their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. Great wealth brings
great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard work as well. Good night, my
lad."
Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It was a terrible
position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds--to put it in round
numbers--for a debt of honour. No means of his own, not daring to tell
his father. I mounted on the iron rail of my little bed opposite the
window, and looked at him.
"Tod, what _is_ to be done?"
"For two pins I'd go and enlist in some African regiment," growled he.
"Once over the seas, I should be lost to the world here, and my shame
with me."
"Shame!"
"Well, and it is shame. An ordinary debt that you can't pay is bad
enough; but a debt of honour----"
He stopped, and caught his breath with a sort of sob--as if there were
no word strong enough to express the sense of shame.
"It will never do to tell the Pater."
"Tell _him_!" he exclaimed sharply. "Johnny, I'd cut off my right
hand--I'd fling myself into the Thames, rather than bring such a blow on
him."
"Well, and so I think would I."
"It would kill him as sure as we are here, Johnny. He would look upon
it that I have become a confirmed gambler, and I believe the shock
and grief would be such that he'd die of it. No: I have not been so
particularly dutiful a son, that I should bring _that_ upon him."
I balanced myself on the bed-rail. Tod paced the carpet slowly.
"No, never," he repeated, as if there had not been any pause. "I would
rather die myself."
"But what is to be done?"
"Heaven knows! I wish the Pells had been far enough before they had
invited us up."
"I wish you had never consented to play with the lot at all, Tod. You
might have stood out from the first."
"Ay. But one glides into these things unconsciously. Johnny, I begin to
think Crayton is just a gambler, playing to win, and nothing better."
"Playing for his bread. That is, for the things that constitute it. His
drink, and his smoke, and his lodgings, and his boots, and his rings.
Old Brandon said it. As to his dinners, he generally gets them at
friends' houses."
"Old Brandon said it, did he?"
"Why, I told you so the same day. And you bade me shut up."
"Do you know what they want me to do, Johnny? To sign a post-obit bond
for two hundred, or so, to be paid after my father's death. It's true.
Crayton will let me off then."
"And will you do it?" I cried, feeling that my eyes blazed as I leaped
down.
"No, I _won't_: and I told them so to-night. That's what the quarrel was
about. 'Every young fellow does it whose father lives too long and keeps
him out of his property,' said that Temply. 'Maybe so; I won't,' I
answered. Neither will I. I'd rather break stones on the road than
speculate upon the good Pater's death, or anticipate his money in that
manner to hide my sins."
"Gusty Pell ought to help you."
"Gusty says he can't. Fabian, I believe, really can't; he is in
difficulties of his own: and sometimes, Johnny, I fancy Gus is. Crayton
fleeces them both, unless I am mistaken. Yes, he's a sharper; I see
through him now. I want him to take my I O U to pay him as soon as I
can, and he knows I would do it, but he won't do that. There's two
o'clock."
It was of no use sitting up, and I began to undress. The question
reiterated itself again and again--what was to be done? I lay awake all
night thinking, vainly wishing I was of age. Fanciful thoughts crossed
my mind: of appealing to rich old Pell, and asking him to lend the
money, not betraying Gusty and the rest by saying what it was wanted
for; of carrying the story to Miss Deveen, and asking her; and lastly,
of going to old Brandon, and getting _him_ to help. I grew to think that
I _would_ do this, however much I disliked it, and try Brandon; that it
lay in my duty to do so.
Worn and haggard enough looked Tod the next morning. He had sat up
nearly all night. When breakfast was over, I started for the Tavistock,
whispering a word to Tod first.
"Avoid the lot to-day, Tod. I'll try and help you out of the mess."
He burst out laughing in the midst of his perplexity. "_You_, Johnny!
what next?"
"Remember the fable of the lion and the mouse."
"But you can never be the mouse in this, you mite of a boy! Thank you
all the same, Johnny: you mean it well."
"Can I see Mr. Brandon?" I asked at the hotel, of a strange waiter.
"Mr. Brandon, sir? He is not staying here."
"Not staying here!"
"No, sir, he left some days ago."
"But I thought he was coming back again."
"So I believe he is, sir. But he has not come yet."
"Do you know where he is?"
"At Brighton, sir."
It was about as complete a floorer as I ever wished to get. All the way
along, I had been planning which way to break it to him. I turned from
the door, whistling and thinking. Should I go after him to Brighton? I
had the money, and the time, why should I not do so? Heaven alone knew
how much depended upon Tod's being released from trouble; Heaven alone
knew what desperate course he might take in his shame, if not released
from it.
Dropping a note to Tod, saying I should be out for the day, and getting
a porter to take it up, I made the best of my way to the nearest
Brighton station, and found a train just starting. Brighton was a large
place, and they could not tell me at the Tavistock what hotel Mr.
Brandon was staying at; except that one of the waiters "thought" it
might be the Old Ship. And that's where I first went, on arrival.
No. No one of the name of Brandon was at the Old Ship. So there I was,
like an owl in a desert, wondering where to go next.
And how many hotels and inns I tried before I found him, it would be
impossible to remember now. One of the last was up Kemp Town way--the
Royal Crescent Hotel.
"Is Mr. Brandon staying here?"
"Mr. Brandon of Warwickshire? Yes, sir."
It was so very unexpected an answer after all the failures, that I
hardly believed my own ears. Mr. Brandon was not well, the waiter added:
suffering from cold and sore throat--but he supposed I could see him. I
answered that I must see him; I had come all the way from London on
purpose.
Old Brandon was sitting in a long room, with a bow-window looking out on
the sea; some broth at his elbow, and a yellow silk handkerchief resting
cornerwise on his head.
"Mr. Ludlow, sir," said the waiter. And he dropped the spoon into the
broth, and stared at me as if I were an escaped lunatic.
"Why!--you! What on earth brings _you_ here, Johnny Ludlow?"
To tell him what, was the hardest task I'd ever had in my life. And I
did it badly. Sipping spoonfuls of broth and looking hard at me whilst
he listened, did not help the process. I don't know how I got it out, or
how confused was the way I told him that I wanted a hundred pounds of my
own money.
"A hundred pounds, eh?" said he. "You are a nice gentleman, Johnny
Ludlow!"
"I am very sorry, sir, to have to ask it. The need is very urgent, or I
should not do so."
"What's it for?" questioned he.
"I--it is to pay a debt, sir," I answered, feeling my face flush hot.
"Whose debt?"
By the way he looked at me, I could see that he knew as plainly as
though I had told him, that it was not my debt. And yet--but for letting
him think it was mine, he might turn a deaf ear to me. Old Brandon
finished up his broth, and put the basin down.
"You are a clever fellow, Johnny Ludlow, but not quite clever enough to
deceive me. You'd no more get into such debt yourself, than I should. I
have a better opinion of you than that. Who has sent you here?"
"Indeed, sir, I came of my own free will. No one knows, even, that I
have come. Mr. Brandon, I hope you will help me: it is almost a matter
of life or death."
"You are wasting words and time, Johnny Ludlow."
And I felt I was. Felt it hopelessly.
"There's an old saying, and a very good one, Johnny--Tell the whole
truth to your lawyer and doctor. I am neither a lawyer nor a doctor:
but I promise you this much, that unless you tell me the truth of the
matter, every word of it, and explain your request fully and clearly,
you may go marching back to London."
There was no help for it. I spoke a few words, and they were quite
enough. He seemed to grasp the situation as by magic, and turned me, as
may be said, inside out. In five minutes he knew by heart as much of it
as I did.
"So!" said he, in his squeaky voice--ten times more squeaky when he
was vexed. "Good! A nice nest you have got amongst. Want him to give
post-obit bonds, do they! Which _is_ Todhetley--a knave or a fool?"
"He has refused to give the bonds, I said, sir."
"Bonds, who's talking of bonds?" he retorted. "For playing, _I_ mean. He
must have been either a knave or a fool, to play till he owed a hundred
pounds when he knew he had not the means to pay."
"But I have explained how it was, sir. He lost, and then played on,
hoping to redeem his losses. I think Crayton had him fast, and would not
let him escape."
"Ay. Got him, and kept him. That's your grand friend, the Honourable,
Johnny Ludlow. There: give me the newspaper."
"But you will let me have the money, sir?"
"Not if I know it."
It was a woeful check. I set on and begged as if I had been begging for
life: saying I hardly knew what. That it might save Tod from a downhill
course--and spare grief to the poor old Squire--and pain to me. Pain
that would lie on my mind always, knowing that I possessed the money,
yet might not use it to save him.
"It's of no use, Johnny. I have been a faithful guardian to you, and
done well by your property. Could your dead father look back on this
world and see the income you'll come into when you are of age, he would
know I speak the truth. You cannot suppose I should waste any portion of
it, I don't care how slight a one, in paying young men's wicked gambling
debts."
I prayed him still. I asked him to put himself in my place and see if
he would not feel as I felt. I said that I should never--as I truly
believed--have an opportunity of spending money that would give me half
the pleasure of this, or do half the good. Besides, it was only a loan:
Tod was sure to repay it when he could. No: old Brandon was hard as
flint. He got up and rang the bell.
"We'll drop it, Johnny. What will you take? Have you had anything since
breakfast?"
"No, sir. But I don't want anything."
"Bring up dinner for this young gentleman," he said, when the waiter
appeared. "Anything you have that's _good_. And be quick about it,
please."
They brought up a hastily prepared dinner: and very good it was. But
I could scarcely eat for sorrow. Old Brandon, nursing himself at the
opposite end of the table, the yellow handkerchief on his head, looked
at me all the while.
"Johnny Ludlow, do you know what I think--that you'd give away your head
if it were loose. It's a good thing you have me to take care of you."
"No, sir, I should not. If you would let me have this hundred pounds--it
is really only ninety-two, though--I would repay it with two hundred
when I came of age."
"Like the simpleton you are."
"I think I would give half my money, Mr. Brandon, to serve Todhetley in
this strait. We are as brothers."
"No doubt you would: but you've not got it to give, Johnny. You can let
him fight his own battles."
"And I would if he were able to fight them: but he is not able; it's an
exceptional case. I must go back to London, and try there."
Old Brandon opened his eyes. "How?"
"I think perhaps Miss Deveen would let me have the money. She is rich
and generous--and I will tell her the whole truth. It is a turning-point
in Todhetley's life, sir: help would save him."
"How do you know but he'd return to the mire? Let him have this money,
and he might go on gambling and lose another hundred. Perhaps hundreds
at the back of it."
"No, sir, that he never would. He may go deeper into the mire if he does
not get it. Enlist, or something."
"Are you going already, Johnny?"
"Yes, sir. I must catch the next train, and it's a good way to the
station."
"You can take a fly. Wait a few minutes."
He went into his bedroom, on the same floor. When he came back, he held
a piece of paper in his hand.
"There, Johnny. But it is my loan; not yours."
It was a cheque for a hundred pounds. He had listened, after all! The
surprise was so great that I am afraid my eyes were dim.
"The loan is mine, Johnny," he repeated. "I am not going to risk your
money, and prove myself a false trustee. When Todhetley can repay it, it
will be to me, not to you. But now--understand: unless he gives you a
solemn promise never to play with that 'Honourable' again, or with
either of the Pells, _you will not use the cheque_, but return it to
me."
"Oh, Mr. Brandon, there will be no difficulty. He only wants to be quit
of them."
"Get his promise, I say. If he gives it, present this cheque at
Robarts's in Lombard Street to-morrow, and they'll pay you the money
over the counter."
"It is made out to my order!" I said, looking at the cheque: "not to
Crayton!"
"To Crayton!" retorted Mr. Brandon. "I wouldn't let a cheque of mine,
uncrossed, fall into _his_ hands. He might add an ought or two to the
figures. I drew it out for an even hundred, you see: the odd money may
be wanted. You'll have to sign your name at the back: do it at the bank.
And now, do you know why I have let you have this?"
I looked at him in doubt.
"Because you have obeyed the injunctions I gave you--to bring any
difficulty you might have to me. I certainly never expected it so
soon, or that it would take this form. Don't you get tumbling into
another. Let people take care of themselves. There: put it into your
breast-pocket, and be off."
I don't know how I got back to town. There was no accident, and we were
not pitched into next week. If we had been, I'm not sure that I should
have minded it; for that cheque in my pocket seemed a panacea for all
human ills. The Pells were at dinner when I entered: and Tod was lying
outside his bed, with one of his torturing headaches. He did not often
have them: which was a good thing, for they were rattlers. Taking his
hand from his head, he glanced at me.
"Where have you been all day, Johnny?" he asked, hardly able to speak.
"That was a short note of yours."
"I've been to Brighton."
Tod opened his eyes again with surprise. He did not believe it.
"Why don't you say Bagdad, at once? Keep your counsel, if you choose,
lad. I'm too ill to get it out of you."
"But I don't want to keep it: and I have been to Brighton. Had dinner
there, too. Tod, old fellow, the mouse has done his work. Here's a
cheque for you for a hundred pounds."
He looked at it as I held it out to him, saw it was true, and then
sprang off the bed. I had seen glad emotion in my life, even at that
early period of it, but hardly such as Tod's then. Never a word spoke
he.
"It is lent by Mr. Brandon to you, Tod. He bade me say it. I could not
get any of mine out of him. The only condition is--that, before I cash
it, you shall promise not to play again with Crayton or the Pells."
"I'll promise it now. Glad to do it. Long live old Brandon! Johnny, my
good brother, I'm too ill to thank you--my temples seem as if they were
being split with a sledge-hammer--but you have _saved_ me."
I was at Robarts's when it opened in the morning. And signed my name at
the back of the cheque, and got the money. Fancy _me_ having a hundred
pounds paid to me in notes and gold! The Squire would have thought the
world was coming to an end.
XXII.
OUR STRIKE.
It was September, and they were moving to Crabb Cot for a week or two's
shooting. The shooting was not bad about there, and the Squire liked a
turn with his gun yet. Being close on the Michaelmas holidays, Tod and I
were with them.
When the stay was going to be short, the carriages did not come over
from Dyke Manor. On arriving at South Crabb station, there was a fly
waiting. It would not take us all. Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, the two
children, and Hannah got into it, and some of the luggage was put on
the top.
"You two boys can walk," said the Pater. "It will stretch your legs."
And a great deal rather walk, too, than be boxed up in a crawling fly!
We took the way through Crabb Lane: the longest but merriest, for it was
always lively with noise and dirt. Reports had gone abroad long before
that Crabb Lane was "out on strike:" Tod and I thought we would take a
look at it in this new aspect.
There were some great works in the vicinity--I need not state here their
exact speciality--and the men employed at them chiefly inhabited Crabb
Lane. It was setting-up these works that caused the crowded dwellings
in Crabb Lane to be built--for where a number of workmen congregate
together, habitations must of necessity follow.
You have heard of Crabb Lane before--in connection with what I once told
you about Harry Lease the pointsman. It was a dingy, over-populated,
bustling place, prosperous on the whole, its inhabitants as a rule
well-to-do. A strike was quite a new feature, bringing to most of them a
fresh experience in life. England had strikes in those past days, but
they were not common.
Crabb Lane during working hours had hitherto been given over to the
children, who danced in the gutters and cried and screamed themselves
hoarse. Women also would be out of doors, idling away their time in
gossip, or else calling across to each other from the windows. But
now, as I and Tod went down it, things looked different. Instead of
women and children, men were there. Every individual man, I believe,
out of every house the lane contained; for there appeared to be shoals
of them. They lounged idly against the walls, or stood about in
groups. Some with pipes, some without; some laughing and jeering,
apparently in the highest spirits, as if they had climbed the tree of
fortune; some silent and anxious-looking.
"Well, Hoar, how are you?"
It was Tod who spoke. The man he addressed, Jacob Hoar, was one of the
best of the workmen: a sober, steady, honest fellow, with a big frame
and a resolute face. He had the character of being fierce in temper,
sometimes savage with his fellow-men, if put out. Alfred Hoar--made
pointsman at the station in poor Harry Lease's place--was his brother.
Hoar did not answer Tod at all. He was standing quite alone near the
door of his house, a strangely defiant look upon his pale face, and his
firm lips drawn in. Unless I was mistaken, some of the men over the way
were taking covert glances at him, as though he were a kangaroo they had
to keep aloof from. Hoar turned his eyes slowly upon us, took off his
round felt hat, and smoothed back his dark hair.
"I be as well as matters'll let me be, young Mr. Todhetley," he then
said.
"There's a strike going on, I hear," said Tod. "Has been for some time."
"Yes, there's a strike a-going on," assented Hoar, speaking in a
deliberate, sullen manner, as a man resenting some special grievance.
"Has been for some time, as you say. And I don't know when the strike
'll be a-going off."
"How is Eliza?" I asked.
"Much as usual, Mr. Johnny. What should ail her?"
Evidently there was no sociability to be got out of Jacob Hoar that
afternoon, and we left him. A few yards further, we passed Ford's, the
baker's. No end of heads were at the shop door, and _they_ seemed to be
staring at Hoar.
"He must have been dealing out a little abuse to the public generally,
Tod," said I.
"Very likely," answered Tod. "He seems bursting with some rage or
other."
"Nay, I don't think it's rage so much as vexation. Something must have
gone wrong."
"Well, perhaps so."
"Look here, Tod. If we had a home to keep up and a lot of mouths to feed
and weekly rent to pay, and a strike stopped the supplies, we might be
in a worse humour than Hoar is."
"Right, Johnny." And Tod went off at a strapping pace.
How it may be with other people, I don't know: but when I get back to
a place after an absence, I want to see every one, and am apt to go
dashing in at doors without warning.
"It won't take us a minute to look in on Miss Timmens, Tod," I said,
as we neared the school-house. "She'll tell us the news of the whole
parish."
"Take the minute, then, if you like," said Tod. "I am not going to
bother myself with Miss Timmens."
Neither perhaps should I, after that, for Tod swayed me still; but in
passing the door it was opened wide by one of the little scholars. Miss
Timmens sat in her chair, the lithe, thin cane, three yards long, raised
in her hand, its other end descending, gently enough on the shoulders of
a chattering girl.
"I don't keep it to beat 'em," Miss Timmens was wont to say of her cane,
"but just to tap 'em into attention when they are beyond the reach of my
hand." And, to give her her due, it was nothing more.
"It's you, is it, Master Johnny? I heard you were all expected."
"It's me, safe enough. How goes the world with you, Miss Timmens?"
"Cranky," was the short answer. "South Crabb's going out of its senses,
I think. The parson is trying to introduce fresh ways and doings, in my
school: new-fangled rubbish, Master Johnny, that will bring more harm
than good. I won't have it, and so he and I are at daggers drawn. And
there's a strike in the place!"
I nodded. While she spoke, it had struck me, looking at the room, that
it was not so full as usual.
"It's the strike does that," she said, in a sort of triumph. "It's the
strike that works all the ill and every kind of evil"--and it was quite
evident the strike found no more favour with her than the parson's fresh
ways.
"But what has the strike to do with the children's absence from school?"
"The strike has carried all the children's best things to the pawn-shop,
and they've nothing decent left to come abroad in. That is one cause,
Johnny Ludlow," she concluded, very tartly.
"Is there any other?"
"Don't you think that sufficient? I am not going to let them appear
before me in rags--and so Crabb Lane knows. But there is another cause,
sir. This strike has so altered the course of things that the whole
order of ordinary events is turned upside down. Even if the young ones'
frocks were home again, it would be ten to one against their coming to
school."
"I don't see the two little Hoars." And why I had been looking for
those particular children I can't say, unless it was that Hoar and his
peculiar manner had been floating in my mind ever since we passed him.
"'Liza and Jessy--no, but they've been here till to-day," was the reply,
given after a long pause. "Are you going, Mr. Johnny?--I'll just step
outside with you."
She drew the door close behind her, keeping the handle in her hand, and
looked straight into my face.
"Jacob Hoar has gone and beat his boy almost to death this morning--and
the strike's the cause of _that_," she whispered, emphatically.
"Jacob Hoar has!--Why, how came he to do it?"--I exclaimed, recalling
more forcibly than ever the man's curious look, and the curious looks of
the other men holding aloof from him. "Which of his boys is it?"
"The second of them; little Dick. Yes, he is black and blue all over,
they say; next door to beat to death; and his arm's broken. And they
have the strike to thank for it."
She repeated the concluding words more stingingly than before. That Miss
Timmens was wroth with the strike, there could be no mistake. I asked
her why the strike was to be thanked for the beating and the broken arm.
"Because the strike has brought misery; and _that_ is the source of all
the ill going on just now in Crabb Lane," was her reply. "When the men
threw themselves out of work, of course they threw themselves out of
wages. Some funds have been furnished to them, weekly I believe, from
the Trades Union League--or whatever they call the thing--but it seems a
mere nothing compared with what they used to earn. Household goods, as
well as clothes, have been going to the pawn-shop, but they have now
pledged all they've got to pledge, and are, it is said, in sore straits:
mothers and fathers and children alike hungry. It is some time now since
they have had enough to eat. Fancy that, Mr. Johnny!"
"But why should Dicky be beaten for that?" I persisted, trying to keep
her to the point--a rather difficult matter with Miss Timmens at all
times.