THE OLD HIGGLER
Before they started again Dick gave his foot another rubbing with
vaseline, but found it hard going after the rest.
'Look here, Chippy,' he said, 'I mustn't halt again for any length of
time. If I do, my foot may stiffen up till I can't move. We must make
one long swing in this afternoon.'
The road that ran from Little Eston in the direction of Bardon had a
broad strip of turf beside the way, and Dick found this a great ease to
his aching foot. But after a time the road narrowed, and was dusty
from hedge to hedge. They passed a sign-post which said, 'Two miles to
Little Eston.'
'That's a couple scored off,' said Dick; 'the miles are less than
double figures now, Chippy.'
'Yus,' said the latter; 'an' we'll get to Shotford Common soon.
That'll be easier walkin' than the road.'
A short distance beyond the sign-post an old man leading a small donkey
in a little cart met them, and they passed the time of day.
'Mortal hot, ain't it?' said the old man; and the scouts agreed with
him. The heat was, indeed, sweltering. It was one of those days of
early summer which seem borrowed from the dog-days, and the scouts,
tough as they were, were dripping with sweat as they marched along with
shirt-sleeves rolled nearly to their shoulders, their shoes and
stockings thickly powdered with the white dust which lay deep under
foot.
Suddenly Chippy pulled up. 'I'll 'ave that haversack o' yourn,' he
remarked.
'You won't, old boy,' replied Dick. 'Every man shoulders his own pack
on a day like this.'
'I'll have that haversack,' went on Chippy calmly. 'Bit too bad for a
scout wi' a damaged foot to pull a load while another strolls along as
easy as can be. So pass it over.'
'I won't,' said Dick. 'It's no load in particular.'
'Then why mek' a row about handin' it over?' queried the Raven.
Dick was about to reply when he paused, looked ahead, and said: 'By
Jingo, Chippy, here comes a choker. The haversacks will come handy to
put our heads into.'
The Raven turned and saw a huge pillar of dust whirling towards them.
It rose high above the hedges beyond a bend near at hand, and came on
at great speed. The scouts knew that a motor-car was at the fore-foot
of the pillar, and they stepped back into the shallow ditch which
bordered the way.
In another moment a big, heavy car, flying at terrific speed, came
shooting round the bend, and as it flew it gathered the deep white
dust, and hurled it thirty feet into the air; leaving the road in the
wake of the car one utterly blinding, choking mass of eddying dust.
The scouts threw themselves into the bank and covered their faces with
their hats: it was the only way of drawing some sort of breath, and
even then their throats were choked with dust till they coughed.
'Nice thing, a motor-car running forty miles an hour over two inches of
dust,' remarked Dick in ironical tones.
'It 'ud serve 'em right to bust their tyres on a broken bottle end,'
murmured Chippy. 'It ain't safe to scoot along like that on these 'ere
narrow roads.'
'It's to be hoped they eased up before passing the old man and his
donkey-cart,' said Dick. 'The wind of their passing would be enough
almost to upset him.'
'That's wot they've done,' cried Chippy suddenly. 'Look! look! his
cart's in the ditch.'
Dick looked, and saw through the thinning cloud that the poor old man
was in distress. His cart was turned over, and the donkey was
struggling on its side. The scouts ran back at full speed to help him.
'What's wrong?' cried Dick. 'Did the car hit you?'
''Twor comin' a main sight too fast,' cried the old man, 'an' just as
it passed, the noise o' it med Jimmy start round an' swerve a bit, an'
suthin' stickin' out caught him on the shoulder an' knocked him into
the ditch as if he'd been hit wi' a cannon-ball.'
'And they never stopped or asked what was the matter?' cried Dick.
'Not they,' said the old man; 'on they went as fast as iver.'
'What cads!' cried Dick. 'Did you see the number, Chippy?'
'No,' replied the Raven. 'Too much dust.'
'There were four men in it,' went on the old man, 'an' they looked back
at me, but they niver pulled up.'
The scouts were loud in their anger against the inconsiderate
motorists, and they were perfectly right. The truth was that the men
had fled in fear. A chauffeur had taken his master's car without
permission to give some of his fellow servants a run, and they dreaded
detection, which would get them into trouble at home. However, the car
had gone, and its number was not known, and within half a mile there
was a meeting of cross roads where the motorists could turn aside
without passing through the village. The comrades gave their attention
to the matter immediately in hand, and helped the old man to unharness
the struggling donkey and draw the little cart back.
The poor beast did not attempt to rise when it was freed. There was a
cut on the shoulder where it had been struck, but the wound was not
bleeding much, and the old man did not think the hurt was so bad as it
proved to be.
'S'pose we tried to get Jimmy on his legs,' he proposed, and the two
scouts sprang to help him. They were trying to raise the poor brute
when a gamekeeper with his gun under his arm came through a gate near
at hand.
'Hallo, Thatcher, what's wrong?' he called out.
'Why, 'tis one o' these here danged motor-cars,' replied the old man.
'Gooin' faster than an express train along this narrow way, an' knocked
Jimmy into the ditch.'
The gamekeeper came up, and at the first glance called upon them to lay
the donkey down again.
'Let me have a look at him,' he said. 'That cut's nothing. There's
worse than that cut, I fancy.'
'I hope no bones have a-gone,' said the donkey's master.
'That's just where it is, Thatcher,' said the gamekeeper, after a short
examination. 'The poor beast's shoulder is a-broke right across.
He'll ne'er stand on his four legs again.'
Thatcher uttered a cry of distress.
'Broke across, ye say, keeper! Then what's to be done with him?'
'Nothing,' said the keeper; 'there's nothing ye can do to cure him.
The poor brute's in agony now. Look at his eyes!'
'Nothin' ye can do,' repeated the owner in a dull voice, his eyes
almost as full of distress as those of his injured helpmate. 'An'
Jimmy were the best donkey as iver pulled a cart.'
'Nothin' at all,' said the keeper, ''cept a charge o' No. 6,' and he
tapped the breech of his gun significantly.
'Shoot him?' cried old Thatcher.
'It's that or let him die slowly in misery,' replied the keeper. 'If
ye like I'll put him out of his pain before I go on, but I can't stay
long, for I've got to meet someone in Hayton Spinney, and I ought to be
there now.'
'You're quite sure nothing can be done?' said Dick to the keeper.
'Perfectly sure, sir,' replied the man; 'the shoulder bone's clean
gone. If it wor' a hunter worth three hundred guineas nothing could be
done to save the creature's life.'
Jimmy was not worth three guineas, let alone three hundred, but when
the keeper had mercifully ended the poor brute's sufferings with a
cartridge, and hurried on to his appointment, he left old Thatcher
heart-broken beside the body of his faithful servant.
'I dunno what I'm goin' to do now!' cried the poor old fellow to the
scouts, who remained at his side to see what help they could render.
'Ye see, wi' Jimmy to help me I've med a few shillin's a week, doin' a
bit o' higgling an' odd jobs in carryin' light things. That's kept me
out o' the Work'us. But I'm a lost man now. There's nowt but the
Union for me, I doubt. An' I've fowt hard to keep out o' that.'
The scouts tried to console him, but the loss of his donkey was a heavy
blow to the old higgler.
'Where am I goin' to get another?' he said. 'I'm a bit short-handed
now wi' my rent, for I've been ill a good bit on an' off last winter.
Eight-an'-twenty shillin' I gave for Jimmy; an' I ain't got
eight-an'-twenty fardens to spare.'
He heaved a bitter sigh, and began to strip the harness off the
companion of his daily journeys. The scouts helped, and the harness
was tossed into the little cart. That had escaped very well in the
overset: one shaft was cracked, and that was all.
'Joseph Thatcher, Little Eston,' read Dick, from the side of the cart.
'Ay, that's me,' said the higgler. 'Joe Thatcher: lived in Little
Eston all my life.'
'And you were on your road home?' went on Dick.
'Just comin' back from town,' replied the old man. 'I'd been wi' a
load of butter an' fowls an' what-not for two or three neighbours, an'
left the things at different shops. An' now I must get my cart home
somehow an' tell my neighbours what's happened.'
'I see,' said Chippy. 'That's aw' right. I'll run yer cart home for
ye.'
'Yes,' said Dick; 'we'll soon run it home for you.'
'No, yer don't,' said the Raven to his friend. 'Ye'll stop here an'
tek' care o' the traps till I get back;' and with these words he
whipped off haversack and jacket, and tossed them on to the bank.
'Oh, that won't do, Chippy,' cried Dick; 'that's just a trick to
prevent me lending a hand.'
'Trick or no trick, it's just wot 'ull happen,' said the Raven firmly.
'It's rather more'n two miles back to Eston--that's four goin' an'
comin', an' you wi' a game foot. No, not an inch back do ye stir.
Besides, it gies me the chance to strip to the work nice an'
comfortable.'
'But you can't shift that cart by yourself,' cried Dick.
Chippy uttered a grunt of scorn.
'There's nothing in it 'cept the harness,' he said. 'Can't shift that,
eh?'
He took the shafts and ran the cart into the way as if it had been a
big wheelbarrow: there was surprising strength in his slight but sinewy
figure.
'Come on, gaffer!' cried Chippy, and he trundled the cart rapidly away
down the road, leaving Dick on guard perforce beside his comrade's
equipment.
Within three-quarters of an hour Chippy was back, travelling at scout's
pace.
'You've been jolly quick, Chippy,' shouted Dick.
'Had a bit o' luck,' returned the Raven, wiping his sweat-soaked face;
'met a farmer's cart goin' into Eston, and tied th' old man's cart at
the back, so I didn't 'ave to go all the way.'
'What about the motor-car?' asked Dick. 'Had it run through the
village?'
'Not it,' replied the other; 'turned sharp to the left at the
cross-roads.'
Dick got out the map, and the scouts saw that the driver knew the
country; he had taken the most solitary road of the neighbourhood.
'A set of sneaks,' said Dick.
'Bad uns,' agreed his chum.
'I say, Chippy, it was no end good of you to cut off like that with the
cart, but I would rather have lent a hand,' cried Dick.
'Let's 'ave a look at that 'ere foot,' was the Raven's only reply.
The foot was looked at, anointed with vaseline, bound up afresh, and
then the march was resumed.
Dick now had a very bad quarter of an hour, for his foot had stiffened
rather while Chippy was away. But he set himself to tramp it out, and
when they passed a station beside the road, and heard an engine
whistle, and saw from a bridge the rails running away towards Bardon,
he only limped on faster, and put aside the temptation of a lift in by
train.
After a while his foot became more easy, and he was able to set it down
without giving any decided indication that there was something amiss.
For this he was very glad before long, when the two scouts met friends
who would soon have spotted a lame walker, and have cut his march short.