Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 93

"No, sir, that he never would. He may go deeper into the mire if he does not get it. Enlist, or something."

"Are you going already, Johnny?"

"Yes, sir. I must catch the next train, and it's a good way to the station."

"You can take a fly. Wait a few minutes."

He went into his bedroom, on the same floor. When he came back, he held a piece of paper in his hand.

"There, Johnny. But it is my loan; not yours."

It was a cheque for a hundred pounds. He had listened, after all! The surprise was so great that I am afraid my eyes were dim.

"The loan is mine, Johnny," he repeated. "I am not going to risk your money, and prove myself a false trustee. When Todhetley can repay it, it will be to me, not to you. But now--understand: unless he gives you a solemn promise never to play with that 'Honourable' again, or with either of the Pells, _you will not use the cheque_, but return it to me."

"Oh, Mr. Brandon, there will be no difficulty. He only wants to be quit of them."

"Get his promise, I say. If he gives it, present this cheque at Robarts's in Lombard Street to-morrow, and they'll pay you the money over the counter."

"It is made out to my order!" I said, looking at the cheque: "not to Crayton!"

"To Crayton!" retorted Mr. Brandon. "I wouldn't let a cheque of mine, uncrossed, fall into _his_ hands. He might add an ought or two to the figures. I drew it out for an even hundred, you see: the odd money may be wanted. You'll have to sign your name at the back: do it at the bank.

And now, do you know why I have let you have this?"

I looked at him in doubt.

"Because you have obeyed the injunctions I gave you--to bring any difficulty you might have to me. I certainly never expected it so soon, or that it would take this form. Don't you get tumbling into another. Let people take care of themselves. There: put it into your breast-pocket, and be off."

I don't know how I got back to town. There was no accident, and we were not pitched into next week. If we had been, I'm not sure that I should have minded it; for that cheque in my pocket seemed a panacea for all human ills. The Pells were at dinner when I entered: and Tod was lying outside his bed, with one of his torturing headaches. He did not often have them: which was a good thing, for they were rattlers. Taking his hand from his head, he glanced at me.

"Where have you been all day, Johnny?" he asked, hardly able to speak.

"That was a short note of yours."

"I've been to Brighton."

Tod opened his eyes again with surprise. He did not believe it.

"Why don't you say Bagdad, at once? Keep your counsel, if you choose, lad. I'm too ill to get it out of you."

"But I don't want to keep it: and I have been to Brighton. Had dinner there, too. Tod, old fellow, the mouse has done his work. Here's a cheque for you for a hundred pounds."

He looked at it as I held it out to him, saw it was true, and then sprang off the bed. I had seen glad emotion in my life, even at that early period of it, but hardly such as Tod's then. Never a word spoke he.

"It is lent by Mr. Brandon to you, Tod. He bade me say it. I could not get any of mine out of him. The only condition is--that, before I cash it, you shall promise not to play again with Crayton or the Pells."

"I'll promise it now. Glad to do it. Long live old Brandon! Johnny, my good brother, I'm too ill to thank you--my temples seem as if they were being split with a sledge-hammer--but you have _saved_ me."

I was at Robarts's when it opened in the morning. And signed my name at the back of the cheque, and got the money. Fancy _me_ having a hundred pounds paid to me in notes and gold! The Squire would have thought the world was coming to an end.

XXII.

OUR STRIKE.

It was September, and they were moving to Crabb Cot for a week or two's shooting. The shooting was not bad about there, and the Squire liked a turn with his gun yet. Being close on the Michaelmas holidays, Tod and I were with them.

When the stay was going to be short, the carriages did not come over from d.y.k.e Manor. On arriving at South Crabb station, there was a fly waiting. It would not take us all. Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, the two children, and Hannah got into it, and some of the luggage was put on the top.

"You two boys can walk," said the Pater. "It will stretch your legs."

And a great deal rather walk, too, than be boxed up in a crawling fly!

We took the way through Crabb Lane: the longest but merriest, for it was always lively with noise and dirt. Reports had gone abroad long before that Crabb Lane was "out on strike:" Tod and I thought we would take a look at it in this new aspect.

There were some great works in the vicinity--I need not state here their exact speciality--and the men employed at them chiefly inhabited Crabb Lane. It was setting-up these works that caused the crowded dwellings in Crabb Lane to be built--for where a number of workmen congregate together, habitations must of necessity follow.

You have heard of Crabb Lane before--in connection with what I once told you about Harry Lease the pointsman. It was a dingy, over-populated, bustling place, prosperous on the whole, its inhabitants as a rule well-to-do. A strike was quite a new feature, bringing to most of them a fresh experience in life. England had strikes in those past days, but they were not common.

Crabb Lane during working hours had hitherto been given over to the children, who danced in the gutters and cried and screamed themselves hoa.r.s.e. Women also would be out of doors, idling away their time in gossip, or else calling across to each other from the windows. But now, as I and Tod went down it, things looked different. Instead of women and children, men were there. Every individual man, I believe, out of every house the lane contained; for there appeared to be shoals of them. They lounged idly against the walls, or stood about in groups. Some with pipes, some without; some laughing and jeering, apparently in the highest spirits, as if they had climbed the tree of fortune; some silent and anxious-looking.

"Well, h.o.a.r, how are you?"

It was Tod who spoke. The man he addressed, Jacob h.o.a.r, was one of the best of the workmen: a sober, steady, honest fellow, with a big frame and a resolute face. He had the character of being fierce in temper, sometimes savage with his fellow-men, if put out. Alfred h.o.a.r--made pointsman at the station in poor Harry Lease's place--was his brother.

h.o.a.r did not answer Tod at all. He was standing quite alone near the door of his house, a strangely defiant look upon his pale face, and his firm lips drawn in. Unless I was mistaken, some of the men over the way were taking covert glances at him, as though he were a kangaroo they had to keep aloof from. h.o.a.r turned his eyes slowly upon us, took off his round felt hat, and smoothed back his dark hair.

"I be as well as matters'll let me be, young Mr. Todhetley," he then said.

"There's a strike going on, I hear," said Tod. "Has been for some time."

"Yes, there's a strike a-going on," a.s.sented h.o.a.r, speaking in a deliberate, sullen manner, as a man resenting some special grievance.

"Has been for some time, as you say. And I don't know when the strike 'll be a-going off."

"How is Eliza?" I asked.

"Much as usual, Mr. Johnny. What should ail her?"

Evidently there was no sociability to be got out of Jacob h.o.a.r that afternoon, and we left him. A few yards further, we pa.s.sed Ford's, the baker's. No end of heads were at the shop door, and _they_ seemed to be staring at h.o.a.r.

"He must have been dealing out a little abuse to the public generally, Tod," said I.

"Very likely," answered Tod. "He seems bursting with some rage or other."

"Nay, I don't think it's rage so much as vexation. Something must have gone wrong."