"It was your larks," he growled savagely, as I burst into a fit of
laughing.
"It wasn't," I cried, as soon as I could speak. "Give me the whip," I
whispered.
"What for?" he growled.
"You give me the whip," I whispered; and I took it from his hand,
trotted on to the side of the cart, and then reaching up, gave a cut
over the top of the load.
"Stash that!" shouted a voice; and then, as I lashed again, "You leave
off, will yer? You'll get something you don't like."
"Woa, Bony!" roared Ike with such vehemence that the horse stopped
short, and there, kneeling on the top of the high load of baskets, we
could dimly see a well-known figure, straw-hat and all.
"You want me to come down, an' 'it you?" he cried, writhing.
"Here, give me that whip," cried Ike fiercely. "How did you come
there?"
"Got up," said Shock sulkily.
"Who told you to come?"
"No one. He's come, ain't he?"
"That's no reason why you should come. Get down, you young dog!"
"Sha'n't!"
"You give's holt o' that whip, and I'll flick him down like I would a
fly."
"No, no; don't hurt him, Ike," I said, laughing. "What were you making
that noise for, Shock?"
"He calls that singing," cried Ike, spitting on the ground in his
disgust. "He calls that singing. He's been lying on his back, howling
up at the sky like a sick dog, and he calls that singing. Here, give us
that whip."
"No, no, Ike; let him be."
"Yes; he'd better," cried Shock defiantly.
"Yes; I had better," cried Ike, snatching the whip from me, and giving
it a crack like the report of a gun, with the result that Basket started
off, and would not stop any more.
"Come down," roared Ike.
"Sha'n't!" cried Shock. "You 'it me, and I'll cut the rope and let the
baskets down."
"Come down then."
"Sha'n't! I ain't doing nothing to you."
_Crack_! went the whip again, and I saw Shock bend down.
"I'm a-cutting the cart rope," he shouted.
"Come down." _Crack_! went the whip.
Shock did not speak.
"Will he cut the rope?" I whispered.
"If he do we shall be two hours loading up again, and a lot o' things
smashed," growled Ike. Then aloud:
"Are you a coming down? Get down and go home."
"Sha'n't!" came from above us; and, like a good general, Ike accepted
his defeat, and climbed back to his place on the left shaft, while I
took mine on the right.
"It's no good," he said in a low grumbling tone. "When he says he
won't, he won't, and them ropes is the noo 'uns. He'll have to go on
with us now; and I'm blest if I don't think we've lost a good ten
minutes over him and his noise."
"I've been to Paris and I've been to Dover," came from over our heads.
"Think o' me letting that scare me!" said Ike, giving his whip a vicious
_whisk_ through the air.
"But it seemed so strange," I said.
"Ay, it did. Look yonder," he said. "That's the norrard. It looks
light, don't it?"
"Yes," I said.
"Ah! it never gets no darker than that all night. You'll see that get
more round to the nor-east as we gets nigher to London."
So it proved, for by degrees I saw the stars in the north-east pale; and
by the time we reached Hyde Park Corner a man was busy with a light
ladder putting out the lamps, and it seemed all so strange that it
should be broad daylight, while, as we jolted over the paving-stones as
we went farther, the light had got well round now to the east, and the
daylight affected Ike, for as, after a long silence, we suddenly heard
once more from the top of the baskets:
"I've been to Paris and I've been to Dover!"
Ike took up the old song, and in a rough, but not unmusical voice roared
out the second line:
"I've been a-travelling all the world over."
Or, as he gave it to match Do-ho-ver--"O-ho-ver." And it seemed to me
that I had become a great traveller, for that was London all before me,
with a long golden line above it in the sky.