Me and Nobbles Part 10

He held out his stick with pride, then looked pityingly at the fallen bull, whose master was surveying it with some dismay.

'Is the poor cow quite dead? I was awful 'fraid when I saw you knock him over.'

The gentleman looked at Bobby very strangely, then turned back to his car.

'True!' he called, 'come and speak to this little boy. I've never seen such pluck before. Tell him he needn't waste his pity on the bull, which would have killed him had we not prevented it!'

A little girl, with a mop of unruly brown hair escaping from a quaint sun-bonnet, was still sitting in the car and regarding the scene with big awestruck eyes. In a moment she jumped out and approached Bobby.

She was only half a head taller than he was, and now gazed at him with soft, sweet grey eyes.

'Poor little boy!' she said. 'What's your name?'

'I'm not a poor boy,' said Bobby with head erect; 'me and n.o.bbles will be walking on, for we're in a partic'lar hurry.'

A sudden panic had seized him that this gentleman might take him home again; he had a great dislike to be the centre of a crowd, and the cattle-drovers were all surrounding him now, gesticulating and talking loudly. And Bobby was rather shy of other children; he generally felt strangely antagonistic towards them. This little girl's gentle pity, and her desire to know his name, frightened and annoyed him.

He turned his back upon her and hurried off, with very little idea of the danger from which he had been saved. But he had not gone a hundred yards before, to his consternation, he met John, the groom, driving back from the town in the dogcart. He pulled up instantly.

'Why, Master Bobby, you ain't by yourself all this way from home?'

'Me and n.o.bbles are here,' said the small boy with dignity.

It did not take John long to get out and lift the little runaway up to the seat beside him, and Bobby was soon being driven home with a crestfallen unhappy face.

'Everybodies always stops me when I want to do fings!' he complained to Nurse when she took him to task for being so naughty.

And Nurse was so angry with him that she made him stand in the corner till teatime.

'For you're not a bit sorry, and will be sure to run away again directly you get a chance,' she said.

Bobby turned his face to the wall with heaving chest.

'I wants to find my father,' he said.

He little knew how very close he had been to the end of that search.

Chapter VI.

HIS FATHER.

'Master Bobby is wanted in the drawing-room.'

Jane brought this message up just as the nursery tea was being cleared away.

'Are there visitors?' enquired Nurse.

'Yes; a gentleman.'

It was only on rare occasions that the child was sent for. Nurse was in a flutter at once, putting on his best brown velvet suit, with his little cream-silk s.h.i.+rt, and brus.h.i.+ng out his curls with great skill and care.

Bobby did not like the summons at all. He remembered the last time he had been in the drawing-room. It was to see an old clergyman who had patted him on the head and asked him if he knew his Catechism. He had wriggled away from him, and upset a vase of flowers upon a table near, and had been sent upstairs in disgrace, his grandmother declaring that 'children were always out of place in a drawing-room.'

'It's another old gempleum, Nurse. I don't like them at all.'

But when he opened the drawing-room door he saw his grandmother sitting in her stiffest sternest att.i.tude, and, seated opposite to her, the tall man with the bright eyes and the curly hair who had rescued him that afternoon from the bull.

Bobby's heart sank into his boots at once. So he had come to tell tales of him to his grandmother. He had had one scolding and a punishment from Nurse, now he would get another!

'Come here, Bobby,' said his grandmother coldly. 'Your father has come to see you.'

He could not believe his ears. For an instant he gazed wildly and uncomprehendingly at the stranger, who turned and held out his hand.

'Why, upon my word! You're the little chap who withstood the furious bull! Come along. No wonder I felt as I did when I saw you!'

How often had Bobby rehea.r.s.ed this scene to himself! He had pictured himself flinging himself with a glad cry into the arms of his father, and that father gathering him to his breast and smothering him with kisses. How different was reality to fancy! He was too dazed by the suddenness of the discovery to do more than stare stupidly up at his father, who drew him gently to him and kissed him on the forehead.

Then he heard his father tell his grandmother about the bull, and Mrs.

Egerton said:

'What possessed you to do such a naughty thing as to go out on the high-road alone, Bobby? You might have been killed, and we should not have known where you were. What made you do it?'

Bobby looked up at his grandmother with big frightened eyes.

'I went to meet my father,' he faltered.

Mr. Allonby gave a short laugh; his grandmother looked quite horrified.

'You know that is an untruth,' she said. 'Your father must be quite shocked to hear you.'

Bobby did not attempt to defend himself. His under lip quivered, and in his small heart was a pa.s.sionate desire to prove himself innocent of a lie.

His eyes turned to his father, who was looking down upon him with a strange gravity, but though he wanted to speak he could not.

'Never mind,' his father said cheerfully, 'he did meet me, and I cannot yet take in the strange coincidence of it. If I hadn't come by when I did---- Well, it does not bear thinking about. Did you know you had a father living, Bobby? For your grandmother seems to have thought I was dead. I suppose my long silence has seemed inexcusable, but I am positive that I wrote twice after your daughter's death, Mrs. Egerton, and to neither letter received any reply. Then I went off with an exploring party through South America, and have been out of touch with civilisation for the past five years. Last summer I took up life again in Canada, and only came home three months ago. I have been ill two months of that time.'

There was silence. Bobby felt uncomfortable; why, he did not know.

His father looked at him again and sighed.

'Well, I see he is cared for, Mrs. Egerton, and had better fall in with your wishes. My wife----'

'Your present wife need not be brought into our discussion.'

Mr. Allonby rose to his feet, for Mrs. Egerton's words were bitter and proud.

'I'll see the boy once again before I leave this part, and now I'll wish you good afternoon.'