DRIVEN FORTH
LIKE one in a bad dream, Tad stood and stared at the placard. There was
something very ominous and startling, on coming for the first time into
this little town, to find his secret, his story there before him.
"Ay there it is!" he muttered. "My name and my clothes and all, so as
the perlice should be sure to catch me. Catch me? Ay, and so they may
yet."
At the thought, he shrank into the shadow of the wall.
"Why, here I am, with my big head, and thin body, and I'm wearin' of
that very grey suit and cap, and a bobby might just step out and nab me
this minute. Now what can I do," Tad asked himself, "to put the bobbies
off the scent and make 'em think there's no Edward Poole in the place?"
Musing intently, the lad had moved stealthily away, and turned down
a narrow, dark street, where he was less likely to be noticed. Once
round the corner, he quickened his pace until he came to a little
archway leading into some kind of a court. Here he undid his satchel,
produced from it an old snuff-coloured suit that he used to wear when
doing dirty work, and proceeded to exchange his tidy grey clothes for
the shabby brown, packing the former carefully away in the satchel.
He turned his cap inside out, and put it on well forward, shading his
eyes; then turning his frayed collar up round his throat, he emerged
from the sheltering archway.
The clouds had been gathering for the last hour or two, and now the
rain began to fall, the lamps were dim and blurred, and the lad's
courage revived. A big cookshop attracted him by its savoury odours,
which made the hungry boy's mouth water. While he was gazing in and
wondering which of all the good things he should choose if he could
afford a hearty supper, two men came up, and also paused for a look.
Tad, feeling fairly safe in his old brown clothes, did not move
away at once, and had not indeed taken much notice of them or their
conversation, until a sentence—a single sentence—of their talk, turned
him faint and sick with fear, and set him trembling all over.
"I say, Bill, they say there's more partic'lars now about that there
scoundrel of a boy. You know which I mean—the artful young chap what
run off with the baby; disappeared with his poor little half-brother."
Not daring to move lest he should be noticed, afraid almost to breathe,
Tad listened intently.
"No, is there, Fred?" said the man Bill.
"Yes," replied Fred; "it 'pears as if this lad Poole was a wonderful
jealous, spiteful sort of chap, and they're half afeared he may have
got rid of the baby somehow, just out of pure wickedness—and then run
away."
"Wouldn't I like to catch the young gallows-bird!" remarked Bill so
savagely that Tad would have turned and fled that minute, but that he
must have given himself away there and then by so doing. "I've got a
dear little un of my own," resumed Bill in a softened voice, "only
about eight months old too, and I know just how I'd feel to anyone as
tried to treat him unjust and unfair."
"Well," remarked the man Fred, "one comfort is that there's little
chance of the boy gettin' clear away. He's safe to be nabbed sooner or
later; I only wish I'd the doin' of it."
Then the two men went into the shop, and Tad, with a white, drawn face
and quaking limbs, moved away from the shop window.
After wandering about among the darkest and poorest streets in the
town, he found his way at last to the harbour, where several small
coasters and smacks were about to sail, for the wind was fair, and the
tide just on the turn.
"Please, sir, don't you want someone to help on board your boat?" asked
Tad of the skipper of the largest vessel.
The man turned, took his pipe out of his mouth, and eyed Tad from head
to foot.
The boy winced under the keen scrutiny, and repeated his question.
"Hum!" grunted the skipper. "And what do you know about the sea?"
"Oh, lots!" replied Tad, with vivid recollections of the sea-stories he
had read.
"Ever been to sea before?"
"No, but—"
"Is your father a sailor?"
"No, but—"
"But what?" questioned the man roughly.
"I've read lots about it, and always thought I'd like it of all things."
The skipper gave a little short laugh, which emboldened Tad to remark:
"What I'd like best to be, is a pirate."
"A what?" growled the man.
"A pirate, you know, sir; I've read all about them, and they has the
jolliest kind of a life, takin' treasure ships and hidin' away the
gold and di'monds on desert islands where there's no end of wonderful
things, and then I've—"
"Shut up!" roared the skipper. "Of all the precious young fools I ever
see, you're the biggest—far away. If them's the sort of yarns you spin,
you'd never do no good aboard of the 'Mariar-Ann.' So hold your noise
and be off with you. I'll be bound you're a runaway from home, and your
mother 'll be comin' along lookin' for you presently."
"I haven't got a mother, but it's true I want to get away out of this.
I'll do anything, everything you tell me if you'll take me to sea with
you."
"Now look here, youngster," said the man, "I ain't goin' to get myself
into a mess, not for nobody. Tell the truth—are you in hidin'?"
"Yes," said poor Tad.
"What have you been up to?"
"It's too long a story to tell here," replied the boy, peering about
him distrustfully into the darkness. "Take me on board and I'll tell
you all."
"Take you aboard and run the risk of bein' took up myself, for helpin'
you away? Not if I know it! And now I think of it—" he added half to
himself—"wasn't there some sort of notice up in the town about a lad
wanted by the police? Here, Tim," he called to a man who was at work on
the vessel. "What did you tell me you see wrote up at the station?" And
the skipper turned his head to hear his mate's reply.
"There—you see, you young scamp," said the skipper, when—his suspicions
confirmed—he turned once more to address Tad.
But to his surprise, he found himself talking into empty space. The
culprit at the bar had not waited for the verdict. Tad was gone.