Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life Volume I Part 18

'I didn't forget!' said Tom. 'I meant to have told you whenever you came to see me, but'--his eyes filled and his voice began to alter--'you never came, and she at the Terrace wouldn't look at me!

And Bill and the rest of them was always at me, asking when I expected my aristocrat, and jeering me 'cause I'd said you wasn't like the rest of 'em. So then I thought I'd have my liberty too, and show I didn't care no more than they, and spite you all.'

'How little one thinks of the grievous harm a little selfish heedlessness may do!' sighed Louis, half aloud. 'If you had only looked to something better than me, Tom! And so you ran into mischief?'

Half confession, half vindication ensued, and the poor fellow's story was manifest enough. His faults had been unsteadiness and misplaced independence rather than any of the more degrading stamp of evils. The public-house had not been sought for liquor's sake, but for that of the orator who inflamed the crude imaginations and aspirations that effervesced in the youth's mind; and the rudely-exercised authority of master and foreman had only driven his fierce temper further astray.

With sense of right sufficient to be dissatisfied with himself, and taste and principle just enough developed to loathe the evils round him, hardened and soured by Louis's neglect, and rendered discontented by Chartist preachers, he had come to long for any sort of change or break; and the tidings of the accident, coupled with the hard words which he knew himself to deserve but too well, had put the finis.h.i.+ng stroke.

Hearing that the police were in pursuit of him, he had fancied it was on account of the harm done by his negligence. 'I hid about for a day,' he said: 'somehow I felt as if I could not go far off, till I heard how you were, my Lord, and I'd made up my mind that as soon as ever I heard the first stroke of the bell, I'd go and find the police, and his Lords.h.i.+p might hang me, and glad!'

Louis was nearer a tear than a smile.

'Then Mr. Frost finds me, and was mad at me. Nothing wasn't bad enough for me, and he sets Mr. Warren to see me off, so I had nothing for it but to cut.'

'What did you think of doing?' sighed Louis.

'I made for the sea. If I could have got to them places in the Indies, such as that Philip went to, as you reads about in the verse-book--he as killed his wife and lost his son, and made friends with that there big rascal, and had the chest of gold--'

'Philip Mortham! Were you going in search of buccaneers?'

'I don't know, my Lord. Once you told me of some English Sir, as kills the pirates, and is some sort of a king. I thought, may be, now you'd tell me where they goes to dig for gold.'

'Oh, Tom, Tom, what a mess I have made of your notions!'

'Isn't there no such place?'

'It's a bad business, and what can you want of it?'

'I want to get shut of them as orders one about here and there, with never a civil word. Besides,' looking down, 'there's one I'd like to see live like a lady.'

'Would that make her happier?'

'I'll never see her put about, and slave and drudge, as poor mother did!' exclaimed Tom.

'That's a better spirit than the mere dislike to a master,' said Louis.

'What is life but obedience?'

'I'd obey fast enough, if folk would only speak like you do--not drive one about like a dog, when one knows one is every bit as good as they.'

'I'm sure I never knew that!'

Tom stared broadly.

'I never saw the person who was not my superior,' repeated Louis, quietly, and in full earnest. 'Not that this would make rough words pleasanter, I suppose. The only cure I could ever see for the ills of the world is, that each should heartily respect his neighbour.'

Paradoxes musingly uttered, and flying over his head, wore to Tom a natural and comfortable atmosphere; and the conversation proceeded.

Louis found that geography had been as much at fault as chronology, and that the runaway had found himself not at the sea, but at Illershall, where he had applied for work, and had taken a great fancy to Mr.

Dobbs, but had been rejected for want of a character, since the good superintendent made it his rule to keep up a high standard among his men. Wandering had succeeded, in which, moneyless, forlorn, and unable to find employment, he had been obliged to part with portions of his clothing to procure food; his strength began to give way, and he had been found by the police sleeping under a hedge; he was questioned, and sent home, crestfallen, sullen, and miserable, unwilling to stay at Marksedge, yet not knowing where to go.

His hankering was for Illershall, and Louis, thinking of the judicious care, the evening school, and the openings for promotion, decided at once that the experiment should be tried without loss of time. He desired Tom to bring him ink and paper, and hastily wrote:

'DEAR MR. DOBBS,--You would do me a great kindness by employing this poor fellow, and bearing with him. I have managed him very ill, but he would reward any care. Have an eye to him, and put him in communication with the chaplain. If you can take him, I will write more at length. If you have heard of my accident, you will excuse more at present.

'Yours very truly, 'FITZJOCELYN.'

Then arose the question, how Tom was to get to Illershall. He did not know; and Louis directed his search into the places where the loose money in his pocket might have been put. When it was found, Tom scrupled at the proposed half-sovereign. Three-and-fourpence would pay for his ticket. 'You will want a supper and a bed. Go respectably, Tom, and keep so. It will be some consolation for the mischief I have done you!'

'You done me harm!' cried Tom. 'Why, 'tis all along of you that I ain't a regularly-built scamp!'

'Very irregularly built, whatever you are!' said Louis. But I'll tell you what you shall do for me,' continued he, with anxious earnestness.

'Do you know the hollow ash-tree that shades over Inglewood stile? It has a stout sucker, with a honeysuckle grown into it--coming up among the moss, where the great white vase-shaped funguses grew up in the autumn.'

'I know him, my Lord,' said Tom, brightening at the detail, given with all a sick man's vivid remembrance of the out-of-doors world.

'I have fixed my mind on that stick! I think it has a bend at the root. Will you cut it for me, and trim it up for a walking-stick?'

'That I will, my Lord!'

'Thank you. Bring it up to me between seven and eight in the morning, if you please; and so I shall see you again--'

Mr. Holdsworth was already entering to close the conversation, which had been already over-long and exciting, for Louis, sinking back, mournfully exclaimed, 'The medley of that poor boy's mind is the worst of my pieces of work. I have made him too refined for one cla.s.s, and left him too rough for another--discontented with his station, and too desultory and insubordinate to rise, n.o.bleness of nature turning to arrogance, fact and fiction all mixed up together. It would be a study, if one was not so sorry!'

Nevertheless, Mr. Holdsworth could not understand how even Fitzjocelyn could have given the lad a recommendation, and he would have remonstrated, but that the long interview had already been sufficiently trying; so he did his best to have faith in his eccentric friend's good intentions.

In the early morning, Tom Madison made his appearance, in his best clothes, erect and open-faced, a strong contrast to the jaded, downcast being who had yesterday presented himself. The stick was prepared to perfection, and Louis acknowledged it with grat.i.tude proportioned to the fancies that he had spent on it, poising it, feeling the cool grey bark, and raising himself in bed to try how he should lean on it.

'Hang it up there, Tom, within my reach. It seems like a beginning of independence.'

'I wish, my Lord,' blurted out Tom, in agitation, 'you'd tell me if you're to go lame for life, and then I should know the worst of it.'

'I suspect no one knows either the worst or the best,' said Louis, kindly. 'Since the pain has gone off, I have been content, and asked no questions. Mr. Walby says my ankle is going on so well, that it is a real picture, and a pleasure to touch it; and though I can't say the pleasure is mutual, I ought to be satisfied.'

'You'll only laugh at me!' half sobbed Tom, 'and if there was but anything I could do! I've wished my own legs was cut off--and serve me right--ever since I seen you lying there.'

'Thank you; I'm afraid they would have been no use to me! But, seriously, if I had been moderately prudent, it would not have happened. And as it is, I hope I shall be glad of that roll in Ferny dell to the end of my life.'

'I did go to see after mending them stones!' cried Tom, as if injured by losing this one compensation; 'but they are all done up, and there ain't nothing to do to them.'

'Look here, Tom: if you want to do anything for me, it is easily told, what would be the greatest boon to me. They tell me I've spoilt you, and I partly believe it, for I put more of my own fancies into you than of real good, and the way I treated you made you impatient of control: and then, because I could not keep you on as I should have wished,--as, unluckily, you and I were not made to live together on a desert island,--I left you without the little help I might have given. Now, Tom, if you go to the bad, I shall know it is all my fault--'

'That it ain't,' the boy tried to say, eagerly, but Louis went on.

'Don't let my bad management be the ruin of you. Take a turn from this moment. You know Who can help you, and Who, if you had thought of Him, would have kept you straight when I forgot. Put all the stuff out of your head about one man being equal to another. Equal they are; but some have the trial of ruling, others of obeying, and the last are the lucky ones. If we could only see their souls, we should know it.

You'll find evening schools and lectures at Illershall; you'd better take to them, for you've more real liking for that sort of thing than for mischief; and if you finished up your education, you'd get into a line that would make you happier, and where you might do much good.

There--promise me that you'll think of these things, and take heed to your Sundays.'

'I promise,' said Tom.

'And mind you write to me, Tom, and tell how you get on. I'll write, and let you know about your grandfather, and Marksedge news and all--'