Chapter Twenty Five.
How I took part in a not very successful Holiday Party.
Several weeks elapsed, and I was beginning to doubt whether Hawkesbury’s advice, after all, was good, when a general holiday occurred to break the monotony of my life both at Hawk Street and Beadle Square.
I had for some time meditated, if I had the funds, taking advantage of my next holiday to run down to my uncle’s. Not that I expected any particular welcome from him, but I longed to see the old familiar haunts of my childhood after my long imprisonment in London; and, even if there were no more congenial friend than Cad Prog to hail me, it would at least be a change from this dreary city, with its noise and bustle, and disappointed hopes and lost friendships.
But my intention in this direction was upset by a double reason. One was that I had no money. Indeed, my debts had got so far ahead of my means that it was clear a crisis in my financial affairs must soon come. The other reason was an invitation to join in a grand day’s excursion by road to Windsor.
It came from Hawkesbury.
“Are you doing anything particular on Monday?” he asked me, a day or two before the holiday.
“No; I half thought of going home, but I can’t afford that, so I may go to the British Museum.”
“Not a very cheerful place to spend a holiday,” laughed Hawkesbury. “What do you say to coming a quiet drive with me?”
Had the invitation come from Crow or Daly, or even Doubleday, I should have regarded it shyly. But Hawkesbury was a steady fellow, I thought, and not likely to lead one into mischief.
“I should like it awfully!” I said, “only—that is—I don’t think I can afford it.”
“Oh!” said he, smiling affably, “you shan’t be at any expense at all. It’s my affair, and I should like to take you with me.”
Of course my gratitude was as profuse as it was sincere.
“My idea was,” continued Hawkesbury, “to get a dogcart for the day and go somewhere in the direction of Windsor, taking our own provender with us, and having a jolly healthy day in the open air.”
Nothing could be more delightful or more in accordance with my own wishes.
“Will it be just you and I?” I asked.
“Well, these traps generally hold four. I thought perhaps Whipcord would come for one; he’s a good driver, you know, and a steady enough fellow when he’s by himself. And there’s a friend of mine called Masham I mean to ask as well.”
I would have preferred it if the expedition had been confined to Hawkesbury and myself, but I had no right to be discontented with the arrangements which had been made, and spent the next few days in eager anticipation.
I wondered what Jack Smith meant to do on his holiday; most likely he would be reading hard for his “Sam,” as Billy called it. It seemed shabby of me to go off on a spree and leave him to drudge; but, as Hawkesbury said when I referred to the matter, it would just show him what he missed by holding aloof, and make him all the more ready to try to get back my friendship.
Doubleday, when I told him of my plan for the day, snuffed up at it in no very pleasant way. But then he had always been jealous of Hawkesbury since giving up the petty-cash to his charge.
“All I can say is,” said he, “I’d think twice about going with that party, and I’m not so very particular. I suppose you never met Mr Masham, did you?”
“No,” said I.
“Ah!” he replied, laughing, “you’ll find him a very nice boy; just a little too strait-laced for me, but he’ll suit you.”
I could not make out whether this was in jest or earnest; in any case, I put it down to the petty-cash, and thought it a pity Doubleday should be so put out by a trifle.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“Oh! I’m going to do my best to be cheerful in a mild way,” said he, “down the river. It’s a good job Hawkesbury’s booked you, my boy, for I meant to ask you to join us, and that would have done you out of your quiet day with Petty-Cash and his friends, which would be a pity.”
The Monday came at last, and opened perfectly. My spirits rose as I looked out and saw the blue cloudless sky overhead, and thought of the trees, and birds, and flowers, and country air I was so soon to be among.
I was to meet my party at the Horseshoe stables in the City, and thither I repaired in good time, in my smartest get-up, and with a shilling plum-cake under my arm, which I had made up my mind to take as my contribution to the commissariat of the expedition. I passed Style Street on my way, and came in for hilarious greeting from Billy.
“Hi! shine ’e boots, governor? My eye, there’s a nob! Shine ’e all over, governor. Ain’t you got ’em on, though? What’s up, mister?”
“See you again soon, Billy,” said I, bustling on. I was angry with him for the way he laughed, and for the description of me I knew quite well he would presently give to Jack Smith.
Early as I was at the rendezvous, Hawkesbury was before me, and with him his friend Masham. The latter was a queer-looking fellow of about thirty. He was pale and dark round the eyes, like a person who hadn’t slept for a week. His lips were large and red, and the lower part of his face a good deal too big for the upper. Altogether Mr Masham was neither a very healthy nor a very prepossessing-looking specimen; but Hawkesbury had told me he was clever and very amusing, so I supposed I oughtn’t to judge by appearances.
“Punctual as usual,” said Hawkesbury, as I approached. “Phil, this is my friend Batchelor I was telling you of.”
I wished secretly I knew exactly what he had been telling him of me.
“Oh,” said Masham, eyeing me all over, as he lit a cigar, and then held out his cigar-case to me. “What do you smoke, Batchelor?”
“I don’t smoke, thank you,” said I.
“Have you given it up, then?” said Hawkesbury. “You used to smoke at Doubleday’s parties.”
“Ah! I thought he looked like a chap that smoked,” said Masham, holding out his case again. “Don’t be modest, Batchelor. We’re all friends here.”
I didn’t like the style of this Masham. Indeed, I was a trifle afraid of him already, and half repented coming.
“I gave up smoking some weeks ago,” said I, determined not to give in if I could help. “I found I couldn’t afford it.”
“The very reason you should take a cigar now when you’ve a chance of getting one for nothing,” replied Masham, digging me pleasantly in the ribs.
“Thanks, I’d rather not, if you’ll excuse me,” I replied again.
“Can’t excuse you, my dear fellow. We’re all bound to be sociable to-day. At least, so I fancy.”
“Come, Batchelor,” said Hawkesbury. “We may as well humour him. I’d advise you to take a cigar. I’ll take one, too, to keep you company, though I hate them. They always make me feel sick.”
So saying, he took a cigar and lit it. I felt bound to do the same, not only to relieve myself of Masham’s importunity, but to avoid disturbing the harmony of our party at the very beginning of the day.
At this moment Whipcord arrived on the scene, as stylish as ever, with his hat all on one side of his head and his straw all on one side of his mouth.
“What cheer, my venerable chums?” he cried, as he approached. “Ah! Masham. You turned up again! I thought we’d lost—”
“That’ll do,” said Masham, with a significant jerk of his head towards me. “Have a weed?”
“Thanks, we’ll see about that later on. I’m off my smoke just now. Ah! young Batchelor, you there? Brought your boxing-gloves with you, I hope? Hot fellow with the gloves is Batchelor, Phil. Well, where’s your trap, Hawkesbury?”
“There it is coming out.”
Whipcord eyed it professionally and critically. He liked the dogcart, but didn’t think much of the horse.
“Do all right for a water-cart, I dare say,” observed he, “or cat’s meat. But I don’t see how we’re to get to Windsor and back with such a rheumatic old screw.”
“You’re out there, mister,” said the ostler, who was harnessing the animal. “You’ll find he ain’t such a screw as you think. You’ll need to keep a steady hand on him all the way, pertikler on the road home, or he’ll screw you a way you don’t fancy.”
Whipcord laughed.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “He does look a sort of beast to be nervous of, certainly.”
The ostler grinned cynically, and we meanwhile mounted to our seats, Hawkesbury and Whipcord being in front, and I, much to my disgust, being placed beside Masham on the back seat.
Despite Whipcord’s desponding prophecies, our charger stepped out at a pretty fair pace, and in due time we began to shake off the dust of London from our wheels and meet the first traces of country.
For a considerable time my companion absorbed himself in his cigar—much to my satisfaction—and I, for fear of appearing anxious for conversation, betook myself to mine.
At length, however, after about half an hour thus occupied, Masham broke the silence.
“Know Hawkesbury well?” he asked.
“Pretty well,” I answered; “we were at school together first, and now we’re in the same office.”
“Nice boy at school?”
“Yes; I think so.”
“Not quite sure, eh?”
“I always got on well with him.”
“Yes, you would. Sort of a nest for bad eggs, that school, wasn’t it?”
“Yes—that is, a good many of the boys were a bad sort,” said I, not very comfortable to be undergoing this cross-examination.
“I understand. You weren’t, of course, eh?” said he, digging me in the ribs with his knuckles.
His manner was most offensive. I felt strongly inclined to resent it, and yet somehow I felt that to be civil to him would be the less of two evils.
“Hawkesbury doing well at the office, eh?”
“Certainly!” said I. “Why not?”
“See no reason at all. Worthy chap, Hawkesbury. Nice boy at home; great comfort to the old people.”
“Really,” said I, “you know him much better than I do.”
“Ah! should get to know Hawkesbury all you can. Moral chap—like you and me, eh?” and here followed another dig in the ribs.
This was getting intolerable. However, at this point Whipcord pulled up at a wayside inn, much to my relief. Anything was better than Masham’s conversation.
We halted a quarter of an hour, to give our horse time to get breath, as Whipcord explained, but, as it really seemed, to allow that gentleman and Masham to refresh themselves also.
When we started again my companion began almost immediately to resume the conversation, but this time it was of a less personal nature, though disagreeable enough.
For he made no secret at all that he was a youth of depraved tastes and habits, and insisted on addressing me as though I resembled him in these respects. He gave me what he doubtless intended to be a highly entertaining and spicy account of many of his escapades and exploits in town and country, appealing to me every few sentences as to what I should have said or done or thought in similar circumstances.
And when he had exhausted his stories of himself he told me stories of his friends, some of which were disgusting, some horrifying, and some stupid. But with it all he had an air as if he believed everybody at heart was bad, and as if morality and sobriety and unselfishness were mere affectation and cant.
Has any of my readers ever met such a one as Masham? I hope not. If he should, let him beware of him as the worst enemy a boy could encounter. For no poison is more deadly than that which strives to make one man lose all faith in his fellow-man.
I was so far infected by his manner that, though I felt ashamed to be sitting and listening to his bad talk, I dared not protest, for fear of appearing (what he would be sure to consider me), a hypocrite.
And so, unprofitably, the journey was beguiled, not without frequent stoppings and refreshings, each of which had the effect of exhilarating Whipcord’s spirits and making Masham’s tongue looser and looser.
At length Windsor was reached, and I looked forward to exchanging my undesirable companion for more interesting occupation in seeing over the town with its grand old castle.
But in this I was woefully disappointed. Whipcord drove straight up to an inn in the town, where he ordered the horse and trap to be put up, while we all entered the smoky coffee-room and discussed the desirability of having dinner.
“I thought we were going to picnic out of doors?” I said, mildly, in answer to Masham’s appeal whether we should not order dinner where we were.
“All very well if you could get your liquor laid on,” said Whipcord. “I fancy we’d better stay where we are. What do you say, Hawkesbury?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint Batchelor,” said Hawkesbury, smiling, “but I really think we shall get dinner more comfortably here. We’ve no plates or knives; and, as Whipcord says, there would be a difficulty about the beer.”
I was outvoted, and had to give up my idea of a rustic meal in the open air.
It was not a very pleasant dinner. Masham, despite Hawkesbury’s protests, persisted in interlarding it with his offensive stories, and Whipcord, who was taking very decided measures to excite his spirits, chimed in with his horsey slang, not unmixed with profanity.
“How are you getting on, Batchelor?” said the former presently to me. “Don’t be afraid of that bottle, man, it’s only whisky!”
“Don’t you believe him; it’s gin,” laughed Whipcord.
“I thought you said it was brandy,” said Hawkesbury.
“There you are!” said Masham. “One says one thing, one another, and one another. Now I tell you what, Batchelor shall be umpire, and we’ll each put five shillings on it, eh? What do you say to that?”
“I’d rather not bet,” replied Hawkesbury, “but I’d like to know what Batchelor says it is.”
“I’ll go half-sovs. with you on it,” said Whipcord.
“Done with you!” said Masham; “but Hawkesbury must go too, for if it’s brandy we both lose.”
“I’d rather not bet,” said Hawkesbury, “but if it will spoil your fun if I don’t I’ll join.”
“Thanks. Now, Batchelor, fill up, old toper, and give us your verdict.”
“I really am no judge of spirits,” said I. “Innocent babe,” said Masham, “how well he does it! But he doesn’t seem to know the rule in these cases,” added he, winking at the other two. “What rule?” I asked.
“Why, about hanging back. Half a tumbler for every twenty seconds, isn’t that it, Whipcord?”
“I thought it was a whole tumbler!”
“Ah, wouldn’t you take your time to decide, eh? Come now,” said Masham, taking out his watch, “we’ll start now.”
“Hold hard,” said Whipcord. “Surely we are to have glasses too, to see if he guesses right.”
“Very well, fill all round. Now, Batchelor.”
“I really can’t do it,” I said, faintly. “Five seconds gone!” bawled Masham, laughing. “Please, don’t be so foolish,” I cried, getting alarmed. “Hawkesbury, please stop them!”
“Ten seconds gone, eleven, twelve!”
“I tell you, I—”
“Seventeen, eighteen,” said Masham, rising and reaching out his arm for the bottle.
There was no help for it. I seized my glass and gulped down its contents. It made me cough and sputter, and my eyes watered, greatly to the amusement of my persecutors.
“What is it?” they all cried.
I could scarcely speak for anger and the burning in my throat.
“It’s a shame!” I began.
“That’s not what it is,” cried Whipcord. “Come, give it a name, or you’ll have to drink another!”
“Oh, brandy,” I almost shrieked, willing to do anything rather than that. “I say, Hawkesbury,” I said, reproachfully, “I didn’t expect you were bringing me to this sort of thing.”
“It is a shame,” he said to me aside. “I would have stopped it if I could; but don’t you see they were eager about their bet, and it was the only way of quieting them. Never mind.”
The rest of the afternoon passed away much as it had begun. After dinner we went down to the river and took a boat, in which Masham and Whipcord lay and slept all the time, while Hawkesbury and I rowed them about. It was with difficulty, about five o’clock, that we got them ashore again, and half led, half dragged them back to the inn.
“Come,” said Hawkesbury to Whipcord, “it’s time to be getting the trap ready for the start back, isn’t it?”
“Is it? Go and tell the fellow, some of you,” replied our driver. “I’ll be ready pretty soon,” said he, moving once more towards the bar.
“You surely aren’t going to drink any more,” cried I, taking his arm and trying gently to stop him.
He wrenched his arm loose and gave me a push back, saying, “Young prig! what’s it to do with you?”
“I think he wants to come too,” said Masham. “Come along, Batchelor.”
I had positively to run away to elude them, and made the pretext of going to the stable to see after the harnessing of the horse.
When this was done I sought for Hawkesbury.
“Do you think it’s safe for Whipcord to drive in the state he’s in?”
“Oh, yes. With a horse like that too. He’s pretending to be a great deal worse than he is, just to horrify you.”
It seemed ages before we actually started. Whipcord, in a most quarrelsome humour, had to be dragged almost by force from the bar. Hawkesbury, at the last moment, discovered that he was going without paying the bill; while Masham, having once made himself comfortable in the bar parlour, flatly refused to be moved, and had finally to be left behind.
The only consolation in this was that I had the tail of the dogcart to myself, which was infinitely preferable to the odious society of Masham.
It was nearly six when we finally started from Windsor and turned our horse’s head homeward. And this had been my day’s enjoyment!
Chapter Twenty Six.
How I fell badly, and was picked up in a way I little expected.
The delightful picnic to which I had looked forward with such satisfaction had certainly not come off as I expected. And it was not yet over, for the drive home under the conduct of Mr Whipcord promised to be the most exciting portion of the whole day.
As long as we were in the country roads the unsteadiness of our Jehu did not so much matter, for he was sober enough to keep the horse upon the road, though hardly fit to steer him past other vehicles. However, it was marvellous how we did get on. What hairbreadth escapes we had! It was useless attempting to remonstrate with the fellow. He was in that quarrelsome and mischievous humour which would brook no protest. Once, very soon after starting, in passing a country cart we as nearly as possible upset against it, a misadventure which Whipcord immediately set down as a deliberate insult intended for himself, and which nothing would satisfy him but to avenge then and there.
He leaped down off the dogcart, heedless of what became of the horse, and, throwing off his coat, shouted to the countryman to “Come on!” an invitation which the countryman answered with a crack of his whip which made the doughty hero leap as high into the air as he had ever done in his life.
As might be expected, this incident did not tend to pacify the outraged feelings of the tipsy Whipcord, who, disappointed of his vengeance on the countryman, was most pressing in his invitations to Hawkesbury or me or both of us to dismount and “have it out.” Indeed, he was so eager for satisfaction that he all but pulled me off my seat on to the road, and would have done so quite had not the horse given a start at the moment, which put me out of his reach, and nearly upset him in the dust.
Things certainly did not look promising for a nice quiet drive home. With difficulty we coaxed him back into the trap, where he at once began to vent his spleen on the horse in a manner which put that animal’s temper to a grand test.
He further insisted on pulling up at every wayside inn for refreshment, until it became quite evident, if we ever reached London at all, we should certainly not do so till nearly midnight.
I held a hurried consultation with Hawkesbury as to what ought to be done.
“Don’t you think,” suggested I, “we had almost better go on by ourselves and leave him behind?”
“Oh no,” said Hawkesbury; “that would never do. It wouldn’t be honourable.”
It occurred to me it would not be much less honourable than inviting a fellow to a quiet picnic and letting him in for an expedition like this.
“Well,” said I, “suppose we let him drive home, and you and I go back some other way?”
“You forget I’m responsible for the trap. No, we’d better go on as we are. We’ve not come to grief so far. Perhaps, though,” said he, “you’d sooner drive?”
“What’s that about sooner drive?” shouted Whipcord, coming up at this moment. “Who’d sooner drive? You, young Batchelor? All right; off with your coat!” And he threw himself on me in a pugilistic attitude.
After a long delay we got once more under way, the vehicle travelling more unsteadily than ever, and my misgivings as to ever reaching London becoming momentarily more numerous.
How we ever got back I can’t imagine, unless it was that after a time Whipcord finally dropped the reins and allowed the horse to find its own way home. He certainly thought he was driving, but I fancy the truth was that one of the ostlers on the road, seeing his condition, had cunningly looped the reins round the front rail of the trap, so that, drive all he would, he could not do much more harm than if he was sitting idle.
At length the lateness of the hour and the frequent lights announced that London must be near. It was fortunate it was so late, or we should certainly have come to grief in the first crowded street. As it was, Whipcord had already got command of the reins again, as the sudden jerks and shies of the horse testified.
My impulse was to avoid the danger by quietly jumping down from my seat and leaving the other two to proceed alone. But somehow it seemed a shabby proceeding to leave Hawkesbury in the lurch, besides which, even if I had overcome that scruple, the seat was so high that at the unsteady rate we were going I would run considerable risk by jumping. So I determined to hold on and hope for the best.
We got safely down Oxford Street, thanks to its emptiness, and were just proceeding towards Holborn, when Whipcord gave his horse a sudden turn down a side street to the right.
“Where are you going?” I cried; “it’s straight on.”
He pulled up immediately, and bidding Hawkesbury hold the reins, pulled off his coat for the twentieth time, and invited me to come and have it out on the pavement.
“Don’t be a fool,” said Hawkesbury; “drive on now, there’s a good fellow.”
“What does he want to tell me which way to drive for?” demanded the outraged charioteer.
“He didn’t mean to offend you—did you, Batchelor? Drive on now, Whipcord, and get out of this narrow street.”
With much persuasion Whipcord resumed his coat and seized the reins.
“Thinks I don’t know the way to drive,” he growled. “I’ll teach him!”
I had been standing up, adding my endeavours to Hawkesbury’s to pacify our companion, when he suddenly lashed furiously at the horse. The wretched animal, already irritated beyond endurance, gave a wild bound forward, which threw me off my feet, and before I could put out a hand to save myself pitched me backwards into the road.
I was conscious of falling with a heavy crash against the kerb with my arm under me, and of seeing the dogcart tearing down the street. Then everything seemed dark, and I remember nothing more.
When I did recover consciousness I was lying in a strange room on a strange bed. It took an effort to remember what had occurred. But a dull pain all over reminded me, and gradually a more acute and intense pain on my left side. I tried to move my arm, but it was powerless, and the exertion almost drove back my half-returning senses.
“Lie quiet,” said a voice at my side, “the doctor will be here directly.”
The voice was somehow familiar; but in my weak state I could not remember where I had heard it. And the exertion of turning my head to look was more than I could manage.
I lay there, I don’t know how long, with half-closed eyes, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and feeling only the pain and an occasional grateful passing of a wet sponge across my forehead.
Then I became aware of more people in the room and a man’s voice saying—
“How was it?”
“I found him lying on the pavement. I think he must have been thrown out of a vehicle.”
That voice I had certainly heard, but where?
“It’s the arm—broken!” said the voice.
“Ah,” said the doctor, leaning over me and touching me lightly near the elbow.
I groaned with agony as he did so.
“Go round to the other side,” said he, hurriedly. “I must examine where the fracture is. I’m afraid, from what you say, it must be rather a bad one.”
I just remembered catching sight of a well-known face bending over me, and a familiar voice whispering—
“Steady, old man, try to bear it.”
The next moment I had fainted.
It may have been minutes or it may have been hours before I next came to myself, and then my arm lay bandaged by my side, and the sharpness of the pain had gone.
“Fred, old man,” was the first thing I heard as I opened my eyes. I knew the voice now, and the face with its two great eyes which bent over me.
I had found my friend at last!
“Hush, don’t talk now,” he said, as I tried to speak; “lie quiet now, there’s a dear fellow.”
“Jack!” I said. I could not resist uttering his name, his old familiar long-lost name.
“Yes, it’s Jack,” he whispered, “but don’t talk now.”
“You forgive me, Jack?” I murmured, heedless of his injunction.
“Yes, a hundred times!” he said, brushing back the hair from my forehead, and putting his finger to my lips.
Then I obeyed him, and lay silent and happy all day. Happier with all my pain than I had been for months.
The doctor came later on and looked at my arm.
“He’ll do now, I think,” said he, “but he will very likely be feverish after it. You should have him taken to the hospital.”
“Oh no,” cried Jack. “He must stay here, please. I can look after him quite well.”
“If it was only the arm,” said the doctor. “But he’s had a bad fall and is a good deal bruised and shaken besides. He would get better attention, I think, at the hospital.”
“I would so much sooner he stayed here,” said Jack; “but if he’d really be better at the hospital, I suppose I ought to let him go.”
“I won’t go to the hospital!” exclaimed I, making the longest speech I had yet made since my accident, with a vehemence that positively startled the two speakers.
This protest settled the question. If only a sick person threatens to get excited about anything, he is pretty sure to have his own way. And so it proved in my case.
“But will you be able to stay at home all day from business to look after him?” asked the doctor.
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Jack, “but I think I know some one who will. He sha’n’t be left alone, and I can always just run home in the dinner-hour to see how he’s getting on.”
The doctor left, only half satisfied with this arrangement, and repeating that it would have been far better to move me to the hospital.
When he was gone Jack came and smoothed my pillow. “I am glad you’re to stay,” he said. “Now, for fear you should begin to talk, I’m going out to Billy to get my boots blacked. So good-bye for a bit, old boy.”
“But, Jack—” I began, trying to keep him.
“Not a word now,” said he, going to the door. “Presently.”
I was too contented and comfortable to fret myself about anything, still more to puzzle my brains about what I couldn’t understand. So I lay still thinking of nothing, and knowing nothing except that I had found my friend once more, and that he was more to me than ever.
Nothing makes one so sleepy as thinking of nothing at all; and long before Jack returned from his visit to Billy I was asleep, and slept soundly all through the night.
Next morning I woke invigorated in body and mind. Jack was up and about before I opened my eyes. He was at my side in a moment as I moved.
“Well, you have had a sleep,” he said, cheerily. “I have,” replied I. “But, Jack, where am I?”
“Oh, this is my lodgings,” said he. “I’m pretty comfortable here.”
I looked round the room. It was a poor, bare apartment, with only two beds, a chair, a small table, and a washstand to furnish it. The table was covered with papers and books.
“You’ve got a sitting-room too, I suppose?” I said, after taking the room in.
He laughed.
“I find this quite as good a room to sit in as to lie in,” said he, “for the matter of that. But I have got the use of another room belonging to a fellow-lodger. He’s a literary man, and writes for the papers; but in his spare moments he coaches me in Latin and Greek, in consideration of which I give him half my room to sleep in.”
“Whatever’s he to do now when I’m here?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s going to have a shake-down in his own room. You’ll like him, Fred; he’s a very good-natured, clever man.”
“How old?” I asked.
“About fifty, I should think. And I fancy he’s seen a good deal of trouble in his time, though I don’t like to ask him.”
“I say, Jack,” I began in an embarrassed manner, “ever since that time—”
“Shut up, now,” said Jack, briskly. “The doctor says unless you obey me in everything you’re to go straight to the hospital. And one of my rules is, you’re to talk about nothing I don’t approve of.”
“I was only going to say—”
“There you go. I don’t approve of what you were going to say. I suppose you’ll be interested to hear I reported your case to the firm yesterday, and they were very sorry to hear of it, and told me there were other fellows in the office they could have spared better. There’s a compliment!”
“Was Hawkesbury at the office?” I asked.
Jack’s face clouded for a moment.
“Yes, Hawkesbury was there.”
“You know he was with me when the accident happened?” I said, by way of explanation.
“Oh,” said Jack. “Hullo! here comes Billy. I hope, you won’t be horrified to have him to look after you while I’m at the office. He’s the only person I could think of.”
“Billy and I are very good friends,” I said, somewhat taken aback, however, by the prospect of being consigned to that young gentleman’s charge for several hours every day.
“Here you are, Billy,” said Jack, as the boy entered. “You needn’t have brought your blacking-box with you, though.”
“What, ain’t none of the blokes here got no boots, then?” remarked the youth, depositing his burden.
“The bloke, as you call him, who lies there,” said Jack, pointing to me, “won’t be putting on his boots for a good many days yet.”
Billy approached my bed with his most profuse grin.
“I say, ain’t you been and done it? Do you hear? you’ve broke your arm!”
This piece of news being so remarkably unexpected visibly affected me.
“Yes,” said Jack, “and I want you to sit here while I’m away, and see nobody breaks it again.”
“I’ll give the fust bloke that tries it on a topper, so I will,” said Billy, fiercely, sitting down on his box and preparing to mount guard.
“I quite believe you,” said Jack, laughing. “But mind, Billy, you mustn’t make a noise or disturb him when he’s resting. And if anything special happens and I’m badly wanted, you must run to my office and fetch me. You know where it is?”
“Yaas, I know,” said Billy.
“If Mr Smith comes up, you may let him in and make yourself scarce till he goes away again.”
“What Mr Smith?” I asked.
“Oh, my fellow-lodger. Isn’t it funny his name’s Smith? At least, wouldn’t it be funny if every other person weren’t called Smith?”
“It is rather a large family,” said I, laughing.
Billy having received his full instructions, including the serving of certain provisions out of a cupboard in a corner of the room, made himself comfortable on his perch, and sat eyeing me, after Jack had gone, as if I were a criminal of some sort whom it was his duty to prevent from escaping.
It was a queer situation to be in, certainly. Left alone in a friend’s lodging with a broken arm and other contusions, and a small shoeblack to look after me, who had once robbed me of my penknife and a sixpence!
I was rather doubtful whether his new employment was quite as congenial to him as his old. Indeed, I rather pitied him as he sat there silent and motionless like a watch-dog on guard.
“You may stand on your hands if you like, Billy,” I said, presently.
He eyed me sharply and doubtfully.
“You’re ’avin’ a lark with me,” he said.
“No, I’m not. You really may do it.”
“Ain’t a-goin’ to do it,” replied he, decisively.
“Why not?” I asked.
“T’other bloke ain’t said I’m to do it,” replied he.
“Well,” said I, “if you don’t think he’d like it, don’t do it. For I’m sure he’s very good to you, Billy, isn’t he?”
“’Tain’t no concern of yourn,” responded my genial guardian.
After this there was a long silence, and I was getting drowsy, when Billy said, “That there ’orse was a-goin’ it.”
“What horse?”
“Why, as if you didn’t know! That there ’orse as was drivin’ you blokes a’ Monday night.”
“What, did you see us, then?” I asked.
“In corse I did. I seen you as I was a-comin’ back from the racket school. My eye, wasn’t you tidy and screwed though! You don’t ought to be trusted with ’orses, you don’t.”
“I wasn’t screwed, Billy,” said I, “and I wasn’t driving.”
“No, that you wasn’t driving. But I knows the bloke as was.”
“Do you know Mr Whipcord?”
“Yaas, I knows the animal,” he replied, with a grin. “He gave me a doin’ with his stick once, he did.”
“But did you see me pitched out?” I asked, not feeling particularly interested in the last reminiscence.
“In corse I did. I seen you. Thought you was dead, and I fetches the bloke to yer, and the bloke sends me for the doctor, and the doctor—”
At this moment the door opened and a stranger entered.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
How I suffered a Relapse, which did me good.
The gentleman who entered the room was a middle-aged man, of striking appearance. In face and person he seemed worn and feeble. He walked with a slight stoop; his cheeks were hollow and slightly flushed, and his brow was furrowed by lines which would have appeared deep even in a much older man. But as soon as he began to talk his face lit up, his eyes sparkled, and there was a ring in his voice which was more like Jack Smith himself than his older and more sedate namesake.
For this stranger, I guessed at once, must be the other Mr Smith with whom Jack lodged.
At sight of him Billy stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence, and, putting his hand up to his forelock, saluted him with his usual familiar grin.
“Ah, William, my worthy friend, you here?” the gentleman said, almost gaily, as he entered. “I heard I should find you on duty. You must introduce me to this sick gentleman, and ask him if I shall disturb him.”
Billy grinned in a confused sort of way, not knowing exactly how to do the honours. Then, looking at me and jerking his thumb in the direction of the stranger, he said, “This here’s the cove from downstairs!”
The gentleman approached my bedside and said, gently, “Am I disturbing you? I found a note from my fellow-lodger when I got in just now, asking me to call up and see how you were getting on.”
“It’s very kind of you,” said I. “I hope you can stay a bit.”
“Certainly; I’ve nothing to do.”
Billy, however, did not apparently favour this suggestion.
“This ’ere cove,” said he, pointing to me, “ain’t to jaw, mister!”
“Quite right, William,” said the gentleman; “I’ll see he doesn’t. I’ll do all the talking and he shall do the listening. You can go down to my room and make my bed ready for me and tidy up.”
The boy looked dubiously first at the speaker, then at me, as if he was not quite sure about the propriety of allowing me out of his sight, but finally obeyed.
“There’s a trusty youngster for you!” said the gentleman, laughing, as he disappeared. “Young Smith couldn’t have found a safer nurse for you anywhere.”
“I believe you are right,” said I.
“And how are you feeling? You’re looking better than when I saw you last, anyhow.”
“I never saw you before, did I?” I asked.
“No, you didn’t; but I saw you when you were brought in here the other evening. However, as Billy says, you mustn’t talk now. I suppose you heard me order him to make my bed. I always go to bed every morning at eleven. Young Smith and I are like Box and Cox, you know; he’s away all day, I’m away all night. Just when he’s finishing up work I’m beginning.”
“I wonder you can keep awake all the night,” I said.
“Not more wonderful than you keeping awake all day, my boy. In fact, there’s not much chance of a poor literary hack sleeping over his work. Now I wonder, when you read your newspaper in the morning, if you ever think of what has to be done to produce it. If you only did, I dare say you would find it more interesting than it often seems.”
And then my companion launched out into a lively description of the work of a newspaper office, and of the various stages in the production of a paper, from the pen and ink in the sub-editor’s room to the printed, folded, and delivered newspaper which lies on one’s breakfast-table every morning. I wish I could repeat it all for the benefit of the reader, for few subjects are more interesting; but it would take more time than we have to spare to do so.
Of course Mr Smith the elder—for so I had to call him to distinguish him from my friend his namesake—rattled on in this strain, more for the sake of keeping me interested and amused than any other reason. Still, his talk was something better than idle chatter, and I began to feel that here at last, among all my miscellaneous acquaintance, was a man worth knowing.
He gave me no chance of talking myself, but rattled on from one topic to another in a way which left me quite free to listen or not as I liked, and finally rose, much to my regret, to go.
“Now I must be off, or I shall have Billy up to hunt me off. Good-bye, my boy; glad to see you doing so well. You’ve a lot to be thankful for, and of course you are.”
“Will you come again?” I asked.
“Gladly; that is, if Billy allows me,” said he, laughing, and nodding kindly as he left the room.
“No wonder,” thought I, as I listened to his footsteps going down stairs—“no wonder Jack Smith found these lodgings pleasanter than Beadle Square.”
I saw Mr Smith frequently during the next few days. He usually came up to sit with me for half an hour or so in the morning, and was always the same cheery and interesting companion.
And yet I could not quite make him out. For when not talking or smiling his face used to wear a look of habitual trouble and restlessness, which made me suspect he was either making an effort to be cheery before me, or else that he was the victim of a constant battle between good spirits and bad.
However, just as I was getting to feel intimate with him, and looking forward to hear more about him than I had yet learned, my recovery came to a sudden and rather serious halt.
I was lying one evening propped up in my bed, with my damaged arm feeling comparatively comfortable, and myself in a particularly jovial frame of mind as I listened to Jack Smith attempting to instil into the mind of the volatile Billy the art of spelling d-o-g—dog.
“Now, Billy,” said the instructor, “you’ll never get on at this rate. That letter you’re pointing at is a B for Billy, and not a D.”
“That there B’s a caution,” growled the boy; “he’s always a-turnin’ up.”
“Time you knew him, then,” said Smith. “Now show us the D.”
Billy cocked his head a little to one side and took a critical survey of the alphabet before him. His eye passed once down and once up the procession, then looking up at Jack with a grin, he said, “He’s ’iding, I reckon, governor. That there dorg’ll have to start with a B after all.”
Our laughter at this philosophic observation was interrupted by an unwonted footstep on the stairs outside. It certainly was not Mr Smith, for he was out at his work; nor was it the doctor, our only other visitor, for he always came up two steps at a time, and his boots always squeaked. Who could our visitor be?
“Come in,” called Smith, as a knock sounded on the door.
To my utter astonishment and concern, Hawkesbury, with his sweetest smile, entered the room.
How had he found out my retreat? What did he want here? What would Jack Smith say? These were the questions which rushed through my mind as he closed the door behind him and walked into the room.
I glanced round at Jack. There was written anything but peace in his countenance, while Billy glared like a young bulldog ready to spring on the intruder.
“Well, Batchelor,” said Hawkesbury, in his blandest voice, addressing me and ignoring everybody else; “you’ll be surprised to see me here. The fact is, I couldn’t feel happy till I came to see you and tell you how sorry I was for your accident.”
My few days’ confinement and the opportunity for meditation they had afforded had served to give me an insight into Hawkesbury’s character which made me treat this speech suspiciously. I replied nothing, and felt very uncomfortable.
“It was most unfortunate,” proceeded Hawkesbury, helping himself to the chair. “You know—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Smith at this point, in a tone which made me start; “this is my room, Hawkesbury, and I must ask you to go.”
The visitor’s face clouded with a quick shade of vexation, but immediately regained its chronic smile, as he said, “Ah, Smith! I should have said it was my friend Batchelor I came to see, not you.”
“You’re no friend of his,” retorted Smith, with rising wrath.
“Do you hear, nob,” broke in Billy, unable to restrain himself any longer; “you ain’t a-wanted here.”
Hawkesbury looked round with an amused smile.
“Really,” said he, “a most gratifying reception, and from a most unexpected quarter. Er—excuse me, Smith, I’m afraid it’s rather a strange request—would you mind allowing me to have a little private conversation with my friend?”
“No,” replied Smith, firmly.
“Really,” said Hawkesbury. “I must appeal to Batchelor himself.”
“I shall answer for Batchelor,” said Smith, not giving me time to reply. “Leave my room, please.”
“Do you hear? You leave the bloke’s room,” cried Billy. “Ef you don’t you’ll get a topper.”
Hawkesbury, whose colour had been rising during the last few moments, and whose assurance had gradually been deserting him, now turned round with a ceremonious smile to the last speaker as he rose to his feet and said, “If you desire it, I’ll go. I can submit to be ordered off by a shoeblack, but the son of a convict is—”
With clenched fist and crimson face Jack gave a sudden bound towards the speaker. But as suddenly he checked himself and walked gently to my bed, where I had started up ready to spring to my feet and back up my friend in what seemed a certain quarrel.
“What a cad I am!” he murmured, as he bent over me, and motioned me gently back to my pillow, “but the fellow nearly drives me mad.”
I was too exhausted by my effort to say anything.
Jack remained by my side while the unwelcome visitor slowly walked to the door. But if one of Hawkesbury’s enemies was disposed of, another remained. Billy, who had been a fuming and speechless witness of this last scene, now boiled over completely, and was to be kept in check no longer.
Wasting no words, he made a wild dash at the retreating intruder and closed with him. He would have closed with a lion, I firmly believe, if a lion had made himself obnoxious to Jack Smith.
Hawkesbury turned suddenly to receive the assault; an angry flush overspread his face, his hands clenched, and next moment Billy reeled back bleeding and almost senseless into the middle of the room, and the visitor had gone.
This was the event which put a check on my recovery.
To lie helpless and see Jack Smith insulted before my face would have been bad enough, but to hear him taunted with the very secret I had so miserably and treacherously let out was more than I could endure.
I don’t know what I did that evening, I was so weak and so excited. I have vague recollections of breaking out into passionate self-reproaches and wild entreaties for forgiveness; and of Jack Smith with pale and troubled face bending over me trying to soothe me, imploring me to be still, telling me twenty times there was nothing left to forgive. And then in the middle of the scene the doctor arrived, with serious face and hushed voice. He felt my pulse more carefully than ever, and took my temperature not once only, but several times. There was a hurried consultation in the corner of the room, of which all I heard were the words “most unfortunate” and “fever.” My usual supper of bread-and-butter and an egg gave place to a cup of beef-tea, which I could scarcely taste, and after that some medicine. Jack, with a face more solemn than ever, made his bed at the foot of mine, and smoothed my pillow for me and whispered—
“Be sure and call if you want anything.”
Then everything was silent and dark, and I began to realise that I was ill. I shall never forget that night. I tossed restlessly and ceaselessly all through it. In whatever position I lay I found no relief. My arm seemed to pain me more than ever before, my head ached, I was nearly suffocated with heat. And my mind was as restless as my body. One after another the follies and meannesses, the failures and sins of my life in London, rose up before me and stared me in the face. Try all I would, I could not get rid of them. I tried to think of other things—of books I had read, of stories I had heard, of places I had seen, of Stonebridge House, of Brownstroke—but no, the thought of my pitiful career in London, my debts, my evil acquaintances, my treachery to my friend, would come and come and come, and drive out all else. And all the while I seemed to see Jack’s solemn face looking reproachfully at me from the bottom of the bed, just as it had looked at me that morning weeks ago at Hawk Street. Once, instead of being at the bottom of the bed, I found it close beside me, saying—
“What is it, old boy?”
“Eh? nothing. I didn’t call.”
“Yes you did. Do try and lie still and get some rest.”
Lie still! As soon tell the waves to lie still in the storm as expect me, with my fever-tossed body and mind, to rest!
So the night wore on, and when the morning light struggled through the window it found me in a raging fever and delirious.
I must pass over the weeks that followed. I was very ill—as ill, so they told me afterwards, as I well could be, and live.
Jack watched me incessantly. I don’t know what arrangement he came to at Hawk Street, but while I was at my worst he never left my bedside day or night.
No one else was allowed up, except occasionally Billy, to relieve guard. With these two nurses to tend me—and never a patient had two such guardian angels!—I battled with my fever, and came through it.
I came through it an altered being.
Surely—this was the thought with which I returned to health—we boys, sent up to rough it in London, are not, after all, mere slung stones. There is One who cares for us, some One who comes after us when we go astray, some One who saves us when we are at the point of falling, if we will but cry, in true penitence, to Him!
I had had many and grievous lessons before I had found it out; but now I had, life seemed a new thing to me!
As my convalescence advanced and my bodily strength returned, my spirits rose within me, and I felt eager to be back at my post at Hawk Street. However, I had to exercise some patience yet. Meanwhile, with Billy (and occasionally Mr Smith), as my companion by day, and Jack by night, the time could hardly hang heavily.
“Well, Billy,” I said one morning when the doctor had been and told me that next week I might be allowed to sit up for an hour or so a day, “I shall soon be rid of this bed. I don’t know what would have become of me if it hadn’t been for you and Jack Smith.”
“Ga on,” said Billy, who, with his tongue in one cheek and his face twisting into all sorts of contortions, was sitting writing an exercise in a copy-book, “you don’t know what you’re torkin’ about.”
“Oh yes, I do, though,” I replied, understanding that this was Billy’s modest way of disclaiming any merit.
“More’n you didn’t when you was ’avin’ the fever!” observed the boy.
“What?” I inquired. “Was I talking much when I was ill?”
“You was so,” said Billy, “a-joring and a-joring and a-joring same as you never heard a bloke.”
“What was I saying?” I asked, feeling a little uneasy as to what I might have said in my delirium.
“You was a swearin’ tremenjus,” said the boy.
“Was I?” Alas! Jack would have heard it all.
“Yes, and you was a-torkin’ about your Crowses, and Wollopses, and Doubledaisies, and sich like. And you was a-tellin’ that there ’Orksbury (which I’d like to do for, the animal, so I would), as you was a convex son, and he wasn’t to tell no one for fear Mashing should ’ear of it. And you was a-crying out for your friend Smith to shine your boots, and tellin’ him you wouldn’t do it never no more. And you was a-singin’ out that there was a little gal a-bein’ run away with on a pony, and you must go and stop ’im. You was a-jawin’, rather.”
I could hardly help laughing at his description, though its details reminded me sadly of my old follies and their consequences.
The most extraordinary raving of all, however, was that which referred to my stopping the little girl’s runaway pony at Packworth years ago—an incident I don’t believe I had ever once thought of since.
It was curious, too, that, now it was called to memory, I thought of the adventure a good deal, and wished I knew what had become of the owner of that restive little pony. I determined to tell Jack about it when he came home.
“What do you think, Jack?” I said, as he was tucking me up for the night. “Billy has been telling me what I was talking about in my fever, and says one thing I discoursed about was a little girl who was being run away with by a pony.”
“Yes,” said Jack, laughing; “I heard that. It was quite a new light for you, old man, to be dreaming of that sort of romantic thing.”
“But it really happened once,” I said.
“No! where? I thought the Henniker and Mrs Nash were the only lady friends you ever had? Where was it?”
“At Packworth, of all places,” I said. “It was that day I went over to try and find you out—just before we came up to London, you know. I was walking back to Brownstroke, and met the pony bolting down the road.”
Jack seemed suddenly very much interested. “What sort of little girl was it?” he asked.
“I can’t exactly tell you. She was so frightened I had hardly time to look at her. But—”
“What sort of pony?” asked Jack.
“A grey one—and a jolly little animal, too!” I said. “But why do you ask?”
“Only,” said Jack, with a peculiar smile, “because it strikes me very forcibly the young person in question was my sister, that’s all!”
“What!” I exclaimed, in amazement, “your sister!—the little girl of the photograph! Oh, Jack, how extraordinary!”
“It is queer,” said Jack; “but it’s a fact all the same. I heard about it when I was last home. The pony took fright, so they told me, and—wasn’t there a nurse with her?”
“Yes, there was.”
“Yes; that was Mrs Shield. The pony took fright as she was walking beside it, and Mary would have come to grief to a dead certainty, so they both say, if a young gentleman hadn’t rushed up and stopped it. Why, Fred, old man,” said he, taking my hand, “I little thought I owed you all that!”
I took his hand warmly, but humbly.
“Jack,” I said, “I think it’s almost time you and I gave up talking about what we owe to one another. But,” I added, after a moment, “if you do want to do me a favour, just let us have a look at that photograph again, will you, old man?”