Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "PAT RUSHED TO DICK'S FEET."]
DICK LIONHEART
BY
MARY ROWLES JARVIS.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON
S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO., LTD.
OLD BAILEY.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. SOMETHING TO LOVE
II. FIGHTING FIRE
III. A DASH FOR FREEDOM
IV. IN A CARRIER'S WAGGON
V. PAT LOST AND FOUND
VI. A HOME IN IRONBORO'
VII. PADDY'S RESOLVE
VIII. LIONHEART'S BRAVE STAND
IX. STOPPING A BURGLARY
X. SUCCESS AT LAST
ILLUSTRATIONS
"PAT RUSHED TO DICK'S FEET." . . . _Frontispiece_
"WITHOUT A THOUGHT OF DANGER, LIONHEART DASHED TOWARDS THE HORSE'S
HEAD."
"'TAKE THAT FOR INTERFERING!'"
"'I TELL YOU THERE'S NO DANGER AT ALL!'"
DICK LIONHEART.
CHAPTER I.
SOMETHING TO LOVE.
"There, take that, and be off with you! And no dawdling, mind. It's
ten minutes late, and you'll have to step it to be there by one.
That's _your_ dinner, and more than you deserve."
Dick Crosby took the one thick slice she offered, slipped the handle of
the tin of tea on his arm, and with the big basin, tied up in a blue
handkerchief, in his other hand, marched off in the direction of the
tin works, while slatternly Mrs. Fowley went back into her cottage.
"Only bread and dripping again," he muttered, "while they've all got
cooked dinner. How good it smells! She might have given me at least
some taters and gravy. And I'm so thirsty. Perhaps if he is in a good
mood I shall get a drink of tea. I s'pose nobody would know if I
helped myself in Fell Lane, but I can't be Lionheart and do mean
things, teacher said. Only if ever I grow up and have a little chap in
my house what's only a 'cumbrance, he shall have the same dinner as all
the rest!"
Taking frugal bites at the bread and dripping, to make it last as long
as possible, Dick hurried on to the Works, whose tall chimney sent out
clouds of black smoke.
The hooter sounded for the dinner hour as he reached the last turning,
and a crowd of men and boys passed him, and one of the boys called out,
"Hulloa, Slavey! How much a day for scrubbing floors and minding
babbies?"
Dick's face flushed hotly, and the small hard hand that held the dinner
trembled with a passionate desire to fight the tormentors, among whom
Tim Fowley, his cousin, laughed loudest.
But his uncle was standing at the gate, and he had to hurry up with the
dinner.
His reward for good speed was a surly word from the man and a box on
the ear, that made his head reel.
"Take that for dawdling, and be off with you!"
"Oi don't think he deserved that, mate," said the cheery voice of Paddy
the fireman, as he passed down the yard. "Shure, ye can see by the
sweat of his brow he's been hurrying."
The man turned sulkily away, and Paddy whispered, "Come along of me,
Dick, I've got somethin' to show you--somethin' you'll like almost as
much as engines."
Dick followed eagerly, feeling that he had honestly earned ten minutes
of dinner hour for his own.
It was hot in the great boiler house, where the stoke holes were
glowing with fiery heat, and the throb of the machinery went on, like
giant's music, all the time.
Paddy had worked there for years, and had found out Dick's intense love
for engines and his secret ambition, some day, to be a stoker, too.
And the Irishman's warm heart had often been made angry by the Fowleys'
unkind treatment of the boy.
To-day he had a bacon sandwich and a drink of coffee to spare, and when
Dick had gratefully disposed of these he took him to a warm corner
behind the door, and showed him an old basket.
On the straw inside slept a tiny black and tan terrier, that as yet
could hardly see. Dick was on his knees in a moment, fondling the
little bundle, and crying, "Oh, Paddy, is he yours? What a _dear_
little doggie."
Paddy's homely face was beaming as he said, "Shure, an' I'm glad ye
like him, Dick, me boy. Can ye kape a secret if I tell ye? His
mother's dead and I begged him, and when he's a bit bigger, if I can
rare him, he shall be your very own."
Dick fairly gasped with delight, as the little warm bundle was put into
his arms, for he had never had a pet, or anything living, of his own,
to love since his father died.
"And his name's 'Pat,' unless there's something you'd like better, and
I'll kape him till he's big enough to look after himself."
Suddenly Dick's face changed, and a sob came into his throat as he
said, "Oh, Paddy, it's so good of you to offer him, but they'll never
let me have him to keep. There is nowhere I could hide him, and Tim
would hurt him every time he came near."
"Bad luck to him then, for a ondacent spalpeen as he is. It's a shame
how they trate you. Oh, oi know, without telling. But shure, ye won't
be there for ever. They've no claim on ye at all, at all. The bit of
money your father left, and the insurance, have paid for your keep over
and over, to say nothing of the work you're doing for that lazybones
all the while. If you could only get to Ironboro' now, and find your
Uncle Richard, he'd see you righted. And more by token he's a fitter,
and would put you in the way of the same trade, and give you engines to
your heart's content."
Dick's face was a study, as he held the puppy closely in his arms and
looked up eagerly at Paddy.
"Do you mean that the Fowleys are not relations, and that I'm not
beholden to stay there?"
"No relations in the world, me boy; and if I was you, I'd be off some
fine morning and give 'em the slip. Your poor father was only a lodger
there, after your mother died, and they took all he had and kept you,
so to say, out of charity. Of course you was too young to know any
different. I was well acquainted with your father and your uncle,
years agone, but _he_ had got work at Ironboro' long before your father
died."
"And which is the way to Ironboro', and what is a fitter?"
"Ironboro'? Oh that's a hundred and fifty miles off, way up in the
north, and you couldn't walk it yet, all alone. But some day---- And
a fitter is a man who has learned his trade making engines, and can
pull them to pieces, and put them together again as easy as I can fire
these stoke holes."
Dick gently put the puppy back into the basket and straightened
himself, like one taking a great resolve.
"Thank you, Paddy, ever so much for telling me, and if you'll only keep
Pat till I can go, I'll save him a bit of my dinner every day."
"Indade and you won't, then, seein' as your dinner's none too hearty,
judging by the leanness of your bones. No, I've no chick nor child of
me own, and shure I can let the cratur alone enough to pay the
milkman's bill for this little mite. You'll have to bring the dinner
every day this week, and you'll see he'll get on fine in that time."
Dick gave his friend a hug of gratitude, and kissed Pat's silky head
before he went away. And he hurried home and washed the dinner things,
and cleared up the untidy kitchen like one in a dream. Sometimes it
seemed to Dick that all his work went for nothing at all, for Mrs.
Fowley always muddled things as soon as she came in.
She might have kept the house well on her husband's wages, but a large
slice went to the "Blue Dragon," and out of the remainder she never had
any left by the middle of the week. And she never did any work that
could possibly be handed over to Dick, and the boy was in very truth
the "slavey" they called him, and he rarely had enough to eat. Now she
told him that he must stay away from school that afternoon and mind the
baby, as she had business down the road at a neighbour's. And slipping
a black bottle under her apron, she went out, and Susy, the youngest
but one, followed her, leaving the baby fretting in the old wooden box
that served as cradle.
As soon as Dick had finished he took her out into the dreary little
garden and tried to pacify her. She was generally good with him, but
the heat, and teething, had made her fretful, and he had to walk up and
down the cinder path till his arms ached almost beyond bearing. She
went to sleep at last, and Dick sat down and took a tattered book from
his pocket and began to read once more the story of Richard the King.
It was the story that he loved best in the history lessons, for his own
name was Richard Hart Crosby, and the fancy had come into his life like
a sunbeam, that he might be Richard Lionheart too.
There were no books in the Fowleys' kitchen, and none of the children
went to Sunday school regularly. Just for a week or two before the
annual treat, or Christmas tree, they would go in great force, but Dick
could not be spared.
But he had one other little book that was kept as a hidden
treasure--his mother's Bible, that she had left to him. And in that he
had learned how to be a true Lionheart and a good soldier of Jesus
Christ. And every day he managed to read a few verses at least.
Now, as the sultry afternoon wore away, and the baby still slept, he
thought again and again of the discovery he had made, that he did not
really belong to the Fowleys.
"I _have_ tried to please them and be brave and do my duty because
they've given me a home," he reasoned to himself, "but perhaps if they
had money when father died, I'm not beholden after all, as they always
say I am. And oh, I would like to find a real relation! And isn't it
good of Paddy to get that dear little Pat for me? I _must_ wait till
he is big enough to go too, and then I can have him for my very, very
own."
Dick was thirteen, and small for his age, but his mental powers were
keen, and he knew that if he stayed with the Fowleys he would have no
chance to get on in life.
And looking up into the blue summer sky, he prayed to his heavenly
Father to help him to get away.