A Rough Shaking Part 22

Trueman's. You'll see the address on it.--And look sharp.--You can read, can't you?"

The people in the shop stood looking on, some pitifully, all curiously, for the parcel was of considerable size, and linen is heavy, while the boy looked pale and thin. But Clare was strong for his age, and present joy made up for past want. He scarcely looked at the parcel which the draper proceeded to lay on his shoulder, stooped a little as he felt its weight, heaved it a little to adjust its balance, and holding it in its place with one hand, started for the door, which the master himself held open for him.

"Please, sir, which way do I turn?" he asked.

"To the left," answered Mr. Maidstone. "Ask your way as you go."

Clare forgot that he had heard only the lady's name. Her address was on the parcel, no doubt, but if he dropped it to look, he could not get it up again by himself. A little way on, therefore, meeting a boy about his own age returning from school, he asked him to be kind enough to read the address on his back and direct him. The boy read it aloud, but gave him false instructions for finding the place. Clare walked and walked until the weight became almost unendurable, and at last, though loath, concluded that the boy must have deceived him. He asked again, but this time of a lady. She took pains not only to tell him right, but to make him understand right: she was pleased with the tired gentle face that looked up from beneath the heavy burden. Perhaps she thought of the proud souls growing pure of their pride, in Dante's _Purgatorio_. Following her directions, he needed no further questioning to find the house. But it was hours after the burden was gone from his shoulder before it was rid of the phantom of its weight.

His master rated him for having been so long, and would not permit him to explain his delay, ordering him to hold his tongue and not answer back; but the rest of his day's work was lighter; there was no other heavy parcel to send out. There were so many smaller ones, however, that, by the time they were all delivered, he had gained something more than a general idea of how the streets lay, and was a weary wight when, with the four-pence his master hesitated to give him on the ground that he was doubtful of his character, he set out at last, walking soberly enough now, to spend it at Mr. Ball's and the milk-shop. Of the former he bought a stale three-penny loaf, and the baker added a piece to make up the weight. Clare took this for liberality, and returned hearty thanks, which Mr. Ball, I am sorry to say, was not man enough to repudiate. The other penny he laid out on milk--but oh, how inferior it was to that the farmer's wife had given him! The milk-woman, however, not ungraciously granted him the two matches he begged for.

On his way to baby, he almost hoped Tommy would not return: he would gladly be saved putting him in the water-b.u.t.t!

He forgot him again as he drew near the nursery, and for a long while after he reached it. He found the infant and the dog lying as he had left them. The only sign that either had moved was the strange cleanness of the tiny gray face which Clare had not ventured to wash. It gave indubitable evidence that the dog had been licking it more than a little--probably every few minutes since he was left curate in charge.

And now Clare did with deliberation a thing for which his sensitive conscience not unfrequently reproached him afterward. His defence was, that he had hurt n.o.body, and had kept baby alive by it. Having in his mind revolved the matter many a time that day, he got some sticks together from the garden, and with one of the precious matches lighted a small fire of coals that were not his own, and for which he could merely hope one day to restore amends. But baby! Baby was more than coals! He filled a rusty kettle with water, and while it was growing hot on the fire, such was his fear lest the smoke should betray them, that he ran out every other minute to see how much was coming from the chimney.

While the fire was busy heating the water, he was busier preparing a bottle for baby--making a hole through the cork of a phial, putting the broken stem of a clean tobacco pipe he had found in the street through the hole, tying a small lump of cotton wool over the end of the pipe-stem, and covering that with a piece of his pocket-handkerchief, carefully washed with the brown Windsor soap, his mother's last present.

For the day held yet another gladness: in looking for a kettle he had found the soap--which probably the rat had carried away and hidden before finding baby. Through the pipe-stem and the wool and the handkerchief he could without difficulty draw water, and hoped therefore baby would succeed in drawing her supper. As soon as the water was warm he mixed some with the milk, but not so much this time, and put the mixture in the bottle. To his delight, the baby sucked it up splendidly.

The bottle, thought out between the heavy linen and the hard street, was a success! Labour is not unfriendly to thought, as the annals of weaving and shoe-making witness.

And now at last was Clare equipped for a great attempt: he was going to wash the baby! He was glad that disrespectful Tommy was not in the house. With a basin of warm water and his precious piece of soap he set about it, and taking much pains washed his treasure perfectly clean. It was a state of bliss in which, up to that moment, I presume, she had never been since her birth. In the process he handled her, if not with all the skill of a nurse, yet with the tenderness of a mother. His chief anxiety was not to hurt, more than could not be helped, the poor little rat-eaten toes. He felt he must wash them, but when in the process she whimpered, it went all through the calves of his legs. When the happy but solicitous task was over, during which the infant had shown the submission of great weakness, he wrapped her in another blanket, and laid her down again. Soothed and comfortable, as probably never soothed or comfortable before, she went to sleep.

As soon as she was out of his arms, he took a piece of bread, and with some of the hot water made a little sop for the dog, which the small hero, whose four legs carried such a long barrel of starvation, ate with undisguised pleasure and thankfulness. For his own supper Clare preferred his bread dry, following it with a fine draught of water from the well.

Then, and not till then, returned the thought--what had Tommy done with himself? Left to himself he was sure to go stealing! He might have been taken in the act! Clare could hardly believe he had actually run away from him. On the other hand, he had left the baby, and knew that if he returned he would be put in the water-b.u.t.t! He might have come to the conclusion that he could do better without Clare, who would not let him steal! It was clear he did not like taking his share in the work of the family, and looking after the baby! Had he been anything of a true boy, Clare would have taken his bread in his hand and gone to look for him; being such as he was, he did not think it necessary. He felt bound to do his best for him if he came back, but he did not feel bound to leave the baby and roam the country to find a boy with whom baby's life would be in constant danger.

Chapter x.x.xIII.

A bad penny.

Before Clare had done his thinking, darkness had fallen, and, weary to the very bones, he threw himself on the bed beside the baby. The dog jumped up and laid himself at his feet, as if the place had been his from time immemorial--as it had perhaps been, according to time in dog-land. The many pleasures of that blessed day would have kept Clare awake had they not brought with them so much weariness. He fell fast asleep. Tommy had not had a happy day: he had been found out in evil-doing, had done more evil, and had all the day been in dread of punishment. He did not foresee how ill things would go for him--did not see that a rat had taken his place beside the baby, and that he would not get back before Clare; but the vision of the water-b.u.t.t had often flashed upon his inner eye, and it had not been the bliss of his solitude. He deserted his post in the hope of finding something to eat, and had not had a mouthful of anything but spongy turnip, and dried-up mangel-wurzel, or want-root. If he had been minding his work, he would have had a piece of good bread--so good that he would have wanted more of it, whereas, when he had eaten the turnip and the beetroot, he had cause to wish he had not eaten so much! He had been set upon by boys bigger than himself, and nearly as bad, who, not being hungry, were in want of amus.e.m.e.nt, and had proceeded to get it out of Tommy, just as Tommy would have got it out of the baby had he dared. They bullied him in a way that would have been to his heart's content, had he been the bully instead of the bullied. They made him actually wish he had stayed with the baby--and therewith came the thought that it was time to go home if he would get back before Clare. As to what had taken place in the morning, he knew Clare's forgivingness, and despised him for it. If he found the baby dead, or anything happened to her that he could not cover with lying, it would be time to cut and run in earnest! So the moment he could escape from his tormenters, off went Tommy for home. But as he ran he remembered that there was but one way into the house, and that was by the very lip of the water-b.u.t.t.

Clare woke up suddenly--at a sound which all his life would wake him from the deepest slumber: he thought he heard the whimpering of a child. The baby was fast asleep. Instantly he thought of Tommy. He seemed to see him shut out in the night, and knew at once how it was with him: he had gone out without thinking how he was to get back, and dared not go near the water-b.u.t.t! He jumped out of bed, put on his shoes, and in a minute or two was over the wall and walking along the lane outside of it, to find the deserter.

The moon was not up, and the night was dark, yet he had not looked long before he came upon him, as near the house as he could get, crouching against the wall.

"Tommy!" said Clare softly.

Tommy did not reply. The fear of the water-b.u.t.t was upon him--a fear darker than the night, an evil worse than hunger or cold--and Clare and the water-b.u.t.t were one.

"You needn't think to hide, Tommy; I see you, you bad boy!" whispered Clare. "After all I said, you ran away and left the baby to the rats!

They've been biting her horribly--one at least has. You can stay away as long as you like now; I've got a better nurse. Good-night!" Tommy gave a great howl.

"Hold your tongue, you rascal!" cried Clare, still in a whisper. "You'll let the police know where we are!"

"Do let me in, Clare! I'm so 'ungry and so cold!"

"Then I shall have to put you in the water-b.u.t.t! I said I would!"

"If you don't promise not to, I'll go straight to the police. They'll take the brat from you, and put her in the workhouse!"

Clare thought for a moment whether it would not be right to kill such a traitor. His mind was full of history-tales, and, like Dante, he put treachery in its own place, namely the deepest h.e.l.l. But with the thought came the words he had said so many times without thinking what they meant--"Forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us," and he saw that he was expected to forgive Tommy.

"Tommy, I forgive you," he said solemnly, "and will be friends with you again; but I have said it, and I was right to say it, and into the water-b.u.t.t you must go! I can't trust your word now, and I think I shall be able to trust it after that."

Ere he had finished the words, Tommy lifted up his voice in a most unearthly screech.

Instantly Clare had him by the throat, so that he could not utter a sound.

"Tommy," he said, "I'm going to let you breathe again, but the moment you make a noise, I'll choke you as I'm doing now."

With that he relaxed his hold. But Tommy had paid no heed to what he said, and began a second screech the moment he found pa.s.sage for it. Immediately he was choked, and after two or three attempts, finally desisted.

"I won't!" he said.

"You shall, Tommy. You're going head over in the b.u.t.t. We're going to it now!"

Tommy threw himself upon the ground and kicked, but dared not scream. It was awful! He would drop right through into the great place where the moon was!

Clare threw him over his shoulder, and found him not half the weight of the parcel of linen. Tommy would have bitten like a weasel, but he feared Clare's terrible hands. He was on the back of Giant Despair, in the form of one of the best boys in the world. Clare took him round the wall, and over the fence into the blacksmith's yard. The smithy was quite dark.

"Please, I didn't mean to do it!" sobbed Tommy from behind him, as Clare bore him steadily up the yard. It was all he could do to say the words, for the thought of what they were approaching sent a scream into his throat every time he parted his lips to speak.

Clare stopped.

"What didn't you mean to do?" he asked.

"I didn't mean to leave the baby."

"How did you do it then?"

"I mean I didn't mean to stay away so long. I didn't know how to get back."

"I told you not to leave her! And you could have got back perfectly, you little coward!"

Tommy shuddered, and said no more. Though hanging over Clare's back he knew presently, by his stopping, that they had come to the heap. There was only that heap and the wall between him and the water-b.u.t.t! Up and up he felt himself slowly, shakingly carried, and was gathering his breath for a final utterance of agony that should rouse the whole neighbourhood, when Clare, having reached the top, seated himself upon the wall, and Tommy restrained himself in the hope of what a parley might bring. But he sat down only to wheel on the pivot of his spine, as he had seen them do on the counter in the shop, and sit with his legs alongside of the water-b.u.t.t. Then he drew Tommy from his shoulder, in spite of his clinging, and laid him across his knees; and Tommy, divining there were words yet to be said, and hoping to get off with a beating, which he did not mind, remained silent.

"Your hour is come, Tommy!" said Clare. "If you scream, I will drop you in, and hold you only by one leg. If you don't scream, I will hold you by both legs. If you scream when I take you out, in you go again!

I do what I say, Tommy!"

The wretched boy was nearly mad with terror. But now, much as he feared the water, he feared yet more for the moment him in whom lay the power of the water. Clare took him by the heels.

"I'm sorry there's no moon, as I promised you," he said; "she won't come up for my calling. I should have liked you to see where you were going. But if you ain't an honest boy after this, you shall have another chance; and next time we will wait for the moon!"

With that he lifted Tommy's legs, holding him by the ankles, and would have shoved his body over the edge of the b.u.t.t into the water. But Tommy clung fast to his knees.