"WE'LL GO ALONG BY THE WALL."
CHAPTER VII.
THE BOYS' ESCAPE.
LORD BEAUCOURT arrived at Kelmersdale somewhat too early for dinner, and, having been duly informed by Mrs. Rayburn that she was in difficulties about the two children, he desired her to come to his study and tell him all about it.
"Now, Mrs. Thompson—no, Rayburn, by the way—what's wrong with you?"
"My lord, that unlucky young man, my stepson, not content with ruining himself and me, speculating and getting dismissed, has got into worse trouble in America. To the best of my belief, he's at this present time in prison for some offence or other—cheating people, I believe. He wrote for his wife, and she brought the boys to me and went off, and not a line have I had from her since. And the boys are—well, indeed, my lord, they are in mischief from morning to night, and I am worn out running after them. Since the shock I got about their father, my health is not at all good."
Being further questioned, she described the affair of that morning, and I am sorry to say that Lord Beaucourt, who was a nobleman of a merry turn of mind, laughed heartily.
"The little pickles!" he exclaimed. "They deserved a rod, no doubt."
"They might have burned down the Castle, my lord."
"Best thing that could happen to it, Mrs. Rayburn. It is nothing but an expense. But stone walls four feet thick do not burn easily. Well, I will think about it. I know several institutions that might answer; it would be easier, of course, if they were orphans. But, never mind, we'll find a school for them somewhere. I will talk to you again about it."
He had to talk to her again, much sooner than he either wished or expected. As soon as dinner was fairly served, Mrs. Rayburn, who had been assisting the somewhat inexperienced cook, went to look for Fred, whom she expected to find in the little turret bedroom, as she had done on similar occasions more than once. For Fred had quite a genius for disappearing when most wanted to answer for some choice piece of mischief. Not finding him there, she said to herself:
"He's hiding in my sitting-room, to be near Frank."
She searched the sitting-room, but, as we know, Fred was not there, nor was Frank in the closet.
"Those boys," said Mrs. Rayburn, in a loud voice, "will live to be hanged, as sure as my name is Lydia Rayburn. There's no use going on like this, boys," she went on, seating herself in her easy-chair. "You're hiding, I know, but you may as well come out. My lord will not get you punished as you deserve, and I shall say no more about it. I forgive you both this once."
She lay back, pretending to doze, but really watching the first movement of curtain or tablecloth, to pounce upon the sinners. The sinners, however, were not there to be pounced upon.
After a few moments Mrs. Rayburn's pretended doze turned into a real one, and she filled the cosy room with portentous snores. She woke up suddenly in a fright.
"Bother those boys!" she exclaimed. "Where on earth are they hid?" And, getting up, she began a systematic search. They were not in her rooms, she soon discovered, so she went out into the hall and began poking about behind the suits of armour that stood like ghostly sentinels round the walls. She was thus engaged when Jacob drove up to the porch. The hall being lighted, though but dimly, he saw the housekeeper at her queer employment.
"I had to wait some time, mum, for the parcel was sent by goods train. Whatever are you doing, Mrs. Rayburn, mum?"
"Looking for those two young pests, if you must know. I locked Frank up—the young one escaped me—just to keep them out of mischief while I was busy, and now, lo and behold! They're both gone."
"When did you lock the boy up, mum?"
"At once; just after the fire was put out."
"Well, then," said Jacob, excitedly, "the boys got out somehow, for I overtook them halfway to the north gate. I bid them run back, and I made sure they would, but they did not, I suppose. The big fish-ponds are close to the approach, just a bit to the left, and if the boys went near the ponds, they're both drowned long ago. 'Tis a dangerous place for children; keeper's two were drowned there two years ago. Well, these two were pretty boys; 'tis a pity of them."
Jacob kept on talking in this disjointed way, because he did not want to be questioned and have to say that he had given the boys a lift. In a simple, cunning way, he thought that if he frightened Mrs. Rayburn sufficiently, she would not be able to question him effectually. He succeeded, but, like many another, perhaps he wished he had not succeeded quite so well, for Mrs. Rayburn flopped down upon a hard and narrow hall bench with such reckless speed that she tumbled off at the other side, and knocked down one of the ghostly sentinels, whereupon the armour all fell apart with a tremendous clatter, and Mrs. Rayburn set up a doleful screaming which echoed through the old hall, and brought people running from every direction. Even Lord Beaucourt sent to inquire what was the matter, and received for reply a message stating that Jacob had brought word that the two little Rayburns had been drowned in the fish-ponds. On this the earl abandoned his dessert and came himself to the hall, where his presence produced silence, except for Mrs. Rayburn's cries.
"Where is this man Jacob?" said Lord Beaucourt. "Oh—well, Jacob, it is too dark for you to have seen into the ponds. What makes you so sure that the boys fell in?"
Jacob repeated his story, and, in the alarm produced by being questioned by "my lord," he began that pawing movement which was his way of showing embarrassment.
"You saw the boys near the ponds, and desired them to return to the Castle. It does not seem to me that you have any valid reason for thinking that they went to the ponds at all. Mrs. Rayburn, go to your rooms, and I will send out the few men we have here to look for your little grandsons."
When Mrs. Rayburn, still wailing in a terrified manner, had been removed by the women-servants, Lord Beaucourt turned to Jacob.
"Look here, my man. You are not telling the whole truth about this matter. You met the boys near the ponds; where did you part from them?"
"Oh, my lord, it was on the north avenue, and they got into the spring cart and came on a bit, and then I bid them run home."
"Stand still, if you please." Jacob ceased to paw. "Had you any reason for concealing this from Mrs. Rayburn?"
"Only, my lord, I thought she'd be angry, seeing the boys had run off without her knowledge."
"Another time I should advise you to avoid foolish concealments. If anything has happened to these boys, whom you were the last person to see, and about whom you tell their grandmother half the truth, adding a perfectly gratuitous suggestion that the children are drowned, you may find yourself in a very awkward position. Mansfield, bring me my hat and coat, and send some one to the keeper's lodge, desiring him to meet me at the ponds at once."
Jacob volunteered to carry the message, and as Lord Beaucourt had very little suspicion that he had put the boys into the pond, he allowed him to go. I may mention that Jacob was not in the least alarmed, being quite too stupid to understand Lord Beaucourt's meaning.
The ponds were searched. They were clear and shallow, save for one deep hole where there was a spring; this was searched with long poles tipped with hooks. Nothing was found. The park, shrubberies, and gardens were thoroughly searched, and as no trace of the boys was found, next morning the search was continued outside the estate. It was found that two boys answering to the description had been seen by some workmen going towards the bridge over the Kelmer, which crossed the road after leaving Kelmersdale Park. Near the bridge the searchers found a bag containing a brush and comb and some underclothing, marked F. R. The bag was red, with the word "Janet" worked on it in white, and Mrs. Rayburn recognized it as the boys' property.
Beyond the fact that this proved that the children intended to run away, it was a useless find, and, in spite of a most diligent search, the boys were not heard of. After a time, people generally believed that they had been tempted to clamber down to the water, and had fallen in. The Kelmer is full of deep holes, and is known as a river that seldom gives up a victim. Jacob, when he heard this conclusion spoken of, remarked that he had always said that the boys were drowned. Mansfield, Lord Beaucourt's man, who was present, replied—
"It is well for you that the old woman at the lodge declared that the boys were not with you when you passed the gate."
"Why?" asked Jacob, after a pause for meditation.
"Well, as they were seen alive on the road, and did not go out with you, don't you see that there can be no suspicion that you made away with them, though you were so queer about them that first night?"
Jacob considered this gravely, and then said, "Any man that says that I would do the like, I shall be obliged to see whether his fist or mine is the heaviest. They were pretty boys, and Frank had a lot of pluck. But I always said they were drowned," he concluded defiantly.
Mansfield shrugged his shoulders and said no more.
Where were the boys all this time? Not drowned in the Kelmer, at all events. The poor little couple had wandered on all that day, very happy in the freedom they had gained so easily. The bread they bought at a tiny village seemed to them the sweetest they had tasted since they left "muddie." They reached Rugeley, to which this hilly and devious old road led in a roundabout fashion, peculiar to old roads, about an hour after Jacob left the station with the cart. As they drew near, meaning to ask the first man they met to send them back to Liverpool, they heard a loud, rough voice from a room in the station call out, "Here's another parcel for Kelmersdale. Is that man Jacob gone yet?"
Not waiting for the reply, the boys fled as fast as tired out little legs would go. In their fright they passed the gate by which they had entered, running on all the way down the long platform until they reached the end of it. It was a raised platform ending abruptly, and in the twilight they very nearly fell off, stopping but just in time. They looked round and saw—or fancied they saw—a man coming after them. At a siding stood a couple of vans, waiting there to be joined to the goods train from the north presently; one door was open.
"In here, Fred," cried Frank, quickly.
In they clambered, sat down on some sacks of wool behind the door, and listened. Yes, a man came and put a big box in through the door, which he then shut. The boys were in utter darkness, but the sacks were soft; that is, the wool was, and they were tired. So very soon they were fast asleep. Fred lying along the sacks with his head on Frank's knee, Frank's arms round him, and Frank's voice murmuring in his sleep—
"Don't be afraid, Fred. We're quite safe, and to-morrow we—will—search for muddie."
During the night, the train was coupled on to that expected from the north, and before the boys awoke, they were stationary in another town, far enough from Rugeley. They had a glimmer of light now, but for a few minutes they could not imagine where they were. Then they remembered their escape, and how they had crept in here to hide; but that the van had moved since they entered it they did not in the least suspect.
"Oh, Fwank, I'm so hungry!" said Fred.
"Here's some bread I kept for you, because I know you're such a hungry boy. Eat it up."
Fred required no pressing; the bread disappeared.
"Where's your bread, Fwank?"
"I'm not hungry yet. When we get out we'll buy some more."
"When s'all we get out?"
"When they open the door."
After some time, Fred got so hungry, and said so with such increasing emphasis, that at last Frank was driven to call out; but no one heard him. The vans were again on a siding waiting for a train to take them to their destination further south. The greater part of the train had gone on to London.
Hungry and frightened, the forlorn pair sat side by side, tightly clasped in each other's arms. They fell asleep at last, and when they awoke the train was moving.
"Oh, Fwank, they're wunning away with us!"
"But I suppose they are going to Liverpool," answered Frank; "and won't that be nice?"
"Yes, but I'm so hungry!"
"So am I," admitted poor Frank; "but, then, fancy if we find we're safe in Liverpool!"
As he spoke the train slackened its pace, and finally stopped.
Presently a man opened the door of the van, and pulled out the big box thrust in at Rugeley. He went off with it without seeing the boys, who were behind the door. Poor little souls! They rejoiced at this escape, yet surely it would have been well had they been discovered and sent back to Rugeley. The man left the door open, and Frank peeped out. There were several men about, but they were all busy, and the boys got out of the van unperceived.
They looked very unlike poor Janet's neatly dressed and spotlessly clean little boys. Frank had got dusty in his prison closet; they had both trudged the dusty road for hours, and had finally slept in a railway van on a sack of wool. Of each and all these adventures they bore visible traces; their natty little sailor suits were all awry, their curly hair full of bits of wool. They really looked like what they wished to pass for—two little beggars. As they looked about, hoping to see some one who would tell them where they were, though they felt sure they were in Liverpool, the station-master spied them.
"Off the platform, you little ragamuffins," he shouted. "We've had quite enough of pickpockets here already."
Utterly unused to unkindness, except from grandma, Frank restrained his brother, who would have fled, and, taking his hand, walked up to the station-master, and said—
"Please, sir, is not this Liverpool?"
The man stared. All he saw, however, was a dirty little pair of children, who plainly had no right to be on his platform. The baby beauty of dark-eyed Fred, the sweet confiding smile of poor pale Frank had no effect whatever on him.
"Liverpool! Is the boy an idiot? Get out of this at once, or I'll take a stick to you."
As he spoke, a whistle sounded, and, behold! The train was moving on. Frank felt as if his last friend was deserting him. A moment more, and he was driven off the platform, Fred clinging to him in great terror, and the station-master rattling a thick stick against the iron railings that separated the railway from the road.
"Oh, Fwank, what shall we do now?"
"Don't cry, Fred. I'll take care of you, and God loves us just the same as if we were at home with muddie. But I wish I had not left my bag in the van."
A little way from the station they came to a shop, where they bought some bread; a drinking-fountain in the street gave them a drink of water. They consulted each other on the propriety of washing, but Frank thought that people might object. Then a woman came along the pathway, and Frank ventured to address her—
"Please, ma'am, isn't this Liverpool?"
"Liverpool! Did you ever hear the like? Why, child, Liverpool's a long way off. I never saw it in my life. Why do you ask?"
"Because we are going there, ma'am."
"What! You two babies? Who are you going with?"
"No one, ma'am. We must walk."
"Nonsense, child—walk indeed!"
"Oh, we can walk very well," Frank said, adding with a sigh, "We're beggars, you know."
The woman was kind-hearted, but stupid, and, moreover, in a hurry. She looked round for a policeman, intending to call his attention to the children; but there was no policeman to be seen, so she compromised the matter with her conscience by saying—
"I don't know any way of getting to Liverpool except by train, and that costs a lot of money. Go home now, like good children. Here's a penny for you, and I'm in a great hurry."
"Thank you, ma'am," Frank said gratefully. And then, as she sped away, he turned to Fred, saying, "By train—that's what she said. Then, Fred, as long as we keep near the train we're on the right road to Liverpool."
Fred, refreshed by sound sleep and a big hunch of bread, set forth gaily, skipping along beside the weary, gentle-looking elder brother, for whom, alas! Sleep had brought little refreshment, and who had stinted his breakfast that he might have bread in his pocket for Fred. Thus they left the town, the name of which they never knew, but I think it must have been Cirencester.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BABES IN THE WOOD.
EVERY ONE knows the lines in "The Babes in the Wood"—
"These pretty Babes, hand-in-hand,
Went wandering up and down;"
*
* *
* *
"And when they saw the darksome night,
They sat them down and cried."
Yes, it came to that with Janet's little darlings. That they had taken a southerly direction, following the railway away from, instead of towards, Liverpool, or any other place they knew, really did not matter in the least. Their enterprise was an impossible one in any case. They tried hard to keep the railway in sight, but the roads did not lie near it, and in finding easy places to creep through or over fences they wandered from it, and finally failed to find it again. This was a great relief to Fred, but Frank felt more lost than ever.
They bought bread as long as they had pence to pay for it, then they begged in good earnest, getting sometimes a little food, sometimes a penny, sometimes a hard word. They slept under a tree, or where they could; that is, Fred slept, and Frank lay as quiet as he could, and kept Fred warm, dozing at intervals and awaking in the grey dawn shivering and hardly able to get up from the ground.
Then the weather changed: it blew and rained, and the nights were cold.
Except to give them a little charity, no one took any notice of them. They looked much like any other little beggars, and if people thought about them at all, they probably concluded that they belonged to some party, and that their comrades were waiting just out of sight. It was a thinly inhabited country district; they begged only at solitary houses, and there were no policemen about, as would have been the case in any town.
There is a village in Gloucestershire which I shall call Edgestone, a large village with numerous inhabitants, mostly poor, industrious people. It had a clergyman, of course, and a doctor—and, I believe, a lawyer. Most of the men were labourers employed on the large farms which surrounded the village; their wives and children lived in more or less comfort, according to the thrift or unthrift of their parents, in the rows of cottages which formed the street. The church—a beautiful old building—stood in the middle of the village. Beyond it there was a large green, on which the children played and geese wandered about at pleasure; at the side furthest from the church was the schoolhouse, and a few houses of the better sort, with gardens; then the street again, but this part of it was very short.
In these houses on the green, the doctor and the few gentry of the place lived. The road to the village from the east lay through farms and orchards, with here and there a cottage. As one came nearer Edgestone, the cottages were more numerous, until at last you found yourself in the street.
In one of the outlying cottages—a small white one, containing but two rooms, but standing in a little garden always full of bright flowers, as indeed were the two clean windows, and even the tiny back yard—in this cottage lived a little old woman, whose name was Betty Giles. She had been a servant in her youth; then she married, and brought up a numerous family. Her husband was a good, steady man, and her married life had been happy. Then her husband died, and she was left alone, for her boys were married, and her girls either married or in service. Her married children would gladly have given her a home, for she was one who was sure of a welcome, owing to her kindly, pleasant ways and her industry.
But Betty would not go to any one of them, nor to all of them in turn, which was another plan proposed to her. She gave up her big cottage, and took this tiny one, and there she contrived to support herself by various small industries. She kept a small shop, selling bread of her own making, always light and sweet, tea and sugar and biscuits, and several other things. But her principal income was derived from her scrap of garden. She grew patches of early annuals, which somehow always turned out very fine, so that the ladies on the green would buy them eagerly instead of trying to grow them for themselves. When these were cleared away, she sowed autumn flowers. In boxes, cunningly hung from the wall at the back of her cottage, and all round the very small yard, she grew cuttings of geraniums, chrysanthemums, fuchsias, etc., the parent plants making a gorgeous show in the front garden. Betty's husband had been a gardener, and she understood and loved flowers. Whether she loved them because she understood them, or understood because she loved, I really cannot say.
Between her manifold employments and her many visits to and from her sons and daughters, Betty lived a busy and a happy life. She was a little woman, with a face like a pink-and-red apple—a rather withered apple, I confess. Her face, her dress, her cap and apron, her house and her furniture were always beautifully and spotlessly clean.
One evening in September—it was only September, but the weather had broken, and it was very cold—Betty sat in her snug kitchen reading her Bible; a very slow and solemn process was Betty's reading. Her lonely life had given her a habit of talking to herself, for she had an active tongue and no one else to talk to.
"That," said Betty, "is a tex' as sticks in the memory, so I'll stop here. Ah me! It must be fine to be a scholar like some of my young folk—no spelling out of words for them! 'Tis a blessing, for the like of me, that the Bible is read out loud in church, for one does seem to take it in better when one doesn't have to spell."
"Well, now, I think there's a touch of frost, though 'tis far too early for it, if I may say so without offence, seeing that my opinion wasn't asked. I think I'll cover the geranium slips; fine they look, and 'twould be a pity to run risks. Such a lot, too; I shall have to buy some pots. That's just a cross I have to bear—the way some folk forget to return my pots. Now, there's Miss Lavinia has a heap of them in a corner—pots properly belonging to me, and I'm afraid to ask for them, she's so quick to take huff."
"Eh—what's that? Some one at the door! I must have left the gate open. 'Tis well if half a score of dogs don't—Oh, a child! Well, little chap, what do you want? And who are you? For I don't know you, and I know every boy in the village."
The child stood before her, she standing in the doorway with a lighted candle in her hand. A pretty boy, but ragged and dirty. He had on a sailor suit of dark blue, once very natty, and over his little jacket, he wore a second, equally ragged, and far too large for him. His shoes were broken and nearly soleless, his feet blistered and bleeding, his hair was matted and twisted, but, when he raised appealing dark eyes to Betty's face, the look went to her soft old heart.
"Come to Fwank; he's sick; he can't walk any more. I'm fwightened."
"'Come to Fwank'! Who's that, and where is he?"
"On the woad under the hedge. 'Tis cold, ma'am." Here his eyes lighted on a flat cake of bread lying on the little deal table that served as a counter, and he burst out crying. "I'm so hungwy. 'Dive' me some 'bwead'!"
Betty cut a good piece and gave it to him. Before he took a morsel, the little hand was stretched out.
"Some for Fwank, though he says he's not hungwy. But we've had none—oh, for ever so long."
"Show me where he is," said old Betty; and they set out together, the boy devouring the bread. It was some way off: there was a high hedge growing on a low bank. On the side path, with his head on the sloping bank, lying on his back, with his arms stretched out and his white face upturned towards the clear starry sky, lay Frank. Betty knelt beside him, and touched him; she spoke to him, and at last raised him into a sitting posture, leaning against her arm. But the child neither spoke nor moved, not so much as to open his eyes.
"And no jacket at all! No wonder he's cold. I doubt he's colder than is natural, though 'tis a cold night too."
She got up as she spoke, and lifted him in her old arms.
"Light as a feather, too. Skin and bone—not much of it either. Come, little chap, trot on beside me. I must get this child warm—if I can."
Fred confidingly ran beside her, her walk keeping him running, and though she saw that the child was weary and could scarcely do it, she did not slacken her pace. Into the warm cottage, she carried the boy, laying him on the floor before the fire, and putting a pillow under his head. She put her hand on his heart—poor little loving, brave heart. She thought it fluttered, but not more than that. She got some milk and warmed it, giving a cupful to Fred. Then she tried patiently to make Frank swallow a spoonful, but tried in vain. Fred, having finished his share, sat down beside his brother.
"Fwank, isn't this nice and cosy? Put your arms wound me as you always do."
Betty thought there was an effort to move, but even of that she was not sure.
"Fwank never did so before. Always his arms wound me, and my head on him—so."
And the little dark head was laid on the faithful breast which had been its pillow so often, and the bright eyes closed. Fred was asleep.
Mrs. Giles, muttering to herself, "The pitifullest sight I ever saw," covered them with her warm shawl, and poked up the fire—recklessly for one of her frugal habits. Then she went out into the night again, going as fast as her feet could carry her up the long straggling street, and across the green. She was bound for the doctor's house, but outside the gate of the little avenue she met the doctor himself, setting out to take a last look at some patient.
"Dr. Wentworth, be that you? Oh, sir, I'm glad I've met you! Come to my house; there's a boy there that I think is dying."
"Whose boy, Betty? Your grandson?"
"No; no one I know. There's two of them. I found them, or one of them found me. I'll tell you by-and-by; just now I want my breath for walking. Oh, doctor, 'tis the saddest sight!"
Little more passed as they hurried to the cottage. Betty pulled off the shawl, and the doctor muttered, "Too late—for one of them."
Having asked Betty a question or two as to what she had already done, he lifted Fred from his brother's side, and put him upon Betty's bed; he was warm now, and sleeping soundly. Then he heated Betty's shawl and his own coat, and wrapped the other boy up in them, and chafed the little sore and battered feet.
"Betty, go to the Cygnet, and get me a little brandy. Say nothing of the children; I don't want all the village here."
Betty hurried away, and was soon back again with the brandy. The doctor wetted the white lips with it, and rubbed the temples. Then he again felt for the beating of the heart, and while he was doing so the boy opened his eyes, and, looking at the two faces bent over him, said faintly—
"Fred! Where is Fred?"
"Safe and warm in my bed, child," answered Betty.
"Ah!"—with a sigh of relief. "Safe and warm!"
"Drink this, my boy," said Dr. Wentworth. "You shall tell us all about it by-and-by."
"Where's Fred?" Frank again asked, in a hurried tone.
Dr. Wentworth went and lifted the sleeping child gently, laying him beside the other.
"See, here he is, safe and sound."
"He always sleeps here. Ah! I cannot move. Fred, I did save you. I have taken care of you. I'm tired; but you're safe."
Fred sat up, half awake, and kissed him.
"Fred, tell muddie I took care of you." Then to the doctor, "Tell muddie I took care of Fred."
Fred, frightened and sleepy, began to cry. When had he ever cried before and Frank failed to comfort him? Betty took him up in her arms, and the poor little thing was so worn out that he fell asleep again with the tears on his cheeks.
"I can't take care of him any more," Frank said, after a vain effort to swallow what Dr. Wentworth offered him. "But God will; muddie says so."
He stretched himself suddenly, gave a weak cry, and was gone.
"Oh, doctor, don't tell me he's dead, the pretty little darling! Wait till I put this one back in bed."
This she did, and came softly back.
"Is he dead?"
"Ay, dead. Starved, I think. Look, the little one has on two jackets; he has none. The comforter's tied round the young one, and it is plain that whatever food they have had, the young one has had the lion's share, too young to know that his brother was giving him his life. Well, Betty, you did all you could. I'll go now and get help to carry the poor little fellow to the Cygnet; there will have to be an inquest, and I suppose we shall find out who they are, and how they were lost, for lost they were, I suspect. These are no tramps to the manner born. This little fellow must go to the poorhouse until his people turn up. I declare, Betty, I'd give many a fat fee to have saved this boy."
"Indeed, then, doctor, if I was their mother, I'd wish them together again in heaven sooner than have this baby in the poorhouse."
The doctor carried out his arrangements, and little Frank's frail and worn body was laid on a bed in the clean little inn, while Fred lay warm and soft in Betty's arms. So the little wanderers both slept sound, one of them to wake no more to this world's "fitful fever."
Next day there was an inquest, and Fred was to have been questioned as to the name borne by himself and his brother, and how they came to be wandering about in this forlorn way. But Fred was in no condition to be examined.
When he awoke, he began calling for "Fwank," and searching for him, with tears and lamentations, looking everywhere for him, and calling incessantly. Betty, at last, in despair, told him that Frank was dead. She hardly expected the child to understand. But Frank's innocent talk about his unforgotten little sister had made Fred familiar with the idea of death to some extent, and, after a long stare of horror, the poor little fellow began to scream, and nothing that Betty could say or do seemed to make any difference. The doctor, busy about the inquest, was near at hand, and after some vain attempts to quiet the child, he had to give him a sleeping draught, which soon had the desired effect.
But when Fred woke again, he was very ill; he was quite delirious, and talked fast and indistinctly about "muddie" and "Fwank" and "gwandma." It was many a long day before he could be questioned, and when they tried to do so, he seemed to have forgotten everything and every one.
Several attempts were made, more with a view to finding out who the child was than with any reference to Frank's death. For by that time, Frank's little grave was green; the doctor, feeling sure that some day the children would be inquired about, had had him buried at his own expense beside his own little son, his only child, who had died but a short time previously. But no information could be got from poor Fred, whose little white face, with the wistful dark eyes, looked full of intelligence, but whose memory, for the present at least, seemed a blank. At last the doctor forbade any further questioning of the child.
"I am sure," he said, "that as he regains his strength, his mind will recover from the shock, but you may seriously injure him, if you do not leave him in peace now."
Every effort was made, of course, to trace the children's wanderings, and they were tracked back some stages in their journey. But then all trace was lost. The distance the poor little things had come in the luggage van was so great that the inquiries made were never heard of by any one who knew them; nothing but their initials was marked on their clothing, and, save the photograph of his father, Frank had had nothing in his pocket. Even the photograph told nothing, for it had been originally a cabinet-size portrait, and poor Janet had cut out the head to fit it into a little leather case, so that the name and address of the photographer were wanting.
"Really," said Dr. Wentworth one day, when he had looked in to see Fred, "really, Betty, if we send this child to the union, he'll probably grow up an idiot."
"Send him to the union?" interrupted Betty. "Is it the child I've nursed through that terrible fever, and that has slept in my old arms every night since I got him? What do you take me for, doctor?"
"For a good old body with a hasty tongue, Betty. Just let me finish my remarks, please. If he goes to the union, he'll end in being an idiot. Therefore, it would be doubly cruel to send him there. Now, if you can continue to keep him for a while, I'll help you. I feel sure the child will be looked for, and whoever finds him will find only one where two were lost. But we need not add to their grief."
"I don't need any help, doctor, so far. Only for clothes. I'll keep the child. I've got to love him."
"Clothes? Yes; I'll speak to my wife. We'll clothe him, and pay for his schooling, if he ever needs any. Meanwhile, do you get him to help you in any little way he is able for, and keep him out in the fresh air. Never talk to him of the night he came to you, and I really believe he'll be all right in a while. I'm afraid he will hardly remember anything that will help to identify him, because he's such a little creature. Poor little waif! He was in luck when he chose your door to creep up to."
So little Fred's fate was arranged for him, for a time at least. Betty taught him to weed in the garden, and to water her many precious pots and boxes of slips and seedlings. She took him with her, when she carried home flowers or plants to her customers, and though he seldom spoke, and never unless asked a question, she soon found that he knew his way as well as she did, and that he never made a mistake about a message. So as time went on, he was provided with a little handcart, and became her trusty little messenger. Other people employed him too, so that he earned many a penny, and these he brought home faithfully to Betty.
He had been a very small child for his age, but now he began to grow, and became a tall, slight boy, with, as Betty used to say, "as pretty a face as any lady." Yet many a long day passed, before any one could find out whether he remembered anything that had happened to him before he became "Betty Giles's Fred," as the neighbours called him now.
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE NEW HOME.
LET us pay a flying visit to Kelmersdale to see how it fared with "grandma." Mrs. Rayburn has not hitherto appeared in a very amiable light in these pages, yet she was not an altogether bad woman. She had a heart, though it was so overlaid with selfishness that she herself hardly knew that it existed, and she had a conscience, though she made but little use of it.
And now, as she sat alone in her snug room, and ate her comfortable meals, she failed to get the slightest comfort or enjoyment out of any of these things. The faces of the two boys—Frank's gentle smile, Fred's saucy laugh—rose up before her, no matter what she was doing or where she was.
She felt sure now that Janet would write or come to claim her children, though she had so often declared that Janet had deliberately deserted them, and would be heard of no more. Most people believed that the boys had fallen into the Kelmer, and now lay in one of those deep holes, or pools, into which those drowned in that river generally disappeared. But Mrs. Rayburn did not believe this, though she tried to do so. Every horrid story of the oppression of children by chimney-sweeps, travelling tinkers, professional acrobats, and others, came into her head whenever she thought of the two boys; she pictured them to herself as suffering and starved and beaten, overworked and ill-used in every possible way. She had always been fond of stories of horrors, and now she paid for her bad taste, for they supplied her imagination with horrors enough to drive any one mad. Those about her said that Mrs. Rayburn cared for those children far more than any one could have expected, considering that their father was only her stepson, and by no means a creditable one, by her own showing.
So passed the autumn, a few weeks being fine, and then the weather broke, and there were cold, damp days and rainy, windy nights.
On the very night on which little Fred found his way to Betty's cottage with his pitiful cry for help—the very night when Frank's sweet soul passed away—there came a letter for Mrs. Rayburn. Maria brought it to her.
"A letter, ma'am; and I'm sure I hope it's good news, for I can't bear to see how you fret for the poor little children."
Mrs. Rayburn looked at the writing.
"It's from no one I know," she said, laying it down beside her. She sat for some time plunged in very gloomy thoughts. The Earl and a party of friends were come to the Castle for some shooting, and they were just then at dinner. A door was opened, and she heard the sound of voices and laughter. She felt unreasonably angry that any one should laugh in the very same place where the boys had played so often so short a time ago.
The boys, the poor little dead boys—for they were dead, and she was tormenting herself foolishly imagining them in misery and suffering—they were in heaven; and well was it for them, for it was clear that neither Janet nor their father would ever be heard of in England again.
Now she felt able to read that letter, and she took it up. A strange hand, shaky and uneven. She opened it, glanced at the signature, and, uttering a low cry, fell back in her chair.
An hour later, when the guests left the dining-hall, and were heard passing along the corridors to the smoking-room, the noise roused Mrs. Rayburn, who was still sitting with the letter grasped in her hand, unread. Now, making a great effort to compose herself, she began to read it.
"Old Man's Ferry Farm, Gattigo, British Columbia.
"MY DEAR MOTHER,
"I hope you have not been frightened about me, though I have been
so long without writing. I could not help it, for I have been very
ill, and am still very weak, as you may see from my writing. I was in
great distress at getting no letter from you, with news of my little
darlings, till I remembered that I may not have given you my brother's
address, for I was in such a hurry, and so distracted at parting with
the children. I am with Gilbert, and Fred is here too, and we have some
hope that we shall soon be settled, either here to help Gilbert and his
wife, or in Gattigo in an hotel which Gilbert means to start, and we
are to manage. Whichever we have to do, we can have the boys out now.
I enclose a bank-bill for their expenses, and if you could possibly be
spared to take my two boys to Liverpool, and put them on board the boat
named in Gilbert's part of this letter, it will be very kind of you.
Gilbert will send you every direction to save you trouble. We wish them
to come by this boat, because Gilbert knows the captain, whose wife
will be on board. Fred will meet them on landing, and bring them on
here. How I long for them no words can tell, though I am sure you have
made them as happy as possible, and we shall never forget your kindness
to them and to us.
"Fred sends you his love. He is now quite well, and only longing
to be at work in some way. While on his way to join my brother, he met
an old acquaintance who had set up in business in New Durham, and who
cheated him, poor fellow! out of all his money, and then ran away,
leaving him to be suspected of all sorts of dishonesty. And he managed
so that poor Fred could not prove his innocence, nor could my brother,
though he felt quite sure of it. However, our troubles are over now,
I hope, and a new life about to begin. I only want my boys to make me
as happy as ever.
"Will you come out with the boys and share our work in the hotel
if we go there? Perhaps you would prefer to wait until we know for
certain we shall be there, or here on the farm? Whichever it is, your
assistance would be very welcome. But perhaps you do not care to leave
Kelmersdale, where you are so comfortable, and we feel unwilling to
urge you until we are sure of our future prospects. But when we know
that we are going to do well, you may be sure we shall want you to
share our good fortune.
"Kiss my boys for 'muddie,' and remember that, though I cannot
write as I feel, I am for ever grateful to you for taking care of them.
When I feel their arms round my neck, I shall be too happy. Tell them
that 'muddie' just longs for them. I must leave room for Gilbert now.
"Your affectionate daughter,
"JANET RAYBURN."
When Maria came back a little later with Mrs. Rayburn's supper, she found her lying back in her armchair insensible. The letter lay at her feet.
*
* *
* *
Fred Rayburn was just about to leave the Farm in order to meet the two boys and bring them safe to their mother, when a letter to Janet from Lord Beaucourt stopped him. Very kindly and gently did the Earl break the dreadful news. He told the story very fully, and said that, although the children had not been found in the river, there was no reasonable doubt that they had fallen in, probably in trying to take a drink. He spoke of the character of the Kelmer, from which the bodies of those who were drowned in it were very seldom recovered. And he told of Mrs. Rayburn's serious illness, which it was still feared would end fatally.
"Your letter and the bank-bills I now return to you were lying at her feet. I am told that since her power of speech has returned to her, she talks of having been harsh to the children; and I cannot say whether this is really true, or only her fancy. Certainly she has never been the same since they were lost."
He concluded with many expressions of sympathy, and a promise that Mrs. Rayburn should be well cared for.
Poor Janet! That letter very nearly killed her. At her earnest request, Fred went to England, to ascertain, as far as he could, the truth about Mrs. Rayburn's treatment of the boys; and perhaps there was a wild hope that he might discover that the children had not perished. He did his best, but discovered nothing new about the children.
Mrs. Rayburn had left the Castle, and was in a hospital in London, as her state of mind required careful watching; but she was better, and would, they thought, recover. Fred felt convinced that she had not been kind to the children, and did not feel very sorry when told that he could not see her.
He returned to Canada after a while, bringing no hope, and but little added information.
Poor Janet! Her sorrow was very sore, and it was not lessened by a curious feeling of doubt that took possession of her. She could not believe that her children were dead. If for a moment she felt sure, next moment a doubt sprang up again. She told no one of this feeling, for she could give no reason for it, and whether it added to her grief, or was a gleam of comfort, she did not very well know. It added much to her suffering, for it made her restless and full of longing to go home and search England for her bonny boys. But, after a while, another little Lily came to comfort the poor torn heart, and Janet's grief lost some of its bitterness.
But it had utterly changed her. Her bright colour was gone; her face was still and grave. Her little daughter had the tenderest care, but the merry playfellow with whom Frank and Fred had had many a game of romps, little Lily never knew.
After a while the first manager of "Gray's Hotel" left his situation, and Fred Rayburn was his successor. All feeling against him was quite forgotten. Indeed, with sturdy Gilbert Gray to keep him steady, Fred was a different man. He prospered exceedingly; all things went well with him. And yet, he would have given all his wealth to see his gentle, sad-faced, silent wife look like the pretty, happy Janet who had played with her boys in the old sitting-room over the Gateway.
"Janet," he said one day, when something had made them talk of the lost children, "I wonder how you can bear the sight of me. It was really my fault. But for my folly and selfishness, you would never have had to leave them."
"Dear heart, I loved you before God gave me them, and your grief for them made me love you more. And, maybe, nothing but such a sorrow would have made us one, as we are now."
"You mean, would have made me think? You are right there. I never really saw that I had sinned till I felt that—that dreadful blow. There was mercy in the chastisement for me, but for you, my poor Janet—"
"Hush! You and I are one," was her quiet answer. "I can never forget my pretty Frank and Fred, but I am content, dear. You and I are one."