Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 13

"That would be a fine thing," she answered mincingly, and returned her gaze to the window and the line of sh.o.r.e.

Chapter XIII.

RUTH SETS OUT.

Mana.s.seh had wrapped Master d.i.c.ky up warm in a couple of rugs, and spread a third about his feet. In the ample state seat of the coach the child reclined as easily as in a bed. He began to doze while the vehicle yet jolted over the road crossing the headland; and when it gained the track, and the wheels rolled smoothly on the hard sand, the motion slid him deep into slumber.

He came out of it with a start and a catch of the breath, and for a full half-minute lay with all his senses numbed, not so much scared as bewildered. In his dreams he had been at home in Boston, and he searched his little brain, wondering why he was awake, and if he should call for Miss Quiney (who slept always within hail, in a small bedroom); and why, when the night-nursery window lay to the left of his bed, strange lights should be flas.h.i.+ng on his right, where the picture of King William landing at Torbay hung over his washstand.

The lights moved to and fro, then they were quenched, and all was dark about him. But he heard Mana.s.seh's voice, some way off, in the darkness, and the sound of it brought him to his bearings. He was in the coach, he remembered; and realising this, he was instantly glad--for he was a plucky child--that he had not called out to summon Miss Quiney.

Had there been an accident? At any rate he was not hurt. His father had ridden on ahead, and would reach home many hours in advance.

The boy had learnt this from Mana.s.seh. He reasoned that, if an accident had happened, his father would not hear of it--would be riding forward, further and further into the night. He wondered how Mana.s.seh and the grooms would manage without his father, who always gave the orders and was never at a loss.

He sat up, peering out into the night. He was still peering thus, building hasty wild guesses, when again a light showed, waving as it drew nearer. It came close; it was one of the coach-lamps, and blazed full into his eyes through the window. The door opened, letting in the roar of the beach and smiting his small nostrils with sea-brine, that with one breath purged away the stuffy scent of leather.

Mana.s.seh was handing some one into the coach.

"De child--Mas' Richard--if you'll tak' care, miss. He's fas' asleep, prob'ly."

"But I'm _not_," said d.i.c.ky, sitting bolt upright and gathering his rugs about him. "Who is it?"

Mana.s.seh perhaps did not hear. He made no reply, at any rate, but turned the lamp full on Ruth Josselin as she sank back against the cus.h.i.+ons on d.i.c.ky's right.

"You will find plenty rugs, miss."

He shut the door. d.i.c.ky, holding his breath, heard him replace the lamp in its socket, and felt the soft tilt of his great weight as he climbed to the perch behind.

"R--right away!"

There was a tug, and the great coach rolled forward. In the darkness d.i.c.ky caught the sound of a smothered sob.

"Who are you?" he asked. There was no response, and after a moment he added, "I know. You are the girl who put out the fire. I like you."

He was very sleepy. He wondered why she did not answer; but, his childish instinct a.s.suring him that she was a friend, in his somnolence he felt nothing other than trust in her. He nestled close in his rugs and reached out an arm.

It rubbed across the weals on Ruth's back, and was torture.

She clenched her teeth, while tears--tears of physical anguish, irrepressible--over-brimmed her lashes and fell uncounted in the darkness.

"You are crying. Why? I like you." The child's voice trailed off into dream.

"Closer!" whispered Ruth, and would have forced the embrace upon her pain; but it relaxed. d.i.c.ky's head fell sideways, and rested, angled between the cus.h.i.+ons and her shoulder.

She sat wide-eyed, staring into folds of darkness, while the coach rolled forward smoothly towards the dawn.

BOOK II.

PROBATION.

Chapter I.

AFTER TWO YEARS.

"Come down and play!"

Ruth, looking down from the open lattice, smiled and shook her head.

"I must not; I'm doing my lessons."

"Must not!" mimicked Master d.i.c.k. "You're getting stupider and stupider, living up here. If you don't look out, one of these days you'll turn into an old maid--just like Miss Quiney."

"Hs-s-s.h.!.+ She's downstairs somewhere."

"I don't care if she hears." d.i.c.ky ran his eyes defiantly along the line of ground-floor windows under the verandah, then upturned his face again. "After coming all this way on purpose to play with you," he protested.

"You have made yourself dreadfully hot."

"I _am_ hot," the boy confessed. "I gave Piggy the slip at the foot of the hill, and I've run every step of the way."

"Is _he_ here?" Ruth glanced nervously toward a clump of elms around which the path from the entrance-gate curved into view. "But you oughtn't to call Mr. Silk 'Piggy,' you know. It--it's ungentlemanly."

"Why, I took the name from you! You said yourself, one day, that he was a pig; and so he is. He has piggy eyes, and he eats too much, and there's something about the back of his neck you must have noticed."

"It's cruel of you, d.i.c.ky, to remember and cast up what I said when I knew no better. You know how hard I am learning: in the beginning you helped me to learn."

"Did I?" mused d.i.c.ky. "Then I wish I hadn't, if you're going to grow up and treat me like this. Oh, very well," he added stoutly after a pause, "then I'm learning too, learning to be a sailor; and it'll be first-rate practice to climb aloft to you, over the verandah. You don't mind my spitting on my hands? It's a way they have in the Navy."

"d.i.c.ky, don't be foolis.h.!.+ Think of Miss Quiney's roses." Finding him inexorable, Ruth began to parley. "I don't want to see Mr. Silk.

But if I come down to you, it will not be to play. We'll creep off to the Well, or somewhere out of hail, and there you must let me read--or perhaps I'll read aloud to you. Promise?"

"What're you reading?"

"The Bible."