From Squire to Squatter Part 21

"Lawk-a-doodle, sir! What's the matter? Have ye killed anybody?"

"Not yet," answered Archie; "but I almost feel I could."

He stuck to his work, however, like a man; but that work became more and more allied to soap, and the front shop hardly knew him any more.

He had informed the fellows at the club-room that he was employed at last; that he was apprenticed to the drug trade. But the soap somehow leaked out, and more than once, when he was introduced to some new-comer, he was styled--

"Mr Broadbent," and "something in soap."

This used to make him bite his lips in anger.

He would not have cared half so much had he not joined this very club, with a little flourish of trumpets, as young Broadbent, son of Squire Broadbent, of Burley Old Castle, England.

And now he was "something in soap."

He wrote home to his sister in the bitterness of his soul, telling her that all his visions of greatness had ended in bubbles of rainbow hue, and that he was "something in soap." He felt sorry for having done so as soon as the letter was posted.

He met old Winslow one day in the street, and this gentleman grasped Archie's small aristocratic hand in his great brown bear's paw, and congratulated him on having got on his feet at last.

"Yes," said Archie with a sneer and a laugh, "I'm 'something in soap.'"

"And soap's a good thing I can tell you. Soap's not to be despised.

There's a fortune in soap. I had an uncle in soap. Stick to it, my lad, and it'll stick to you."

But when a new apprentice came to the shop one day, and was installed in the front door drug department, while he himself was relegated to the slums at the back, his cup of misery seemed full, and he proceeded forthwith to tell this Mr Glorie what he thought of him. Mr Glorie's face got longer and longer and longer, and he finally brought his clenched fist down with such a bang on the counter, that every bottle and gla.s.s in the place rang like bells.

"I'll have the law on you," he shouted.

"I don't care; I've done with you. I'm sick of you and your soap."

He really did not mean to do it; but just at that moment his foot kicked against a huge earthenware jar full of oil, and s.h.i.+vered it in pieces.

"You've broke your indenture! You--you--"

"I've broken your jar, anyhow," cried Archie.

He picked up his hat, and rus.h.i.+ng out, ran recklessly off to his club.

He was "something in soap" no more.

He was beggared, but he was free, unless indeed Mr Glorie should put him in gaol.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE KING MAY COME IN THE CADGER'S WAY.

Mr Glorie did not put his runaway apprentice in gaol. He simply advertised for another--with a premium.

Poor Archie! His condition in life was certainly not to be envied now.

He had but very few pounds between him and actual want.

He was rich in one thing alone--pride. He would sooner starve than write home for a penny. No, he _could_ die in a gutter, but he could not bear to think they should know of it at Burley Old Farm.

Long ago, in the bonnie woods around Burley, he used to wonder to find dead birds in dark crannies of the rocks. He could understand it now.

They had crawled into the crannies to die, out of sight and alone.

His club friends tried to rally him. They tried to cheer him up in more ways than one. Be it whispered, they tried to make him seek solace in gambling and in the wine-cup.

I do not think that I have held up my hero as a paragon. On the contrary, I have but represented him as he was--a bold, determined lad, with many and many a fault; but now I am glad to say this one thing in his favour: he was not such a fool as to try to drown his wits in wine, nor to seek to make money questionably by betting and by cards.

After Archie's letter home, in which he told Elsie that he was "something in soap," he had written another, and a more cheerful one.

It was one which cost him a good deal of trouble to write; for he really could not get over the notion that he was telling white lies when he spoke of "his prospects in life, and his hopes being on the ascendant;"

and as he dropped it into the receiver, he felt mean, demoralised; and he came slowly along George Street, trying to make himself believe that any letter was better than no letter, and that he would hardly have been justified in telling the whole truth.

Well, at Burley Old Farm things had rather improved, simply for this reason: Squire Broadbent had gone in heavily for retrenchment.

He had proved the truth of his own statement: "It does not take much in this world to make a man happy." The Squire was happy when he saw his wife and children happy. The former was always quietly cheerful, and the latter did all they could to keep up each other's hearts. They spent much of their spare time in the beautiful and romantic tower-room, and in walking about the woods, the grounds, and farm; for Rupert was well now, and was his father's right hand, not in the rough-and-tumble das.h.i.+ng way that Archie would have been, but in a thoughtful, considering way.

Mr Walton had gone away, but Branson and old Kate were still to the fore. The Squire could not have spared these.

I think that Rupert's religion was a very pretty thing. He had lost none of his simple faith, his abiding trust in G.o.d's goodness, though he had regained his health. His devotions were quite as sincere, his thankfulness for mercies received greater even than before, and he had the most unbounded faith in the efficacy of prayer.

So his sister and he lived in hope, and the Squire used to build castles in the green parlour of an evening, and of course the absent Archie was one of the kings of these castles.

After a certain number of years of retrenchment, Burley was going to rise from its ashes like the fabled phoenix--machinery and all. The Squire was even yet determined to show these old-fas.h.i.+oned farmer folks of Northumbria "a thing or two."

That was his ambition; and we must not blame him; for a man without ambition of some kind is a very humble sort of a clod--a clod of very poor clay.

But to return to Sydney.

Archie had received several rough invitations to go and visit Mr Winslow. He had accepted two of these, and, singular to say, Etheldene's father was absent each time. Now, I refuse to be misunderstood. Archie did not "manage" to call when the ex-miner was out; but Archie was not displeased. He had taken a very great fancy for the child, and did not hesitate to tell her that from the first day he had met her he had loved her like his sister Elsie.

Of course Etheldene wanted to know all about Elsie, and hours were spent in telling her about this one darling sister of his, and about Rupert and all the grand old life at Burley.

"I should laugh," cried Archie, "if some day when you grew up, you should find yourself in England, and fall in love with Rupert, and marry him."

The child smiled, but looked wonderfully sad and beautiful the next moment. She had a way like this with her. For if Etheldene had been taken to represent any month of our English year, it would have been April--suns.h.i.+ne, flowers, and showers.

But one evening Archie happened to be later out in the suburbs than he ought to have been. The day had been hot, and the night was delightfully cool and pleasant. He was returning home when a tall, rough-looking, bearded man stopped him, and asked "for a light, old chum." Archie had a match, which he handed him, and as the light fell on the man's face, it revealed a very handsome one indeed, and one that somehow seemed not unfamiliar to him.

Archie went on. There was the noise of singing farther down the street, a merry band of youths who had been to a race meeting that clay, and were up to mischief.

The tall man hid under the shadow of a wall.

"They're larrikins," he said to himself, and "he's a greenhorn." He spat in his fist, and kept his eye on the advancing figures.

Archie met them. They were arm-in-arm, five in all, and instead of making way for him, rushed him, and down he went, his head catching the kerb with frightful force. They at once proceeded to rifle him. But perhaps "larrikins" had never gone to ground so quickly and so unexpectedly before. It was the bearded man who was "having his fling"

among them, and he ended by grabbing one in each hand till a policeman came up.