The Fortunate Youth Part 3

"Dunno," said he.

"Sir Walter Scott."

Paul jumped to his feet. Sir Walter Scott, he knew not why or how, was one of those bright names that starred in his historical darkness, like Caesar and Napoleon and Ridley and Latimer and W. G. Grace.

"Tha' art sure? Sir Water Scott?"

The shock of meeting Sir Walter in the flesh could not have been greater. The man nodded. "Think I'd tell yer a lie? I do a bit of reading myself in the old 'bus there"-he jerked a thumb--"I've got some books now. Would yer like to see 'em?"

Would a mouse like cheese? Paul started off with his new companion.

"If it wasn't for a book or two, I'd go melancholy mad and bust myself," the latter remarked.

Paul's spirit leaped toward a spiritual brother. It was precisely his own case.

"You'll find a lot of chaps that don't hold with books. Dessay you've met 'em?"

Paul laughed, precipient of irony.

Barney Bill continued: "I've heard some on 'em say: 'What's the good of books? Give me nature,' and they goes and asks for it at the public-'ouse. Most say nothing at all, but just booze."

"Like father," said Paul.

"Eh?" cried his friend sharply.

"Sam b.u.t.ton, what married mother."

"Ali! so he boozes a lot, does he?"

Paul drew an impressionistic and lurid picture of Mr. b.u.t.ton.

"And they fight?"

"Like billy-o," said Paul.

They reached the van. Barney Bill, surprisingly agile in spite of his twisted leg, sprang into the interior. Paul, standing between the shafts, looked in with curiosity. There was a rough though not unclean bed running down one side. Beyond, at the stern, so to speak, was a kind of galley containing cooking stove, kettle and pot. There were shelves, some filled with stock-in-trade, others with miscellaneous things, the nature of which he could not distinguish in the gloom.

Barney Bill presently turned and dumped an armful of books on the footboard an inch or two below Paul's nose. Paul scanned the t.i.tle pages. They were: Goldsmith's "Animated Nature," "Enquire Within Upon Everything," an old bound volume of "Ca.s.sell's Family Reader," "The Remains of Henry Kirke White," and "Martin Chuzzlewit." The owner looked down upon them proudly.

"I've got some more, but I can't get at 'em."

Paul regarded him with envy. This was a man of great possessions. "How long are yo' going to stay here?" he asked hopefully.

"Till sunrise to-morrow."

Paul's face fell. He seemed to have no luck nowadays.

Barney Bill let himself down to a sitting position on the footboard and reached to the end for a huge pork pie and a clasp knife which lay beside a tin can. "I'll go on with my supper," said he; then noticing a wistful, hungry look in the child's eyes, "Have a bit?" he asked.

He cut off a mighty hunk and put it into Paul's ready hand. Paul perched himself beside him, and they both ate for a long while in silence, dangling their legs. Now and again the host pa.s.sed the tin of tea to wash down the food. The flaming dragon died into a smoky red above the town. A light or two already appeared in the fringe of mean houses. Twilight fell rapidly.

"Oughtn't you to be getting home?"

Paul, his hunger appeased, grinned. His idea was to sneak into the scullery just after the public-houses closed, when his mother would be far too much occupied with Mr. b.u.t.ton to worry about him. Chastis.e.m.e.nt would then be postponed till the morning. Artlessly he laid the situation before his friend, who led him on to relate other amenities of his domestic life.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" said Barney Bill. "She must be a she-devil!"

Paul cordially agreed. He had already imagined the Prince of Darkness in the guise of Mr. b.u.t.ton; Mrs. b.u.t.ton was in every way fit to be the latter's diabolical mate. Encouraged by sympathy and shrewd questions, he sketched in broad detail his short career, glorifying himself as the prize scholar and the erstwhile Grand Llama of Budge Street, and drawing a dismal picture of the factory. Barney Bill listened comprehendingly. Then, smoking a well-blackened clay, he began to utter maledictions on the suffocating life in towns and to extol his own manner of living. Having an appreciative audience, he grew eloquent over his lonely wanderings the length and breadth of the land; over the joy of country things, the sweetness of the fields, the wayside flowers, the vaulted highways in the leafy summer, the quiet, sleepy towns, the fragrant villages, the peace and cleanness of the open air.

The night had fallen, and in the cleared sky the stars shone bright.

Paul, his head against the lintel of the van door, looked up at them, enthralled by the talk of Barney Bill. The vagabond merchant had the slight drawling inflection of the Home Counties, which gave a soothing effect to a naturally soft voice. To Paul it was the pipes of Pan.

"It mightn't suit everybody," said Barney Bill philosophically. "Some folks prefer gas to laylock. I don't say that they're wrong. But I likes laylock."

"What's laylock?" asked Paul.

His friend explained. No lilac bloomed in the blighted Springs of Bludston.

"Does it smell sweet?"

"Yuss. So does the may and the syringa and the new-mown hay and the seaweed. Never smelt any of 'em?"

"No," sighed Paul, sensuously conscious of new and vague horizons. "I once smelled summat sweet," he said dreamily. "It wur a lady."

"D'ye mean a woman?"

"No. A lady. Like what yo' read of."

"I've heard as they do smell good; like violets--some on 'em," the philosopher remarked.

Drawn magnetically to this spiritual brother, Paul said almost without volition, "She said I were the son of a prince."

"Son of a WOT?" cried Barney Bill, sitting up with a jerk that shook a volume or two onto the ground.

Paul repeated the startling word.

"Lor' lumme!" exclaimed the other, "don't yer know who yer father was?"

Paul told of his disastrous attempts to pierce the mystery of his birth.

"A frying-pan? Did she now? That's a mother for yer."

Paul disowned her. He disowned her with reprehensible emphasis.

Barney Bill pulled reflectively at his pipe. Then he laid a bony hand on the boy's shoulder. "Who do you think yer mother was?" he asked gravely. "A princess?"

"Ay, why not?" said Paul.

"Why not?" echoed Barney Bill. "Why not? You're a blooming lucky kid. I wish I was a missin' heir. I know what I'd do."