Dexter listened till Bob Dimsted's whistle died away, and then stole
from the place of appointment to go back to the house, where he struck
off to the left, and made his way into the loft, where he took a small
piece of candle from his pocket, lit it, and set it in an old
ginger-beer bottle.
The light roused the various occupants of the boxes and cages. That and
the step were suggestive of food, and sundry squeakings and scratchings
arose, with, from time to time, a loud rap on the floor given by one of
the rabbits.
There was a lonely desolate feeling in Dexter's breast as he set the rat
at liberty, for the furtive-looking creature to hurry beneath the boards
which formed the rough floor.
Then the mice were taken out of their box, and the first movement of the
little creatures was to run all over their master, but he hurriedly took
them off him, feeling more miserable than ever, and ready to repent of
the step he was about to take.
The rabbits were carried downstairs, and turned out into the yard,
Dexter having a belief that as they had once grown tame perhaps, many
generations back, they might now as easily grow wild, and if in the
process they made very free with old Dan'l's vegetables, until they
escaped elsewhere, it would not be very serious.
As it was, they crept here and there over the stones for a few moments,
and then went off investigating, and evidently puzzled by their freedom.
The hedgehog and squirrel were brought down together, and carried right
into the garden, where the former was placed upon one of the
flower-beds, and disappeared at once; the latter held up to a branch of
the ornamental spruce, into which it ran, and then there was a scuffling
noise, and Dexter ran away back to the stable, afraid to stop, lest the
little ragged jacketed animal should leap back upon him, and make him
more weak than he was.
He climbed again to the loft, hearing a series of tiny squeaks as he
mounted--squeaks emanating from his mice, and directly after he nearly
crushed the rat, by stepping upon it as the little animal ran up to be
fed.
He had come for the toad and snake, and hurriedly plunging his hand into
the big pot he found Sam the toad, seated right at the top, evidently
eager to start on a nocturnal ramble, but the snake was coiled up
asleep.
It was a curious pet, that toad, but somehow, as it sat nestled up all
of a squat in the boy's warm hand, he felt as if he should like to take
it with him. It was not big, and would take up little room, and cost
nothing to feed.
Why not?
He hesitated as he descended and crossed the yard to the garden, and
decided that he would not. Bob Dimsted might not like it.
He reached the garden, and crossed the lawn to the sunny verbena bed.
That seemed a suitable place for the snake, and he tenderly placed it,
writhing feebly, among the thin pegged-down strands.
Then came the other reptile's turn.
They had been friends and even companions together in the big
flower-pot, Dexter argued, so they should have the chance of being
friends again in the flower-bed.
The toad was in his left hand, and going down on one knee he separated
the verbenas a little, and then placed his hand, knuckles downward, on
the soft moist earth, opening his fingers slowly the while.
"Good-bye, Sam," he said, in a low voice. "You and I have had some good
fun together, old chap, and I hope you will be very happy when I'm
gone."
He slowly spread his hand flat, so that his fingers and thumb ceased to
form so many posts and rails about the reptile, or a fleshly cage. In
imagination he saw the dusky grey creature crawl off his hand gladly
into the dewy bed, and it made him more sad to find how ready everything
was to be free, and he never for a moment thought about how he was going
to play as ungrateful a part, and march off too.
"Good-bye, Sam," he said, as he recalled how he had played with and
tickled that toad, and how it had enjoyed it all, and turned over to be
rubbed. Then he seemed to see it walk in its heavy, cumbrous way slowly
off, with its bright golden eyes glistening, till it sat down in a
hollow, and watched him go.
But it was all fancy. The toad did not crawl out of his hand among the
verbenas, nor go right away, but sat perfectly motionless where it was,
evidently, from its acting, perfectly warm, comfortable, and contented.
"Well, Sam, why don't you go!" said Dexter softly. "Do you hear?"
He gave his hand a jar by striking the back on the earth, but the toad
did not move, and when he touched it with his right hand, it was to find
the fat squat reptile squeezed up together like a bun.
He stroked it, and rubbed it, as he had rubbed it scores of times
before, and the creature once more pressed up against his fingers, while
Dexter forgot everything else in the gratification of finding his ugly
pet appreciate his attentions.
"Now then! off you go!" he cried quickly; but the creature did not stir.
"Are you going?" said Dexter. "Come: march."
Again it did not stir.
"He don't want to go," cried the boy, changing it from, one hand to the
other; and the next moment he was holding it, nose downward, over his
jacket-pocket, when the toad, pretty actively for one of its kind, began
to work its legs and dived slowly down beneath the pocket-handkerchief
crumpled-up there, and settled itself at the bottom.
"It seems to know," cried Dexter. "And it shall go with me after all."
Curious boy! some one may say, but Dexter had had few opportunities for
turning his affections in ordinary directions, and hence it was that
they were lavished upon a toad.
Indoors, when he stole back after setting all his pets at liberty to
shift for themselves, Dexter felt very guilty. He encountered Mrs
Millett in the hall, and a thrill ran through him as she exclaimed--
"Ah, there you are, Master Dexter, I just want a few words with you."
"Found out!" thought the guilty conscience, which needs no accuser.
"Now just you look here, sir," said the old housekeeper, in a loud
voice, as she literally button-holed the boy, by hooking one thin finger
in his jacket, so that he could not get away, "I know all."
"You--you know everything," faltered the boy.
"Yes, sir. Ah, you may well look 'mure. You little thought I knew."
"How--how did you find out?" he stammered.
"Ah! how did I find out, indeed! Now, look here, am I to go straight to
the doctor and tell him!"
"No, no, pray don't," whispered Dexter, catching her arm.
"Well, then, I must tell Miss Helen."
"No, no, not this time," cried Dexter imploringly; and his tone softened
the old lady, who shook the borders of her cap at him.
"Well, I don't know what to say," said Mrs Millett softly. "They
certainly ought to know."
Dexter gazed at her wildly. He knew that everything must come out, but
it was to have been in a few hours' time, when he was far away, and deaf
to the angry words and reproaches. To hear them now seemed more than he
could bear. It could not be. Bob Dimsted must think and say what he
liked, and be as angry and unforgiving as was possible. It could not be
now. He must plead to the old housekeeper for pardon, and give up all
idea of going away.
"Ah!" she said. "I see you are sorry for it, then."
"Yes, yes," he whispered. "So sorry, and--and--"
"You'll take it this time, like a good boy!"
"Take it?"
"Yes, sir. Ah! you can't deceive me. Last time I saw the empty glass I
knew as well as could be that you hadn't taken it, for the outside of
the glass wasn't sticky, and there were no marks of your mouth at the
edge. I always put plenty of sugar in it for you, and that showed."
"The camomile-tea!" thought Dexter, a dose of which the old lady
expected him to take about once a week, and which never did him any
harm, if it never did him any good.
"And you'll take it to-night, sir, like a good boy!"
"Yes, yes, I will indeed," said Dexter, with the full intention of
keeping his word out of gratitude for his escape.
"Now, that's like being a good boy," said the old lady, smiling, and
extricating her fingers from his button-hole, so as to stroke his hair.
"It will do you no end of good; and how you have improved since you have
been here, my dear, your hair's grown so nicely, and you've got such a
good pink colour in your cheeks. It's the camomile-tea done that."
Mrs Millett leaned forward with her hands on the boy's shoulder, and
kissed him in so motherly a way that Dexter felt a catching of the
breath, and kissed her again.
"That's right," said the old lady. "You ain't half so bad as Maria
pretends you are. `It's only a bit of mischief now and then,' I says to
her, `and he's only a boy,' and that's what you are, ain't it, my dear?"
Dexter did not answer.
"I shall put your dose on your washstand, and you mind and take it the
moment you get out of bed to-morrow morning."
"Yes," said Dexter dismally.
"No! you'll forget it. You've got to take that camomile-tea to-night,
and if you don't promise me you will, I shall come and see you take it."
"I promise you," said Dexter, and the old lady nodded and went upstairs,
while the boy hung about in the hall.
How was it that just now, when he was going away, people were beginning
to seem more kind to him, and something began to drag at his heart to
keep him from going?
He could not tell. An hour before he had felt a wild kind of elation.
He was going to be free from lessons, the doctor's admonitions, and the
tame regular life at the house, to be off in search of adventure, and
with Bob for his companion, going all over the world in that boat, while
now, in spite of all he could do, he did not feel so satisfied and sure.
There was something else he knew that he ought to do. He could not bid
Helen good-bye with his lips, but he felt that he must bid her farewell
another way, for she had always been kind to him from the day he came.
He crept into the study again, this time without being seen.
There was a faint light in the pleasant room, for the doctor's lamp had
been turned down, but not quite out.
A touch sent the flame brightly round the ring, and the shade cast a
warm glow on the boy's busy fingers as he took out paper and envelope;
and then, with trembling hand, sore heart, and a pen that spluttered, he
indited another letter, this time to Helen.
My dear Miss Grayson,
I am afraid you will think me a very ungrateful boy, but I am obliged
to go away to seek my fortune all over the world. You have been so
kind to me, and so has Doctor Grayson sometimes, but everybody else
has hated me, and made game of me because I was a workhouse boy, and I
could not bear it any longer, and Bob Dimsted said he wouldn't if he
was me, and we are going away together not to come back again any
more.--I am,
Your Affec Friend.
Dexter Grayson.
_PS_--I mean Obed Coleby, for I ought not to call myself Dexter any
more, and I would have scratched it out, only you always said it was
better not to scratch out mistakes because they made the paper look so
untidy.
I like you very much, and Mrs Millett too, but I can't take her fiz--
physick to-night.
Is physick spelt with a k?
There was a tear--a weak tear in each of Dexter's eyes as he wrote this
letter, for it brought up many a pleasant recollection of kindnesses on
Helen's part.
He had just finished, folded and directed this, when he fancied he heard
a door open across the hall.
Thrusting the note into his pocket so hastily that one corner went into
the toad, he caught up a piece of the doctor's foolscap, and began
rapidly to make a triangle upon it, at whose sides and points he placed
letters, and then, feeling like the miserable impostor he was, he
rapidly let his pen trace a confused line of _A's_ and _B's_ and _C's_,
and these backwards and forwards.
This went on for some minutes, so that there was a fair show upon the
paper, when the door softly opened, Helen peered in, and then coming
behind him bent down, and, in a very gentle and sisterly way, placed her
hands over his eyes.
"Why, my poor hard-working boy," she said gently. "So this is where you
are; and, oh dear, oh dear! Euclid again. That Mr Limpney will wear
your brains all away. There, come along, I am going to play to papa,
and then you and I will have a game at draughts."
Dexter rose with his heart beating, and that strange sensation of
something tugging at his conscience. Why were they all so kind to him
to-night, just when he was going away?
"Why, you look quite worn out and dazed, Dexter," said Helen merrily.
"There, come along."
"Eh? Where was he? In mischief?" said the doctor sharply, as they
entered the drawing-room.
"Mischief? No, papa: for shame!" cried Helen, with her arm resting on
the boy's shoulders. "In your study, working away at those terrible
sides and angles invented by that dreadful old Greek Euclid."
"Work, eh? Ha! that's good!" cried the doctor jovially. "Bravo,
Dexter! I am glad."
If ever a boy felt utterly ashamed of himself, Dexter did then. He
could not meet the doctor's eye, but was on his way to get a book to
turn over, so as to have something to look at, but this was not to be.
"No, no, you have had enough of books for one day, Dexter. Come and
turn over the music for me. Why! what's that?"
"That?" said Dexter slowly, for he did not comprehend.
"Yes, I felt it move. You have something alive in your pocket."
He felt prompted to lie, but he could not tell a falsehood then, and he
stood with his teeth set.
"Whatever have you got alive in your pocket?" said the doctor. "I know.
A young rabbit, for a guinea."
"Is it?" cried Helen. "Let me look: they are such pretty little
things."
"Yes, out with it, boy, and don't pet those things too much. Kill them
with kindness, you know. Here, let me take it out."
"No, no!" cried Dexter hastily.
"Well, take it out yourself."
A spasm of dread had run through the boy, as in imagination he saw the
doctor's hand taking out the letter in his pocket.
"It isn't a young rabbit," he faltered.
"Well, what is it, then? Come, out with it."
Dexter hesitated for a few moments, and now met the doctor's eye. He
could not help himself, but slowly took out his pocket-handkerchief, as
he held the note firmly with his left hand outside the jacket. Then,
diving in again, he got well hold of Sam, who was snug at the bottom,
and, with burning cheeks, and in full expectation of a scolding, drew
the toad slowly forth.
"Ugh!" ejaculated Helen.
The doctor, who was in a most amiable temper, burst into a roar of
laughter.
"Well, you are a strange boy, Dexter," he said, as he wiped his eyes.
"You ought to be a naturalist by and by. There, open the window, and
put the poor thing outside. You can find plenty another time."
Dexter obeyed, glad to be out of his quandary, and this time, as he put
Sam down, the reptile crawled slowly away into the soft dark night.
He closed the window, and went back to find the doctor and Helen all
smiles, and ready to joke instead of scold. Then he went to the piano,
and turned over the music, the airs and songs making him feel more and
more sad, and again and again he found himself saying--
"Why are they so kind to me now, just as I am going away?"
"Shall I stop!" he said to himself, after a time.
"No: I promised Bob I would come, and so I will."