A FORTUNATE CHANCE.
He was a sensible, practical enough boy in some ways. He thought it all
well over that night, and made what preparations he could. He packed up
the clothes he thought the most necessary and useful in an old carpet-bag
he found in the box-room, and then he looked over his drawers and
cupboards to see that all was left in order, and he put together some
things to be sent to him in case he found it well to write for them.
Then he looked at his purse. He had, carefully stowed away, thirty
shillings in gold, and of his regular pocket-money a two-shilling piece,
a shilling, a threepenny bit, and some coppers. It was enough to take
him some hours' distance out of London, where he would be quite as
likely to find what he wanted, employment at some farmhouse, as farther
away.
He did not sleep much that night. He was so anxious to be off early that
he kept waking up every hour or two. At last, after striking a match to
see what o'clock it was for perhaps the twentieth time, his watch told
him it was past six. He got up and dressed, then he shouldered his bag,
and made his way as quickly as he could downstairs. He could not resist
lingering a moment outside his mother's door; it was slightly ajar, and
there was a faint light within. Elsa's voice came to him as he stood
there.
"I am _so_ glad you are better this morning, dear mamma," she was
saying. "I hoped you would be when I went to bed, at three o'clock. You
were sleeping so peacefully. I am sure you will be quite well again
soon, if we can manage to keep you quiet, and if you won't worry
yourself. Everything is quite right."
Geoff's face hardened again.
"I know what all that means," he thought. "Yes, indeed, everything is so
right that I, _I_, have to run away like a thief, because I am too
miserable to bear it any more."
And he lingered no longer.
He made his way out of the house without difficulty. It was getting
light after a fashion by this time, though it was quite half an hour
earlier than he usually started for school. He felt chilly--chillier
than he had ever felt before, though it was not a very cold morning. But
going out breakfastless does not tend to make one feel warm, and of this
sort of thing Geoff had but scant experience. His bag, too, felt very
heavy; he glanced up and down the street with a vague idea that perhaps
he would catch sight of some boy who, for a penny or two, would carry it
for him to the omnibus; but there was no boy in sight. No one at all,
indeed, except a young man, who crossed the street from the opposite
side while Geoff was looking about him, and walked on slowly a little in
front. He was a very respectable-looking young man, far too much so to
ask him to carry the bag, yet as Geoff overtook him--for, heavy though
it was, the boy felt he must walk quickly to get off as fast as
possible--the young man glanced up with a good-natured smile.
"Excuse me, sir," he said civilly, "your bag's a bit heavy for you. Let
me take hold of it with you, if we're going the same way."
Geoffrey looked at him doubtfully. He was too much of a Londoner to make
friends hastily.
"Thank you," he said. "I can manage it. I'm only going to the corner to
wait for the omnibus."
"Just precisely what I'm going to do myself," said the other. "I'm quite
a stranger hereabouts. I've been staying a day or two with a friend of
mine who keeps a livery stable, and I'm off for the day to Shalecray, to
see another friend. Can you tell me, sir, maybe, if the omnibus that
passes near here takes one to the railway station?"
"Which railway station?" said Geoff, more than half inclined to laugh at
the stranger's evident countrifiedness.
"Victoria Station, to be sure. It's the one I come by. Isn't it the big
station for all parts?"
"Bless you! no," said Geoff. "There are six or seven as big as it in
London. What line is this place on?"
"That's more nor I can say," said the stranger, looking as if he would
have scratched his head to help him out of his perplexity if he had
had a hand free. But he had not, for he had caught up the bag, and
was walking along beside Geoff, and under his arm he carried a very
substantial alpaca umbrella. And in the interest of the conversation
Geoff had scarcely noticed the way in which the stranger had, as it
were, attached himself to him.
"Ah, well! never mind. I'm going to Victoria myself, and when we get
there I'll look up your place and find you your train," said Geoff,
patronizingly.
He had kept looking at the stranger, and as he did so, his misgivings
disappeared.
"He is just a simple country lad," he said to himself. And, indeed, the
young man's blue eyes, fresh complexion, and open expression would have
reassured any but a _most_ suspicious person.
[Illustration: WALKING ALONG BESIDE GEOFF.]
"You're very kind, sir," he replied. "You see, London's a big place, and
country folk feels half stupid-like in it."
"Yes, of course," said Geoff. "For my part, I often wonder any one
that's free to do as they like cares to live in London. You're a great
deal better off in the country."
"There's bads and goods everywhere, I take it, sir," said the young man,
philosophically.
But by this time they had reached the corner where the omnibus started,
and Geoff's attention was directed to hailing the right one. And an
omnibus rattling over London stones is not exactly the place for
conversation, so no more passed between them till they were dropped
within a stone's throw of Victoria Station.
Geoff was beginning to feel very hungry, and almost faint as well as
chilly.
"I say," he said to his companion, "you're not in any very desperate
hurry to get off, are you? For I'm frightfully hungry. You don't mind
waiting while I have some breakfast, do you? I'll look you out your
train for that place as soon as I've had some."
"All right, sir," said the stranger. "If it wouldn't be making too free,
I'd be pleased to join you. But I suppose you'll be going into the
first-class?"
"Oh no," said Geoff. "I don't mind the second-class."
And into the second-class refreshment-room they went. They grew very
friendly over hot coffee and a rasher of bacon, and then Geoff laid out
threepence on a railway guide, and proceeded to hunt up Shalecray.
"Here you are!" he exclaimed. "And upon my word, that's a good joke.
This place--Shalecray--is on the very line I'm going by. I wonder I
never noticed it. I came up that way not long ago, from Entlefield."
"Indeed, sir; that's really curious," said the countryman. "And are you
going to Entlefield to-day?"
"Well," said Geoff, "I fancy so. I've not quite made up my mind, to tell
the truth. I know the country about there. I want to find some--some
farmhouse."
"Oh, exactly--I understand," interrupted the young man. "You want
somewhere where they'll put you up tidily for a few days--just for a
breath of country air."
"Well, no; not exactly," said Geoffrey. "The fact is, I'm looking out
for--for some sort of situation about a farm. I'm very fond of country
life. I don't care what I do. I'm not a fine gentleman!"
The countryman looked at him with interest.
"I see," he said. "You're tired of town, I take it, sir. But what do
your friends say to it, sir? At sixteen, or even seventeen, you have
still to ask leave, I suppose?"
"Not always," said Geoff. "I've made no secret of it. I've no father,
and--I'm pretty much my own master."
"'I care for nobody, and nobody cares for me,' eh?" quoted the young
man, laughing.
"Something like it, I suppose," said Geoff, laughing too, though rather
forcedly. For a vision of Vicky, sobbing, perhaps, over her lonely
breakfast, would come before him--of Elsa and Frances trying how to
break to their mother the news that Geoff had really run away. "They'll
soon get over it," he said to himself. "They've got that old curmudgeon
to console them, and I don't want to live on _his_ money."
"Do you think I can easily find a place of some kind?" he went on, after
a pause.
The countryman this time did scratch his head, while he considered.
"How old may you be, sir? Sixteen or seventeen, maybe?" he inquired.
"I'm not so much; I'm only fourteen," said Geoff, rather reluctantly.
"Really! now, who'd 'a' thought it?" said his new friend, admiringly.
"You'll be just the man for a country life when you're full-grown. Not
afraid of roughing it? Fond of riding, I dare say?"
"Oh yes," said Geoff. "At least, in town of course I haven't had as much
of it as I'd like." He had never ridden in his life, except the previous
summer, on a peculiarly gentle old pony of Mrs. Colethorne's.
"No, in course not. Well now, sir, if you'd no objection to stopping at
Shalecray with me, it strikes me my friend there, Farmer Eames, might
likely enough know of something to suit you. He's a very decent fellow--a
bit rough-spoken, maybe. But you're used to country ways--you'd not mind
that."
"Oh, not a bit!" said Geoff. "I'm much obliged to you for thinking of
it. And you say it's possible--that this Farmer Eames may perhaps have a
place that I should do for?"
"Nay, sir, I can't say that. It's just a chance. I only said he'd maybe
know of something."
"Well, I don't see that it will do any harm to ask him. I'll only take
a ticket to Shalecray, then. I can go on farther later in the day if I
don't find anything to suit me there. We'd better take the first
train--a quarter to nine. We've still twenty minutes or so to wait."
"Yes, there's plenty of time--time for a pipe. You don't object, sir?
But, bless me"--and he felt in his pockets one after the other--"if I
haven't forgotten my 'bacca! With your leave, sir, I'll run across the
street to fetch some. I saw a shop as we came in."
"Very well," said Geoff; "I'll wait here. Don't be too late."
He had no particular fancy for going to buy cheap tobacco in the company
of the very rustic-looking stranger. Besides, he thought it safer to
remain quiet in a dark corner of the waiting-room.
It was curious that, though the countryman came back with a well-filled
tobacco-pouch, he had not left the station! He only disappeared for a
minute or two into the telegraph office, and the message he there
indited was as follows:--
"Got him all safe. Will report further this evening."
And ten minutes later the two were ensconced in a third-class carriage,
with tickets for Shalecray.
Geoff had often travelled second, but rarely third. He did not, truth to
tell, particularly like it. Yet he could not have proposed anything else
to his companion, unless he had undertaken to pay the difference. And
as it was, the breakfast and his own third-class ticket had made a
considerable hole in his thirty shillings. He must be careful, for even
with all his inexperience he knew it was _possible_ he might have to pay
his own way for some little time to come.
"Still, the chances are I shall find what I want very easily," he
reflected. "It is evidently not difficult, by what this fellow tells
me."
It did not even strike him as in any way a very remarkable coincidence
that almost on the doorstep of his own home he should have lighted upon
the very person he needed to give him the particular information he was
in want of. For in many ways, in spite of his boasted independence, poor
Geoff was as innocent and unsuspicious as a baby.
[Illustration]