"HALF-A-CROWN A WEEK AND HIS VICTUALS."
Shalecray was a small station, where no very considerable number of
trains stopped in the twenty-four hours. It was therefore a slow train
by which Geoffrey Tudor and his new friend travelled; so, though the
distance from London was really short, it took them fully two hours to
reach their destination. And two hours on a raw drizzly November morning
is quite a long enough time to spend in a third-class carriage, shivering
if the windows are down, and suffering on the other hand from the odours
of damp fustian and bad tobacco if they are up.
Cold as it was, it seemed pleasant in comparison when they got out at
last, and were making their way down a very muddy, but really country
lane. Geoff gave a sort of snort of satisfaction.
"I do love the country," he said.
His companion looked at him curiously.
"I believe you, sir," he replied. "You must like it, to find it pleasant
in November," he went on, with a tone which made Geoff glance at him in
surprise. Somehow in the last few words the countryman's accent seemed
to have changed a little. Geoff could almost have fancied there was a
cockney twang about it.
"Why, don't _you_ like it?" said Geoff. "You said you were lost and
miserable in town."
"Of course, sir. What else could I be? I'm country born and bred. But
it's not often as a Londoner takes to it as you do, and it's not to say
lively at this time, and"--he looked down with a grimace--"the lanes is
uncommon muddy."
"How far is it to your friend's place?" Geoff inquired, thinking to
himself that if _he_ were to remark on the mud it would not be
surprising, but that it was rather curious for his companion to do so.
"A matter of two mile or so," Jowett--for Ned Jowett, he had told Geoff,
was his name--replied; "and now I come to think of it, perhaps it'd be
as well for you to leave your bag at the station. I'll see that it's all
right; and as you're not sure of stopping at Crickwood, there's no sense
in carrying it there and maybe back again for nothing. I'll give it in
charge to the station-master, and be back in a moment."
He had shouldered it and was hastening back to the station almost before
Geoff had time to take in what he said. The boy stood looking after him
vaguely. He was beginning to feel tired and a little dispirited. He did
not feel as if he could oppose anything just then.
"If he's a cheat and he's gone off with my bag, I just can't help it,"
he thought. "He won't gain much. Still, he looks honest."
And five minutes later the sight of the young man's cheery face as he
hastened back removed all his misgivings.
"All right, sir," he called out. "It'll be quite safe; and if by chance
you hit it off with Mr. Eames, the milk-cart that comes to fetch the
empty cans in the afternoon can bring the bag too."
They stepped out more briskly after that. It was not such a very long
walk to the farm, though certainly more than the two miles Jowett had
spoken of. As they went on, the country grew decidedly pretty, or
perhaps it would be more correct to say one saw that in summer and
pleasant weather it must be very pretty. Geoff, however, was hardly at
the age for admiring scenery much. He looked about him with interest,
but little more than interest.
"Are there woods about here?" he asked suddenly. "I do like woods."
Jowett hesitated.
"I don't know this part of the country not to say so very well," he
replied. "There's some fine gentlemen's seats round about, I believe.
Crickwood Bolders, now, is a fine place--we'll pass by the park wall in
a minute; it's the place that Eames's should by rights be the home farm
to, so to say. But it's been empty for a many years. The family died
down till it come to a distant cousin who was in foreign parts, and he
let the farm to Eames, and the house has been shut up. They do speak of
his coming back afore long."
Geoff looked out for the park of which Jowett spoke; they could not see
much of it, certainly, without climbing the wall, for which he felt no
energy. But a little farther on they came to gates, evidently a back
entrance, and they stood still for a moment or two and looked in.
"Yes," said Geoff, gazing over the wide expanse of softly undulating
ground, broken by clumps of magnificent old trees, which at one side
extended into a fringe skirting the park for miles apparently, till it
melted in the distance into a range of blue-topped hills--"yes, it must
be a fine place indeed. That's the sort of place, now, I'd like to own,
Jowett."
He spoke more cordially again, for Jowett's acquaintance with the
neighbourhood had destroyed a sort of misgiving that had somehow come
over him as to whether his new friend were perhaps "taking him in
altogether."
[Illustration: THEY STOOD STILL FOR A MOMENT OR TWO.]
"I believe you," said the countryman, laughing loudly, as if Geoff's
remark had been a very good joke indeed. Geoff felt rather nettled.
"And why shouldn't I own such a place, pray?" he said haughtily. "Such
things, when one is a _gentleman_, are all a matter of chance, as you
know. If my father, or my grandfather, rather, had not been a younger
son, I should have been----"
Ned Jowett turned to him rather gravely.
"I didn't mean to offend you, sir," he said. "But you must remember
you're taking up a different line from that. Farmer Eames, or farmer
nobody, wouldn't engage a farm hand that expected to be treated as a
gentleman. It's not my fault, sir. 'Twas yourself told me what you
wished."
Geoff was silent for a moment or two. It was not easy all at once to
make up his mind to _not_ being a gentleman any more, and yet his common
sense told him that Jowett was right; it must be so. Unless, indeed, he
gave it all up and went back home again to eat humble pie, and live on
Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot's bounty, and go to some horrid school of his
choosing, and be more "bullied" (so he expressed it to himself) than
ever by his sisters, and scarcely allowed to see his mother at all. The
silent enumeration of these grievances decided him. He turned round to
Jowett with a smile.
"Yes," he said; "I was forgetting. You must tell Farmer Eames he'll not
find any nonsense about me."
"All right, sir. But, if you'll excuse me, I'd best perhaps drop the
'sir'?"
Geoff nodded.
"And that reminds me," Jowett went on, "you've not told me your
name--leastways, what name you wish me to give Eames. We're close to his
place now;" and as he spoke he looked about him scrutinizingly. "Ten
minutes past the back way through the park you'll come to a lane on the
left. Eames's farm is the first house you come to on the right," he
repeated to himself, too low for Geoff to hear. "Yes, I can't be wrong."
"You can call me Jim--Jim Jeffreys," said the boy. "He needn't be afraid
of getting into any trouble if he takes me on. I've no father, and my
mother won't worry about me," he added bitterly.
The entrance to the lane just then came in sight.
"This here's our way," said Jowett. "Supposing I go on a bit in front. I
think it would be just as well to explain to Eames about my bringing
you."
"All right," said Geoff. "I'll come on slowly. Where is the farm?"
"First house to the right; you can't miss it. But I'll come back to meet
you again."
He hurried on, and Geoff followed slowly. He was hungry now as well as
cold and tired--at least, he supposed he must be hungry, he felt so dull
and stupid. What should he do if Farmer Eames could not take him on? he
began to ask himself; he really felt as if it would be impossible for
him to set off on his travels again like a tramp, begging for work all
over the country. And for the first time it began faintly to dawn upon
him that he had acted very foolishly.
"But it's too late now," he said to himself; "I'd die rather than go
home and ask to be forgiven, and be treated by them all as if I deserved
to be sent to prison. I've got enough money to keep me going for a day
or two, anyway. If it was summer--haymaking-time, for instance, I
suppose it would be easy enough to get work. But now----" and he
shivered as he gazed over the bare, dreary, lifeless-looking fields on
all sides, where it was difficult to believe that the green grass could
ever spring again, or the golden grain wave in the sunshine--"I really
wonder what work there can be to do in the winter. The ground's as hard
as iron; and oh, my goodness, isn't it cold?"
Suddenly some little way in front he descried two figures coming towards
him. The one was Jowett; the other, an older, stouter man, must be
Farmer Eames. Geoff's heart began to beat faster. Would he be met by a
refusal, and told to make his way back to the station? And if so, where
would he go, what should he do? It had all seemed so easy when he
planned it at home--he had felt so sure he would find what he wanted at
once; he had somehow forgotten it would no longer be summer when he got
out into the country again! For the first time in his life he realized
what hundreds, nay, thousands of boys, no older than he, must go through
every day--poor homeless fellows, poor and homeless through no fault of
their own in many cases.
"If ever I'm a rich man," thought Geoff, "I'll think of to-day."
And his anxiety grew so great that by the time the two men had come up
to him his usually ruddy face had become almost white.
Jowett looked at him curiously.
"You look uncommon cold, Jim," he said. "This 'ere's Jim Jeffreys as
I've been a-talking to you of, Mr. Eames," he said, by way of
introduction to the farmer.
"Ah, indeed!" Farmer Eames replied; "seems a well-grown lad, but looks
delicate. Is he always so white-like?"
"Bless you! no," said Jowett; "he's only a bit done up with--with one
thing and another. We made a hearly start of it, and it's chilly this
morning."
The farmer grunted a little.
"He'd need to get used to starting early of a morning if he was to be
any use to me," he said half-grudgingly. But even this sounded hopeful
to Geoff.
"Oh, I don't mind getting up early," he said quickly. "I'm not used to
lying in bed late."
"There's early _and_ early," said the farmer. "What I might take you
on trial for would be to drive the milk-cart to and fro the station.
There's four sendings in all--full and empty together. And the first
time is for the up-train that passes Shalecray at half-past five."
Geoff shivered a little. But it would not do to seem daunted.
"I'll be punctual," he said.
"And of course, between times you'd have to make yourself useful about
the dairy, and the pigs--you'd have to see to the pigs, and to make
yourself useful," repeated the farmer, whose power of expressing himself
was limited.
"Of course," agreed Geoff as heartily as he could, though, truth to
tell, the idea of pigs had not hitherto presented itself to him.
"Well," Farmer Eames went on, turning towards Jowett, "I dunno as I mind
giving him a trial, seeing as I'm just short of a boy as it happens.
And for the station work, it's well to have a sharpish lad, and a
civil-spoken one. You'll have to keep a civil tongue in your head, my
boy--eh?"
"Certainly," said Geoff, but not without a slight touch of haughtiness.
"Of course I'll be civil to every one who's civil to me."
"And who isn't civil to thee, maybe, now and then," said the farmer,
with a rather curious smile. "'Twon't be all walking on roses--nay,
'twon't be all walking on roses to be odd boy in a farm. But there's
many a one as'd think himself uncommon lucky to get the chance, I can
tell you."
"Oh, and so I do," said Geoff, eagerly. "I do indeed. I think it's
awfully good of you to try me; and you'll see I'm not afraid of work."
"And what about his character?" said the farmer, speaking again to
Jowett. "Can you answer for his honesty?--that's the principal thing."
Geoff's cheeks flamed, and he was starting forward indignantly, when a
word or two whispered, sternly almost, in his ear by Jowett, forced him
to be quiet. "Don't be an idiot! do you want to spoil all your chances?"
he said. And something in the tone again struck Geoff with surprise. He
could scarcely believe it was the simple young countryman who was
speaking.
"I don't think you need be uneasy on that score," he said. "You see it's
all come about in a rather--uncommon sort of way."
"I should rather think so," said the farmer, shrugging his shoulders,
but smiling too.
"And," pursued Jowett, "you'll have to stretch a point or two. Of course
he'll want very little in the way of wages to begin."
"Half-a-crown a week and his victuals," replied the farmer, promptly.
"And he must bind himself for three months certain--I'm not going to be
thrown out of a boy at the orkardest time of the year for getting 'em
into sharp ways. And I can't have no asking for holidays for three
months, either."
Jowett looked at Geoff.
"Very well," said Geoff.
"And you must go to church reg'lar," added the farmer. "You can manage
it well enough, and Sunday school, too, if you're sharp--there's only
twice to the station on Sundays."
"On Sundays, too?" repeated Geoff. Sundays at worst had been a day of no
work at home.
"To be sure," said Eames, sharply. "Beasts can't do for themselves on
Sundays no more than any other day. And Londoners can't drink sour milk
on Sundays neither."
"No," said Geoff, meekly enough. "Of course I'm used to church," he
added, "but I think I'm rather too old for the Sunday school."
"I'll leave that to the parson," said the farmer. "Well, now then, we
may as well see if dinner's not ready. It's quite time, and you'll be
getting hungry, Mr. Jowett," he added, with a slight hesitation.
"Why not call me Ned? You're very high in your manners to-day, Eames,"
said the other, with a sort of wink.
Then they both laughed and walked on, leaving Geoff to follow. Nothing
was said about _his_ being hungry.
"Perhaps _I_ shall be expected to dine with the pigs," he thought.
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