my shoulder, “I am very glad to see you again. Mr Ruddle tells me that you are striving very hard, and that you have already made a step upwards. Mind, though I do not see you, I always hear how you progress, and, now that you have begun so well, I have no fear for your future. Are you happy and comfortable where you are?”“Oh yes, ma’am,” I said, flushing red with pride and pleasure, as I gazed in her face; “and—and I have made such good friends.”“Indeed!” she said quickly. “I hope you are careful.”“Oh yes, ma’am; Mr Revitts is very good to me, and Mr Hallett, here.”Miss Carr turned her face to him for the moment, and once more there was a slight flush upon her cheeks; then she seemed very pale.“I am glad to hear it,” she said, in a firm, distinct tone; “and I hope your friend Mr Hallett will remember your unprotected position, and advise you for your good.”Mr Hallett was about to speak, but she had turned from him, and now laid her other hand upon my shoulder.“Good-bye, Antony,” she said; “you know where I live; come to me if ever you should require help. And mind this, I shall expect you to fight hard and rise. It is no disgrace to be a common workman,”—she glanced hastily, and as if in apology, towards Mr Hallett, as she spoke—“My dead father was but a workman, but he rose to a higher position in life, and I think those who fight the battle well and are self-made, are quite as worthy of honour and respect as those who are born to wealth. Good-bye.”I could not speak, but I stood there gazing in her bright animated face, and listened to the sweet grave voice, whose every word seemed to fix itself in my mind. I was only recalled from my dreamy state by those words “good-bye,” and the sight of the soft white hand that she held out.It was from no sentimental feeling of politeness that I acted as I did, for I felt moved to my very soul, and the same feelings came over me that had animated me in the past days in my pleasant old home. I loved Miss Carr—loved her with the same sweet wholesome love that, a boy feels towards a tender mother, and my eyes felt suffused, and things looked dim, as with quite a natural effort I took the hand extended to me, kissed it, and held it for a moment against my cheek. Then it seemed to glide from my hold, there was a faint rustle of silken garments over the heath and grass, and Mr Hallett and I were alone.I turned to speak to him, to find that he was still standing, hat in hand, gazing down the path by which the sisters had gone; then it seemed to me that he drew a long breath as he stood looking at me apparently, but evidently recalling that which was past.“Oh, Mr Hallett!” I cried enthusiastically, and with all the impulsiveness of a boy; “isn’t she beautiful?”“As beautiful as true, Grace,” he said softly, and his manner seemed reverent and strange.“She was so kind to me—spoke so kindly for me when I first came to the office,” I cried.“Yes, my boy,” he said in the same low, soft voice; “you are very fortunate—you have found a true friend.”“And I will try,” I cried. “She shall find that I have remembered what she told me.”“Come and sit down here, my boy,” he said, throwing himself upon a patch of heath and fern. “Let’s forget the smell of oil and steam and printing-ink for a time. Come and tell me all about your meeting with Miss Carr.”I was eager to tell him, and I had a willing listener, and as I sat there at his feet I told him of the interview at the office, and all about how Mr Lister seemed so attentive to Miss Carr: what he had said, and how he seemed to love her. In my ignorance I dwelt at length upon even Mr Ruddle’s words of congratulation, talking rapidly and well in my enthusiasm—blind and ignorant that I was—for I could not read then why the lines in Stephen Hallett’s face grew deeper and more marked, nor yet why his eyelids should droop down, and then his head, till it rested upon one hand, while the other plucked slowly at the strands of grass and scraps of heath.Once or twice I thought he was asleep, but if I stopped he spoke to me softly, asking some questions till I had done, when he startled me again with inquiries about myself and my old life, gradually winning from me all I had to tell.The sun had set, and the soft evening shadows were descending as we still sat there drinking in the moist fresh air of the forest, till, as if rousing himself from a dream, Mr Hallett rose hastily, and I too sprang to my feet.“Come, Grace,” he said, with an effort to be cheerful, “we must get back to the inn, or we shall be left behind. One minute, though; let us walk along here.”I looked at him wonderingly as he strode hastily to where we had met the ladies, and I saw that he had removed his hat as he stood gazing slowly around.It might have been from the heat, but I do not think so now; and he was just turning away, when I saw him stoop hastily and snatch from among the ferns a grey kid glove.“Why, that must be Miss Carr’s,” I said eagerly.“Yes,” he replied softly; “it is Miss Carr’s.”He stood holding it pressed in his hand; and his brow was knit, and he stood gazing straight before him, struggling with himself before saying, as he doubled the glove:“You must take it back, my boy. You will see her again; perhaps I never shall.”I looked at him curiously as I took the glove, for he seemed so strange, but the next moment his dreamy manner was cast aside, as he clapped me on the shoulder.“Come, Grace,” he said; “no, I will not call you Grace,” he added, laughing; “it sounds as if you were a girl, and you are rather too girlish, my boy; I will call you Antony in future.”“Yes, do, please, Mr Hallett,” I said; though I flushed a little at being called girlish.“Come along, then. Our pleasant day has nearly come to an end.”“Yes,” I said with a sign; “pleasant days do so soon come to an end.”“To be sure they do,” he cried; “but never mind, my boy; others will come.”“Yes,” I sighed; “and miserable ones, too, full of Grimstone, and Jem Smith, and pie, and mistakes.”“Of course,” he cried; “bitters, all of them, to make life the sweeter. Why, Antony—no, Tony’s better—why, Tony, if you could be always revelling in good things, such a day as this would not have seemed so delightful as it has.”“And it has been delightful!” I cried, as we walked on, my friend resting his hand almost affectionately upon my shoulder.“Yes,” he said softly; “a day to be marked with a white stone—a tombstone over the grave of one’s brightest hopes,” he added, very, very softly; but I caught the import of his words, and I turned to him quite a troubled look, when there was a sound of cheering some distance away. “Come, Tony,” he said cheerfully, “there are our men hurrahing. We must join them now.”“Do you know what time we were to start back, sir?” I said.“Eight o’clock,” he replied, taking out an old-fashioned gold watch, and then starting. “Why, Tony, my lad, it’s past nine. Come along, let’s run.”We started off, and ran at a steady trot till we reached the inn, to find that the cheering had been when the vans set out.“Yes, they was a-cheerin’ away like fun,” said our informant, a rather beery-looking public-house hanger-on. “What, are you two left behind?”“Yes,” said Mr Hallett, shortly. “How long have they been gone?”“More’n quarter of ’n ’our,” said the man; “and I say, they just was on—all of ’em. The driver o’ the last one couldn’t hardly hold his reins.”“What time did Messrs Ruddle and Lister go?”“Who?” said the man.“The gentlemen with the waggonette.”“What, with them two gals? Oh! more’n ’n ’our ago. They wasn’t on.”“How can we get back to town?”“Walk,” said the man; “’less you like to take a fly.”“It is very tiresome, Tony,” said Mr Hallett. “Are you a good walker?”“Pretty well,” I said. “How far is it?”“Twelve or thirteen miles. Shall we try it?”“Oh yes,” I said. “It’s a beautiful night, and we shall see plenty of moths.”“Come along, then, my boy,” he cried; and away we went.Our long rest since dinner had made me better able to manage the task; and I noticed that Mr Hallett did all he could to lighten the way by talking, and he could talk well. As, then, we trudged along the wide, firm road, he told me a little about himself and his home; and so it was that I learned that he had an invalid mother and a sister, who were dependent upon him; that his early life had been in the country, where his father had been a surgeon, and that on his father’s death he had been compelled to come to London.“To seek your fortune, Mr Hallett?” I asked.“Well, yes, if you like to call it so, Tony,” he said, laughing. “Ah, my boy, let me give you advice that I am only too loth to take myself—don’t degenerate into a dreamer.”“A dreamer, Mr Hallett?”“Yes, boy; one whose mind is set on what people call making a fortune—that miserable style of enthusiast, who ignores the present in his search for something that he may never find, and which, even if he does, he may never enjoy. Tony, my boy, don’t heed what people say about this being a miserable world and a vale of tears; it is a very beautiful and a very glorious world with heights and mountains bright in the sunshine of truth. We all have to wander down into the valley sometimes, but there are other times when we are in the sunshine on the heights. When we are there, let’s take it and enjoy it, and not sit down and grumble, and strive to climb to another mountain, close by, that seems higher and brighter than the one we are on. Take what fate sends you, my dear boy, and take it patiently. Use your strength to bear it, and—there, let’s come back out of the imaginary into the rear—go on setting up your pied type, and enjoy the pleasure after of having won a victory, or, in the present case, stride out manfully. Every step takes us nearer to London; and when we have got there, and have slept off our fatigue, we can laugh at our adventure. Why, we must be halfway there now. But how you limp!”“I’m afraid it’s my boot rubs my foot, sir,” I said, wincing.“Tut, tut!” he exclaimed. “This won’t do. Sit down and have a rest, and let’s think, Tony.”“Oh, I can go on yet, sir,” I said hastily.“No, no; sit down, my boy, sit down,” he said; and I sat down upon a bank. “I can’t carry you, Tony,” he said kindly. “I could manage you for a couple of miles or so; I don’t think I could get you right up home. We are unlucky to-night, and—there is something turning up.”“On ahead, Tony. Yonder is a roadside inn, with a couple of hay-carts. Come along, my lad, and well see if one of them cannot be turned into a chariot to convey us to London Town.”I limped on beside him to where the hay-carts were standing by a water-trough at the roadside, the horses tossing their nose-bags so as to get at the oats at the bottom, and the carters just coming out of the public-house.“Can you give us a lift on to London?” said Mr Hallett. “This boy has turned lame.”“What’ll you stand?” said the man heavily.“A couple of pints,” said Mr Hallett.“All right; up you get,” said the man. “You must lie atop o’ the hay. I only goes to Whitechapel, you know.”“That will do,” said Mr Hallett. And together we climbed up, and lay down, twelve or fifteen feet above the road, on the top of the sweet-scented trusses of hay; the carter cracked his whip, and away we went jolting over the road, with the stars above us, and my couch seeming delicious to my weary limbs, as the scent seemed to bring up my sleeping place by the hay-rick, when I ran away from Rowford and my slavery at Mr Blakeford’s house.“That’s one of the peculiarities of the true-born Briton, Tony,” said Mr Hallett, after a pause.“What is, sir?”“The love and reverence for beer. If I had offered that man sixpence or a shilling to give us a ride, he would have laughed me to scorn. Two pints of beer, you see, carry us right to town, and another pint would have acted like a return ticket to bring us back.”“To bring us back?” I said in drowsy accents; and, trusting to my companion to save me from a fall, I dropped into a heavy dreamless sleep, from which I was aroused by Mr Hallett, who shook my arm and told me that we were once more in town.
Miss Carr started slightly on seeing my companion, and it seemed to me that she coloured for the moment, but she recovered her composure on the instant, responded to Mr Hallett’s salute with a quiet bend of the head, and turned at once to me, talking in a sweet grave way, as if there were no one else present, though Mr Hallett stood close by me, hat in hand.
“Antony,” she said, laying; her hand upon my shoulder, “I am very glad to see you again. Mr Ruddle tells me that you are striving very hard, and that you have already made a step upwards. Mind, though I do not see you, I always hear how you progress, and, now that you have begun so well, I have no fear for your future. Are you happy and comfortable where you are?”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” I said, flushing red with pride and pleasure, as I gazed in her face; “and—and I have made such good friends.”
“Indeed!” she said quickly. “I hope you are careful.”
“Oh yes, ma’am; Mr Revitts is very good to me, and Mr Hallett, here.”
Miss Carr turned her face to him for the moment, and once more there was a slight flush upon her cheeks; then she seemed very pale.
“I am glad to hear it,” she said, in a firm, distinct tone; “and I hope your friend Mr Hallett will remember your unprotected position, and advise you for your good.”
Mr Hallett was about to speak, but she had turned from him, and now laid her other hand upon my shoulder.
“Good-bye, Antony,” she said; “you know where I live; come to me if ever you should require help. And mind this, I shall expect you to fight hard and rise. It is no disgrace to be a common workman,”—she glanced hastily, and as if in apology, towards Mr Hallett, as she spoke—“My dead father was but a workman, but he rose to a higher position in life, and I think those who fight the battle well and are self-made, are quite as worthy of honour and respect as those who are born to wealth. Good-bye.”
I could not speak, but I stood there gazing in her bright animated face, and listened to the sweet grave voice, whose every word seemed to fix itself in my mind. I was only recalled from my dreamy state by those words “good-bye,” and the sight of the soft white hand that she held out.
It was from no sentimental feeling of politeness that I acted as I did, for I felt moved to my very soul, and the same feelings came over me that had animated me in the past days in my pleasant old home. I loved Miss Carr—loved her with the same sweet wholesome love that, a boy feels towards a tender mother, and my eyes felt suffused, and things looked dim, as with quite a natural effort I took the hand extended to me, kissed it, and held it for a moment against my cheek. Then it seemed to glide from my hold, there was a faint rustle of silken garments over the heath and grass, and Mr Hallett and I were alone.
I turned to speak to him, to find that he was still standing, hat in hand, gazing down the path by which the sisters had gone; then it seemed to me that he drew a long breath as he stood looking at me apparently, but evidently recalling that which was past.
“Oh, Mr Hallett!” I cried enthusiastically, and with all the impulsiveness of a boy; “isn’t she beautiful?”
“As beautiful as true, Grace,” he said softly, and his manner seemed reverent and strange.
“She was so kind to me—spoke so kindly for me when I first came to the office,” I cried.
“Yes, my boy,” he said in the same low, soft voice; “you are very fortunate—you have found a true friend.”
“And I will try,” I cried. “She shall find that I have remembered what she told me.”
“Come and sit down here, my boy,” he said, throwing himself upon a patch of heath and fern. “Let’s forget the smell of oil and steam and printing-ink for a time. Come and tell me all about your meeting with Miss Carr.”
I was eager to tell him, and I had a willing listener, and as I sat there at his feet I told him of the interview at the office, and all about how Mr Lister seemed so attentive to Miss Carr: what he had said, and how he seemed to love her. In my ignorance I dwelt at length upon even Mr Ruddle’s words of congratulation, talking rapidly and well in my enthusiasm—blind and ignorant that I was—for I could not read then why the lines in Stephen Hallett’s face grew deeper and more marked, nor yet why his eyelids should droop down, and then his head, till it rested upon one hand, while the other plucked slowly at the strands of grass and scraps of heath.
Once or twice I thought he was asleep, but if I stopped he spoke to me softly, asking some questions till I had done, when he startled me again with inquiries about myself and my old life, gradually winning from me all I had to tell.
The sun had set, and the soft evening shadows were descending as we still sat there drinking in the moist fresh air of the forest, till, as if rousing himself from a dream, Mr Hallett rose hastily, and I too sprang to my feet.
“Come, Grace,” he said, with an effort to be cheerful, “we must get back to the inn, or we shall be left behind. One minute, though; let us walk along here.”
I looked at him wonderingly as he strode hastily to where we had met the ladies, and I saw that he had removed his hat as he stood gazing slowly around.
It might have been from the heat, but I do not think so now; and he was just turning away, when I saw him stoop hastily and snatch from among the ferns a grey kid glove.
“Why, that must be Miss Carr’s,” I said eagerly.
“Yes,” he replied softly; “it is Miss Carr’s.”
He stood holding it pressed in his hand; and his brow was knit, and he stood gazing straight before him, struggling with himself before saying, as he doubled the glove:
“You must take it back, my boy. You will see her again; perhaps I never shall.”
I looked at him curiously as I took the glove, for he seemed so strange, but the next moment his dreamy manner was cast aside, as he clapped me on the shoulder.
“Come, Grace,” he said; “no, I will not call you Grace,” he added, laughing; “it sounds as if you were a girl, and you are rather too girlish, my boy; I will call you Antony in future.”
“Yes, do, please, Mr Hallett,” I said; though I flushed a little at being called girlish.
“Come along, then. Our pleasant day has nearly come to an end.”
“Yes,” I said with a sign; “pleasant days do so soon come to an end.”
“To be sure they do,” he cried; “but never mind, my boy; others will come.”
“Yes,” I sighed; “and miserable ones, too, full of Grimstone, and Jem Smith, and pie, and mistakes.”
“Of course,” he cried; “bitters, all of them, to make life the sweeter. Why, Antony—no, Tony’s better—why, Tony, if you could be always revelling in good things, such a day as this would not have seemed so delightful as it has.”
“And it has been delightful!” I cried, as we walked on, my friend resting his hand almost affectionately upon my shoulder.
“Yes,” he said softly; “a day to be marked with a white stone—a tombstone over the grave of one’s brightest hopes,” he added, very, very softly; but I caught the import of his words, and I turned to him quite a troubled look, when there was a sound of cheering some distance away. “Come, Tony,” he said cheerfully, “there are our men hurrahing. We must join them now.”
“Do you know what time we were to start back, sir?” I said.
“Eight o’clock,” he replied, taking out an old-fashioned gold watch, and then starting. “Why, Tony, my lad, it’s past nine. Come along, let’s run.”
We started off, and ran at a steady trot till we reached the inn, to find that the cheering had been when the vans set out.
“Yes, they was a-cheerin’ away like fun,” said our informant, a rather beery-looking public-house hanger-on. “What, are you two left behind?”
“Yes,” said Mr Hallett, shortly. “How long have they been gone?”
“More’n quarter of ’n ’our,” said the man; “and I say, they just was on—all of ’em. The driver o’ the last one couldn’t hardly hold his reins.”
“What time did Messrs Ruddle and Lister go?”
“Who?” said the man.
“The gentlemen with the waggonette.”
“What, with them two gals? Oh! more’n ’n ’our ago. They wasn’t on.”
“How can we get back to town?”
“Walk,” said the man; “’less you like to take a fly.”
“It is very tiresome, Tony,” said Mr Hallett. “Are you a good walker?”
“Pretty well,” I said. “How far is it?”
“Twelve or thirteen miles. Shall we try it?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “It’s a beautiful night, and we shall see plenty of moths.”
“Come along, then, my boy,” he cried; and away we went.
Our long rest since dinner had made me better able to manage the task; and I noticed that Mr Hallett did all he could to lighten the way by talking, and he could talk well. As, then, we trudged along the wide, firm road, he told me a little about himself and his home; and so it was that I learned that he had an invalid mother and a sister, who were dependent upon him; that his early life had been in the country, where his father had been a surgeon, and that on his father’s death he had been compelled to come to London.
“To seek your fortune, Mr Hallett?” I asked.
“Well, yes, if you like to call it so, Tony,” he said, laughing. “Ah, my boy, let me give you advice that I am only too loth to take myself—don’t degenerate into a dreamer.”
“A dreamer, Mr Hallett?”
“Yes, boy; one whose mind is set on what people call making a fortune—that miserable style of enthusiast, who ignores the present in his search for something that he may never find, and which, even if he does, he may never enjoy. Tony, my boy, don’t heed what people say about this being a miserable world and a vale of tears; it is a very beautiful and a very glorious world with heights and mountains bright in the sunshine of truth. We all have to wander down into the valley sometimes, but there are other times when we are in the sunshine on the heights. When we are there, let’s take it and enjoy it, and not sit down and grumble, and strive to climb to another mountain, close by, that seems higher and brighter than the one we are on. Take what fate sends you, my dear boy, and take it patiently. Use your strength to bear it, and—there, let’s come back out of the imaginary into the rear—go on setting up your pied type, and enjoy the pleasure after of having won a victory, or, in the present case, stride out manfully. Every step takes us nearer to London; and when we have got there, and have slept off our fatigue, we can laugh at our adventure. Why, we must be halfway there now. But how you limp!”
“I’m afraid it’s my boot rubs my foot, sir,” I said, wincing.
“Tut, tut!” he exclaimed. “This won’t do. Sit down and have a rest, and let’s think, Tony.”
“Oh, I can go on yet, sir,” I said hastily.
“No, no; sit down, my boy, sit down,” he said; and I sat down upon a bank. “I can’t carry you, Tony,” he said kindly. “I could manage you for a couple of miles or so; I don’t think I could get you right up home. We are unlucky to-night, and—there is something turning up.”
“On ahead, Tony. Yonder is a roadside inn, with a couple of hay-carts. Come along, my lad, and well see if one of them cannot be turned into a chariot to convey us to London Town.”
I limped on beside him to where the hay-carts were standing by a water-trough at the roadside, the horses tossing their nose-bags so as to get at the oats at the bottom, and the carters just coming out of the public-house.
“Can you give us a lift on to London?” said Mr Hallett. “This boy has turned lame.”
“What’ll you stand?” said the man heavily.
“A couple of pints,” said Mr Hallett.
“All right; up you get,” said the man. “You must lie atop o’ the hay. I only goes to Whitechapel, you know.”
“That will do,” said Mr Hallett. And together we climbed up, and lay down, twelve or fifteen feet above the road, on the top of the sweet-scented trusses of hay; the carter cracked his whip, and away we went jolting over the road, with the stars above us, and my couch seeming delicious to my weary limbs, as the scent seemed to bring up my sleeping place by the hay-rick, when I ran away from Rowford and my slavery at Mr Blakeford’s house.
“That’s one of the peculiarities of the true-born Briton, Tony,” said Mr Hallett, after a pause.
“What is, sir?”
“The love and reverence for beer. If I had offered that man sixpence or a shilling to give us a ride, he would have laughed me to scorn. Two pints of beer, you see, carry us right to town, and another pint would have acted like a return ticket to bring us back.”
“To bring us back?” I said in drowsy accents; and, trusting to my companion to save me from a fall, I dropped into a heavy dreamless sleep, from which I was aroused by Mr Hallett, who shook my arm and told me that we were once more in town.
Chapter Twenty Two.William Revitts is Angry.Mr Hallett saw me right to the door of my lodgings before he left me, shaking hands warmly as he said “Good-night,” and altered it to “Good-morning.”I was thoroughly awake now, and somewhat refreshed as I ascended the stairs very gently, having risen now to the honour of a latchkey. It was Revitts’ turn for day-duty, and I was unwilling to disturb him, so I had slipped off my boots, and cautiously turning the handle of the door, I entered, to find, to my surprise, a light burning, and Mr Revitts buttoned up in his uniform and with his heavy hat upon his head.“Oh, here you are, then,” he cried roughly.“What, not in bed!” I said.“In bed? How was I going to bed? I was just orf to the station to send word round as you was missing, and to make inquiries where the vans went from.”“Oh, Mr Revitts! Oh, Bill, I am sorry!” I cried.“Don’t you Bill me, young man,” he cried. “Now, lookye here. Was it an accident to the van as made you late?”“No,” I said; “it was—”“There!” he cried, bringing his fist down heavily upon the table. “I won’t hear another word. I won’t listen to you. Those vans was doo back at ten thirty—say eleven, and it’s now two forty-five.”“Yes, Bill, but—”“Don’t Bill me,” he cried; and, running to the corner of the room, he caught up a black silver-topped cane, with shabby silk tassels. “Look here,” he said; “for the last hour or two I’ve been thinking whether, as your best friend, I oughtn’t to give you a good wilting down, only you’re such a man now that I can’t stoop to hit the feller as I’ve made my friend.”“But will you listen to me, Bill?” I cried angrily.“No, I won’t,” he said, throwing down the cane. “You’ve been up to your larks, you have, and I tell you what it is, I won’t have larks.”“I haven’t,” I cried.“You have, sir, so don’t deny it. What am I to say to my Mary when she comes up, if she finds you going wrong? I won’t have larks, so there’s an end of it, d’ye hear? There, you needn’t look sulky, and you won’t go and lodge somewhere else. You’ll stay here and I won’t have no larks. I know what it means; I’ve seen boys begin with stopping out o’ nights, and I know what sort o’ chickens they turn out. Stopping out late o’ nights an’ larks means going to the bad; and you ain’t going to the bad if I know it.”“I couldn’t help it, Bill; I’ve been along with Mr Hallett.”“Then I’ll punch Mr Hallett’s head,” he cried in a rage, as he stamped up and down the room, till some one rapped at the ceiling of the floor below. “No, I won’t. I’ll pay him a visit in full uniform with my bracelet on, that’s what I’ll do with him.”“Don’t be so foolish, Bill,” I cried, as in imagination I saw Mr Revitts stalking along amongst the frames at the office, as if about to take Mr Hallett into custody.“Foolish?” he cried. “And look here, once for all, don’t you Bill me. As for that Hallett, he’s a bad ’un, that’s what he is, and I’ll let him know—carrying on larks with a youngster like you.”“Mr Hallett’s a gentleman,” I said indignantly.“Oh, is he?” said Revitts excitedly; “then I’d rather be a pore police-constable. Why, I never so much as took you inside a public to have half-a-pint o’ beer, I was so particular over your morals; and your precious gentleman takes you to dozens, and keeps you out till two forty-five. Why, you make the whole room smell o’ beer.”“I don’t, Bill,” I cried; “it’s that hay. Look here, it’s sticking to my clothes.”“Then, what ha’ yer been sleeping under haystacks for, when here was your own bed waiting for you? That’s the way. That’s the first step to being a rogue and a vagabond. Do you know, young fellow, as I could have taken you and locked you up, and had you afore the magistrates next morning, if I’d found you lying under haystacks?”“What a dear old stupid you are, Bill,” I cried, half angry, half amused; for he had talked so fast and been in such a rage, that I could not get a chance to explain.“Am I?” he cried, just as if I had added fresh fuel to the flame. “If I am—I’m honest, so now then. That’s more than your Mr Hallett can say. But I haven’t done with him yet.”“Why don’t you be quiet, Bill?” I said.“Quiet, when you get out on larks?”“You won’t let me speak.”“Let you speak! No, I won’t. Here have I been worried to death about you, thinking all the chaps had got on, and that the van was upset, and all the time it was your games.”“We went strolling about the forest, Bill,” I said, as I removed my stockings and bathed my sore feet, “and had to walk ever so much of the way home, and that’s what made me so late.”He snatched up my boots from where I had set them, and found that they were covered with dust.“But you said you’d been sleeping in the hay,” he said stubbornly.“Yes; on the top of a hay-cart, coming up to Whitechapel, and I went to sleep.”Revitts began rubbing his ear in a puzzled way; and then, as if seized by a bright idea, he took out his notebook and pencil.“Now look here,” he said, making believe to take down my words and shaking his pencil at me in a magisterial way. “Why should you have to walk nearly all the way home, because you went for a stroll in the woods with that there Hallett?”This last with a contemptuous emphasis on the name of my companion.“Why, I told you, Bill. When we got back to the inn the last van had gone.”“There; now, you’re shuffling,” he said. “You never said a word about the van being gone.”“Didn’t I, Bill? Well, I meant to say so. Mr Hallett thought it would be much nicer to go for a walk in the woods than to sit in that hot room where the men were drinking and smoking, so we did, only we stopped too long.”Revitts shut his pocket-book with a snap, scratched his head with the end of his pencil, wetted the point between his lips, and had another scratch; then pushed the pencil into the loop at the side, replaced the book in his breast, and buttoned it up tight, as he stood staring hard at me. Then he coughed behind his hand, rubbed his ear again, unbuttoned his coat, buttoned it up tightly, cleared his throat again, and then said:“Well, it was circumstantial evidence, cert’nly.”“It’s too bad, Bill,” I said, in an injured tone; “you had no business to doubt me.”“More I hadn’t, old lad,” he replied in a deprecating way. “But you know, Ant’ny, I had been a-sitting here wait-wait-waiting and thinking all sorts o’ things.”“Why didn’t you go to bed?”“I’d been thinking, old lad, that being a holiday, you might be hungry, and look here.”He opened the little cupboard and took out a raised pork pie and a bottle of pale ale.“I’d got the cloth laid and the knives and forks out ready, but I got in such a wax about one o’clock that I snatched ’em all off and cleared ’em away.”“And why did you get in a wax, Bill?” I said. “You ought to have known me better.”“So I ought, old lad,” he said penitently; “but I got thinking you’d chucked me over, and was out on larks with that there Hallett; and it ain’t nice to be chucked over for a chap like that, specially when you seem to belong to me. You’ll shake hands, won’t you, Tony?”“Of course I will.”“And I won’t doubt you another time; let’s have the pie, after all.”We did; and in a dozen ways the good fellow strove to show me his sorrow for his past doubts, picking me out the best bits of the pie, foaming up my glass with the ale, and when I expressed my fears of not being awake in time for the office, he promised to call me; and though he never owned to it, I have good reason for believing that he sat up writing out corrections in an old dictation lesson, calling me in excellent time, and having the breakfast all ready upon the table.
Mr Hallett saw me right to the door of my lodgings before he left me, shaking hands warmly as he said “Good-night,” and altered it to “Good-morning.”
I was thoroughly awake now, and somewhat refreshed as I ascended the stairs very gently, having risen now to the honour of a latchkey. It was Revitts’ turn for day-duty, and I was unwilling to disturb him, so I had slipped off my boots, and cautiously turning the handle of the door, I entered, to find, to my surprise, a light burning, and Mr Revitts buttoned up in his uniform and with his heavy hat upon his head.
“Oh, here you are, then,” he cried roughly.
“What, not in bed!” I said.
“In bed? How was I going to bed? I was just orf to the station to send word round as you was missing, and to make inquiries where the vans went from.”
“Oh, Mr Revitts! Oh, Bill, I am sorry!” I cried.
“Don’t you Bill me, young man,” he cried. “Now, lookye here. Was it an accident to the van as made you late?”
“No,” I said; “it was—”
“There!” he cried, bringing his fist down heavily upon the table. “I won’t hear another word. I won’t listen to you. Those vans was doo back at ten thirty—say eleven, and it’s now two forty-five.”
“Yes, Bill, but—”
“Don’t Bill me,” he cried; and, running to the corner of the room, he caught up a black silver-topped cane, with shabby silk tassels. “Look here,” he said; “for the last hour or two I’ve been thinking whether, as your best friend, I oughtn’t to give you a good wilting down, only you’re such a man now that I can’t stoop to hit the feller as I’ve made my friend.”
“But will you listen to me, Bill?” I cried angrily.
“No, I won’t,” he said, throwing down the cane. “You’ve been up to your larks, you have, and I tell you what it is, I won’t have larks.”
“I haven’t,” I cried.
“You have, sir, so don’t deny it. What am I to say to my Mary when she comes up, if she finds you going wrong? I won’t have larks, so there’s an end of it, d’ye hear? There, you needn’t look sulky, and you won’t go and lodge somewhere else. You’ll stay here and I won’t have no larks. I know what it means; I’ve seen boys begin with stopping out o’ nights, and I know what sort o’ chickens they turn out. Stopping out late o’ nights an’ larks means going to the bad; and you ain’t going to the bad if I know it.”
“I couldn’t help it, Bill; I’ve been along with Mr Hallett.”
“Then I’ll punch Mr Hallett’s head,” he cried in a rage, as he stamped up and down the room, till some one rapped at the ceiling of the floor below. “No, I won’t. I’ll pay him a visit in full uniform with my bracelet on, that’s what I’ll do with him.”
“Don’t be so foolish, Bill,” I cried, as in imagination I saw Mr Revitts stalking along amongst the frames at the office, as if about to take Mr Hallett into custody.
“Foolish?” he cried. “And look here, once for all, don’t you Bill me. As for that Hallett, he’s a bad ’un, that’s what he is, and I’ll let him know—carrying on larks with a youngster like you.”
“Mr Hallett’s a gentleman,” I said indignantly.
“Oh, is he?” said Revitts excitedly; “then I’d rather be a pore police-constable. Why, I never so much as took you inside a public to have half-a-pint o’ beer, I was so particular over your morals; and your precious gentleman takes you to dozens, and keeps you out till two forty-five. Why, you make the whole room smell o’ beer.”
“I don’t, Bill,” I cried; “it’s that hay. Look here, it’s sticking to my clothes.”
“Then, what ha’ yer been sleeping under haystacks for, when here was your own bed waiting for you? That’s the way. That’s the first step to being a rogue and a vagabond. Do you know, young fellow, as I could have taken you and locked you up, and had you afore the magistrates next morning, if I’d found you lying under haystacks?”
“What a dear old stupid you are, Bill,” I cried, half angry, half amused; for he had talked so fast and been in such a rage, that I could not get a chance to explain.
“Am I?” he cried, just as if I had added fresh fuel to the flame. “If I am—I’m honest, so now then. That’s more than your Mr Hallett can say. But I haven’t done with him yet.”
“Why don’t you be quiet, Bill?” I said.
“Quiet, when you get out on larks?”
“You won’t let me speak.”
“Let you speak! No, I won’t. Here have I been worried to death about you, thinking all the chaps had got on, and that the van was upset, and all the time it was your games.”
“We went strolling about the forest, Bill,” I said, as I removed my stockings and bathed my sore feet, “and had to walk ever so much of the way home, and that’s what made me so late.”
He snatched up my boots from where I had set them, and found that they were covered with dust.
“But you said you’d been sleeping in the hay,” he said stubbornly.
“Yes; on the top of a hay-cart, coming up to Whitechapel, and I went to sleep.”
Revitts began rubbing his ear in a puzzled way; and then, as if seized by a bright idea, he took out his notebook and pencil.
“Now look here,” he said, making believe to take down my words and shaking his pencil at me in a magisterial way. “Why should you have to walk nearly all the way home, because you went for a stroll in the woods with that there Hallett?”
This last with a contemptuous emphasis on the name of my companion.
“Why, I told you, Bill. When we got back to the inn the last van had gone.”
“There; now, you’re shuffling,” he said. “You never said a word about the van being gone.”
“Didn’t I, Bill? Well, I meant to say so. Mr Hallett thought it would be much nicer to go for a walk in the woods than to sit in that hot room where the men were drinking and smoking, so we did, only we stopped too long.”
Revitts shut his pocket-book with a snap, scratched his head with the end of his pencil, wetted the point between his lips, and had another scratch; then pushed the pencil into the loop at the side, replaced the book in his breast, and buttoned it up tight, as he stood staring hard at me. Then he coughed behind his hand, rubbed his ear again, unbuttoned his coat, buttoned it up tightly, cleared his throat again, and then said:
“Well, it was circumstantial evidence, cert’nly.”
“It’s too bad, Bill,” I said, in an injured tone; “you had no business to doubt me.”
“More I hadn’t, old lad,” he replied in a deprecating way. “But you know, Ant’ny, I had been a-sitting here wait-wait-waiting and thinking all sorts o’ things.”
“Why didn’t you go to bed?”
“I’d been thinking, old lad, that being a holiday, you might be hungry, and look here.”
He opened the little cupboard and took out a raised pork pie and a bottle of pale ale.
“I’d got the cloth laid and the knives and forks out ready, but I got in such a wax about one o’clock that I snatched ’em all off and cleared ’em away.”
“And why did you get in a wax, Bill?” I said. “You ought to have known me better.”
“So I ought, old lad,” he said penitently; “but I got thinking you’d chucked me over, and was out on larks with that there Hallett; and it ain’t nice to be chucked over for a chap like that, specially when you seem to belong to me. You’ll shake hands, won’t you, Tony?”
“Of course I will.”
“And I won’t doubt you another time; let’s have the pie, after all.”
We did; and in a dozen ways the good fellow strove to show me his sorrow for his past doubts, picking me out the best bits of the pie, foaming up my glass with the ale, and when I expressed my fears of not being awake in time for the office, he promised to call me; and though he never owned to it, I have good reason for believing that he sat up writing out corrections in an old dictation lesson, calling me in excellent time, and having the breakfast all ready upon the table.