"_From east to west,
At home is best_."
_German proverb_.
It was a mild spring evening, and Mrs Frank Darvell was toiling slowly
up Whiteleaf Hill on her way back from market. She had walked every
step of the way there to sell her ducklings, and now the basket on her
arm was heavy with the weight of various small grocery packets. Up till
now she had not felt so tired, partly because she had been walking along
the level high-road, and partly because the way had been beguiled by the
chat of a friend; but after she had said good-night to her crony at the
beginning of the village, and turned up the steep chalky road which led
to the hills, her fatigue increased with every step, and the basket
seemed heavier than ever. It was a very lonely mile she had to go
before reaching home; up and up wound the rough white road, and then
gave a sudden turn and ran along level a little while with dark woods on
either side. Then up again, steeper than ever, till you reached the top
of the hill, and on one side saw the plain beneath, dotted over with
villages and church spires, and on the other hand wide sloping beech
woods, which were just now delicately green with their young spring
leaves.
Mrs Darvell set her basket down on the ground when she reached this
point, and drew a long breath; the worst of the walk was over now, and
she thought with relief how good it would be to pull off her boots, and
hoped that Frank had not forgotten to have the kettle on for tea. She
presently trudged on again with renewed spirits, and in ten minutes more
the faint blue smoke from a chimney caught her eye; that was neighbour
Gunn's cottage, and their own was close by. "And right thankful I be,"
said Mrs Darvell to herself as she unlatched the little garden gate.
The cottage was one of a small lonely cluster standing on the edge of an
enormous beech wood. Not so very long ago the wood had covered the
whole place; but gradually a clearing had been made, the ground
cultivated, and a little settlement had sprung up, which was known as
"Green Highlands." It belonged to the parish of Danecross, a village in
the plain below, three good miles away; so that for church, school, and
public-house the people had to descend the long hill up which Mrs
Darvell had just struggled. Shops there were none, even in Danecross,
and for these they had to go a mile further, to the market-town of
Daylesbury. But all this was not such a hardship to the people of Green
Highlands as might be supposed, and many of them would not have changed
their cottage on the hill for one in the village on the plain; for the
air of Green Highlands was good, the children "fierce," which in those
parts means healthy and strong, and everyone possessed a piece of garden
big enough to grow vegetables and accommodate a family pig.
So the people, though poor, were contented, and had a more prosperous
well-to-do air than some of the Danecross folk, who received higher
wages and lived in the valley.
The room Mrs Frank Darvell entered with a heavy, tired tread was a
good-sized kitchen, one end of which was entirely occupied by a huge
open fireplace without any grate; on the hearth burned and crackled a
bright little wood-fire, the flames of which played merrily round a big
black kettle hung on a chain. A little checked curtain hung from the
mantel-shelf to keep away the draught which rushed down the wide open
chimney, on each side of which was a straight-backed wooden settle. The
dark smoke-dried rafters were evidently used as larder and storehouse,
for all manner of things hung from them, such as a side of bacon, tallow
dips, and a pair of clogs. Two or three pieces of oak furniture,
brought to a high state of polish by Mrs Darvell's industrious hands,
gave an air of comfort to the room, though the floor was red-brick and
bare of carpet; a tall brazen-faced clock ticked deliberately behind the
door. On one of the settles in the chimney-corner sat Mrs Darvell's
"man," as she called her husband, smoking a short pipe, with his feet
stretched out on the hearth; his great boots, caked with mud, stood
beside him. He was a big broad-shouldered fellow, about forty, with a
fair smooth face, which generally looked good-tempered enough, and
somewhat foolish, but which just now had a sullen expression on it,
which Mrs Darvell's quick eye noted immediately. He looked up and
nodded when his wife came in, without taking the pipe out of his mouth.
"Well, I'm proper tired," she said, bumping her basket down with a sigh
of relief. "That Whiteleaf Hill do spend one so after a day's
marketing." Then glancing at the muddy boots on the hearth: "Bin
ploughin'?"
Mr Darvell nodded again, and looked inquiringly at his wife's basket.
Answering this silent question she said:
"I sold 'em fairly well. Mrs Reuben got more; but hers was fatter."
Mr Darvell smoked on in silence, and his wife busied herself in
preparing supper, consisting of cold bacon, bread, and tea without milk;
it was not until they had both been seated at the meal for a little
while that she set down her cup suddenly and exclaimed:
"Why, whatever's got our Frank? Isn't he home yet?"
Mr Darvell's mouth was still occupied, not with his pipe, but with a
thick hunk of bread, on which was laid an almost equally thick piece of
fat bacon. Gazing at his wife across this barrier he nodded again, and
presently murmured somewhat indistinctly:
"Ah, he came home with me."
"Then," repeated Mrs Darvell, fixing her eyes sharply on him, "where
_is_ the lad?"
Mr Darvell avoided his wife's gaze.
"How should I know where he is?" he answered sullenly. "I haven't seen
him, not for these two hours. He's foolin' round somewheres with the
other lads."
"That's not like our Frank," said Mrs Darvell, giving an anxious look
round at the tall clock. "Why, it's gone eight," she went on. "What
_can_ have got him?"
Her eyes rested suspiciously on her husband, who shifted about uneasily.
"Can't you let the lad bide?" he said; "ye'll not rest till ye make him
a greater ninny nor he is by natur. He might as well ha' bin a gell, an
better, for all the good he'll ever be."
"How did he tackle the ploughin'?" asked Mrs Darvell, pausing in the
act of setting aside Frank's supper on the dresser.
"Worser nor ever," replied her husband contemptuously. "He'll never be
good for nowt, but to bide at home an' keep's hands clean. Why, look at
Eli Redrup, not older nor our Frank, an' can do a man's work already."
"Eli Redrup!" exclaimed Mrs Darvell in a shrill tone of disgust; "you'd
never even our lad to a great fullish lout like Eli Redrup, with a head
like a turmut! If Frank isn't just so fierce as some lads of his age,
he's got more sense than most."
"I tell 'ee, he'll never be good for nowt," replied her husband
doggedly, as he resumed his seat in the chimney-corner and lighted his
pipe.
"Onless," he added after a moment's pause, "he comes to be a
schoolmaster; and it haggles me to think that a boy of mine should take
up a line like that."
Mrs Darvell made no answer; but as she washed up the cups and plates
she cast a curious glance every now and then at her husband's silent
figure, for she had a strong feeling that he knew more than he chose to
tell about "our" Frank's absence.
"Our Frank" had more than once been the innocent cause of a serious
difference of opinion between Mr and Mrs Darvell. He was their only
child, and had inherited his father's fair skin and blue eyes, and his
mother's quickness of apprehension; but here the likeness to his parents
ended, for he had a sensitive nature and a delicate frame--things
hitherto unknown in Green Highlands. This did not matter so much during
his childhood, when he earned golden opinions from rector and
schoolmaster in Danecross, as a fine scholar, and one of the best boys
in the choir; but the time came when Frank was thirteen, when he had
gone through all the "Standards," when he must leave school, and begin
to work for his living. It was a hard apprenticeship, for something
quite different from brain-work was needed now, and the boy struggled
vainly against his physical weakness. It was a state of things so
entirely incomprehensible to Mr Darvell, that, as he expressed it, "it
fairly haggled him." Weakness and delicacy were conditions entirely
unknown to him and all his other relations, and might, he thought, be
avoided by everyone except very old people and women; so Frank must be
hardened, and taught not to shirk his work.
The hardening process went on for some time, but not with a very
satisfactory result, for added to his weakness the boy now showed an
increasing terror of his father. He shrank from the hard words or the
uplifted hand with an evident fear, which only strengthened Mr
Darvell's anger, for it mortified him still more to find his lad a
coward as well as a bungler over his work.
Frank, on his side, found his life almost intolerable just now, and all
his trembling efforts "to work like a man" seemed utterly useless, for
he was crippled by fear as well as weakness. He could not take things
like the other Green Highland lads of his age, who were tough of nerve
and sinew, and thought nothing of cuffs on the head and abuse. It was
all dreadful to him, and he suffered as much in apprehension as in the
actual punishment when it came. Mingled with it all was a hot sense of
injustice, for he tried to do his best, and yet was always in disgrace
and despair. Where was the use of having been such a good "scholard?"
That seemed wasted now, for Frank's poor little brain felt so muddled
after a day's field-work, and he was altogether so spent with utter
weariness, that the only thing to do was to tumble into bed, and books
were out of the question. He was being "hardened," as his father called
it, but not in a desirable way; for while his body remained slender and
weak as ever, his mind became daily more stupid and unintelligent.
Frank's only refuge in these hard times was his mother's love. That
never failed him, for the very incapacity that so excited the wrath of
his father only drew him more closely to Mrs Darvell, and made her
watchful to shield him, if possible, from harsh treatment. She was
always ready to do battle for him, and her strong big husband quailed
before the small determined mother when she had her boy's cause in hand.
For Mrs Darvell was gifted with a range of expression and a freedom of
speech which had been denied to her "man," and he had learned to dread
the times when the missus was put out, as occasions when he stood
defenceless before that deadly weapon--the tongue. He was dreading it
now, although he sat so quietly smoking in the chimney-corner. The air
had that vaguely uneasy feeling in it that precedes a storm. Presently
there would be the first clap of thunder. The clock struck nine. No
Frank. An unheard-of hour for any of the Green Highland folk to be out
of their beds and awake. Mr Darvell rose, stretched himself, glanced
nervously at his wife, and suggested humbly:
"Shall us go to bed?"
"_You_ may," she replied, "but I don't stir till I see the lad. If so
be," she added, "you _can_ go to sleep with an easy mind while the lad's
still out, you'd better do it."
Her husband scratched his head thoughtfully, but made no answer; then
Mrs Darvell rose and stood in front of him, shaking a menacing finger.
"Frank Darvell," she said slowly and solemnly, "you've bin leatherin'
that lad. Don't deny it, for I know it."
Mr Darvell did not attempt to deny it. He only shuffled his feet a
little.
"An now," continued his wife with increasing vehemence, "you've druv him
at last to run away; don't deny it."
"He ain't run away," muttered Mr Darvell. "He ain't got pluck enough
to do that. He's a coward, that's what he is."
"Coward!" cried his wife, now fairly roused, and standing in an
aggressive attitude. "It's you that are the coward, you great, hulking,
stupid lout, to strike a weak boy half yer size. An' to talk of goin'
to bed, an' him wandering out there in the woods. My poor little gentle
lad!"
She sank down on the settle and wrung her hands helplessly, but started
up again the next minute with a sudden energy which seemed to petrify
her husband.
"Put on your boots," she said, pointing to them; and as Mr Darvell
meekly obeyed she went on speaking quietly and rapidly. "Wake up Jack
Gunn and send him down to Danecross. Tell him to ask at the rectory and
at schoolmaster's if they've seen the lad. Take your lantern and go
into the woods. There's gypsies camping out Hampden way; go there, and
tell 'em to look out for him. Don't you dare to come back without the
lad. I'll stop here, and burn a light and keep his supper ready. Poor
little lad, he'll be starved with hunger!"
But the night waned, and no tidings came of Frank. Jack Gunn came back
from Danecross having learned nothing, and the poor mother's fears
increased. The boy must be wandering in those weary woods, afraid to
come home--or perhaps lost. Such a thing had been known before now; and
as the first streaks of light appeared in the sky, and she saw the dim
figure of her husband returning alone, Mrs Darvell's courage quite
forsook her.
"I shall never see him no more," she said to herself, and cried
bitterly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And where was "our Frank" meanwhile?
At the moment when Mrs Darvell began to climb Whiteleaf Hill with her
heavy basket, Frank was lying at the foot of a big beech-tree in the
wood near his home; his face was buried in his hands, and every now and
then sobs shook his little thin frame. For it had been a most
unfortunate day for him; everything had gone wrong, and by the time the
evening came and work was over his father's wrath was high. Frank knew
what to expect, and he also remembered that there would be no mother at
home to shield him from punishment, so waiting a favourable moment he
slipped off into the wood before he was missed. Then he flung himself
on the ground and cried, because he felt so tired, and weak, and
hopeless; and as he thought of his father's angry face and heavy
uplifted hand he shivered with terror. How he longed for someone to
comfort and speak kindly to him. Soon, he knew, his mother would be in
from market; there would be a blazing fire at home, and supper, and a
warm corner. Should he venture back? But then, morning would come
again, and the hard work, and he would have to stumble along the sticky
furrows all day, and there would be blows and threatenings to end with.
No, he could not go back; it would be better even, he said to himself,
to beg for his bread like the tramps he had seen sometimes in Danecross.
As he came to this conclusion he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked
round him. It was about six o'clock, and already very dusk in the wood,
though the little dancing leaves of the Leeches could not make much
shadow yet, for it was only April; all round the boy rose the grey
straight stems of the trees, and tufts of primroses shone out whitely
here and there on the ground. It was perfectly still and silent, except
that a cold little wind rustled the branches, and the birds were making
a few last twittering notes before they went to sleep--"a harmony," as
the country folks called it. Frank got up and hurried on, for he knew
that directly mother returned search would be made for him. He must get
a long way on before that, and hide somewhere for the night. That side
of the wood near Green Highlands was quite familiar to him, and though
there were no paths, and it all looked very much alike, he knew what
direction to take for the hiding-place he had in view. A town boy would
soon have become confused, and perhaps have ended in finding himself at
Green Highlands again, but Frank knew better than that, and he stumbled
steadily along in his heavy boots, getting gradually and surely further
away from home and deeper in the wood.
How quiet it was, and how fast the darkness seemed to close round him!
All the birds were silent soon, except that a jay sometimes startled him
with its harsh sudden cry; once a rabbit rushed so quickly across his
path that he almost fell on it. On and on he went at a steady jog-trot
pace, looking neither to right nor left. Now, if you have ever been in
a beech wood, you must remember that winter and summer the ground is
covered with the old dead brown leaves that have fallen from the trees.
So thick they lie, that in some places you can stand knee-deep in them,
especially if there are any hollows into which they have been drifted by
the wind; this particular wood was full of such hollows, some of them
wide and long enough for a tall man to lie down in, and Frank knew
exactly where to find them. Turning aside, therefore, at a certain
clump of bushes there was the very thing he wanted--bed and hiding-place
at once. It was a broad shallow pit or hollow filled quite up to the
top with the red-brown beech leaves. He scooped out a place just large
enough for himself, lay down in it, and carefully replaced the leaves up
to his very chin. He even put a few lightly over his face, and when
that was done no one would have imagined that a boy or any other living
thing was hidden there.
Then the solemn hours of darkness came silently on; all the creatures in
the great wood slept, and even Frank in his strange leafy bed slept
also, worn out with weariness.
About the middle of the night the breeze freshened a little, and the dry
leaves stirred and rustled. The sounds mingled with the boy's dreams,
and he thought he was lying in his attic at home, and that a mouse was
running over his face; he felt its little tickling feet and its long
tail quite plainly, and put up his hand to brush it away. Then he woke
with a start. The chill wind blew in his face and sighed among the
trees, and instead of the low attic beams there were waving branches
over his head. He was not at home, but alone, quite alone in Whiteleaf
Wood, with thick darkness all round him. Frank was frightened without
knowing why; it was all so "unked," as he would have expressed it, and
as he stared about with terrified eyes he seemed to see mysterious forms
moving near. Then he looked up towards the sky; and there, through a
space between the tops of the trees, was one solitary beautiful star
shining down upon him like a kind bright eye. It was a comfort to see
it there, and by degrees, as he lay with his eyes fixed upon it, he
forgot his fears a little, and began to think of other things. First
there came into his head one line of a hymn which he had often sung in
the choir at Danecross church:
"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning," it began. From that he
went on to consider what a long time it was since he had said his
prayers, because he was always so sleepy and tired at night, and he
thought he would say them now. But before he had finished them he fell
into a quiet slumber, which lasted till morning, when the sun, peering
through the trees, pointed suddenly down at his face with a fiery finger
and woke him up.