Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: Tearing off his coat, Tom sprang into the road.]
Hurrah for Peter Perry!
BY
ELEANORA H. STOOKE
AUTHOR OF
"THE BOTTOM OF THE BREAD PAN," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY F. MEYERHEIM
LONDON
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD.
3 & 4 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.4
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF THE HOLIDAYS
CHAPTER II. AN OPPORTUNITY MISSED
CHAPTER III. THE GIPSIES' ENCAMPMENT
CHAPTER IV. AN UNEXPECTED CALL
CHAPTER V. LOST—AND FOUND AGAIN
CHAPTER VI. A PARTING
CHAPTER VII. A DISPUTED STORY
CHAPTER VIII. TOM'S PRESENCE OF MIND
CHAPTER IX. "UNA AND THE LION"
CHAPTER X. TOM MEETS THE DWARF
CHAPTER XI. THE KNIGHT-ERRANT
CHAPTER XII. THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Tearing off his coat, Tom sprang into the road.
It was no other than Peter Perry's dog, Bounce.
"A dwarf!" Tom exclaimed, and stopped to look at him.
Hurrah for Peter Perry!
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF THE HOLIDAYS
"WE'RE not to go to the seaside? Oh, Mother, why not?"
"Because, dear, we can't afford it. I'm very, very sorry, but you
must try to enjoy your holidays at home; and, please, Tom, don't let
your father guess that you greatly mind—of course, it's only natural
that you should be disappointed."
The scene was the comfortable though decidedly shabby sitting-room
at No. 3 Ladysmith Terrace, a row of new houses on the outskirts
of Chilaton, a large provincial town; and the speakers were Mrs.
Burford, a pretty, rather delicate-looking woman of thirty, and her
ten-year-old son, Tom, whose usually bright face was now wearing
an expression of mingled amazement and dismay. It was a pleasant
afternoon at the close of July, and on the previous day the school,
which Tom attended as a day-scholar, had broken up for the long
holiday. Always, hitherto, Mr. Burford, who was a clerk in a bank
in Chilaton, had taken his holiday in August, and gone with his
family to the seaside; but Mrs. Burford had just told Tom that
that programme could not be carried out this year.
"You see," she continued, "we have had extra expenses to cope with—
Nellie's illness, for instance, and—"
"Dr. Brewer said that a change of air would set Nellie up quicker
than anything!" Tom broke in, eagerly; "you haven't forgotten that,
Mother?"
Mrs. Burford shook her head, and her lips quivered. There was a
minute's silence, then she said, quietly: "If it was possible,
we should carry out Dr. Brewer's prescription, Tom, but it is not.
We must live within our income, and we could not do that if we took
a holiday under existing circumstances. I hope, next year, if your
father should get a rise—"
Tom, who was standing by the open window, gazing into the small patch
of flower garden which divided the house from the road, turned
sharply and looked at his mother as her voice altered and stopped.
Mrs. Burford was seated in a low chair, a stocking, which she had
been darning, drawn over her left hand, but she had ceased working,
for she could not see on account of the tears which had suddenly
filled her eyes. The boy's heart swelled with sympathy for her as he
saw the sad feelings she was trying to keep down. "Oh, Mother,"
he cried, "don't look like that! I daresay Nellie will get quite well
without going away! You know she is much better than she was a month
ago! Why, I heard you say, yesterday, that you really thought she was
a little fatter! And she's quite lost her cough!"
"Hush!" whispered Mrs. Burford, blinking away her tears, and hastily
restarting her work, "here she comes! Well, Nellie, my dear!"
The door had opened to admit a little girl, followed by a small,
smooth-haired fox-terrier. She crossed the room to her mother's
side, where she seated herself on a stool, leaning her curly golden
head against the arm of her mother's chair; she was a very pretty
child, nearly two years younger than Tom, but whereas six months
before she had been full of merriment and high spirits, she was now,
as her brother complained, "as quiet as a mouse and with no fun left
in her." This change was the result of a serious illness she had had
in the spring.
"Shall we take Tim for a walk, Nellie?" suggested Tom, as the terrier
came up to him, and stood wagging his tail and looking at him with an
eager expression, which he read aright, in his sharp brown eyes.
"He's asking me to go," he added.
Tim was a very intelligent little animal, and his face, quaintly
marked, one side quite white and the other black and tan, was
wonderfully expressive; at the present moment it seemed to say: "Come
out into the sunshine! Don't stop indoors wasting this beautiful
summer afternoon!"
"I'm tired, Tom," Nellie replied, "I'd rather stay with Mother if you
don't mind. Besides, if I don't go you'll be able to take Tim
farther—I couldn't walk very far, you know."
This was true, so Tom said no more and left his sister at home.
Five minutes later, with Tim trotting on ahead of him, he had turned
his back on Ladysmith Terrace, and was strolling along a wider road
than the one in which his home was situated, which led to the open
country. By and by he came within sight of a pretty ivy-covered
detached house, with a well-kept lawn before it, around which, on one
side, was a wide carriage-drive, whilst the other side was edged with
flower-beds, gay with summer and early autumn flowers. This was
Halcyon Villa, the residence of Miss Perry, an elderly maiden lady
who was said to be very rich.
Tom, walking along with his hands thrust deep in his trousers
pockets, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his mind full of far from
happy thoughts, was paying no attention to Tim, and did not observe
that, on reaching the big iron gate leading into the grounds of
Halcyon Villa, he had met another dog—an Irish terrier; and,
therefore, he looked up with a start at the sound of a voice—
a startled voice which cried:
"Bounce! Bounce! Come here! Oh, please, whoever you are, take your dog
away!"
The speaker was a dark-haired, dark-complexioned boy, apparently
about Tom's age. He was standing within the gate, his face close to
the bars, an expression of great anxiety upon his features. It was
evident he feared that the dogs, who, with raised backs, were walking
stiffly around each other, growling, meant to fight.
Tom gave him a glance of contempt, secretly thinking him a coward,
and answered: "Easier said than done! Come out and fetch your dog
in!"
The words were barely out of his mouth when the dogs closed with each
other, and a moment later found them fighting in the middle of the
road. Tim fought pluckily, but he was not evenly matched, his
antagonist being bigger and stronger than himself, and in less than a
minute the Irish terrier had got him under, and doubtless would have
done him serious injury if a man had not come along and separated the
animals; whereupon the Irish terrier, looking rather ashamed of
himself, retreated to the side of his master, who had come out into
the road and now hastened to fasten a leash to his collar.
"You should keep your dog under control!" cried Tom angrily and very
unreasonably. "I never saw a more savage brute!"
"He doesn't fight unless he's interfered with," the other boy
answered, his dark cheeks flushing. "But, as a rule, I have him on
the lead. I was giving him a run in the garden, and he went out over
the hedge. I heard your dog come up and growl at him. I hope your dog
is not hurt?"
"Not much. He has a bite on one of his forelegs, I see, but that's
nothing."
Tom was beginning to be ashamed of the temper he had shown. He could
quite believe that Tim, who was always fierce to strange dogs,
had been the first to show a hostile spirit.
"Oh, I am glad of that!" the dark boy said. "What sort of dog is he,
and what is his name?"
Tom was bending over Tim, examining his injury. He looked up
in surprise; then laughed rather scornfully.
"Why, he's a fox-terrier, of course!" he exclaimed; "and nearly
thoroughbred, too. His name's Tim. What do you call your dog? Oh, I
remember!—Bounce."
"Yes, Bounce. He was always a very good dog in London. My home's
in London, you know. But the last few days, since I have been here
with Aunt Harriet, he's given a lot of trouble: got away by himself,
and not come back for hours. Aunt Harriet thinks he goes hunting
in the woods."
"If he does, he will end by being caught in a trap."
"Oh, do you think so? I did not know there were traps in the woods."
"There are. Poachers set them for rabbits, and whatever else they can
catch."
There was a minute's silence. Then Tom inquired:
"Is Miss Perry your aunt?"
"Yes, my father's sister. I'm going to spend my holidays with her."
"Jolly for you! She's awfully rich, isn't she? You'll ride about in
her motor-car, and have no end of a good time! What's your name?"
"Peter Perry. And yours?"
"Tom Burford."
"Do you know my aunt?"
"Rather not. We're not rich people living in a big house, with
servants to wait on us, and everything we want! We're poor!"
There was a note of bitterness in Tom's voice, of which he was
scarcely conscious himself, but Peter heard it, and replied
sympathetically: "It must be dreadful to be poor—to be short,
perhaps, of even food, and clothes, and—"
"Oh, I didn't mean we were so poor as that," Tom interrupted,
crimsoning, and aghast at the false impression he had evidently
given. "I meant—why, what's this?"
The other boy had stepped close to him and had slipped something—
a shilling it proved to be—into his hand, murmuring that he was so
sorry for him and that he wanted him to have the money to buy
something for himself.
Tom looked at the coin in amazed silence for a minute, the hot colour
slowly receding from his cheeks in his shame; them amazement and
shame gave place to anger, and he flung the shilling in the road
at his companion's feet.
"Pick it up from there, if you want it!" he cried wrathfully.
"I don't know what you can think of me! Get out of my way and let me
pass!"
"Oh, wait, wait!" cried Peter Perry, seemingly much distressed.
But Tom pushed him roughly aside, and, followed by Tim, who was now
in a chastened frame of mind, strode off at a great rate in the
direction of his home, his heart hot with anger against the boy who,
he considered, had insulted him.
"I shan't tell them about it at home," he decided; "for I suppose
I oughtn't to have said we were poor. But, oh! how was it he didn't
see I wasn't the sort of boy to take money? How could he have made
such a mistake?"