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STURDY AND STRONG
G. A. HENTY
[Illustration: "SURLY JOE SAT WITH A CHILD ON EITHER SIDE,
TELLING THEM SEA STORIES."--_Frontispiece._
_Sturdy and Strong._]
STURDY AND STRONG
OR
_How George Andrews Made His Way_
BY
G. A. HENTY
AUTHOR OF "THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN," "WITH CLIVE IN INDIA,"
"IN FREEDOM'S CAUSE," "THE LION OF THE NORTH," "FACING DEATH,"
ETC., ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
PREFACE.
Whatever may be said as to distinction of classes in England, it is
certain that in no country in the world is the upward path more open
to those who brace themselves to climb it than in our own. The
proportion of those who remain absolutely stationary is comparatively
small. We are all living on a hillside, and we must either go up or
down. It is easier to descend than to ascend; but he who fixes his
eyes upwards, nerves himself for the climb, and determines with all
his might and power to win his way towards the top, is sure to find
himself at the end of his day at a far higher level than when he
started upon his journey. It may be said, and sometimes foolishly is
said, that luck is everything; but in nineteen cases out of twenty
what is called luck is simply a combination of opportunity, and of the
readiness and quickness to turn that opportunity to advantage. The
voyager must take every advantage of wind, tide, and current, if he
would make a favorable journey; and for success in life it is
necessary not only to be earnest, steadfast, and true, but to have the
faculty of turning every opportunity to the best advantage; just as a
climber utilizes every tuft of grass, every little shrub, every
projecting rock, as a hold for his hands or feet. George Andrews had
what may be called luck--that is, he had opportunities and took
advantage of them, and his rise in life was consequently far more
rapid than if he had let them pass without grasping them; but in any
case his steadiness, perseverance, and determination to get on would
assuredly have made their way in the long run. If similar qualities
and similar determinations are yours, you need not despair of similar
success in life.
G. A. HENTY.
CONTENTS.
STURDY AND STRONG: PAGE
I. ALONE, 1
II. TWO FRIENDS, 25
III. WORK, 48
IV. HOME, 74
V. AN ADVENTURE, 97
VI. FIRE! 117
VII. SAVED! 142
DO YOUR DUTY, 165
SURLY JOE, 231
A FISH-WIFE'S DREAM, 257
STURDY AND STRONG.
CHAPTER I.
ALONE.
"You heard what he said, George?"
"Oh, mother, mother!"
"Don't sob so, my boy; he is right. I have seen it coming a long time,
and, hard as it seems, it will be better. There is no disgrace in it.
I have tried my best, and if my health had not broken down we might
have managed, but you see it was not to be. I shall not mind it, dear;
it is really only for your sake that I care about it at all."
The boy had ceased sobbing, and sat now with a white set face.
"Mother, it will break my heart to think that I cannot keep you from
this. If we could only have managed for a year or two I could have
earned more then; but to think of you--you in the workhouse!"
"In a workhouse infirmary, my boy," his mother said gently. "You see it
is not as if it were from any fault of ours. We have done our best. You
and I have managed for two years; but what with my health and my eyes
breaking down we can do so no longer. I hope it will not be for long,
dear. You see I shall have rest and quiet, and I hope I shall soon be
able to be out again."
"Not soon, mother. The doctor said you ought not to use your eyes for
months."
"Even months pass quickly, George, when one has hope. I have felt this
coming so long that I shall be easier and happier now it has come. After
all, what is a workhouse infirmary but a hospital, and it would not seem
so very dreadful to you my going into a hospital; the difference is only
in name; both are, after all, charities, but the one is kept up out of
subscriptions, the other from the rates."
His mother's words conveyed but little comfort to George Andrews. He had
just come in from his work, and had heard what the parish doctor had
told his mother.
"I can do nothing for you here, Mrs. Andrews. You must have rest and
quiet for your eyes, and not only that, but you must have strengthening
food. It is no use my blinking the truth. It is painful for you, I know.
I can well understand that; but I see no other way. If you refuse to go
I won't answer for your life."
"I will go, doctor," she had answered quietly. "I know that it will be
best. It will be a blow to my boy, but I see no other way."
"If you don't want your boy to be alone in the world, ma'am, you will do
as I advise you. I will go round in the morning and get you the order of
admission, and as I shall be driving out that way I will, if you like,
take you myself."
"Thank you, doctor; you are very good. Yes, I will be ready in the
morning, and I thank you for your offer."
"Very well, then, that's settled," the doctor said briskly. "At ten
o'clock I will be here."
Although a little rough in manner, Dr. Jeffries was a kind-hearted and
humane man.
"Poor woman," he said to himself as he went downstairs, "it is hard for
her. It is easy to see that she is a lady, and a thorough lady too; but
what can I do for her! I might get her a little temporary help, but that
would be of no use--she is completely broken down with anxiety and
insufficient food, and unless her eyes have a long holiday she will lose
her sight. No, there's nothing else for it, but it is hard."
It was hard. Mrs. Andrews was, as the doctor said, a lady. She had lost
both her parents while she was at school. She had no near relations, and
as she was sixteen when her mother died she had remained at school
finishing her education and teaching the younger children. Then she had
obtained a situation as governess in a gentleman's family, and two years
afterwards had married a young barrister who was a frequent visitor at
the house.
Mr. Andrews was looked upon as a rising man, and for the first seven or
eight years of her marriage his wife's life had been a very happy one.
Then her husband was prostrated by a fever which he caught in one of the
midland towns while on circuit, and although he partially recovered he
was never himself again. His power of work seemed to be lost; a languor
which he could not overcome took possession of him. A troublesome cough
ere long attacked him, and two years later Mrs. Andrews was a widow, and
her boy, then nine years old, an orphan.
During the last two years of his life Mr. Andrews had earned but
little in his profession. The comfortable house which he occupied had
been given up, and they had removed to one much smaller. But in spite
of this, debts mounted up, and when, after his death, the remaining
furniture was sold and everything settled, there remained only about
two hundred pounds. Mrs. Andrews tried to get some pupils among her
late husband's friends, but during the last two years she had lost
sight of many of these, and now met with but poor success among the
others. She was a quiet and retiring woman, and shrank from continuous
solicitations, and at the end of three years she found her little
store exhausted.
Hitherto she had kept George at school, but could no longer do so,
and, giving up her lodging in Brompton, went down to Croydon, where
someone had told her that they thought she would have a better chance
of obtaining pupils, but the cards which some of the tradesmen allowed
her to put in the window led to no result, and finding this to be the
case she applied at one of the milliner's for work. This she obtained,
and for a year supported herself and her boy by needlework.
From the time when George left school she had gone on teaching him his
lessons; but on the day when he was thirteen years old he declared
that he would no longer submit to his mother working for both of them,
and, setting out, called at shop after shop inquiring if they wanted
an errand-boy. He succeeded at last in getting a place at a grocer's
where he was to receive three shillings a week and his meals, going
home to sleep at night in the closet-like little attic adjoining the
one room which his mother could now afford.
For a while they were more comfortable than they had been for some
time; now that his mother had no longer George to feed, her earnings
and the three shillings he brought home every Saturday night enabled
them to live in comparative ease, and on Sunday something like a feast
was always prepared. But six months later Mrs. Andrews felt her
eyesight failing, the lids became inflamed, and a dull aching pain
settled in the eyeballs. Soon she could only work for a short time
together, her earnings became smaller and smaller, and her employers
presently told her that she kept the work so long in hand that they
could no longer employ her. There was now only George's three
shillings a week to rely upon, and this was swallowed up by the rent.
In despair she had applied to the parish doctor about her eyes. For a
fortnight he attended her, and at the end of that time had
peremptorily given the order of which she had told her son.
To her it was a relief; she had seen that it must come. Piece by piece
every article of clothing she possessed, save those she wore, had been
pawned for food, and every resource was now exhausted. She was worn
out with the struggle, and the certainty of rest and food overcame her
repugnance to the house. For George's sake too, much as she knew he
would feel her having to accept such a refuge, she was glad that the
struggle was at an end. The lad had for the last six months suffered
greatly for her sake. Every meal to which he sat down at his
employer's seemed to choke him as he contrasted it with the fare to
which she was reduced, although, as far as possible, she had concealed
from him how sore was her strait.
George cried himself to sleep that night, and he could scarce speak
when he said good-by to his mother in the morning, for he could not
tell when he should see her again.
"You will stop where you are, my boy, will you not?"
"I cannot promise, mother. I don't know yet what I shall do; but
please don't ask me to promise anything. You must let me do what I
think best. I have got to make a home for you when you are cured. I am
fourteen now, and am as strong as most boys of my age. I ought to be
able to earn a shilling a day somehow, and with seven shillings a
week, mother, and you just working a little, you know, so as not to
hurt your eyes, we ought to be able to do. Don't you bother about me,
mother. I want to try anyhow what I can do till you come out. When you
do, then I will do whatever you tell me; that's fair, isn't it?"
Mrs. Andrews would have remonstrated, but he said:
"Well, mother, you see at the worst I can get a year's character from
Dutton, so that if I can't get anything else to do I can get the same
sort of place again, and as I am a year older than I was when he took
me, and can tie up parcels neatly now, I ought to get a little more
anyhow. You see I shall be safe enough, and though I have never
grumbled, you know, mother--have I?--I think I would rather do
anything than be a grocer's boy. I would rather, when I grow up, be a
bricklayer's laborer, or a plowman, or do any what I call man's work,
than be pottering about behind a counter, with a white apron on,
weighing out sugar and currants."
"I can't blame you, George," Mrs. Andrews said with a sigh. "It's
natural, my boy. If I get my eyesight and my health again, when you
grow up to be a man we will lay by a little money, and you and I will
go out together to one of the colonies. It will be easier to rise
again there than here, and with hard work both of us might surely hope
to get on. There must be plenty of villages in Australia and Canada
where I could do well with teaching, and you could get work in
whatever way you may be inclined to. So, my boy, let us set that
before us. It will be something to hope for and work for, and will
cheer us to go through whatever may betide us up to that time."
"Yes, mother," George said. "It will be comfort indeed to have
something to look forward to. Nothing can comfort me much to-day; but
if anything could it would be some such plan as that."
The last words he said to his mother as, blinded with tears, he kissed
her before starting to work, were:
"I shall think of our plan every day, and look forward to that more
than anything else in the world--next to your coming to me again."
At ten o'clock Dr. Jeffries drove up to Mrs. Andrews' humble lodging
in a brougham instead of his ordinary gig, having borrowed the
carriage from one of the few of his patients who kept such a vehicle,
on purpose to take Mrs. Andrews, for she was so weak and worn that he
was sure she would not be able to sit upright in a gig for the three
miles that had to be traversed. He managed in the course of his rounds
to pass the workhouse again in the afternoon, and brought George,
before he left work, a line written in pencil on a leaf torn from his
pocketbook:
"My darling, I am very comfortable. Everything is clean and
nice, and the doctor and people kind. Do not fret about
me.--Your loving mother."
Although George's expressed resolution of leaving his present
situation, and seeking to earn his living in some other way, caused
Mrs. Andrews much anxiety, she had not sought strongly to dissuade him
from it. No doubt it would be wiser for him to stay in his present
situation, where he was well treated and well fed, and it certainly
seemed improbable to her that he would be able to get a better living
elsewhere. Still she could not blame him for wishing at least to try.
She herself shared to some extent his prejudice against the work in
which he was employed. There is no disgrace in honest work; but she
felt that she would rather see him engaged in hard manual labor than
as a shop boy. At any rate, as he said, if he failed he could come
back again to Croydon, and, with a year's character from his present
employer, would probably be able to obtain a situation similar to that
which he now held. She was somewhat comforted, too, by a few words
the doctor had said to her during their drive.
"I think you are fortunate in your son, Mrs. Andrews. He seems to me a
fine steady boy. If I can, in any way, do him a good turn while you
are away from him, I will."
George remained for another month in his situation, for he knew that
it would never do to start on his undertaking penniless. At the end of
that time, having saved up ten shillings, and having given notice to
his employer, he left the shop for the last time, and started to walk
to London. It was not until he began to enter the crowded streets that
he felt the full magnitude of his undertaking. To be alone in London,
a solitary atom in the busy mass of humanity, is a trying situation
even for a man; to a boy of fourteen it is terrible. Buying a penny
roll, George sat down to eat it in one of the niches of a bridge over
the river, and then kneeling up watched the barges and steamers
passing below him.
Had it not been for his mother, his first thought, like that of most
English boys thrown on the world, would have been to go to sea; but
this idea he had from the first steadily set aside as out of the
question. His plan was to obtain employment as a boy in some
manufacturing work, for he thought that there, by steadiness and
perseverance, he might make his way.
On one thing he was resolved. He would make his money last as long as
possible. Three penny-worth of bread a day would, he calculated, be
sufficient for his wants. As to sleeping, he thought he might manage
to sleep anywhere; it was summer time and the nights were warm. He had
no idea what the price of a bed would be, or how to set about getting
a lodging. He did not care how roughly he lived so that he could but
make his money last. The first few days he determined to look about
him. Something might turn up. If it did not he would set about getting
a place in earnest. He had crossed Waterloo Bridge, and, keeping
straight on, found himself in Covent Garden, where he was astonished
and delighted at the quantities of fruit, vegetables, and flowers.
Although he twice set out in different directions to explore the
streets, he each time returned to Covent Garden. There were many lads
of his own age playing about there, and he thought that from them he
might get some hints as to how to set about earning a living. They
looked ragged and poor enough, but they might be able to tell him
something--about sleeping, for instance. For although before starting
the idea of sleeping anywhere had seemed natural enough, it looked
more formidable now that he was face to face with it.
Going to a cook-shop in a street off the market he bought two slices
of plum-pudding. He rather grudged the twopence which he paid; but he
felt that it might be well laid out. Provided with the pudding he
returned to the market, sat himself down on an empty basket, and began
to eat slowly and leisurely.
In a short time he noticed a lad of about his own age watching him
greedily.
He was far from being a respectable-looking boy. His clothes were
ragged, and his toes could be seen through a hole in his boot. He wore
neither hat nor cap, and his hair looked as if it had not been combed
since the day of his birth. There was a sharp, pinched look on his
face. But had he been washed and combed and decently clad he would not
have been a bad-looking boy. At any rate George liked his face better
than most he had seen in the market, and he longed for a talk with
someone. So he held out his other slice of pudding, and said:
"Have a bit?"
"Oh, yes!" the boy replied "Walker, eh?"
"No, I mean it, really. Will you have a bit?"
"No larks?" asked the boy.
"No; no larks. Here you are."
Feeling assured now that no trick was intended the boy approached,
took without a word the pudding which George held out, and, seating
himself on a basket close to him, took a great bite.
"Where do you live?" George asked, when the slice of pudding had half
disappeared.
"Anywheres," the boy replied, waving his hand round.
"I mean, where do you sleep?"
The boy nodded, to intimate that his sleeping-place was included in
the general description of his domicile.
"And no one interferes with you?" George inquired.
"The beaks, they moves you on when they ketches you; but ef yer get
under a cart or in among the baskets you generally dodges 'em."
"And suppose you want to pay for a place to sleep, where do you go and
how much do you pay?"
"Tuppence," the boy said; "or if yer want a first-rate, fourpence.
Does yer want to find a crib?" he asked doubtfully, examining his
companion.
"Well, yes," George said. "I want to find some quiet place where I can
sleep, cheap, you know."
"Out of work?" the boy inquired.
"Yes. I haven't got anything to do at present. I am looking for a
place, you know."
"Don't know no one about?"
"No; I have just come in from Croydon."
The boy shook his head.
"Don't know nothing as would suit," he said. "Why, yer'd get them
clothes and any money yet had walked off with the wery fust night."
"I should not get a room to myself, I suppose, even for fourpence?"
George asked, making a rapid calculation that this would come to two
and fourpence per week, as much as his mother had paid for a
comparatively comfortable room in Croydon.
The boy opened his eyes in astonishment at his companion requiring a
room for himself.
"Lor' bless yer, yer'd have a score of them with yer!"
"I don't care about a bed," George said. "Just some place to sleep in.
Just some straw in any quiet corner."
This seemed more reasonable to the boy, and he thought the matter
over.
"Well," he said at last, "I knows of a place where they puts up the
hosses of the market carts. I knows a hostler there. Sometimes when
it's wery cold he lets me sleep up in the loft. Aint it warm and
comfortable just! I helps him with the hosses sometimes, and that's
why. I will ax him if yer likes."
George assented at once. His ideas as to the possibility of sleeping
in the open air had vanished when he saw the surroundings, and a bed
in a quiet loft seemed to him vastly better than sleeping in a room
with twenty others.
"How do you live?" he asked the lad, "and what's your name?"
"They calls me the Shadder," the boy said rather proudly; "but my real
name's Bill."
"Why do they call you the Shadow?" George asked.
"'Cause the bobbies finds it so hard to lay hands on me," Bill
replied.
"But what do they want to lay hands on you for?" George asked.
"Why, for bagging things, in course," Bill replied calmly.
"Bagging things? Do you mean stealing?" George said, greatly shocked.
"Well, not regular prigging," the Shadow replied; "not wipes, yer
know, nor tickers, nor them kind of things. I aint never prigged
nothing of that kind."
"Well, what is it then you do--prig?" George asked, mystified.
"Apples or cabbages, or a bunch of radishes, onions sometimes, or
'taters. That aint regular prigging, you know."
"Well, it seems to me the same sort of thing," George said, after a
pause.
"I tell yer it aint the same sort of thing at all," the Shadow said
angrily. "Everyone as aint a fool knows that taters aint wipes, and no
one can't say as a apple and a ticker are the same."
"No, not the same," George agreed; "but you see one is just as much
stealing as the other."
"No, it aint," the boy reasserted. "One is the same as money and
t'other aint. I am hungry and I nips a apple off a stall. No one aint
the worse for it. You don't suppose as they misses a apple here? Why,
there's wagon-loads of 'em, and lots of 'em is rotten. Well, it aint
no more if I takes one than if it was rotten. Is it now?"
George thought there was a difference, but he did not feel equal to
explaining it.
"The policemen must think differently," he said at last, "else they
wouldn't be always trying to catch you."
"Who cares for the bobbies?" Bill said contemptuously. "I don't; and I
don't want no more jaw with you about it. If yer don't likes it, yer
leaves it. I didn't ask for yer company, did I? So now then."
George had really taken a fancy to the boy, and moreover he saw that
in the event of a quarrel his chance of finding a refuge for the night
was small. In his sense of utter loneliness in the great city he was
loath to break with the only acquaintance he had made.
"I didn't mean to offend you, Bill," he said; "only I was sorry to
hear you say you took things. It seems to me you might get into
trouble; and it would be better after all to work for a living."
"What sort of work?" Bill said derisively. "Who's agoing to give me
work? Does yer think I have only got to walk into a shop and ask for
'ployment? They wouldn't want to know nothing about my character, I
suppose? nor where I had worked before? nor where my feyther lived?
nor nothing? Oh, no, of course not! It's blooming easy to get work
about here; only got to ax for it, that's all. Good wages and all
found, that's your kind."
"I don't suppose it's easy," George said; "but it seems to me people
could get something to do if they tried."
"Tried!" the boy said bitterly. "Do yer think we don't try! Why, we
are always trying to earn a copper or two. Why, we begins at three
o'clock in the morning when the market-carts come in, and we goes on
till they comes out of that there theater at night, just trying to
pick up a copper. Sometimes one does and sometimes one doesn't. It's a
good day, I tell you, when we have made a tanner by the end of it.
Don't tell me! And now as to this ere stable; yer means it?"
"Yes," George said; "certainly I mean it."
"Wery well then, you be here at this corner at nine o'clock. I will go
before that and square it with Ned. That's the chap I was speaking
of."
"I had better give you something to give him," George said. "Will a
shilling do?"
"Yes, a bob will do for three or four nights. Are you going to trust
me with it?"
"Of course I am," George replied. "I am sure you wouldn't be so mean
as to do me out of it; besides, you told me that you never stole money
and those sort of things."
"It aint everyone as would trust me with a bob for all that," Bill
replied; "and yer are running a risk, yer know, and I tells yer if yer
goes on with that sort of game yer'll get took in rarely afore yer've
done. Well, hand it over. I aint a-going to bilk yer."
The Shadow spoke carelessly, but this proof of confidence on the part
of his companion really touched him, and as he went off he said to
himself, "He aint a bad sort, that chap, though he is so precious
green. I must look arter him a bit and see he don't get into no
mischief."
George, on his part, as he walked away down into the Strand again,
felt that he had certainly run a risk in thus intrusting a tenth of
his capital to his new acquaintance; but the boy's face and manner had
attracted him, and he felt that, although the Shadow's notions of
right and wrong might be of a confused nature, he meant to act
straight toward him.
George passed the intervening hours before the time named for his
meeting in Covent Garden in staring into the shop windows in the
Strand, and in wondering at the constant stream of vehicles and foot
passengers flowing steadily out westward. He was nearly knocked under
the wheels of the vehicles a score of times from his ignorance as to
the rule of the road, and at last he was so confused by the jostling
and pushing that he was glad to turn down a side street and to sit
down for a time on a doorstep.
When nine o'clock approached he went into a baker's shop and bought a
loaf, which would, he thought, do for supper and breakfast for himself
and his companion. Having further invested threepence in cheese, he
made his way up to the market.
The Shadow was standing at the corner whistling loudly.
"Oh, here yer be! That's all right; come along. I have squared Ned,
and it's all right."
He led the way down two or three streets and then stopped at a
gateway.
"You stop here," he said, "and I will see as there aint no one but Ned
about."
He returned in a minute.
"It's all clear! Ned, he's a-rubbing down a hoss; he won't take no
notice of yer as yer pass. He don't want to see yer, yer know, 'cause
in case anyone comed and found yer up there he could swear he never
saw yer go in, and didn't know nothing about yer. I will go with yer
to the door, and then yer will see a ladder in the corner; if yer whip
up that yer'll find it all right up there."
"But you are coming too, aint you?" George asked.
"Oh, no, I aint a-coming. Yer don't want a chap like me up there. I
might pick yer pocket, yer know; besides I aint your sort."
"Oh, nonsense!" George said. "I should like to have you with me, Bill;
I should really. Besides, what's the difference between us? We have
both got to work for ourselves and make our way in the world."
"There's a lot of difference. Yer don't talk the way as I do; yer have
been brought up different. Don't tell me."
"I may have been brought up differently, Bill. I have been fortunate
there; but now, you see, I have got to get my living in the best way I
can, and if I have had a better education than you have, you know ever
so much more about London and how to get your living than I do, so
that makes us quits."
"Oh, wery well," Bill said; "it's all the same to this child. So if
yer aint too proud, here goes."
He led the way down a stable yard, past several doors, showing the
empty stalls which would be all filled when the market carts arrived.
At the last door on the right he stopped. George looked in. At the
further end a man was rubbing down a horse by the faint light of a
lantern, the rest of the stable was in darkness.
"This way," Bill whispered.
Keeping close behind him, George entered the stable. The boy stopped
in the corner.
"Here's the ladder. I will go up fust and give yer a hand when yer
gets to the top."
George stood quiet until his companion had mounted, and then ascended
the ladder, which was fixed against the wall. Presently a voice
whispered in his ear:
"Give us your hand. Mind how yer puts your foot."
In a minute he was standing in the loft. His companion drew him along
in the darkness, and in a few steps arrived at a pile of hay.
"There yer are," Bill said in a low voice; "yer 'ave only to make
yourself comfortable there. Now mind you don't fall down one of the
holes into the mangers."
"I wish we had a little light," George said, as he ensconced himself
in the hay.
"I will give you some light in a minute," Bill said, as he left his
side, and directly afterwards a door opened and the light of a
gaslight in the yard streamed in.
"That's where they pitches the hay in," Bill said as he rejoined him.
"I shuts it up afore I goes to sleep, 'cause the master he comes out
sometimes when the carts comes in, and there would be a blooming row
if he saw it open; but we are all right now."
"That's much nicer," George said. "Now here's a loaf I brought with
me. We will cut it in half and put by a half for the morning, and eat
the other half between us now, and I have got some cheese here too."
"That's tiptop!" the boy said. "Yer're a good sort, I could see that,
and I am pretty empty, I am, for I aint had nothing except that bit
of duff yer gave me since morning, and I only had a crust then. 'Cept
for running against you I aint been lucky to-day. Couldn't get a job
nohows, and it aint for want of trying neither."
For some minutes the boys ate in silence. George had given much the
largest portion to his companion, for he himself was too dead tired to
be very hungry. When he had finished, he said:
"Look here, Bill; we will talk in the morning. I am so dead beat I can
scarcely keep my eyes open, so I will just say my prayers and go off
to sleep."
"Say your prayers!" Bill said in astonishment. "Do yer mean to say as
yer says prayers!"
"Of course I do," George replied; "don't you?"
"Never said one in my life," Bill said decidedly; "don't know how,
don't see as it would do no good ef I did."
"It would do good, Bill," George said. "I hope some day you will think
differently, and I will teach you some you will like."
"I don't want to know none," Bill said positively. "A missionary chap,
he came and prayed with an old woman I lodged with once. I could not
make head nor tail of it, and she died just the same, so you see what
good did it do her?"
But George was too tired to enter upon a theological argument. He was
already half asleep, and Bill's voice sounded a long way off.
"Good-night," he muttered; "I will talk to you in the morning," and in
another minute he was fast asleep.
Bill took an armful of hay and shook it lightly over his companion;
then he closed the door of the loft and threw himself on the hay, and
was soon also sound asleep. When George woke in the morning the
daylight was streaming in through the cracks of the door. His
companion was gone. He heard the voices of several men in the yard,
while a steady champing noise and an occasional shout or the sound of
a scraping on the stones told him the stalls below were all full now.
George felt that he had better remain where he was. Bill had told him
the evening before that the horses and carts generally set out again
at about nine o'clock, and he thought he had better wait till they had
gone before he slipped down below. Closing his eyes he was very soon
off to sleep again. When he woke, Bill was sitting by his side looking
at him.
"Well, you are a oner to sleep," the boy said. "Why, it's nigh ten
o'clock, and it's time for us to be moving. Ned will be going off in a
few minutes, and the stables will be locked up till the evening."
"Is there time to eat our bread and cheese?" George asked.
"No, we had better eat it when we get down to the market; come
along."
George at once rose, shook the hay off his clothes, and descended the
ladder, Bill leading the way. There was no one in the stable, and the
yard was also empty. On reaching the market they sat down on two empty
baskets, and at once began to eat their bread and cheese.