"I'm sure it's winter fairly."
Burns.
Arthur started. He brushed hastily away the tears that lingered in his
eyes, hoping that the new-comer had not observed them.
"I--I--" he began, then hesitated a little, "I'm on my way to Liverpool.
I want to go to America."
"Ameriky," said the old man; "that's a long way. Have ye friends
there?"
Arthur shook his head. He did not care about this cross-questioning,
and, had he reflected a little, he would not perhaps have answered so
openly. But he was inexperienced, and unaccustomed to be on his guard.
He tried to think of some observation to make which would turn the
conversation, but nothing came into his head except the subject which
never fails--the weather.
"Do you think it is going to snow again?" he said timidly, glancing up
at his companion. He looked something like a farmer of the humbler
class--farmers were always interested in the weather.
The man raised his head quickly, as if to look up, forgetting seemingly
that he was not in the open air. Then he smiled a little.
"Can't say," he replied. "But I rather think we've had the worst of it
for a while. And so ye're off to Ameriky, young man? You don't look so
fit for it nayther."
"I'm going to Liverpool first," said Arthur. "Perhaps I'll stay there.
I have--" "an introduction there," he was going on to say, but the words
stopped on his lips. They sounded far too important under the
circumstances. Besides, and for the first time this new difficulty
struck him, he dare not avail himself of Mr Winthrop's letter, which he
had been so glad of! The person to whom it was addressed was pretty
sure to be in some way connected, directly or indirectly, with his
uncle's business, and, even if not so, when Mr Winthrop came to hear of
his, Arthur's, disappearance, he might identify him with the traveller
they had so kindly received, and trace him through this very
introduction. And as all this went through his mind, his face fell.
His companion, who was watching him, saw the change of expression.
"You have, you were saying, you have friends at Liverpool?" he said.
Arthur began to feel irritated at his pertinacity; he had not had much
experience of the curiosity of many whose quiet uneventful lives force
them into gossip as their only attainable excitement; but, looking up at
the good-humoured face beside him, his annoyance disappeared, and in its
place came a sudden impulse of confidence.
"No," he said bluntly; "I have no friends there, nor indeed anywhere,
whom I can ask for help. I have neither father nor mother. I want to
earn my living, and in time, if I can, to do more than that. And I'm
not proud. I'd do anything, and I'd be more grateful than I can say to
any one who'd put me in the way of something."
The farmer sat silent. He puffed away at his pipe, and between the
puffs he took a good look now and again at his companion. The rather
thin young face was flushed now; the beautiful brown eyes sparkled with
excitement. It was a very attractive face.
"Very genteel-looking; no doubt of that. And James and Eliza think a
deal o' that," he murmured to himself.
But Arthur did not catch the words. He sat without speaking. He had no
idea of help coming from his present companion; he had no notion of what
was passing in his mind. His thoughts were wandering far away, and he
started when the farmer, with a preliminary cough to attract his
attention, again spoke to him.
"You're set on Liverpool, I'm thinking?" he began.
Arthur did not at once understand his meaning.
"I'm going to Liverpool. I intend to go there," he said.
"And you're _set_ on it?" the farmer repeated. "No other place'd be to
your fancy, I suppose?"
"Oh," said Arthur, taking in his meaning.
"No; I don't particularly care about Liverpool. Indeed, I rather think
I should like anywhere else better." For he realised that through the
information which might not improbably be got sooner or later from Mr
Winthrop, Liverpool would be the first place in which he would be
sought.
"_In_deed," said the farmer.
"I had no reason for choosing Liverpool," Arthur went on. "It was on
the way to America; I suppose that was why I thought of it," he added
innocently.
"Just so," ejaculated his companion. Then, after a few more puffs at
his pipe and a few more scrutinising glances at Arthur between times, he
proceeded with what he had to say. He had a daughter, it appeared,
married to a draper, _the_ draper of the little town of Greenwell, not
many miles off. She, or her husband, or both of them, were in search of
a young man to help in the shop, and they had confided their anxieties
to their father, knowing that he had a journey of some days to make, and
there was no saying but what he might come across the person they were
looking for.
"Eliza, she won't have none of the lads thereabouts," he explained.
"They're roughish-like, and Eliza she thinks a deal o' genteelness, does
Eliza. It strikes me, young man, you'd please her for that. And it'd
be a good home, if you were honest and industrious." Here he stopped
and looked at his companion.
Arthur's face was still redder than before.
"A shop-boy," he said to himself--"a shop-boy!" But aloud he only said
quietly--
"I don't know anything whatever of the sort of work it would be. Does
not your son-in-law need some one who knows something about it?" The
farmer scratched his head.
"You can write a good hand, I'm thinking," he said; "and you can soon
learn how to make out the accounts. It's not that; it's who's to speak
for you;" and he looked up again more scrutinisingly than heretofore in
Arthur's face. It did not grow the less red on that account. "I have
no one to speak for me," he replied haughtily; "so there's no use
thinking about it. All the same," he went on, recollecting himself, I
thank you very much, very much indeed. I'm very tired, and I think I'll
go to bed and, rising, he held out his hand, with the gentle courtesy
innate in him, to the farmer, who grasped it heartily in his horny palm,
with a friendly "Good night."
"I'll see ye in the mornin', mebbe," he said.
"It's not the weather, nor yet the time o' year, for too early a start."
"It's something to have any one to say: `Good night' to," thought
Arthur, as he mounted the narrow staircase to the stuffy little bedroom
he had with some difficulty secured to himself for the night, and the
tears again welled up, though he tried hard to ignore them.
He slept soundly for some hours, for he was thoroughly tired; but he
woke early, and lay anxiously turning over things in his mind. Should
he try for the situation the farmer had spoken of? True, there was the
difficulty of "no references;" but Arthur's practical sense had thought
of a way out of that. He had some money--very little with him--but a
few pounds he had left with his clothes and other small possessions in
the safe keeping of a young man, whom he knew he could depend upon to
keep secret. This was a former servant in the family of Arthur's tutor;
and when obliged through an accident to leave his place, some kindness
young Morison had shown him had completely gained his heart.
"I could write to Dawson to send my box on to Greenwell, or whatever's
the name of the place," he said to himself. "Then I could give the
genteel Eliza some money to keep as a sort of guaranty, to be given back
to me when they were satisfied I was not a thief;" and Arthur laughed,
perhaps because it was better than crying. "I believe that would do
away with all difficulties. And once I am settled, it would be
something to be able to write to Lettice, and tell her that, disgraced
as I am, I have still found something to do, and that I _am_ earning my
own livelihood already."
His face flushed, though with honest pride this time.
"I should have preferred her to think me in America," his thoughts went
on; "but it would be wrong to leave them in anxiety so long. At least,
if they still think me worth being anxious about! Any way, they will be
glad to know I am alive and well."
He had already since his flight written twice to his sisters, twice
since the terrible day when, morally convinced of his failure, he had
altogether lost heart and fainted in his place among the candidates,
though the examination was but half over. He had written, confessing
the whole--his nervous terror of the ordeal, his utter incapacity to
face more, his thorough unfitness for the profession he had no wish to
enter, and announcing, at the same time, his determination henceforth to
depend on himself alone, and to work till he could repay the obligation
to their uncle, of which Lettice, in her mistaken idea of keeping up his
spirit, had so often reminded him.
"I am not a coward," he had said in one of these letters, "though
Lettice may say I am. I have only been a coward in one thing--in my
fear of telling the truth, which I thought would so horribly distress
her. I dreaded her reproaches, and I still dread them; but I shall no
longer deserve them. I, at least, will make my own way, and some day I
may be able to do something for all of you, and, in the meantime, you
will all be better and happier without the brother who has disappointed
you so sadly."
And these letters he had sent through the same agency, that of poor
Dawson, so that there was no post-mark or mark of any kind to betray his
present quarters.
And so his thoughts went on that dreary morning in the little stuffy
bedroom. If he did not accept the chance so unexpectedly thrown in his
way, what was he to do? He dared not make use of his letter to Mr
Winthrop's friend; he dared hardly go to Liverpool. For he was
beginning to gain experience. He saw that without references of any
kind he might get into awkward predicaments, might be suspected of
having run away in disgrace of some very different kind from the failure
which he himself judged so severely.
"And that would be _too_ horrible," thought the poor boy; "to be taken
up as a suspicious character, and a scandal about it, and to have to go
home and go on living on Uncle Ingram's money after all, and feel that
every one connected with me was ashamed of me! No; I must see what that
old fellow has to say, if he hasn't thought better of it. He's a good
old chap, I'm sure."
His resolution had not time to cool, for the farmer had "slept upon it"
to some purpose. He greeted Arthur with friendly good nature, and,
without his needing to broach the subject, started it himself again. He
was on his way home, and had promised to "stop with Eliza and James over
Christmas," as Greenwell was only a few hours from his own village, and
he proposed to Arthur to accompany him, "to take a look at the place
like, so being as he had naught better to do with hisself."
"And to let them take a look at me," added Arthur, smiling. "It's very
good of you indeed. It's more than good of you," he added, "to trust a
perfect stranger, and one that can't tell you all about himself either.
It was family troubles that have made me leave my home, but that's all I
can say."
"There's no lack o' troubles nowheer," said the farmer; "and there's no
need o' telling what's no one's business but one's own."
"But," continued Arthur, "if your son-in-law, Mr--I don't think you
told me his name?"
"Lamb, James Lamb," replied the old man.
"If Mr Lamb engages me, I can give him a sort of a pledge for my
honesty, any way. I have a little money I can send for, and I could
give it into his keeping for a while."
The farmer's face cleared.
"That's not a bad idea," he said. "Not but what I knows an honest face
when I sees one, but James--he might think me soft-like. I had a lad o'
my own onst," he went on, with an unusual gentleness in his voice, "and
I lost him many years ago now--Eliza she were the daughter o' my wife
that is--just about thy age, my lad," relapsing into the second person
singular as he grew more at ease, "seems to me he favoured thee a bit.
But Eliza and James they'd mebbe laugh at me for an old fool, so I'm
mighty glad about the money."
"I won't write for it yet," said Arthur. "I'd better wait till we get
to Greenwell, and see how things turn out I left it with my clothes and
other things with a friend to send after me."
"Just so," said the farmer. "Oh, as for that, it'll be time enough."
An hour or two later saw Arthur, in company with his new friend, mounted
in the light box-cart of the latter, and driving, though at a sober
pace, for the roads were very slippery, in the direction of the little
town of Greenwell. It was a long drive. They stopped towards midday at
a little roadside inn for some refreshment in the shape of
bread-and-cheese and beer, and then jogged on again. It was not a
luxurious mode of travelling; still, it was much better than tramping
through the snow, and Arthur's days of roughing it had taught him the
useful lesson of being thankful for small boons. But as the early
winter dusk fell it grew colder and colder, and Arthur shivered, though
he had a good thick coat, and the farmer had given him a plentiful share
of the rough horse-cloth, which did duty for a carriage rug.
"Christmas Eve," he said, after a long silence, hardly aware that he was
speaking aloud.
"Ay so," said his companion, "the years they comes, and the years they
goes. 'Tis many a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as I mind. `Peace on
earth, goodwill to men,' parson tells us. They've been a-tellin' it a
sight o' Christmases, seems to me, but we're a long way off it still,
I'm afeard."
"I'm afraid so," said Arthur with a sigh.
And then his thoughts wandered off again to his home. Lettice would
hear those same words to-morrow morning. How would they strike her?
Was she not wrong, _quite_ wrong? was the question that came over and
over again for the thousandth time in his mind. Could it be showing
true honour to their dead parents to persist in the course she was
doing--a course setting at defiance the Divine injunction? Nay, even
allowing they, or their father rather, had been injured, unfairly
treated, was there not Divine command for such cases, too? "Forgive, as
ye would be forgiven," "unto seventy times seven," were the words that
floated about before the boy's eyes, illuminated, as it were, on the
ever-darkening sky in front of him. And who was it they were refusing
to forgive? One who had never injured them, one who had generously
taken upon him responsibilities and risks he was in no way called upon
to trouble himself with.
"Ah, yes," thought Arthur sadly, "that has been his crime in her eyes--
his very goodness." And somehow he felt less unhappy and perplexed when
he allowed himself to recognise this than when he strove, as he had
thought himself bound to do, against his better judgment, to think
Lettice right, to accept the arguments she had so plausibly brought to
bear upon him.
"She must be wrong," he thought. "And if I had been older and wiser,
or, at least, more courageous, I might have made her care to see it.
But what right have I to speak, miserable failure that I am? I can only
do what I am doing--be faithful and loyal to her, even if she is
mistaken, and do my utmost to lessen the burden;" and, with another
sigh, Arthur shook himself out of his reverie.
_How_ cold it was growing!
"Are we near there?" he inquired.
"Not so far now," said the old man cheerily. "'Twill be good seeing a
bright fire and a bite of supper. The old woman--that's my wife, none
so very old nayther--will be lookin' out for us. She were to come to
Eliza's to-day like, so as we might have our Christmas together. The
plum-pudding will have been ready this three weeks, I make no doubt.
She's a rare housekeeper, is my Eliza, though I says it as shouldn't."
And Arthur was boy enough to feel considerable satisfaction in the
prospect of plum-pudding, even though served in homely guise. It was a
long way better than Christmas Day on the road, or in some poor lodging
in loneliness and dreariness!
In a few minutes more the farmer turned off the road they had for some
time been following, and shortly after this, twinkling lights began to
be visible in the distance. There were not many travellers of any kind
about; it was too cold for all not forced to do so to expose themselves
to the open air; and when at last, after rattling over the stones of an
old-fashioned street, the farmer drew up at a door, evidently the
private entrance to a shuttered shop next it, Arthur really felt that he
could hardly have endured a quarter of an hour more of it. The mere
thought of a fire was felicity, and he did not need twice bidding to
jump down and knock lustily at the door. But before it was opened a
misgiving seized him.
"Had I not better go somewhere else for the night?" he asked his old
friend. "They're not expecting me. I dare say I can get a bed
somewhere near; and then, by the morning you will have told them about
me."
The farmer ejaculated something, which was evidently meant as an
equivalent to "nonsense."
"D'ye think now, James or Eliza'd turn a dog to the door such a night as
this, much less a Christian?" he replied reassuringly. "Seein', too,
that it's _me_ as brings you," he added, just as the door opened.
For the next minute or two there was a chatter of rather noisy welcome,
questions made and asked, women's voices, and men's laughter. Then
Arthur, feeling himself confused and dazed, conscious of almost nothing
but the numbing cold--for he was not yet as strong as usual--found
himself in a large, comfortable, though plainly furnished room, with a
great old-fashioned fireplace at one end, in which a great old-fashioned
fire was burning. He still heard the voices going on about him, though
at a little distance, and he had an instinctive feeling that they were
talking about him. He stood irresolute, uncertain whether to turn back
or go forward, when a kindly voice caught his ear.
"Come near the fire. I'm sure you're freezing cold. Eliza's that
pleased to see her father again, she sees no one else. James, you've
not shook hands with--but, to be sure, my old man's not told us your
name yet."
Arthur smiled. It would not have been easy for the farmer to tell his
name when he had never heard it himself. He tried to collect his
thoughts, but he still felt very light-headed and strange.
"My name," he began, "is John--John Morris," which, so far as it went,
was true. "I wish you would call me John."
"Surely," replied "James," as in response to his mother-in-law's hint he
shook hands, so heartily as to make him wince, with the young stranger.
"You're kindly welcome, and, if so be as it suits you to stay on with
us, I don't doubt but as we'll pull together."
But he confided to his Eliza afterwards that, though there was no doubt
as to his having a very "genteel" appearance, he was by no means sure
that this young fellow whom her father had picked up would be strong
enough for the place.
"Nevertheless, we'll give him a good Christmas dinner, and cheer him up
a bit. He looks sadly pulled down like, poor fellow!"