A MILKMAN TO THE RESCUE.
WHEN Davey made his way up the cliff, he found that the pretty little
town of Tenby was still asleep. The streets were deserted, save by a
slinking cat or two and a few rakish-looking sparrows. The grand old
walls and the five-arched entrance at the head of what is now known as
the South Parade, dripped heavy dew-drops from every spray of ivy and
flowering weed that clothed with green dress the ancient stone-work.
A strong south-west wind had sprung up, and the big white breakers that
fringed the beach with foam, made a dismal noise which mingled with the
dirge of the gale as it eddied in and out among the streets, whirling
hither and thither every scrap of moveable rubbish that it could find.
The sense of hunger had become acute by this time, and Davey was hardly
able to get along, for he was bent nearly double with sharp pain. A
poor, piteous little figure he looked, as he crawled on through the
silent town, with its closed shops and curtained windows. His head and
feet were bare, for the waves had washed away his cap during the voyage
round the point, and his socks had also vanished in the same way. His
boots had been left behind in the cave, as being too heavy to wear with
safety in the water.
His clothes, soiled and threadbare, were covered all over with sand,
and his thickly-curling brown hair was a perfect museum in the way of
collected specimens of broken shell, sea-weed, dry crab-claws, and
other relics of shore and sea.
At last, the boy felt so faint and sick with the pain of his long fast,
that he could go no further. Down he dropped with his back against a
shop-door, and his drooping head in his hands.
"I say, my young scarecrow, what's up?" asked a rough, but kindly
voice, which roused Davey and made him look up.
A jolly-looking milkman had stopped his cart in which he had just
driven up from the country, and was gazing at him with curious but
compassionate eyes.
"I'm dreadful hungry," said the boy, "and that made me feel so queer
that I had to sit down here. I couldn't go further."
"You look starved, boy. Well, well, I think I can help you a bit."
And the good-hearted fellow got out of his cart, filled a large tin
mug with new milk from the can, and handed it to Davey, with two thick
slices of brown bread and butter which he took out of a paper parcel in
a basket.
"There," said he, "my old woman always gives me something to eat on
the way up to Tenby, for I've no time for a proper breakfast before
starting from home. Eat it up, my lad; I've enough left for myself.
No—don't hurry, neither; I'm a bit earlier than usual to-day; Dobbin
trotted fast, and the roads were good."
It was only when Davey had nearly finished the food given him that the
milkman said, "And now tell me, my boy, how you came to be here in such
a plight. You don't look like a common tramp or a beggar."
"Don't I, sir?" questioned Davey, glancing ruefully at his miserable
clothing. "I was afraid that was just what I did look like."
"Your clothes—p'raps, but not your face," replied the man, with a
kindly smile.
"Then as you're not a tramp or a beggar," continued the milkman,
"where's your home? Have you got one?"
"To be sure I have, sir," responded Davey, his eyes filling just at the
thought of that dear, far-off home of his. "And it's near Bristol."
"Have you no friends here, and no one you know?"
"No, sir, nobody at all."
"And how does it happen, my lad, that you're all over sand and shells
and things?"
"I slept on the beach last night," replied Davey. But seeing in the
man's face that he was puzzled about him, he said, "I ran away from
home, and I've been through a lot of trouble of one sort and another,
and lately I got in with—" Here Davey checked himself, for he was going
to say smugglers, and remembered only just in time.
"With what?" asked the milkman.
"A queer set of folks that wanted me to live as they did. I knew I'd
soon be just like them if I stayed, so I ran away. It seems to me,"
continued Davey, after a thoughtful little pause—"it does seem to me
as if I'd been doing little else but running away ever since I ran
away from my own home. The first time I did it for my own pleasure,
but afterwards it's been my punishment. And now, when I'd like nothing
so well as to go home and be quiet and safe with Uncle Zach and Aunt
Patty, I can't get to them."
"It's hard lines, ain't it?"
"Yes, and it's being my own fault makes it the harder," replied Davey.
"But I feel much better now," he added, gratefully; "the bread and milk
has made a man of me. I must go about and see if I can get some work
anywhere, if it's only to earn my victuals, and maybe an old cap and
pair of boots, so as I can set off and walk home."
"Well, my lad, I wish I could do more for you, but I must be away on my
round now. The folks are getting up at last in this sleepy place, and
will be wanting their milk."
So the milkman drove off, and Davey walked away in the opposite
direction, and came to a corner where there was a hoarding, on which
were displayed some huge waybills, with brightly coloured pictures of
circus horses and their riders, and also of lions, bears, and leopards,
with a life-size picture of the handsome young wild beast tamer, Mr.
Leo Mendoza.
"Why," said Davey to himself, "if that isn't the very circus that me
and Tom went to see in Bristol! It must be making a round, and taking
Tenby in its turn."
The poor lad wandered about, bitterly ashamed of his bare head and
feet, stared and jeered at by the rude boys of the town, and unable to
get a job of any sort. A little girl on the north shore beach divided
her lunch cake with him, and later on he gathered a quantity of mussels
on the rocks to stay his craving for food, but this was all.
And evening came again, and Davey, disheartened, weary, and shivering,
but thankful at least for the darkness that hid his forlorn condition,
stole back into the town, hoping against hope for something to turn up
for his help.
After a while, he noticed that quite a number of people were walking
in one direction, and having nothing else to do, he followed with the
crowd, and soon he saw that they were bound for a field just outside
the town, and that the big tent which he had cause to remember so well
was pitched there. Poor Davey, shut out from the light and warmth
inside those canvas walls, walked about the field, and presently found
himself at the side of the tent just opposite the entrance where the
man was taking the money. Here, in a smaller tent of oblong shape, and
quite open in front, stood the great performing cage. The tent was not
lighted, and only the deep breathings and occasional growls of the
animals showed that they were there.
A little way off, in a corner of the field, some members of the troupe
had made a fire on the grass, and were piling up sticks under a big
pot—perhaps cooking their supper.
Davey had strolled nearer to them, and was watching the fire and
wishing the good folks would invite him to share their meal, when from
the place he had just left, in front of the great cage, there came a
loud shriek of pain and fear.
[Illustration]