Our Frank Part 3

"I don't want to live like a jintleman," he said; "I want to work honest, and git wage."

"Why did yer cut and run then?" said his companion suddenly and sharply.

"Did they wallop yer?"

Frank started. How could this strange boy possibly know that he had run away? His alarmed face seemed to afford the tramp the keenest amus.e.m.e.nt; he laughed long and loud, leaning back on the steps in an ecstasy, and said at breathless intervals:

"You're just the innocentest, greenest little chap. How old are yer?"

Frank did not answer; he was considering the best means of getting away from this undesirable acquaintance, who presently, wiping his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, remarked with recovered gravity:

"In course, yer know, no one 'ull take a boy what's run away."

This was a new and alarming idea to Frank.

"_Won't_ they?" he said earnestly.

"Certingly not," continued the tramp. "Where's yer carikter? You 'ain't got none."

Frank hung his head. He wondered he had not thought of this before.

"This is where it lies," pursued his companion, holding out a very dirty hand dramatically in front of him. "You comes, as it might be, to me and you says, 'I want a sitivation.' Then I says, 'Where's yer carikter?' Then you says, 'I 'ain't got one.' Then I says, 'Out yer go.'"

Having thus placed the situation in a nutsh.e.l.l, as it were, he put his hands in his pockets and observed Frank covertly out of the corners of his eyes. Seeing how crestfallen he looked, the tramp presently spoke again.

"Now, in my line of bizness it's not so important a carikter isn't. I might very likely look over it in takin' a pal if he asked me. In course it would be a favour; but still I might look over it."

"Do you want a pal?" asked Frank, pushed to extremity.

"Well, I don't, not to say _want_ a pal," replied the tramp, "but I don't mind stretching a pint in your case if you like to jine."

The blue eyes and the glittering black ones met for an instant.

"I'll jine yer," said Frank with a sigh.

The tramp held out his long-fingered brown hand.

"Shake hands," he said. "The terms is, halves all we git."

The bargain concluded, he informed Frank that his name was Barney, and further introduced him to the mice, called respectively Jumbo, Alice, and Lord Beaconsfield.

This last, a mouse of weak-eyed and feeble appearance, he took out of the cage and allowed to crawl over him, stroking it tenderly now and then with the tip of his finger.

"He's an artful one, he is," he murmured admiringly. "I calls him Dizzy for short. What's your name, little un?"

"Frank."

"That sounds a good sort o' name too," said Barney; "sort o' name you see in gowld letters on a chany mug in the shop winders, don't it? I don't fancy, though, I could bring my tongue to it, not as a _jineral_ thing. I shall call yer 'Nipper,' if you don't mind. After a friend o'

mine."

The new name appearing rather an advantage than otherwise under his present circ.u.mstances Frank agreed to drop his own, and to be henceforth known only as the "Nipper." This change seemed to have broken the last link which bound him to Green Highlands and his own people. He was Frank Darvell no longer; he belonged to no one; the wide world was his home; Barney and the white mice his only friends and companions.

CHAPTER THREE.

In the wandering life that followed, Frank had excellent opportunities for studying the character of his new comrade, and it did not take long to discover two prominent points in it. Barney was a liar and a thief.

These accomplishments, indeed, had formed the princ.i.p.al features in poor Barney's education from his tenderest childhood. He had always been taught that it was desirable and proper to lie and steal; the only wrong and undesirable thing was--to be found out. To do Barney justice he very seldom _was_ found out; nimble of finger and quick of wit he had profited well by his lessons, and by the time Frank met him had long been a finished scholar, and able to "do" for himself. In spite of these failings he was a kind-hearted boy; he would not have hurt any living thing weaker than himself, and Frank's pale face and slender form soon appealed to his protective instincts in much the same way that his white mice did, for which he cherished a fond affection.

If the night were cold he always managed that the Nipper had the warmest shelter, and when provisions were scarce the least tasty morsels were always reserved for himself, as a matter of course. Then what an amusing companion he was! How his ingenious stories, mostly a tissue of falsehood, beguiled the weary way, and made Frank forget his aching feet! He believed them all at first, and his innocent credulousness acted as a spur to Barney's fertile invention and excited him to fresh and wilder efforts. On one occasion, however, his imagination carried him beyond the limits of even Frank's capacity of belief, and from that moment suspicion began. He had been romancing about the riches and wealth of people who lived in London (where he had never been), and after describing at great length that the houses were none of them smaller than the whole town of Wickham put together, he added:

"An the folks niver uses ought but gowld to eat an drink off."

Frank looked up quickly.

"You're wrong there," he said. "My mother's got a chany jug what used to belong to her grandfather, and _he_ lived in Lunnon." Observing a twinkle in the corner of Barney's eye he continued in an injured tone:

"You've bin lyin'. Lies is wicked, and stealin's wicked too."

There was a sound of conscious superiority in his tone, which was naturally irritating to his companion, who laughed hoa.r.s.ely.

"Jest listen to him," he said, addressing Lord Beaconsfield for want of a more intelligent audience, "listen to him! Don't he preach fine? An'

him a boy without a carikter too! Lies is wicked, eh? And stealin's wicked. Who told him that, I wonder?"

"It's in the catekizum," continued Frank. "Parson allers said so, and Schoolmaster too."

Barney made a gesture expressive of much contempt at the mention of these two dignitaries.

"Parson and Schoolmaster!" he said derisively. "Why, in course they said so; they're paid to do it. That's how they earns their money. But jest you please to remember, that yer not Parson, not yit Schoolmaster, but a boy without a carikter, so shut up with yer preachin'."

Without a character! It was hard, Frank thought, that he, a respectable Danecross boy, who had been to school, and sung in the choir, and whose folks had always worked honest and got good wages, should have come to this! That a vagrant tramp, who could neither read nor write, and who got his living anyhow, should be able to call him "a boy without a carikter!"

And the worst of it was, that it was true, he sadly thought, as he plodded along in the dust by Barney's side. He had thrown away his right to be considered respectable--no one would employ him if they knew he had run away, and still less if they knew he had been "on the tramp"

with a boy like Barney.

However, as time went on, such serious thoughts troubled him less frequently; as long as the sun shone, it was easy to avoid dwelling on them amidst the change and uncertainty of his vagrant life.

But there were not two days alike in it. Sometimes luck, plenty to eat, and a bed of dry straw in a barn--that was luxury. Sometimes a weary tramp in the pouring rain, no coppers and no supper. Under these last circ.u.mstances the "Nipper" was sharply reminded of the time when he was Frank Darvell, and lived at Green Highlands; s.h.i.+vering and hungry, his thoughts would dwell regretfully on the comfort and security he had left. Mother's face would come before him sad and reproachful. Poor mother! She would never have that shawl with the apple-green border now. Her Frank, instead of making a great fortune in London town, had become a wanderer and a tramp; and indeed after a month's companions.h.i.+p with Barney he was so altered that she would hardly have known him.

Sleeping under hedges or in outhouses had not improved his clothes, which were now stained and torn. His pale face was changed by wind and weather, and also by a plentiful supply of dust, seldom washed off, into a dirty brown one, and his hair, once kept so neatly cropped, now hung about in bushy tangles like Barney's. Only his bright blue eyes, with their innocent childishness of expression, were recognisable, and these gained him many a copper when he carried round his cap after Barney's feeble performances with the white mice.

But though changed outwardly, there was one good habit which Frank had brought away from Green Highlands, and to which he clung with a persistency which surprised and irritated his partner. This was honesty. Nothing would induce him to steal, or even to share stolen booty; hunger, threats, bitterly sarcastic speeches were alike in vain, and at last Barney's scornful amus.e.m.e.nt at the "boy without a carikter"

began to be mingled with a certain respect; not that he was the least inclined to follow his example and give up pilfering himself, but he thought it was "game" of the little 'un to hold his own, and that was a quality he could understand and admire. After all, a chap that had been brought up by parsons and schoolmasters must have allowances made for him, he supposed, and he soon gave up all idea of inducing Frank to thieve, and even kept his own exploits in the background, because the "Nipper" took it to heart.

So, sharing sometimes hards.h.i.+ps, and sometimes pleasures, the oddly-matched partners journeyed on, with an increasing attachment to each other, and Frank's thoughts travelled back less and less often to Green Highlands.

For now the bright warm weather had set fairly in, and all the different flowers came marching on in sweet procession, and filled the woods and fields. After the primroses, and while some still remained sprinkled about in the sunny places, came the deep blue hyacinths, and then the golden kingcups, and the downy yellow cowslips: last of all, a tall triumphant host of foxgloves spread themselves over forest and common.

The wind, blowing softly from the west, brought with it little gentle showers, just enough to freshen the leaves and wash the upturned faces of the blossoms; tramping was a luxury in such weather, and those people much to be pitied who had to work in close dark rooms, hidden away from the glorious suns.h.i.+ne.

Certainly it was rather _too_ hot sometimes, and the roads were dusty and gritty, and the boys' throats got parched with thirst after a very few miles; but there was always the hope of coming to some delicious, cool green bit by the way, or to a stream of water, or to some comfortable village seat under the shadow of a great tree. And this kept up their spirits. One day they had walked far in a blazing July sun along an unshaded high-road; it was evening now, and they were wondering where they should sleep, and how they should get some supper, when they came to a narrow lane turning off to the right, with steep banks on each side of it. There was a sign-post, which, interpreted by Frank, said, To Crowhurst--one mile.